“There are already a dozen cases piling up against me,” she said. “I’m a journalist. One murder case is enough to frame me.”

Rupa, a former chief correspondent at privately owned broadcaster Ekattor TV, now faces nine murder cases. Her husband, Shakil Ahmed, the channel’s former head of news, is named in eight.  

A year ago, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus took charge of Bangladesh’s interim government after Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country following weeks of student-led protests, during which two journalists were killed.

Yunus promised media reform and repealed the Cyber Security Act, a law used to target journalists under Hasina. But in a November 2024 interview with newspaper The Daily Star, Yunus said that murder accusations against journalists were being made hastily. He said the government had since halted such actions and that a committee had been formed to review the cases.

Still, nearly a year later, Rupa, Ahmed, Shyamal Dutta and Mozammel Haque Babu, arrested on accusations of instigating murders in separate cases, remain behind bars. The repeated use of such charges against journalists who are widely seen as sympathetic to the former regime appear to be politically motivated censorship.

In addition to such legal charges, CPJ has documented physical attacks against journalists, threats from political activists, and exile. At least 25 journalists are under investigation for genocide by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal – a charge that has been used to target figures linked to the former Hasina government. 

“Keeping four journalists behind bars without credible evidence a year on undermines the interim government’s stated commitment to protect press freedom,” said CPJ Regional Director Beh Lih Yi. “Real reform means breaking from the past, not replicating its abuses. All political parties must respect journalists’ right to report as the country is set for polls in coming months.”

A CPJ review of legal documents and reports found that journalists are often added to First Information Reports (FIRs) – documents that open an investigation – long after they are filed. In May, UN experts raised concern that over 140 journalists had been charged with murder following last year’s protests.

Shyamal Dutta’s daughter, Shashi, told CPJ the family has lost track of how many cases he now faces. They are aware of at least six murder cases in which he is named, while Babu’s family is aware of 10. Rupa and Ahmed’s family told CPJ that they haven’t received FIRs for five cases in which one or the other journalist has been named, which means that neither can apply for bail.

Shafiqul Alam, Yunus’s press secretary, and police spokesperson Enamul Haque Sagor did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment. 

Violence and threats

In 2025, reporters across Bangladesh have faced violence and harassment while covering political events, with CPJ documenting at least 10 such incidents, most of which were carried out by members or affiliates of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its student wing, Chhatra Dal. In several instances, journalists sustained serious injuries or were prevented from reporting after footage was deleted or phones seized, including Bahar Raihan, Abdullah Al Mahmud, and Rocky Hossain.

Responding to the allegations, Mahdi Amin, adviser to Acting BNP Chair Tarique Rahman, told CPJ that while isolated misconduct may occur in a party of BNP’s size, the party does not protect wrongdoers. 

Others have faced threats from supporters of different political parties and the student groups that led the protests against Hasina. Reporters covering opposition groups like Jamaat-e-Islami or its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, have come under particular pressure. On June 9, Hasanat Kamal, editor of EyeNews.news, told CPJ he’d fled to the United Kingdom after being falsely accused by Islami Chhatra Shibir of participating in a violent student protest. Anwar Hossain, a journalist for the local daily Dabanol, told CPJ he’d been threatened by Jamaat supporters after publishing negative reports about a local party leader. 

CPJ reached out via messaging app to Abdus Sattar Sumon, a spokesperson for Jamaat-e-Islami, but received no response.

Since Hasina’s ouster, student protesters from the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement (ADSM) have increasinglytargeted journalists they accuse of supporting the former regime, which in one case led to the firing of five journalists. Student-led mobs have also besieged outlets like Prothom Alo and The Daily Star. 

CPJ reached out via messaging app to ADSM leader Rifat Rashid but received no response.

On July 14, exiled investigative journalist Zulkarnain Saer Khan, who fled Bangladesh after exposing alleged high-level corruption under Hasina and receiving threats from Awami League officials, posted on X about the repression of the media: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Kunal Majumder/CPJ India Representative.

New Caledonia’s oldest pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), has officially rejected a political agreement on the Pacific territory’s political future signed in Paris last month.

The text, bearing the signatures of all of New Caledonia’s political parties represented in the local Congress — a total of 18 leaders, both pro-France and pro-independence — is described as a “project” for an agreement that would shape politics.

Since it was signed in the city of Bougival, west of Paris, on July 12, after 10 days of intense negotiations, it has been dubbed a “bet on trust” and has been described by French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls as a commitment from all signing parties to report to their respective bases and explain its contents.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia politics

The Bougival document involves a series of measures and recognition by France of New Caledonia as a “State” which could become empowered with its own international relations and foreign affairs, provided they do not contradict France’s key interests.

It also envisages dual citizenship — French and New Caledonian — provided future New Caledonian citizens are French nationals in the first place.

It also describes a future devolution of stronger powers for each of the three provinces (North, South and Loyalty Islands), especially in terms of tax collection.

Since it was published, the document, bearing a commitment to defend the text “as is”, was hailed as “innovative” and “historic”.

New Caledonia’s leaders have started to hold regular meetings — sometimes daily — and sessions with their respective supporters and militants, mostly to explain the contents of what they have signed.

The meetings were held by most pro-France parties and within the pro-independence camp, the two main moderate parties, UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie) and PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party).

Over the past two weeks, all of these parties have strived to defend the agreement, which is sometimes described as a Memorandum of Agreement or a roadmap for future changes in New Caledonia.

Most of the leaders who have inked the text have also held lengthy interviews with local media.

Parties who have unreservedly pledged their support to and signed the Bougival document are:

Pro-France side: Les Loyalistes, Rassemblement-LR, Wallisian-based Eveil Océanien and Calédonie Ensemble

Pro-independence: UNI-FLNKS (which comprises UPM and PALIKA).

But one of the main components of the pro-independence movement, the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) — as its main pillar — the Union Calédonienne, has held a series of meetings indicating their resentment at their negotiators for having signed the contested document.

UC held its executive committee on July 21, its steering committee on July 26, and FLNKS convened its political bureau on July 23.

A ‘lure of sovereignty’
All of these meetings concluded with an increasingly clear rejection of the Bougival document.

Speaking at a news conference in Nouméa yesterday, UC leaders made it clear that they “formally reject” the agreement because they regard it as a “lure of sovereignty” and does not guarantee either real sovereignty or political balance.

FLNKS chief negotiator Emmanuel Tjibaou, who is also UC’s chair, told local reporters he understood his signature on the document meant a commitment to return to New Caledonia, explain the text and obtain the approval of the political base.

“I didn’t have a mandate to sign a political agreement, my mandate was to register the talks and bring them back to our people so that a decision can be made . . . it didn’t mean an acceptance on our part,” he said, mentioning it was a “temporary” document subject to further discussions.

Tjibaou said some amendments his delegation had put on the table in Bougival “went missing” in the final text.

‘Bougival, it’s over’
“As far as we’re concerned, Bougival, it’s over”, UC vice-president Mickaël Forrest said.

He said it was now time to move onto a “post-Bougival phase”.

Meanwhile, the FLNKS also consulted its own “constitutionalists” to obtain legal advice and interpretation of the document.

In a release about yesterday’s media conference, UC stated that the Bougival text could not be regarded as a balance between two “visions” for Kanaky New Caledonia, but rather a way of “maintaining New Caledonia as French”.

The text, UC said, had led the political dialogue into a “new impasse” and it left several questions unanswered.

“With the denomination of a ‘State’, a fundamental law (a de facto Constitution), the capacity to self-organise, and international recognition, this document is perceived as a project for an agreement to integrate (New Caledonia) into France under the guise of a decolonisation”.

“The FLNKS has never accepted a status of autonomy within France, but an external decolonisation by means of accession to full sovereignty [which] grants us the right to choose our inter-dependencies,” the media release stated.

The pro-independence party also criticised plans to enlarge the list of people entitled to vote at New Caledonia’s local elections — the very issue that triggered deadly and destructive riots in May 2024.

It is also critical of a proposed mechanism that would require a vote at the Congress with a minimum majority of 64 percent (two thirds) before any future powers can be requested for transfer from France to New Caledonia.

Assuming that current population trends and a fresh system of representation at the Congress will allow more representatives from the Southern province (about three quarters of New Caledonia’s population), UC said “in other words, it would be the non-independence [camp] who will have the power to authorise us — or not — to ask for our sovereignty”.

They party confirmed that it had “formally rejected the Bougival project of agreement as it stands” following a decision made by its steering committee on July 26 “since the fundamentals of our struggle and the principles of decolonisation are not there”.

Negotiators no longer mandated
The decision also means that every member of its negotiating team who signed the document on July 12 is now de facto demoted and no longer mandated by the party until a new negotiating team is appointed, if required.

“Union Calédonienne remains mobilised to arrive at a political agreement that takes into account the achievement of a trajectory towards full sovereignty”.

On Tuesday, FLNKS president Christian Téin, as an invited guest of Corsica’s “Nazione” pro-independence movement, told French media he declared himself “individually against” the Bougival document, adding this was “far from being akin to full sovereignty”.

Téin said that during the days that led to the signing of the document in Bougival “the pressure” exerted on negotiators was “terrible”.

He said the result was that due to “excessive force” applied by “France’s representatives”, the final text’s content “looks like it is the French State and right-wing people who will decide the (indigenous) Kanak people’s future”.

Facing crime-related charges, Téin is awaiting his trial, but was released from jail, under the condition that he does not return to New Caledonia.

The leader of a CCAT (field action coordinating cell) created by Union Calédonienne late in 2023 to protest against a proposed French Constitutional amendment to alter voters’ rules of eligibility at local elections, was jailed for one year in mainland France. However, he was elected president of FLNKS in absentia in late August 2024.

CCAT, meanwhile, was admitted as one of the new components of FLNKS.

In a de facto split, the two main moderate pillars of FLNKS, UPM and PALIKA, at the same time, distanced themselves from the pro-independence UC-dominated platform, opening a rift within the pro-independence umbrella.

The FLNKS is scheduled to hold an extraordinary meeting on August 9 (it was initially scheduled to be held on August 2), to “highlight the prospects of the pursuit of dialogue through a repositioning of the pro-independence movement’s political orientations”.

Valls: ‘I’m not giving up’
Reacting to the latest UC statements, Valls told French media he called on UC to have “a great sense of responsibility”.

“If tomorrow there was to be no agreement, it would mean the future, hope, would be put into question. Investment, including for the nickel mining industry, would no longer be possible.”

“I’m not giving up. Union Calédonienne has chosen to reject, as it stands, the Bougival accord project. I take note of this, but I profoundly regret this position.

“An institutional void would be a disaster for [New Caledonia]. It would be a prolonged uncertainty, the risk of further instability, the return of violence,” he said.

“But my door is not closed and I remain available for dialogue at all times. Impasse is not an option.”

Valls said the Bougival document was “‘neither someone’s victory on another one, nor an imposed text: it was built day after day with partners around the table following months of long discussions.”

In a recent letter specifically sent to Union Calédonienne, the French former Prime Minister suggested the creation of an editorial committee to start drafting future-shaping documents for New Caledonia, such as its “fundamental law”, akin to a Constitution for New Caledonia.

Valls also stressed France’s financial assistance to New Caledonia, which last year totalled around 3 billion euros because of the costs associated to the May 2024 riots.

The riots caused 14 dead, hundreds of injured and an estimated financial cost of more than 2 billion euros (NZ$5.8 billion) in damage.

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.

Call it the “new cold war,” the “beginning of World War III,” or – in Trump’s words – “endless war,” this is the era that the world has entered. The US/Zionist war against Iran has paused, but no one has any illusions that it is over. And it won’t likely be resolved until one side decisively and totally prevails. Ditto for the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Likely the same with Palestine, where the barbarity of war worsened to genocide. Meanwhile, since Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” the empire is building up for war with China.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the empire’s war on the world assumes a hybrid form. The carnage is less apparent because the weapons take the form of “soft power” – sanctions, tariffs, and deportations. These can have the same lethal consequences as bombs, only less overt.

Making the world unsafe for socialism

Some Western leftists vilify the defensive measures that Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua must take to protect themselves from the empire’s regime-change schemes. In contrast, Washington clearly understands that these countries pose “threats of a good example” to the empire. Each subsequent US president, from Obama on, has certified them as “extraordinary threats to US national security.” Accordingly, they are targeted with the harshest coercive measures.

In this war of attrition, historian Isaac Saney uses the example of Cuba to show how any misstep by the revolutionary government or societal deficiency is exaggerated and weaponized. The empire’s siege, he explains, is not merely an attempt to destabilize the economy but is a deliberate strategy of suffocation. The empire aims to instigate internal discontent, distort people’s perception of the government, and ultimately erode social gains.

While Cuba is affected the worst by the hybrid war, both Venezuela and Nicaragua have also been damaged. All three countries have seen the “humanitarian parole” for their migrants in the US come to an end. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was also withdrawn for Venezuelans and Nicaraguans. The strain of returning migrants, along with cuts in the remittances they had sent (amounting to a quarter of Nicaragua’s GDP), further impacts their respective economies.

Higher-than-average tariffs are threatened on Venezuelan and Nicaraguan exports to the US, together with severe restrictions on Caracas’s oil exports. Meanwhile, the screws have been tightened on the six-decade US blockade of Cuba with disastrous humanitarian consequences.

However, all three countries are fighting back. They are forming new trade alliances with China and elsewhere. Providing relief to Cuba, Mexico has supplied oil, and China is installing solar panel farms to address the now-daily power outages. High levels of food security in Venezuela and Nicaragua have strengthened their ability to resist US sanctions, while Caracas successfully defeated one of Washington’s harshest migration measures by securing the release of 252 of its citizens who had been incarcerated in El Salvador’s torturous CECOT prison.

Venezuela’s US-backed far-right opposition is in disarray. The first Trump administration had recognized the “interim presidency” of Juan Guaidó, followed by the Biden administration declaring Edmundo González the winner of Venezuela’s last presidential election. But the current Trump administration has yet to back González, de facto recognizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Nicaragua’s right-wing opposition is also reeling from a side-effect of Trump’s harsh treatment of migrants – many are returning voluntarily to a country claimed by the opposition to be “unsafe,” while US Homeland Security has even extolled their home country’s recent achievements. And some of Trump’s prominent Cuban-American supporters are now questioning his “maximum pressure” campaign for going too far.

Troubled waters for the Pink Tide

The current progressive wave, the so-called Pink Tide, was initiated by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s landslide victory in 2018. His MORENA Party successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, won by an even greater margin in 2024. Mexico’s first woman president has proven to be perhaps the world’s most dignified and capable sparring partner with the buffoon in the White House, who has threatened tariffs, deportations, military interdictions, and more on his southern neighbor.

Left-leaning presidents Gabriel Boric in Chile and Gustavo Petro in Colombia are limited to a single term. Both have faced opposition-aligned legislatures and deep-rooted reactionary power blocs. Chilean Communist Party candidate Jeanette Jara is favored to advance to the second-round presidential election in November 2025, but will face a challenging final round if the right unifies, as is likely, around an extremist candidate.

As the first non-rightist in Colombia’s history, Petro has had a tumultuous presidential tenure. He credibly accuses his former foreign minister of colluding with the US to overthrow him. However, the presidency could well revert to the right in the May 2026 elections.

Boric, Petro, Uruguay’s Yamandú Orsi, and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met in July as the region’s center-left presidents, with an agenda of dealing with Trump, promoting multilateralism, and (we can assume) keeping their distance from the region’s more left-wing governments.

With shaky popularity ratings, Lula will likely run for reelection in October 2026. As head of the region’s largest economy, Lula plays a world leadership role, chairing three global summits in a year. Yet, with less than a majority legislative backing, Lula has triangulated between Washington and the Global South, often capitulating to US interests (as in his veto of BRICS membership for Nicaragua and Venezuela). Regardless, Trump is threatening Brazil with a crippling 50% export tariff and is blatantly interfering in the trial of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, accused of insurrection. So far, Trump’s actions have backfired, arousing anger among Brazilians. Lula commented that Trump was “not elected to be emperor of the world.”

In 2021, Honduran President Xiomara Castro took over a narcostate subservient to Washington and has tried to push the envelope to the left. Being constitutionally restricted to one term, Castro hands the Libre party candidacy in November’s election to former defense minister Rixi Moncada, who faces a tough contest with persistent US interference.

Bolivia’s ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) Party is embroiled in a self-destructive internal conflict between former President Evo Morales and his former protégé and current President, Luis Arce. The energized Bolivian right wing is spoiling for the August 17^th presidential election.

Israeli infiltration accompanies US military penetration

Analyst Joe Emersberger notes: “Today, all geopolitics relates back to Gaza where the imperial order has been unmasked like never before.” Defying Washington, the Hague Group met in Colombia for an emergency summit on Gaza to “take collective action grounded in international law.” On July 16, regional states – Bolivia, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – endorsed the pledge to take measures in support of Palestine, with others likely to follow. Brazil will join South Africa’s ICJ complaint against Israel.

At the other end of the political spectrum are self-described “world’s coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and confederates Javier Milei of Argentina and Daniel Noboa of Ecuador. As well as cozying up to Trump, they devotedly support Israel, which has been instrumental in enabling the most brutal reactionaries in the region. Noboa duly tells Israel’s Netanyahu that they “share the same enemies.”

In February, the US Southern Command warned: “Time is not on our side.” The perceived danger is “methodical incursion” into our “neighborhood” by both Russia and China. Indeed, China has become the region’s second-largest trading partner after the US, and even right-wing governments are reluctant to jeopardize their relations with Beijing. The empire’s solution is to “redouble our efforts to nest military engagement,” using humanitarian assistance as “an essential soft power tool.”

Picking up where Biden left off, Trump has furthered US military penetration, notably in Ecuador, Guyana, Brazil, Panama, and Argentina. The pandemic of narcotics trafficking, itself a product of US-induced demand, has been a Trojan Horse for militarist US intervention in Haiti, Ecuador, Peru, and threatened in Mexico.

In Panama, President José Mulino’s obeisance to Trump’s ambitions to control the Panama Canal and reduce China’s influence provoked massive protests. Trump’s collaboration in the genocide of Palestinians motivated Petro to declare that Colombia must leave the NATO alliance and keep its distance from “militaries that drop bombs on children.” Colombia had been collaborating with NATO since 2013 and became the only Latin American global partner in 2017.

Despite Trump’s bluster – what the Financial Times calls “imperial incontinence” – his administration has produced mixed results. While rightist political movements have basked in Trump’s fitful praise, his escalating coercion provokes resentment against Yankee influence. Resistance is growing, with new alliances bypassing Washington. As the empire’s grip tightens, so too does the resolve of those determined to break free from it.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Perry and Roger D. Harris.

“Next year would have marked the 20th anniversary of our founding, but we will not make it to that day,” LSD said in a media notice on Friday. “We are announcing our dissolution.”

A source told RFA Cantonese that LSD was warned several times, beginning in April, that it must dissolve before July 1 or risk being forcibly disbanded.

Incumbent LSD chairperson Chan Po-ying has previously declined to comment. On Friday, she again said she would not respond before the press conference.

“No Resistance, No Change”

Founded in 2006, LSD’s slogan was “No resistance, no change.” The party made headlines in 2008 when it secured three seats in the Legislative Council with Wong Yuk-man, Leung Kwok-hung, and Albert Chan, becoming the third-largest pro-democracy party. Known for its confrontational style, LSD lawmakers famously threw bananas at then-Chief Executive Donald Tsang during a LegCo session, becoming a symbol of the city’s radical democrats. Outside the legislature, LSD organized and participated in numerous protests and civil disobedience campaigns.

In 2009, LSD and the Civic Party launched the “Five Constituencies Referendum” campaign, in which five lawmakers resigned and re-contested their seats to demand universal suffrage. All five, including LSD’s Leung Kwok-hung, Wong Yuk-man, and Albert Chan, and Civic Party’s Alan Leong and Tanya Chan, were re-elected in the May 2010 by-election.

(Anthony Wallace/AFP)

Legislative filibusters and internal splits

In 2011, LSD launched a “vote repayment” campaign targeting the Democratic Party for its role in pushing forward Beijing-approved electoral reforms. Internal disagreements over strategy led to a split, with Wong Yuk-man and Albert Chan forming People Power. Leung Kwok-hung then took over as LSD chair. The party retained only one LegCo seat in the 2012 and 2016 elections but continued legislative filibusters and budget protest actions alongside People Power.

In 2016, Leung Kwok-hung was disqualified from LegCo for holding a yellow umbrella and tearing up a copy of the NPC’s “831” decision during his oath-taking. Since then, LSD has had no seats in the legislature but continued grassroots activism and protest actions.

Leung Kwok-hung still imprisoned

Many LSD members have served jail time for civil disobedience. Leung Kwok-hung, now 69, remains in prison as a defendant in the 47 democrats’ national security case. LSD vice-chair Jimmy Sham, also one of the 47, was released last month after serving his sentence.

Even after other pro-democracy parties such as the Democratic Party and Civic Party disbanded, LSD continued street actions under the National Security Law era — addressing issues like labor importation and minimum wage.

Earlier this year, the party planned a protest outside government headquarters on Budget Day but canceled due to “immense pressure.” Some LSD members also had their bank accounts frozen or closed, and several were charged for “unauthorized fundraising in public” and “unauthorized display of posters.”

Edited by Greg Barber

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.

We speak with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich about the victory of Zohran Mamdani in the New York Democratic primary for New York mayor, the rise of Donald Trump, and the role of big money in politics. “This is the one thing that I agree with Donald Trump about: The economy is rigged — but it’s rigged against working-class people. And I think Mamdani understood that. He understood that people have got to want a change, but also they want affordability. They want an economy that is working for them.”

We also speak with him about his decades-long career as a teacher and The Last Class, a new documentary that follows Reich over his last semester at the University of California, Berkeley. The class, and much of Reich’s career, has focused on rising inequality and its impact on society. “Most Americans feel powerless,” says Reich. “This is a crisis right now.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss on June 21, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

Violence has a paralyzing power. What is the power of the word in the face of the planes that sow destruction and death, and the flying ballistic missiles? When I see people around me paralyzed or going crazy with fear in the face of the destruction that the Iranian missiles have sown, I cannot help but think of the resilience of the residents of Gaza, who go through seven circles of hell every day with no relief in sight.

But the missiles and planes are the continuation of politics by other means. Many words have been spoken, and many agreements have been concluded to create and set in motion the instruments of destruction and death. As far removed from reality as it may seem now, it is important to speak out today in order to understand the roots of the war and how we can resist and stop the looming disasters.

In Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran—it’s the same war

During the first year of the “war,” the Israeli public overwhelmingly supported the genocide in Gaza, with no significant reservations. But in recent months, we have seen doubts and disillusionment on the part of large sections. Now, when we stand in protest vigils demanding an end to the killing, the feeling is that most of the public on the streets of Haifa supports us. More and more Israelis, including established media outlets, former senior politicians, and generals, have begun to speak out about the war crimes that Israel is committing. An Israeli and international consensus has begun to form that the Israeli government deliberately avoids striving to end the war, and is working to expand and perpetuate it, for reasons of narrow political and personal interests or out of messianic extremism.

But suddenly, when Israel initiated the expansion of the war into an all-out attack on Iran, which will inevitably bring further death and destruction in both Iran and Israel, we began to see again the power of violence to take over the human psyche and paralyze thought. Suddenly, the automatic Israeli consensus stiffened again, with the media and the public celebrating the spilled Iranian blood. Even a sinking Europe, which had begun to show remorse in its support of the genocide in Gaza, became enthusiastic again, with Germany, France, and Britain literally begging for their share of the pound of flesh and blood.

The root of the evil here, and the source of all the current wars, is the role that Zionism has assumed as the crushing force of imperialist control in the Middle East. This is the declared strategy of the United States: to ensure Israel’s military superiority over any regional coalition. To secure Israel’s place as a military power that can strike at anyone who threatens American hegemony, the United States must keep Israel in a state of constant conflict and constant danger. 

This strategy paid off on a colossal scale for the United States in the wake of the Six-Day War in 1967, when the crushing Israeli victory over three Arab states led, within a few years, to the collapse of the dreams of independence and Arab socialism of the Nasserists and the left wing of the Ba’ath Party, and the establishment of reactionary and submissive dictatorships.

Since then, much water has flowed through the region’s rivers, hundreds of millions of residents have been added, there has been progress in education and the economy, and the equation that relies on the fortress of Jewish Sparta to maintain imperialist supremacy in the region is becoming less and less sustainable. The United States itself paid a heavy price for its military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq and emerged from them without any real achievement. Israel failed twice in its wars over Lebanon, in the Eighteen Years’ War (1982-2000) and in its brief adventure in the summer of 2006.

Meanwhile, the wider regional picture has also changed. Instead of pro-Western dictatorships in Turkey and Iran, populist Islamist governments have risen in the two regional powers, which are more responsive to public opinion in their countries and tend to identify with Palestinian suffering and resistance and to denounce Israel’s aggression.

For a long time, imperialist politics in the region were based on the principle of “divide and rule.” The main axis of nurtured conflict among the Muslim population was between Sunnis and Shiites. The grand idea was, within the framework of the “Abraham Accords,” to establish a defense alliance under Israeli-American auspices that would protect the oil kings and emirs of the Arabian Peninsula from the “Iranian threat” (and from their own people), in exchange for continued effective American control over the region’s natural resources and economy.

Even as the Palestinians did not receive massive support that would allow them to exercise their human and national rights, the Palestinian struggle was and remains a central axis that challenges the system of imperialist control in the region. The identification with the Palestinians by both Sunnis and Shiites, and, more recently, the shock of the unbridled violence perpetrated by Israel since October 7, and the exposure of the racist Pavlovian instinct of all Western powers in supporting the genocide in Gaza, all of which have changed and are still changing the map of the region for the long term.

Meanwhile, Israel has become embroiled in war on many fronts, struggling to achieve a decisive victory and reap the fruits of its military superiority. In Six Days in 1967, Israel militarily defeated three Arab countries and occupied vast areas. Now, for more than 600 days, it has been unable to defeat Palestinian resistance to the occupation of the Gaza Strip, which had been under a suffocating siege for many years before the current genocidal war. 

The only arena in which Israel has achieved a military and political victory is its struggle against Hezbollah in Lebanon, due to a combination of tactical failures on the part of Hezbollah and the fact that, as a representative of the oppressed Shiite minority, it had no full Lebanese legitimacy to intervene in the war. However, in Lebanon too, Israel’s insistence on continuing to hold occupied territory within Lebanon, with constant offensive military activity all over the country, keeps this front in the context of a violent conflict that has not ended and with no end in sight.

In Yemen, the government that came to power in Sanaa on the waves of the Arab Spring, and survived an all-out war by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Emirates, continues to try and pressure an end to the attack on Gaza through a naval blockade and repeated attacks. Even before the conflict with Israel, Yemen was the poorest country in the region and is still torn by civil war. Despite its limited capabilities, repeated attacks by a coalition of Western countries led by the United States and Israeli attacks on economic infrastructure have failed to change Yemen’s position.

The expansion of the war into Syria after the fall of the Assad regime adds another layer to the logic of the conflict. The new Syrian regime, which emerged after 14 years of revolution and civil war at the cost of about a million lives and immense destruction, declared from the moment it was established that it was committed to the 1974 armistice agreements and that it did not want conflicts with any neighboring country. Despite this, and despite the military erosion of the multi-front war, Israel decided to open another front against Syria, conquering additional territories (in addition to the Syrian Golan Heights captured in 1967), bombing all over Syria, and threatening the new regime. This completely exposed the logic of the “villa in the jungle”: in order for the villa to remain a villa, it must ensure that the jungle remains a jungle, and any attempt to build a normal society and state in the region is an existential threat to it. 

The attack on Iran took this logic a step further. Israeli strategic superiority must be guaranteed not only against four hundred million Arabs but also against all other countries of the region. The Israeli method of killing Iranian scientists, which did not begin with the latest attack, brutally presents the concept of how the colonialist “local branch of Western culture” will be able to maintain its technological superiority.

On the nuclear question

As a university student, I took a course on “International Relations After World War II,” that is, the Cold War between the Western powers and the Soviet Union. The lecturer always talked about how Western leaders planned to confront “The Soviet Threat.” In “Operation Unthinkable,” which was to begin as early as July 1945, Churchill planned to mobilize the surrendered Wehrmacht troops to attack the Soviet Union and drop (American) atomic bombs on Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kiev. In 1949, the US planned a larger operation (“Operation Dropshot“) that involved the use of 300 atomic bombs and the destruction of 100 cities and towns in the Soviet Union.

In 1949, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear weapons test, which cooled America’s enthusiasm for a direct confrontation with it. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, after the Soviet Union had proven that it could create a real nuclear threat to the U.S., talks began between the parties, and the Cold War gradually moved into the “détente” phase.

In my naivete, I asked the lecturer: According to what you taught us, as long as nuclear weapons were only in the hands of the West, we were on the verge of a nuclear war. Only when a “balance of terror” was created did the tension subside. How does this fit in with saying that the problem was “The Soviet Threat”? It seems the opposite is true…

He replied that from the perspective of the sequence of events, what I said made sense, but “no one in political science would agree” with my conclusion…

As far as is known (“according to foreign sources”), Israel possesses a large number of nuclear weapons, which the Western powers helped it develop. To this day, they defend Israel’s “right” to violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in all international forums. Israeli politicians and various experts have said that Israel has already considered using nuclear weapons against Arab countries several times, in moments of crisis. The climax came during the latest attack on Gaza, when lunatic extremist politicians fantasized about using an atomic bomb to annihilate Gaza as “revenge.” And, please, don’t tell me that the lunatic extremist right is far from the center of decision-making in Israel. As long as nuclear weapons are in the hands of one side in the region, there is a temptation to use them, thus creating an existential threat to the residents of the entire region. Clearly, the best situation is to have the entire region free of nuclear weapons. But history has proven that a nuclear balance of terror can also guarantee that nobody uses these weapons.

The West’s position on the Iranian nuclear issue is, on a regional scale, a repetition of its position on the denial of legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance. No matter how much Israel occupies and oppresses Palestinians, robs their land, destroys their homes, and kills them. Israel always “has the right to self-defense” and the Palestinian who defends his rights is always the “terrorist”. The ultimate way to ensure Israel’s “strategic superiority” in the region is to allow it, in a “time of need,” to wipe out millions of the inhabitants of the region using atomic weapons. This is the essence of the “Western Values” that they claim to stand for. 

The Gulf states, which grovel to the rulers of the United States and Europe, thought they were buying their favor, so that they would stop the massacre in Gaza. They also hoped to prevent the war with Iran, which endangers the security of all the countries in the region. Instead, surprise, surprise, it turns out that the money they gave to the U.S. continues to fund the genocide against Palestinians and the bombings of Lebanon and Syria. Furthermore, they are effectively paying the United States for the privilege of being on the receiving end of a future nuclear annihilation.

Where are we going from here?

As the saying goes: It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

It is difficult to know what will happen, but there are many things that are unlikely not to happen. At the beginning of the current “war” in Gaza, the American administration’s emissaries used to ask Netanyahu what were his plans for “the day after.” What is your end game?

To this day, they have not received an answer, and this is not by chance. Israel lives from war to war and is unable to imagine a different reality, let alone take action to create it. The historical logic was that Israel attacks in order to impose the American “day after” on the Arabs. For this equation to hold, there should be an American administration that is capable and willing to stop Israel’s aggression and force concessions on it. In the meantime, the Americans have fallen in love with Israel’s aggression. Even more importantly, the United States really has nothing to offer the region these days.

We are living at the end of “the American era.” Today, China is the main economic partner for trade and development for the countries of the region, as well as elsewhere. The United States still retains its military superiority, at the price of huge military investment. To benefit from this superiority, it is inclined to militarize international politics, as is evident in Ukraine and East Asia, just like in our region. Israel’s military and political power is a reflection of American superiority. 

The U.S. military advantage is eroding as it loses its economic and technological leadership. When it uses military force to try to preserve or restore its world hegemony, it is not advancing itself but trying to push others backward. Humanity is paying an awful cost, but the U.S. decline is also accelerating.

The current war in the Middle East is part of a desperate effort to preserve the remnants of colonialism and Western superiority over the peoples of the Third World. The Palestinian people are paying a terrible, unbearable price for this. But the future will not be determined by the politicians of the West or the corrupt rulers of the region who grovel to them, but by the peoples who will stand up for their right to determine their own destiny.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Yoav Haifawi.

Information and images circulated on social media platform TikTok showed Col. To Long had been appointed as director of the ministry’s Department of External Security at a June 4 ceremony.

Experts said Long’s promotion is the latest in a series of appointments by Lam to consolidate power.

Lam’s own rise was “built on the strength of the police force,” making their support crucial as he seeks another term as general secretary of the Communist Party, Nguyen Van Dai, an experienced observer of Vietnamese politics, told Radio Free Asia.

State media has not announced Long’s appointment.

The Ministry of Public Security often eschews public announcements about promotions and appointments. Previously, Maj. Gen. Mai Hoang was appointed as director of the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department without any coverage in state media.

It’s also unusual for top figures in the Communist Party to disclose information about their family members. According to BBC Vietnamese, local news outlets have been instructed not to report on the developments in order to avoid drawing public attention.

Long, 43, maintains a low public profile. After several years of overseas study, he joined the ministry and in February was seen attending a Ministry of Public Security meeting on peacekeeping operations.

In June 2024, state media identified him as deputy chief of the Ministry’s Permanent Office for United Nations Peacekeeping.

A Hanoi-based analyst said authorities are wary of public discussion of the appointment as many members of the leadership come from the northern province of Hung Yen, the birthplace of To Lam. The analyst requested anonymity to comment on the sensitive topic.

To Lam, who became party chief in August 2024, began his career in public security in 1979 and rose to become the country’s top security official in 2016. Since assuming power, he has stacked the police apparatus with allies and people from Hung Yen.

Lam has elevated allies to key security positions, appointing Luong Tam Quang as minister of public security and Pham The Tung as head of the Investigative Security Agency. He has also installed new police chiefs in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s two largest cities. Several police generals from Hung Yen province have similarly been promoted to senior Communist Party roles.

These appointments come ahead of the ruling party’s National Congress in January 2026, where delegates will elect a new leadership team for the next five-year term.

Edited by Tenzin Pema.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Truong Son for RFA Vietnamese.

After twenty months of horror in Gaza, political rhetoric in Western countries is finally starting to shift—but will words translate into action? And what exactly can other countries do when the United States still shields Israel from efforts to enforce international law, as it did at the UN Security Council on June 5?

On May 30, Tom Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, accused Israel of committing a war crime by using starvation as a weapon against the people of Gaza. In a searing interview with the BBC, Fletcher explained how Israel’s policy of forced starvation fits into its larger strategy of ethnic cleansing.

“We’re seeing food set on the borders and not being allowed in, when there is a population on the other side of the border that is starving,” Fletcher said. “And we’re hearing Israeli ministers say that is to put pressure on the population of Gaza.”

He was referring to statements like the one from Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who openly admitted that the starvation policy is meant to leave Palestinians “totally despairing, understanding that there’s no hope and nothing to look for,” so that they will submit to ethnic cleansing from Gaza and a “new life in other places.”

Fletcher called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop this campaign of forced displacement, and insisted, “we would expect governments all over the world to stand for international humanitarian law. The international community is very, very clear on that.”

Palestinians might wish that were true. If the so-called international community were really “very, very clear on that,” the United States and Israel would not be able to wage a campaign of genocide for more than 600 days while the world looks on in horror.

Some Western governments have finally started using stronger language to condemn Israel’s actions. But the question is: Will they act? Or is this just more political theater to appease public outrage while the machinery of destruction grinds on?

This moment should force a reckoning: How is it possible that the U.S. and Israel can perpetrate such crimes with impunity? What would it take for U.S. allies to ignore pressure from Washington and enforce international law?

If impoverished, war-ravaged Yemen can single-handedly deny Israel access to the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, and drive the Israeli port of Eilat into bankruptcy, more powerful countries can surely isolate Israel diplomatically and economically, protect the Palestinians and end the genocide. But they haven’t even tried.

Some are now making tentative moves. On May 19, the U.K., France, and Canada jointly condemned Israel’s actions as “intolerable,” “unacceptable,” “abhorrent,” “wholly disproportionate” and “egregious.” The U.K. suspended trade talks with Israel, and they promised “further concrete actions,” including targeted sanctions, if Israel does not end its offensive in Gaza and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid.

The three countries publicly committed to the Arab Plan for the reconstruction of Gaza, and to building an international consensus for it at the UN’s High-Level Two-State Solution Conference in New York on June 17-20, which is to be co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.

They also committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood. Of the UN’s 193 member states, 147 already recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation, including ten more since Israel launched its genocide in Gaza. President Macron, under pressure from the leftist La France Insoumise party, says France may officially recognize Palestine at the UN conference in June.

Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, claimed during his election campaign that Canada already had an arms embargo against Israel, but was swiftly challenged on that. Canada has suspended a small number of export licenses, but it’s still supplying parts for Israel’s 39 F-35s, and for 36 more that Israel has ordered from Lockheed Martin.

A General Dynamics factory in Quebec is the sole supplier of artillery propellant for deadly 155 mm artillery shells used in Gaza, and it took an emergency campaign by human rights groups in August 2024 to force Canada to scrap a new contract for that same factory to supply Israel with 50,000 high-explosive mortar shells.

The U.K. is just as compromised. The new Labour government elected in July 2024 quickly restored funding to UNRWA, as Canada has. In September, it suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licenses to Israel, mostly for parts used in warplanes, helicopters, drones and targeting. But, like Canada, the U.K. still supplies many other parts that end up in Israeli F-35s bombing Gaza.

Declassified UK published a report on the F-35 program that revealed how it compromises the sovereignty of partner countries. While the U.K. produces 15% of the parts that go into every F-35, the U.S. military takes immediate ownership of the British-made parts, stores them on British air force bases, and then orders the U.K. to ship them to Texas for use in new planes or to Israel and other countries as spare parts for planes already in use.

Shipping these planes and parts to Israel is in clear violation of U.S., U.K. and other countries’ arms export laws. British campaigners argue that if the U.K. is serious about halting genocide, it must stop all shipments of F-35 parts sent to Israel–directly or indirectly. With huge marches in London drawing hundreds of thousands of people, and protests on June 17 at three factories that make F-35 parts, activists will keep applying more pressure until they result in the “concrete actions” the British government has promised.

Denmark is facing a similar conflict. Amnesty International, Oxfam, Action Aid and Al-Haq are in court suing the Danish government and largest weapons company, Terma, to stop them sending Israel critical bomb release mechanisms and other F-35 parts.

These disputes over Canadian artillery propellant, Danish bomb-release mechanisms and the multinational nature of the F-35 program highlight how any country that provides even small but critical parts or materials for deadly weapons systems must ensure they are not used to commit war crimes.

So all steps to cut off Israel’s weapons supplies can help to save Palestinian lives, and the full arms embargo that the UN General Assembly voted for in September 2024 can be instrumental in ending the genocide if more countries will join it. As Sam Perlo-Freeman of Campaign Against the Arms Trade said of the U.K.’s legal obligation to stop shipping F-35 parts,

“These spare parts are essential to keep Israel’s F-35s flying, and therefore stopping them will reduce the number of bombings and killings of civilians Israel can commit. It is as simple as that.”

Germany was responsible for 30% of Israel’s arms imports between 2019 and 2023, largely through two large warship deals. Four German-built Saar 6 corvettes, Israel’s largest warships, are already bombarding Gaza, while ThyssenKrupp is building three new submarines for Israel in Kiel.

But no country has provided a greater share of the tools of genocide in Gaza than the United States, including nearly all the warplanes, helicopters, bombs and air-to-ground missiles that are destroying Gaza and killing Palestinians. The U.S. government has a legal responsibility to stop sending all these weapons, which Israel uses mainly to commit industrial-scale war crimes, up to and including genocide, against the people of Palestine, as well as to attack its other neighbors.

Trump’s military and political support for Israel’s genocide stands in stark contradiction to the image he promotes of himself as a peacemaker—and which his most loyal followers believe in.

Yet there are signs that Trump is beginning to assert some independence from Netanyahu and from the war hawks in his own party and inner circle. He refused to visit Israel on his recent Middle East tour, he’s negotiating with Iran despite Israeli opposition, and he removed Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor for engaging in unauthorized warmongering against Iran with Netanyahu. His decisions to end the Yemen bombing campaign and lift sanctions on Syria suggest an unpredictable but real departure from the neocon playbook, as do his negotiations with Russia and Iran.

Has Netanyahu finally overplayed his hand? His campaign of ethnic cleansing, territorial expansion in pursuit of a biblical “Greater Israel,” the deliberate starvation of Gaza, and his efforts to entangle the U.S. in a war with Iran have pushed Israel’s longtime allies to the edge. The emerging rift between Trump and Netanyahu could mark the beginning of the end of the decades-long blanket of impunity the U.S. has wrapped around Israel. It could also give other governments the political space to respond to Israeli war crimes without fear of U.S. retaliation.

The huge and consistent protests throughout Europe are putting pressure on Western governments to take action. A new survey conducted in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain shows that very few Europeans–between 6% and 16% in each country–find Israel’s assault on Gaza proportionate or justified.

For now, however, the Western governments remain deeply complicit in Israel’s atrocities and violations of international law. The rhetoric is shifting—but history will judge this moment not by what governments say, but by what they do.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies.

“The authorities in the DRC should reverse the prohibition of coverage related to former President Joseph Kabila and his political party and cease threatening legal action for reporting on matters of public interest,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa regional director. “Escalation of fighting in eastern DRC has brought heightened dangers for journalists, which the government should be seeking to mitigate, not enhance. The Congolese people need unfettered access to information, not censorship.”

On June 2, the Higher Council for Audiovisual and Communication (CSAC), the DRC’s media regulator, ordered the media to cease coverage on the party’s activities for 90 days. The order, which CPJ reviewed, also forbids communication channels from “offering space” to PPRD members or Kabila “under penalty of very heavy sanction in accordance with the law,” with the prosecutor general in charge of enforcement.

As justification, the order claimed that Kabila and the party financially and ideologically support the M23 and AFC rebel groups in the eastern part of the country. It follows other government efforts to curb the influence of Kabila and his party, including the suspension of its activities in April. On May 22, the DRC’s Senate lifted immunities that were previously granted to Kabila, who became a life-long senator when his presidency ended in 2019. The government has accused the former president of treason, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and participation in an insurrectionist movement for his alleged support of the M23 rebellion.

On May 23, Kabila broadcast a nationwide speech on his YouTube channel, which has since been taken down, in which he criticized current DRC President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi and proposed his own solutions for restoring peace in the east. Since late May, Kabila has been engaging in discussions with various actors in the eastern city of Goma, which is under M23 control.

CPJ’s calls and messages to Oscar Kabamba, a spokesperson for the CSAC, went unanswered.

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

Since becoming general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam has drawn international attention with his aggressive plans for cost-cutting within the government but he’s been quiet about another drain on the state budget – the ruling party itself.

After taking office last August, he has moved this year to eliminate and merge ministries and central government agencies, reduce the number of provinces and cities by half, and dismantle district-level administrative units. Tens of thousands of civil servants have already lost their jobs. The Ministry of Interior has estimated that in five years, this will have saved 130 trillion dong (US$5.2 billion at today’s exchange rate) in the state budget.

To Lam’s campaign has been likened to the drastic cuts that U.S. President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk have made to U.S. federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency.

But when it comes to making savings in Vietnam’s state apparatus, To Lam appears to have hedged his bets.

Vietnam operates under two intertwined systems: the party and the government. Although each has a separate budget, both draw from the same source — taxpayer money. The party, in power since the end of the Vietnam War and the reunification of the country in 1975, exists as a parallel structure to the government and plays the leading role in policymaking and governance.

While the government’s budget is occasionally made public, the party’s finances remain classified under Vietnamese law.

This policy predates To Lam’s leadership. However, given his sweeping efforts to streamline the state apparatus and reduce spending, his silence on the party’s own budget raises questions about how far he’s willing to go on fiscal reform.

Vu Tuong, a professor and expert on Vietnamese politics from the University of Oregon, said data shows that from 2008 to 2015, the Central Party Office’s budget increased steadily.

“Although actual spending figures are not disclosed, the Central Party Office alone saw its planned budget quadruple in seven years — from nearly US$27 million (622 billion dong) in 2008 to about US$105 million (more than 2,400 billion dong) in 2015,” he said.

The office functions as the party’s command center, where the general secretary oversees both party and government operations. From 2011 to 2015, its budget rose by 180 percent — three times higher than the increase in the government office’s budget, according to Vu Tuong. The publication of data on its spending stopped in 2015.

Budget is a secret

Zachary Abuza, an expert on Southeast Asia at the National War College in Washington, noted the lack of transparency.

“The party’s budget is a secret, so researchers must work with imperfect data,” he told Radio Free Asia. He said To Lam is mindful of ballooning recurrent expenditures and has made some attempts to rein them in. For example, the party’s foreign affairs committee has been merged into other entities. However, despite these changes, the party’s overall budget continues to grow.

“While the budgets of government agencies have shrunk or stagnated, the budget for the CPV’s bureaucracy has steadily increased over the past few years, if we count the Fatherland Front, the organization that supports the party’s activities,” Abuza said. CPV stands for the Communist Party of Vietnam.

He said more transparency could help improve the party’s legitimacy, but given its obsession with maintaining supreme power, “it’s hard to see them cutting the party’s budget,” he said.

In 2016, the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research estimated that the economic cost of maintaining public mass organizations — directly controlled by the Communist Party — ranged from 45,600 to 68,100 billion dong annually (about US$2 billion to US$3 billion at the time). These organizations are intended to fulfill roles that, in democratic countries, would be played by independent civil society groups. To Lam has not indicated whether he intends to cut their funding.

According to Abuza, To Lam’s ongoing radical restructuring of the national government, including the consolidation of five ministries and several government agencies, and the reduction of nearly 50% of the number of provinces, created a rare opportunity to further cut both state and party organizations.

However, the budgets for the party and its supporting organizations are difficult to cut because they are tied to the inherent interests of the bureaucracy, he said.

There may be a political reason behind To Lam’s reluctance to target the party’s spending.

The next National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam is approaching in early 2026, when a new generation of leaders will be elected. To Lam, 67, is believed to be seeking another term as general secretary.

“There’s only half-a-year left until the Party Congress,” said Abuza. “So there won’t be any major changes. Normally, spending and policy implementation would be completely locked down by this stage.”

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Truong Son for RFA Vietnamese.

Opposition fractures, pro-government consolidates

At stake for the 54 contesting Venezuelan political parties were seats for 285 National Assembly deputies, 24 state governors, and 260 regional legislators.

The pro-government coalition won all but one of the governorships, taking three of the four states previously held by the opposition. The loss of the state of Barinas was particularly symbolic, for this was the birthplace of former President Hugo Chávez, and especially so, because the winner was Adán Chávez, the late president’s older brother.

Likewise, the Chavista alliance swept the National Assembly, securing 253 out of 285 seats. Notable exceptions were the election of opposition leaders Henrique Capriles and Henri Falcón, both of whom are former presidential candidates.

The New York Times reported the same outcomes but spun it as the “results [rather than the vote]…stripped the opposition of some of the last few positions it held,” inferring fraud.

However, this election outcome was not unexpected, as the opposition was not only divided but also had a significant portion opting to boycott the vote. The pro-government forces enjoyed a unified effort, an efficient electoral machine, and grassroots support, especially from the communal movement.

“After 32 elections, amidst blockades, criminal sanctions, fascism and violence,” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro affirmed, “today we showed that the Bolivarian Revolution is stronger than ever.”

Opposition self-implodes

The headline from Le Monde spun the voting thus: “Venezuela holds divisive new elections.” Contrary to what the headline suggests, the divisiveness was not the government’s doing, but due to the opposition’s perennial internecine warfare.

While the pro-government Great Patriotic Pole alliance around the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV) “works in unison,” according to opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the electoral opposition is divided into three warring camps. They, in turn, were surrounded by a circular firing squad of the far-right abstentionists, calling for a vote boycott.

The abstentionists were assembled around Maria Corina Machado. She had been pardoned for her involvement in the short-lived 2002 US-backed coup but was subsequently disqualified from running for office for constitutional offenses. Following Washington’s lead, which has not recognized a Venezuelan presidential election as legitimate since 2012, the far-right opposition rejected electoral means for achieving regime change and has even pleaded in effect for US military intervention.

Machado’s faction, which claimed that Edmund González Urrutia won the 2024 presidential election, does not recognize their country’s constitutional authority. Consequently, when summoned by the Venezuelan Supreme Court, they refused to present evidence of their victory, thereby removing any legal basis for their claimed victory to be accepted. Machado maintained that voting only “legitimizes” the government, bitterly calling those participating in the democratic process “scorpions.”

Machado spent the election in self-imposed hiding. She further dug herself into a hole, after urging even harsher punishing US sanctions on her own people, by appearing to support Trump’s sending of Venezuelan migrants to the CECOT torture prison in El Salvador.

El Pais sympathized with her as “driven by the strength of the pain of being a mother who has been separated from her three children.” The WaPo described the middle-aged divorcé from one of the wealthiest families in Venezuela as a “courageous leader” whose “three children are exiled abroad.” In fact, her adult children live comfortably in the US and Colombia.

To this manufactured sympathy for the privileged, Venezuelan-Canadian sociologist Maria Paez Victor asks, “Where are the defenders of the human rights of Venezuelans?” She excoriates the collective West for its selective concern for human rights, emphasizing the neglect of Venezuelans’ rights amid external pressures and US sanctions.

The disputed Essequibo

The headline for The New York Times’s report spun the elections with: “Venezuela is holding an election for another country’s land.” This refers to the elections for governor and legislators in Essequibo (Guayana Esequiba in Spanish), which is, in fact, a disputed land.

For nearly two centuries, Venezuelans have considered that region part of their country, having wrested it from Spanish colonialists in 1835. In the questionable Paris Arbitral Award, with the US representing Venezuela, the Essequibo was handed over to the UK in 1899 (then colonial British Guiana and now the independent nation of Guyana). Ever since, it has been contested territory.

In 1962, Venezuela formally revived its claim at the UN, asserting that the 1899 award was null and void. Not surprisingly, the Times sides with Guyana, or more precisely with what they report as “Exxon Mobil’s multibillion-dollar investments” plus “military ties with the US.”

This first-time vote for political representation in the Essequibo is seen by Venezuelans across their political spectrum as an important step to assert their claim. It follows a referendum in 2023, which affirmed popular support for the Essequibo as part of their national territory. The actual voting was held in the neighboring Bolivar state.

On cue, the western-aligned press criticized the vote on the Essequibo as a “cynical ploy” by the Maduro administration to divert attention from other pressing problems. Meanwhile, they obscure the increasing US military penetration in neighboring Guyana and in the wider region.

Yet even the NYT had to admit: “Claims to the Essequibo region are deeply ingrained among many Venezuelans… [and even] María Corina Machado, the most prominent opposition leader, visited the area by canoe in 2013 to advance Venezuela’s claim.” Venezuelan journalist Jésus Rodríguez Espinoza (pers. comm.) described the vote as “an exercise in national sovereignty.”

Illegal sanctions – the elephant in the room

A WaPo opinion piece claims, “that the actual root cause of poverty has been a lack of democracy and freedom,” as if the US and its allies have not imposed sanctions deliberately designed to cripple the Venezuelan economy. These “unilateral coercive measures,” condemned by the UN, are illegal under international law because they constitute collective punishment.

But the fact that Venezuelans had to vote while being subjected to illegal coercion is completely ignored by the corporate press. That is, the existence of sanctions is recognized, but instead of exposing their illegal and coercive essence, the press normalizes them. The story untold by the press is the courage of the Venezuelan people who continue to support their government under such adverse conditions.

Disparaging the election

Washington and its aligned press cannot question the popular sweep for the Socialist Party’s alliance in Venezuela, because it is so obvious. Nonetheless, they disparage the mandate. The chorus of criticism alleges the fraudulent nature of previous elections, although it is a geopolitical reality that Washington considers any popular vote against its designated candidates illegitimate.

For this particular election, these State Department stenographers focused on the supposedly low turnout. In fact, the turnout was typical for a non-presidential election contest and fell within the same percentage range as US midterm elections.

Moreover, the pro-government slate actually garnered more votes than it had in the previous regional elections. The Chavista core of older, working class women remains solid.

When Elvis Amoroso, president of Venezuela’s authority (CNE), qualified the turnout percentages to apply to “active voters,” he meant those in-country. Due to the large number of recent out-migrations, a significant number are registered but cannot vote because they are abroad.

What was notably low was the voting for the highly divided opposition, with major factions calling for a boycott. Further, the opposition had been discredited by revelations that some had received and misused hundreds of millions of dollars from USAID. More than ever, the inept opposition has exposed itself in a negative light to the broad electorate. 

The overwhelming sentiment on the street in Venezuela is for an end to partisan conflict and for continuing the slow economic recovery. Challenges ahead include inflationary winds, a rising unofficial dollar exchange rate, and, above all, the animus of the Trump administration, which is currently in internal debate over whether to try to deal the Bolivarian Revolution a quick or a slow death. Either way, destabilization efforts continue.

To which Socialist Party leader and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said: “No one can stop our people. Not sanctions, nor blockades, nor persecution – because when a people decide to be free, no one can stop them.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Roger D. Harris.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.

House Republicans appear to be backing off some, but not all, of the steep reductions to the Medicaid program as part of their big tax breaks bill, as they run into resistance from more centrist GOP lawmakers opposed to ending nearly-free health care coverage for their constituents back home.

This is as a new report out Wednesday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that millions of Americans would lose Medicaid coverage under the various proposals being circulated by Republicans as cost-saving measures. House Republicans are scrounging to come up with as much as $1.5 trillion in cuts across federal government health, food stamp and other programs, to offset the revenue lost for some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks.

“Under each of those options, Medicaid enrollment would decrease and the number of people without health insurance would increase,” the CBO report said.

The Republican President Donald Trump presented to Congress on May 2 his proposed federal budget for 2026.

On May 2nd the U.S. White House — which has made clear that it’s beating the drums for war against China — headlined “Office of Management and Budget Releases the President’s Fiscal Year 2026 Skinny Budget” and reported that “The Budget, which reduces non-defense discretionary by $163 billion or 23 percent from the 2025 enacted level, guts a weaponized deep state while providing historic increases for defense and border security. … Defense spending would increase by 13 percent, and appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security would increase by nearly 65 percent, to ensure that our military and other agencies repelling the invasion of our border have the resources they need to complete the mission.” His budget “guts a weaponized deep state while providing historic increases for defense and border security,” and health care for the poor is part of that “weaponized deep state” he is referring to, which Republicans say must be cut in order to provide these “historic increases for defense and border security.”

All of those increases would go towards paying the suppliers (such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, etc.) to the enormously militarized police-state, at the very same time that the health, education, and welfare, of the voters, will be reduced by $165 billion or 23% below the current level.

Here are some more details regarding what that “weaponized deep state” (to use the White House’s phrase for it) consists of:

The White House’s May 2 “Major Discretionary Funding Changes” says that:

For Defense spending [ONLY the Defense Department, NOT including the approximately $700 billion yearly of annual U.S. military spending that is being paid out from OTHER federal Departments], the President proposes an increase of 13 percent to $1.01 trillion for FY 2026; for Homeland Security, the Budget commits a historic $175 billion investment to, at long last, fully secure our border. Under the proposal, a portion of these increases — at least $325 billion assumed in the budget resolution recently agreed to by the Congress — would be provided through reconciliation, to ensure that our military and other agencies repelling the invasion of our border have the resources needed to complete the mission. This mandatory supplement to discretionary spending would enable the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, among others, to clean up the mess President Trump inherited from the prior administration and harden the border and other defenses to protect America from foreign invasion.

Therefore, approximately $1.7T of total military spending is being sought by Trump (including the 13% increase to the Defense Department), while he is proposing to cut all other discretionary spending (which had previously constituted the other 47% of all U.S. Government annually appropriated federal spending (and which was previously around $800B per year) to be cut down now by $165B to around $635B total, or about 37% of all annually appropriated federal spending. Only the +13% for the Pentagon, and the +65% for the Department of Homeland Security, are increased, while everything else is getting cut drastically in order to make those increases possible.

So, while around $1.7T will be going to the military, only around $635B will be going to pay all of the other discretionary spending (including any non-military portion of the DHS). That will cut the percentage of the Government’s discretionary spending on non-military purposes down from its prior approximately 47% of the federal budget, down to approximately 37% of all of the Government’s discretionary spending.

Medicaid — health care to the poor — is on their chopping block so that the Defense Department portion of that $1.7T military cost that the U.S. Government will be paying in 2026 will be increased by 13% (and so that any non-military portion of the 65% increase to the DHS will also be paid).

Looking further at WHAT is being cut the most, the White House document shows that the only part of the Department of Education that will be increased — by $60 million — is “Charter Schools,” the part that privatizes public-school education, which is the part that billionaires want to increase (since their hedge funds etc. will be owning much of it). Meanwhile, Title 1 and K-12 federal spending will be reduced by $4.535 billion; and the program to incentivize colleges to “to engage with low-income students and increase access” will be cut by $1.579 B.

The Department of Health and Human Services will cut $4.035 from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), $1.970B from the Refugee and Unaccompanied Alien Children Program, $1.732B from AIDS and financial-assistance health programs, $3.588B from CDC and Prevention programs, $17.965B from NIH, $1.065B from programs working with addicts to help them reduce their addictions.

The Environmental Protection Agency will be cut $2.460B for Clean and Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Funds, and under a billion dollars each for such programs as the Hazardous Substance Superfund.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will be cut by $26.718B that goes to programs for the poor.

The Treasury Department will be cut by $2.488B for the IRS.

The National Science Foundation will be cut by $3.479B and by an additional $1.130B for “Broadening Participation.”

Most of the other cuts will be below a billion dollars.

Are these massive reallocations away from programs to the needy (and from some other areas such as scientific research), into instead the military and border security, reflections of the public’s will in a democracy?

On February 26, I reported that:

On February 14, the AP headlined “Where US adults think the government is spending too much, according to AP-NORC polling,” and listed in rank-order according to the opposite (“spending too little”) the following 8 Government functions: 1. Social Security; 2. Medicare; 3. Education; 4. Assistance to the poor; 5. Medicaid; 6. Border security; 7. Federal law enforcement; 8. The Military. That’s right: the American public (and by an overwhelming margin) are THE LEAST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on the military, and the MOST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on Social Security, Medicare, Education, Assistance to the poor, and Medicaid (the five functions the Republican Party has always been the most vocal to call “waste, fraud, and abuse” and try to cut). Meanwhile, The Military, which actually receives 53% (and in the latest year far more than that) of the money that the Congress allocates each year and gets signed into law by the President, keeps getting, each year, over 50% of the annually appropriated federal funds.

An important point to be made here is that both #s 4&5, Assistance to the poor, and Medicaid, are “discretionary federal spending” (i.e., controlled by the annual appropriations that get voted into law each year), whereas #s 1&2 (Social Security and Medicare) are “mandatory federal spending” (i.e., NOT controlled by Congress and the President). So, Trump and the Republicans are going after the poor because they CAN; they can’t (at least as-of YET) reduce or eliminate Social Security and Medicare. However, by now, it is crystal clear that Trump’s Presidency will be an enormous boon to America’s billionaires, and an enormous bane to the nation’s poor. The aristocratic ideology has always been: to get rid of poverty, we must get rid of the poor — work them so hard they will go away (let them seek ‘refugee’ status SOMEWHERE ELSE).

Trump is increasing the military and border security, and decreasing education, assistance to the poor, Medicaid, federal law enforcement, and even Social Security and Medicare (the latter two by laying off many of the people who staff those bureaucracies).

Therefore, the Republicans’ effort to cut health care to the poor is merely a part of their overall effort to cut Governmental help to the nation’s poor; and all of this is being done in order to increase federal purchases of armaments from corporations such as Lockheed Martin, who make all or most of their profits only by selling to the U.S. Government and to its allied Governments.

However, on many levels, the greatest amount of “waste, fraud, and abuse,” and sheer corruption, is actually in the only federal Department that has never been audited: the Defense Department. This means that Republicans are reallocating from the neediest to the greediest. (NOTE: I have equal contempt for both of America’s political Parties, but this reallocation is specifically a Republican specialty. So, this isn’t merely a matter of opinion. It is a historical fact.)

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Zuesse.

Among the many lessons to be learnt by Australia’s defeated Liberal-National coalition parties from the election is that they should stop getting into bed with News Corporation.

Why would a political party outsource its policy platform and strategy to people with plenty of opinions, but no experience in actually running a government?

The result of the federal election suggests that unlike the coalition, many Australians are ignoring the opinions of News Corp Australia’s leading journalists such as Andrew Bolt and Sharri Markson.

• READ MORE: Australia ‘Islamic Caliphate’? Dark money and the 11th hour election propaganda blitzkrieg
• Other Australian federal election reports

Last Thursday, in her eponymous programme on Sky News Australia, Markson said:

For the first time in my journalistic career I’m going to also offer a pre-election editorial, endorsing one side of politics […] A Dutton prime ministership would give our great nation the fresh start we deserve.

Sharri Markson issues own Dutton endorsement as ACM says ‘Australia is Tanya Plibersek’https://t.co/UYh0xKeXPR

— amanda meade (@meadea) May 2, 2025

After a vote count that sees the Labor government returned with an increased majority, Bolt wrote a piece for the Herald Sun admonishing voters:

No, the voters aren’t always right. This time they were wrong, and this gutless and incoherent Coalition should be ashamed.

Australians just voted for three more years of a Labor government that’s left this country poorer, weaker, more divided and deeper in debt, and which won only by telling astonishing lies.

That’s staggering. If that’s what voters really like, then this country is going to get more of it, good and hard.

The Australian and most of News’ tabloid newspapers endorsed the coalition in their election eve editorials.

Repudiation of minor culture war
The election result was a repudiation of the minor culture war Peter Dutton reprised during the campaign when he advised voters to steer clear of the ABC and “other hate media”. It may have felt good alluding to “leftie-woke” tropes about the ABC, but it was a tactical error.

The message probably resonated only with rusted-on hardline coalition voters and supporters of right-wing minor parties.

But they were either voting for the coalition, or sending them their preferences, anyway. Instead, attacking the ABC sent a signal to the people the coalition desperately needed to keep onside — the moderates who already felt disappointed by the coalition’s drift to the right and who were considering voting Teal or for another independent.

Attacking just about the most trusted media outlet in the country simply gave those voters another reason to believe the coalition no longer represented their values.

Reporting from the campaign bus is often derided as shallow form of election coverage. Reporters tend to be captive to a party’s agenda and don’t get to look much beyond a leader’s message.

But there was real value in covering Dutton’s daily stunts and doorstops, often in the outer suburbs that his electoral strategy relied on winning over.

What was revealed by having journalists on the bus was the paucity of policy substance. Details about housing affordability and petrol pricing — which voters desperately wanted to hear — were little more than sound bites.

Steered clear of nuclear sites
This was obvious by Dutton’s second visit to a petrol station, and yet there were another 15 to come. The fact that the campaign bus steered clear of the sites for proposed nuclear plants was also telling.

Dutton has come out this morning to say his biggest regret was not attending more petrol stations. #auspol #ausvotes #qanda #abc730 pic.twitter.com/sbd6GWpElR

— C h r i s @chrishehim.bsky.social (@ChrisHeHim1) May 4, 2025

The grind of daily coverage helped expose the lateness of policy releases, the paucity of detail and the lack of preparation for the campaign, let alone for government.

On ABC TV’s Insiders, the Nine Newspapers’ political editor, David Crowe, wondered whether the media has been too soft on Dutton, rather than too hard as some coalition supporters might assume.

He reckoned that if the media had asked more difficult questions months ago, Dutton might have been stress-tested and better prepared before the campaign began.

Instead, the coalition went into the election believing it would be enough to attack Labor without presenting a fully considered alternative vision. Similarly, it would suffice to appear on friendly media outlets such as News Corp, and avoid more searching questions from the Canberra press gallery or on the ABC.

Reporters and commentators across the media did a reasonable job of exposing this and holding the opposition to account. The scrutiny also exposed its increasingly desperate tactics late in the campaign, such as turning on Welcome to Country ceremonies.

If many Australians appear more interested in what their prospective political leaders have to say about housing policy or climate change than the endless culture wars being waged by the coalition, that message did not appear to have been heard by Peta Credlin.

The Sky News Australia presenter and former chief-of-staff to prime minister Tony Abbott said during Saturday night’s election coverage “I’d argue we didn’t do enough of a culture war”.

Dr Matthew Ricketson is professor of communication, Deakin University and Andrew Dodd  is professor of journalism and director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

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

The Liberal Party in Canada had been massively trailing in the polls. Then it pulled off a victory that seemed impossible just two months ago, largely thanks to one man: President Donald Trump, who repeatedly threatened to make Canada the 51st state. After former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned, former central banker Mark Carney took over as Liberal leader and campaigned as someone willing to stand up to the United States, while painting the opposition Conservatives as too close to a hostile Trump administration. “If you’d asked people around Christmas if the Liberal Party had any chance of forming government in the next election, they would have said, 'Absolutely not,'” says Canadian tech writer and critic Paris Marx, who notes that Carney has quickly moved to weaken some of his party’s more progressive policies and cozy up to tech executives. “So, even though we have a Liberal Party coming to power over a Conservative Party, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things to still be worried about, as we see the way that they might potentially govern.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

During the 2024 presidential election, I, like thousands of committed voters, decided to take a stand. When I was much younger, I believed that the American government was not for the people. I was confused by politics, but I knew what I saw in my community — poverty, police brutality, public schools with inadequate supplies, and markets offering unhealthy products that contributed to the chronic diseases plaguing neighborhood children and elders. I was convinced that the people in charge did not care about us, so I opted out of participating in the voting process.

Eventually, my associates convinced me that no politician would ever truly put our needs first, but that I was obligated to vote regardless. After all, many people had fought and died for the privilege so that I would have the opportunity to do what our ancestors had been denied. The trick, I was told, was to vote for the lesser evil and to then pray to God that the smaller demon would do something, even if just a little. Where I am from, the more trusted option was always a Democrat, so for twenty-five years I dutifully darkened the bubbles next to every Democrat running, without ever having heard of them or the principles upon which they were running. I wanted to know, but quite frankly, it all seemed too overwhelming to comprehend.

Then, on October 7, 2023, Palestinians decided to fight back. I watched in real time with millions of others worldwide as the impending slaughter fell upon them. Video after video forced us to witness infants with detached limbs, shell-shocked children surviving collapsed buildings, and parents on the brink of insanity carrying salvaged body parts of their children in bags. We also witnessed how our politicians — Democrats included — dug in their heels in support of the perpetrators.

I was appalled and distressed. There was absolutely no way that I was going to vote in an election where there was no “lesser evil.” As the campaigns surged on, I became more and more convinced that I needed to sit this one out. It did not matter whether a Republican or a Democrat won. As far as I could tell, both candidates were boastful, condescending, and committed to their billionaire base above all else.

I told my young daughters, who I noticed were becoming increasingly politically involved, what I was planning. They were supportive yet suggested, “You should check out third party candidates though. There are some who you may like.” It turned out that they both were leaning towards the Green Party.

I had heard of the Green Party in passing and even briefly considered voting Green during the 2016 presidential election, but it was too little, too late. This go-around, I had time and a little more confidence to learn so I could make a much more informed decision. I read the Jill Stein/Butch Ware Campaign platform and was immediately on board.

What hooked me were a few things: their stance on the genocide in Gaza and all proxy wars that America is involved in; cash reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans who were imprisoned here for centuries; and most of all, allyship with Indigenous people who continue to be regarded as subhuman by this government.

My family is Afro-Indigenous. My son, Muriyd “Two Clouds” Williams, was an extremely successful water protector and land defender, instrumental in halting a 150-plus-mile oil pipeline which threatened water sources and the environment, and in winning back dozens of acres of stolen land for his people through litigation. Due to his superb leadership, he was targeted, kidnapped, and murdered, and I immediately started two organizations to continue and expand his work.

The Green Party’s platform on honoring Native American lives, rights, and treaties pulled me in. Frankly, Jill and Butch had me at “sovereignty.” I was fighting tooth and nail to convince as many people as possible that this was the party to roll with, because they were promising to act for all citizens and immigrants, too.

Unfortunately, the 2024 election went to a usual suspect, and as we all know, it has all been downhill from there. One would hope that we would learn from this as a nation and finally try another route which would benefit all the people, not just some. Yet sadly we have not. It is politics as usual, with millionaire Democrats ramping up fear tactics through anti-Trump verbiage and a bogus “hands off” campaign.

In the interim, we all are suffering, and none as much as Indigenous people. Therefore, we proclaim: Hands ON regarding all Indigenous people and Nations as sovereign entities! Hands ON honoring all treaty rights and the return of stolen Indigenous lands! Hands ON establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the United States! Hands ON working toward an absolute end to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis! Hands ON expanding funding for health/mental health clinics and Tribal Compact Schools! Hands ON ensuring assistance, safety, and justice to all Indigenous people regardless of government recognition status!

If the United States has a chance of turning itself on its heels to become the “Great” society most of us claim we want it to be, it must fully honor First Nations people, from the inside out. I believe the Green Party is the only political party ready and willing to do so.

The Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA), is an independent political party which stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party’s Four Pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity.

For More Information Please See:

Stein/Ware 2024 Platform, Social Justice, Tribal/Indigenous Sovereignty.

Green Party of the United States Platform, II. Social Justice, 4. Indigenous Peoples.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Mumtahanah Williams-Ansari.

Taiwan and China have repeatedly accused each other of spying, with Taiwan arresting several individuals it claims were recruited by Beijing to gather intelligence or influence public opinion. Beijing typically denies any involvement in espionage activities targeting Taiwan, calling the accusations “groundless” or “politically motivated.”

Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s president and chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, announced Wednesday that all party members must now report in advance and submit a follow-up report if they travel to China or have contact with individuals linked to the Chinese government.

“Any betrayal of the party’s core values for personal gain must be met with strict disciplinary action and the harshest legal consequences,” Lai told the party’s weekly meeting.

In addition to the requirement to report China visits, Lai also issued measures such as enhanced internal education for party members to strengthen awareness of national security and legal responsibilities. He also demanded stricter oversight of legislative and local council aides, with party caucuses tasked with developing specific protocols and training programs.

The moves follow recent Chinese espionage cases against the DPP.

According to Taiwan’s law enforcement, a current presidential adviser and a former foreign ministry staffer are accused of working together to help DPP members recruited by China gather classified information, including details of Taiwan’s president and vice president’s official visits to diplomatic allies.

Apart from that, a former DPP aide at the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament, is suspected of receiving cash and cryptocurrency from Chinese intelligence agencies while abroad. He is reported to have provided classified information from the Legislative Yuan.

“The DPP is a natural target for infiltration,” Lai said of the cases, pointing out that in recent years, some former party officials dramatically shifted their stance on national sovereignty after leaving office, which he sees as a reflection of China’s long-term infiltration efforts.

Ho Cheng-Hui, the deputy secretary-general of Taiwan National Security Institute, said that conventional espionage cases involve top-tier officials such as a military general or a higher-up government official, but in Taiwan’s recent cases, political aides have become a primary target.

With access to sensitive information, government officials are now potential risks, said Ho, adding that the administration’s new measures are a step in the right direction, but “much broader reforms are still needed.”

“Strict control over classified documents should be enforced, ensuring that only authorized individuals – ideally just one person – can view such materials,” Ho told Radio Free Asia.

“Aides or secretaries should not be allowed access. Additionally, regular audits and random inspections should be implemented,” said Ho, highlighting the need for comprehensive background checks and access control based on security clearance.

Ho also stressed the importance of “preventive measures.”

“Focusing solely on punishment after incidents occur often means the damage has already been done,” he explained.

Taiwan’s Premier Cho Jung-tai said Thursday the government will strengthen national security by updating civil servant background checks. A proposal is expected within two weeks, with plans to refine vetting based on access to classified data and introduce regular or random reviews.

China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that must eventually reunite, even by force if necessary, even though the democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.

Beijing views Lai, a pro-independence advocate, as a separatist and has increased military drills, economic pressure, and diplomatic isolation to counter his leadership.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.

Founded in 1994, the Democratic Party was Hong Kong’s first major pro-democracy political force. It emerged from a movement that began in 1982 to oppose any erosion of freedoms from China-U.K. negotiations on the territory’s future.

In February, the party announced plans to disband amid an ongoing political crackdown under two national security laws, though it did not initially cite pressure from Chinese authorities.

But Fred Li, a Democratic Party member and former lawmaker, told the Reuters news agency on Sunday that a Chinese official had informed him the party should be disbanded before the next legislative elections in December.

Li was among five senior Democratic Party members who said they had been told in meetings with Chinese officials or individuals linked to Beijing in recent months that the party should close, Reuters reported.

Radio Free Asia has not been able to independently verify the report.

The report came on the same day the party held a special members’ meeting and passed a motion authorizing its Central Committee to proceed with the disbandment.

“I hope Hong Kong’s political parties will continue to work for the people,” Party Chairman Lo Kin-hei told reporters at the party’s headquarters.

“We have always hoped to serve the Hong Kong people and to do things that are good for society.”

The party is now seeking legal and accounting professionals to carry out its liquidation. Any remaining assets will be donated to local organizations working for the betterment of Hong Kong, according to party rules.

Lo didn’t specify when the dissolution would be complete, only indicating that it could happen later this year or possibly next year.

(Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

The political crackdown has already resulted in the dissolution of the Civic Party. It was disbanded in May 2023 after its lawmakers were barred from running for reelection in the wake of the 2020 National Security Law.

The pro-democracy youth activist party Demosisto disbanded in June 2020.

The government has blamed several waves of pro-democracy protests in recent years on “foreign forces” trying to instigate a democratic revolution in Hong Kong.

Recent electoral changes ensure that almost nobody in the city’s once-vibrant opposition camp will stand for election again. Dozens of pro-democracy figures have been jailed and rule changes require political vetting for candidates.

Pro-democracy candidates who stood for the last directly elected district council attracted record turnout and won a landslide victory - widely seen as a ringing public endorsement of the 2019 protest movement.

Turnout plummeted in the first Legislative Council election after the rule change and Chief Executive John Lee was given the top job after running unopposed.

Since Beijing imposed two national security laws that banned public opposition and dissent in the city, and blamed “hostile foreign forces” for the resulting protests, hundreds of thousands have fled. The territory has plummeted in human rights rankings, press freedom has shrunk and government propaganda is now widespread in schools.

Hong Kong denies entry of UK politician

Reports of Chinese pressure on Hong Kong’s Democratic Party emerged just days after media outlets revealed that U.K. Liberal Democrat member of parliament Wera Hobhouse had been denied entry to the city during a family visit to meet her newborn grandson.

The British government expressed “serious concern” over the incident after Hobhouse said she was detained at the airport, questioned, had her passport confiscated, and was sent back to the U.K. without explanation.

She is believed to be the first British MP barred from entering Hong Kong since the 1997 handover.

As a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, Hobhouse believes her political role was the reason.

“Until now, I think there had been a diplomatic understanding that we might have different values, different political ideas, but there is some sort of basic rule in which we allow politicians into each other’s countries, and that sort of understanding seems to be collapsing,” she said in an interview with BBC’s Newscast.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, called on the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, to summon the Chinese ambassador and provide a full explanation. Lammy said he will raise the “deeply concerning” incident with authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.

Legal experts and Māori advocates say the fight to protect Te Tiriti is only just beginning — as the controversial Treaty Principles Bill is officially killed in Parliament.

The bill — which seeks to redefine the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi — sparked a nationwide hīkoi and received more than 300,000 written submissions — with 90 percent of submitters opposing it.

Parliament confirmed the voting down of the bill yesterday, with only ACT supporting it proceeding further.

• READ MORE: The Treaty Principles Bill : Here’s what’s in it
• The Regulatory Standards Bill: What you need to know
• What you need to know about Māori wards
• Māori ward councillors prepare for election and referendum

The ayes were 11, and the noes 112.

Riana Te Ngahue, a young Māori lawyer whose bite-sized breakdowns of complex issues — like the Treaty Principles Bill — went viral on social media, said she was glad the bill was finally gone.

“It’s just frustrating that we’ve had to put so much time and energy into something that’s such a huge waste of time and money. I’m glad it’s over, but also disappointed because there are so many other harmful bills coming through — in the environment space, Oranga Tamariki, and others.”

Most New Zealanders not divided
Te Ngahue said the Justice Committee’s report — which showed 90 percent of submitters opposed the bill, 8 percent supported it, and 2 percent were unstated in their position — proved that most New Zealanders did not feel divided about Te Tiriti.

“If David Seymour was right in saying that New Zealanders feel divided about this issue, then we would’ve seen significantly more submissions supporting his bill.

“He seemed pretty delusional to keep pushing the idea that New Zealanders were behind him, because if that was true, he would’ve got a lot more support.”

However, Te Ngahue said it was “wicked” to see such overwhelming opposition.

“Especially because I know for a lot of people, this was their first time ever submitting on a bill. That’s what I think is really exciting.”

She said it was humbling to know her content helped people feel confident enough to participate in the process.

“I really didn’t expect that many people to watch my video, let alone actually find it helpful. I’m still blown away by people who say they only submitted because of it — that it showed them how.”

Te Ngahue said while the bill was made to be divisive there had been “a huge silver lining”.

“Because a lot of people have actually made the effort to get clued up on the Treaty of Waitangi, whereas before they might not have bothered because, you know, nothing was really that in your face about it.”

“There’s a big wave of people going ‘I actually wanna get clued up on [Te Tiriti],’ which is really cool.”

‘Fight isn’t over’
Māori lawyer Tania Waikato, whose own journey into social media advocacy empowered many first-time submitters, said she was in an “excited and celebratory” mood.

“We all had a bit of a crappy summer holiday because of the Treaty Principles Bill and the Regulatory Standards Bill both being released for consultation at the same time. A lot of us were trying to fit advocacy around summer holidays and looking after our tamariki, so this feels like a nice payoff for all the hard mahi that went in.”

She said the “overwhelming opposition” sent a powerful message.

“I think it’s a clear message that Aotearoa as a whole sees Te Tiriti as part of this country’s constitutional foundation. You can’t just come in and change that on a whim, like David Seymour and the ACT Party have tried to do.

“Ninety percent of people who got off their butt and made a submission have clearly rejected the divisive and racist rhetoric that party has pushed.”

Despite the win, she said the fight was far from over.

“If anything, this is really just beginning. We’ve got the Regulatory Standards Bill that’s going to be introduced at some point before June. That particular bill will do what the Treaty Principle’s Bill was aiming to do, but in a different and just more sneaky way.

‘The next fight’
“So for me, that’s definitely the next fight that we all gotta get up for again.”

Waikato, who also launched a petition in March calling for the free school lunch programme contract to be overhauled, said allowing the Treaty Principles Bill to get this far in the first place was a “waste of time and money.”

“Its an absolutely atrocious waste of taxpayers dollars, especially when we’ve got issues like the school lunches that I am advocating for on the other side.”

“So for me, the fight’s far from over. It’s really just getting started.”

ACT Party leader David Seymour continued to defend the Treaty Principles Bill during its second reading on Thursday, and said the debate over the treaty’s principles was far from over.

After being the only party to vote in favour of the bill, Seymour said not a single statement had grappled with the content of the bill — despite all the debate.

Asked if his party had lost in this nationwide conversation, he said they still had not heard a good argument against it.

‘We’ll never give up on equal rights.”

He said there were lots of options for continuing, and the party’s approach would be made clear before the next election

Eyes on local elections – ActionStation says the mahi continues
Community advocacy group ActionStation’s director Kassie Hartendorp, who helped spearhead campaigns like “Together for Te Tiriti”, said her team was feeling really positive.

“It’s been a lot of work to get to this point, but we feel like this is a very good day for our country.”

At the end of the hīkoi mō Te Tiriti, ActionStation co-delivered a Ngāti Whakaue rangatahi led petition opposing the Treaty Principles Bill, with more than 290,000 signatures — the second largest petition in Aotearoa’s history.

They also hosted a live watch party for the bill’s second reading on Facebook, joined by Te Tiriti experts Dr Carwyn Jones and Tania Waikato.

Hartendorp said it was amazing to see people from all over Aotearoa coming together to reject the bill.

“It’s no longer a minority view that we should respect, but more and more and more people realise that it’s a fundamental part of our national identity that should be respected and not trampled every time a government wants to win power,” she said.

Looking to the future, Hartendorp said Thursday’s victory was only one milestone in a longer campaign.

Why people fought back
“There was a future where this bill hadn’t gone down — this could’ve ended very differently. The reason we’re here now is because people fought back.

“People from all backgrounds and ages said: ‘We respect Te Tiriti o Waitangi.’

“We know it’s essential, it’s a part of our history, our past, our present, and our future. And we want to respect that together.”

Hartendorp said they were now gearing up to fight against essentially another version of the Treaty Principles Bill — but on a local level.

“In October, people in 42 councils around the country will vote on whether or not to keep their Māori ward councillors, and we think this is going to be a really big deal.”

The Regulatory Standards Bill is also being closely watched, Hartendorp said, and she believed it could mirror the “divisive tactics” seen with the Treaty Principles Bill.

“Part of the strategy for David Seymour and the ACT Party was to win over the public mandate by saying the public stands against Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That debate is still on,” she said.

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.

On March 7, Chooma was attacked by ruling United Party for National Development (UPND) supporters while covering a charity event in the southern town of Mazabuka, with police arresting four suspects in connection with the attack, according to a police statement, reviewed by CPJ, and Wave FM Zambia.  

On March 23, Chooma was arrested and detained overnight on charges of “assault occasioning actual bodily harm” after a suspect in his attack lodged a separate complaint against him, the journalist said. Chooma told CPJ that he denied the allegations, which carry a penalty of up to five years in prison.

“The sequence of events suggests that the criminal case against Hope Chooma is an attempt to silence a journalist who spoke out about being assaulted while going about his duties as a reporter,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo in Nairobi. “Authorities should desist from further victimizing Chooma and ensure a credible investigation into the attack on journalists by ruling party supporters is completed.”

A medical report, reviewed by CPJ, noted that Chooma sustained a cut to his neck and shoulder pain. Halobatold CPJ the assailants warned him that they could do anything to him because “[they] are the government.”  

“It’s strange a cadre is claiming to have been assaulted when the correct position is that they were the aggressors,” Luckson Hamooya, president of the Mazabuka Press Club, told CPJ.

CPJ has previously documented UPND members and supporters raiding media houses and assaulting journalists. 

CPJ’s calls to UPND and government spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa and police spokesperson Rae Hamoonga went unanswered.

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

The surveys, conducted among Democrats and Independents who lean Democratic, find that voters want a party leadership focused on fighting back against Trump and advocating for working-class Americans.

A strong majority of Democratic voters (61%) say Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is not doing enough to oppose Trump, and 51% believe he lacks a clear, long-term strategy. After reading about Schumer’s vote in favor of the Republican spending bill, a majority (51%) of Democratic voters believe Senate Democrats should select a new leader, compared to just 34% who think Schumer should remain in his role.

"Democratic voters are sending a clear message: they want leaders who will fight Trump and put working people first,” said Danielle Deiseroth, Executive Director of Data for Progress. “The base is tired of weak opposition and business-as-usual politics. This level of discontent is unsustainable for a Party looking to build back in the wake of major losses — at a certain point, Democratic leaders will need to show voters that they are taking a stronger stance against Trump, or step aside for someone who will.”

Additional key findings:

• Democratic voters are divided on who they believe leads the party, with 17% naming Vice President Kamala Harris, followed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (15%), former President Barack Obama (15%), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (11%), and "no one" (11%).

• 66% of Democratic voters prefer a Senate leader who will fight harder against Trump and the Republican agenda, while only 14% prioritize bipartisan compromise.
• By a +44-point margin, Democratic voters support older leaders retiring to make way for the next generation.
• Democratic voters overwhelmingly support funding programs like health care and housing, even if it increases the deficit (63%-34%), and prioritize fighting for the working class over corporate interests.
• While Democratic voters strongly support legal challenges (81%), public engagement, and voter registration drives to oppose Trump, they are less supportive of tactics such as interrupting major Republican speeches.

.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Since Maia Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) came to power in 2021, political pluralism and freedom of speech in the country have essentially ceased to exist. Against the backdrop of rapidly rising prices and poverty levels, the Moldovans began to hold mass protests demanding the government resignation. The authorities responded by shutting down a number of television channels and electronic media outlets under the pretext that they allegedly were spreading pro-Russian propaganda and provoking contradictions within the state. Later, a “hunt” for undesirable politicians and a fight against opposition parties began in the republic. Thus, in 2023, at the request of the government, Moldova’s Constitutional Court declared the Șor Party unconstitutional, and in May 2024, the country’s Justice Ministry asked a Chisinau court to place restrictions on political activities by the Chance Political Party.

After the constitutional referendum was held on the same day as the presidential election in 2024, tensions within the country grew even deeper. Sandu was accused of intending to use the plebiscite to save her declining popularity amid the economic crisis and protests. According to the results of the referendum on EU membership, 50.35% supported the amendments; however, some opposition parties did not recognize the results of the vote. The dissatisfaction of Sandu’s opponents was also facilitated by the results of the presidential elections, which Party of Socialists of Moldova(PSRM) called dishonest and undemocratic, pointing to the unreasonable reduction of polling stations, blocking voters’ access to ballot drop boxes, as well as cases of falsification.

Moldova is currently positioning itself as a democratic and liberal country. However, is this actually true? Numerous arrests of activists, the suspension of broadcasting of television channels as well as blocking of dozens of information sources that have opinions different from those of the government – does not all this indicate a complete elimination of freedom of speech and pluralism in the country? Moreover, the presence of a single “correct” opinion within the divided Moldovan society could lead to a situation where part of the population begins to turn towards a more extreme and radical opposition, prepared to engage in conflict with the current authorities. Thus, with its actions, Sandu’s team is paving the way for the emergence of far-right political parties in the country, similar to Alternative for Germany and Freedom Party of Austria. Increase in the number of such parties could lead to instability not only at the local level, but could also completely undermine the already fragile political situation within the EU. In this scenario, the prospects for cooperation between Europe and the United States would become even more dim.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Rom Cretu.

Such high-level visits are not unusual given Hanoi’s close ties with those fellow ASEAN countries. But what’s striking about this tour is that Lam, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), is playing the top diplomat role, normally the duty of the president or prime minister.

By doing this, Lam has made clear that he sees the CPV’s most powerful post as having executive functions in the party-state never taken on by his predecessors, who were focused on policy and ideology.

(Bay Ismoyo/AFP)

Lam, as minister of public security, weaponized counter-corruption investigations to systematically remove rivals from the CPV Politburo from December 2022 to mid-2024, culminating in his election as president in May 2024.

Following the death of the longtime CPV General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in July 2024, state President Lam was elevated to the top party spot.

Some observers believe Lam tried to hold onto the presidency, but that was seen as an unacceptable accumulation of power that violated Vietnam’s norm of collective leadership.

He relinquished the presidency and in October 2024, Luong Cuong was appointed to replace him.

Cuong, who served as the Army’s top political commissar, was viewed as an institutional check on the growing clout of the Ministry of Public Security within the CPV’s senior ranks.

Tightening his grip

But Lam has clearly consolidated power since then.

He has been able to install key allies in critically important positions.

These include Luong Tam Quang who succeeded him as minister of public security, and another deputy, Nguyen Duy Ngoc from the Central Committee office.

Le Minh Hung heads the VPV’s organization Commission, which makes him the de facto head of human resources for the party, a key position ahead of the next five-year party congress in January.

Rounding out Lam’s inner circle are deputy prime minister Nguyen Hoa Binh; Do Van Chien, former head of the Supreme Court who heads the party’s mass mobilization arm, the Vietnam Fatherland Front; and foreign policy guru Le Hoai Trung, now Lam’s chief of staff.

(Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters)

Lam has put his loyalists on an expanded CPV Politburo, which at its nadir last year, due to forced retirements, had just 13 members. Ngoc was elevated to the Politburo in violation of party rules that require having served a full term on the Central Committee.

Politburo expansion matters for another reason: The norm is that no more than 50% of the politburo gets replaced at a party congress. Expanding the top decision-making body gives Lam more maneuvering room to retire any remaining rivals.

Reinforcing his power is his de facto control of the Ministry of Public Security through his protégé Luong Tam Quang. And his recent installation of former security deputy Ngoc as the head of the CPV’s Central Inspection Commission, the party corruption watchdog, has expanded his ability to weaponize counter-corruption investigations.

In short, anyone within the Central Committee who poses a threat or presents a challenge to Lam ahead of the 14th Congress in January is likely to face legal jeopardy. Central Committee compliance at the party congress is expected to be high.

RELATED STORIES

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EXPLAINED: Top leader To Lam plans to redraw Vietnam’s provincial lines

Supreme confidence

We have seen just how secure Lam is going into the Congress. Normally, decision-making and policy implementation crawls to a standstill in the year preceding a Congress.

Yet, this year we have seen unprecedented policy implementation in the form of a major government restructuring that eliminated five government ministries, three state-level commissions, and cut over 100,000 public sector jobs.

The reforms are impacting the provinces too, with a proposed consolidation of smaller provinces and the proposed elimination of all district level offices.

Leaders rarely embark on such bold policies if their re-election is in doubt.

Lam is very concerned about Vietnam falling into the middle income trap, and worries about bureaucratic inefficiency, and is acting with added urgency.

(Nhac Nguyen/AFP)

The general secretary is a very different figure than his predecessor.

With the exception of a four year stint as chairman of the National Assembly, Trong’s six decade-long career was spent within the party, and almost all of that as a theoretician.

As the party’s top ideologue, Trong’s job was to “set the line” for policy.

Lam is doing something fundamentally different, turning the general secretary into an executive position.

He’s not just setting the bookends in which policy can be deliberated, he’s proactively leading policy, formulation, and implementation.

Lam may have been forced to cede the presidency last September, but there is no doubt that he is the top diplomat.

State-led capitalism

For eight years, Lam was the party’s top enforcer and defender of its monopoly of power, but he was no ideologue. Communism was simply a means to an end.

There is a shrewd, ruthless pragmatism to Lam who sees CPV legitimacy coming from economic performance.

Vietnam, under his tenure, is likely to remain every bit as authoritarian, but operate more in the mold of state-led capitalism.

Lam has clearly looked to China’s supreme leader Xi Jinping for selective inspiration.

At the 14th Congress, he may push again for the general secretary post and the presidency to be conjoined, as in China.

Lam has systematically removed rival factions, and surrounded himself with a small core of empowered loyalists.

But most of all, like Xi, he sees himself as the man of the moment, the only person capable of taking on needed structural reforms, while maintaining the party’s monopoly of power.

And as Xi ran the tables at the 20th Congress in October 2022, Lam is poised to do the same at the CPV’s 14th.

What could make this possible, is the way that Lam has reinvented the position of general secretary, assuming executive functions, in a way that none of his predecessors in the Doi Moi era have.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by commentator Zachary Abuza.

The termination of RFA’s grant is a reward to dictators and despots, including the Chinese Communist Party, who would like nothing better than to have their influence go unchecked in the information space. RFA has been foundational in helping U.S. policymakers understand the reality of what’s happening in China and other closed countries, bringing transparency and accountability where there is none. RFA’s breakthrough reporting in Xinjiang led the first Trump Administration to make its declaration of genocide against the Chinese government.

Today’s notice not only disenfranchises the nearly 60 million people who turn to RFA’s reporting on a weekly basis to learn the truth, but it also benefits America’s adversaries at our own expense. We plan to challenge this short-sighted order and pursue whatever means necessary to continue our work and protect our courageous journalists.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA.

Image by Rod Long.

Enough already with the Democrats’ confused disarray in responding to Tyrant Trump’s vicious, illegal destruction of critical federal programs for all Americans so as to favor the insatiable greed and power of the Super-rich and giant corporations. The plutocrats are demanding more tax escapes, corporate welfare, and green lights for lawlessness.

No more excuses for the failing Democratic Party and its contracting out of electoral campaigns to profiteering corporate-conflicted political/media consulting firms

Progressive Congressional Democrats like Al Green, Elizabeth Warren, and Independent Bernie Sanders know exactly what needs to be done to Stop Dangerous Donald and Marauding Musk from their lawless, fascistic overthrow of our government and our Constitution.

First and foremost, House and Senate Democrats can hold UNOFFICIAL public hearings on Capitol Hill, highlighting an all-time winning agenda supported by the citizenry and opposed by the Trumpsters. These are the long-overdue, immensely needed, and widely popular programs abandoned by the corporate Democrats who allowed the disastrous loss last November to the most corrupt, cruel, bigoted, and greedy GOP since its founding in 1854.

To see what I and Mark Green and two dozen civic leaders urged the Democrats to AUTHENTICALLY adopt in 2022 and 2024 (see winningamerica.net and my 2024 book titled Let’s Start the Revolution and The Inflection Election by Mark Green). The following are the election winners:

*Raise the frozen $7.25 federal minimum wage to at least $15 per hour. (Twenty-five million workers would get a long-earned raise.)

*Raise Social Security benefits, frozen for nearly 50 years for over 65 million retirees. Pay for this by lifting the income cap on the social security tax for the rich and super-rich (now at just $176,100).

*Restore the child tax credit by sending $300 a month to over 60 million children, cutting child poverty nearly in half.

*Pay for this and other necessities by raising taxes on the severely undertaxed rich, super-rich, and giant corporations (over half of which pay no federal income taxes). Eighty-five percent of Americans support this tax fairness reform.

*Crack down on corporate crooks and swindlers eating away at the income of hard-pressed workers. We are talking big money stolen from consumers and workers. The polling support for this LAW AND ORDER reform is huge.

There are many more pro-people reforms shelved by the Democrats and their mendacious for-profit consultants. But these initiatives are the “Big Five” that draw overwhelming support from liberal and conservative voters, from Red and Blue States. An unstoppable coalition of political power over their legislators. (See my 2015 book, Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.)

The second parallel wave of UNOFFICIAL hearings could strongly rebut and reject dictator Trump’s cruel and mostly illegal Executive Order Dictates. In her largely feeble and dull response to Trump’s lengthy lying, deceptive, and distracting propaganda show before the U.S. Congress, Senator Elissa Slotkin used the weak words “reckless” and “chaotic” to describe Trump’s lying boasts. She should have called Trump “criminally insane” and “knowingly homicidal.” Trump’s vicious actions are harming many Americans and desperately poor people abroad.

The Trump/Musk Axis of Evil is knowingly leaving Americans defenseless by strip-mining programs dealing with pandemics, climate violence, toxic pollutants, unsafe air and surface transportation, and contaminated food, water, and air here at home. Abroad, cutting the lifelines of AIDS medicines, food supplements to near-starving children, and other emergency American help, long supported by previous Republican and Democratic Presidents, brings arrogant glee to these GOP gangsters. One new, obsolete aircraft carrier costs taxpayers more than the vital work of dismantled federal agencies.

Senator Schumer’s choice of Senator Slotkin (D-MI) to present the Party’s response shows that he has not learned anything from his self-inflicted losses to the GOP. It would have been far more popular and persuasive to have Senator Sanders or Senator Warren make the specific, devastating case against the vengeful, scapegoating, egomaniacal, delusional Trump.

Slotkin, a former CIA employee, used her 10 minutes of fame to be self-promoting and repeated the vague affirmations behind “the middle class” (of course, no mention of the vast poor), “national security,” and “economic security.” Like so many of the Democratic politicians, she just couldn’t get herself to be specific, as with the aforementioned Big Five, which, after all, are just updates of the successful New Deal policies under Roosevelt and Truman.

Letters decrying another lost opportunity for the Democrats to unmask the Trump Dump rising in Washington, DC poured into the newspapers. The Washington Post published many of them. One writer wanted this to be said: “Resign, Mr. President, Resign and you’ll hear a thunderous ovation.” A long-time Republican, Grant Grissom, took this a broader step forward by paying for a full-page ad in the New York Times on March 2, 2025, titled “A PLEA FOR DONALD TRUMP TO RESIGN” and presented cogent reasons for not waiting for Impeachment. (Grant Grissom: trumptimetoresign@gmail.com).

To conclude where I began: Democrats hold regular UNOFFICIAL hearings, which will get good mass media coverage and reach millions of registered voters who are increasingly indignant over what is being taken from them. If the Democrats stand with the fast-growing resistance by the people, they can stop the Trump madness and save what is left of our democracy.

The post Democratic Party Leaders – Get Tough! appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ralph Nader.

The post Why the Corporate Party Won’t Last Forever appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Pete Dolack.

On March 12, 1934, employees of the Civil Works Administration (CWA), a New Deal project designed for job creation to alleviate symptoms of the Great Depression, initiated a strike after facing a reduction in wages. Projects involving the CWA around Utica were put to a screeching halt when a reported 2,000 workers out of 2,500 organized to protest their wages being cut from fifty cents an hour to forty cents, in addition to a reduction of their weekly hours from thirty hours a week to twenty-four. The following day, between 600 and 700 workers representing the strike embarked on a march through the city headed for the office the city’s CWA director’s office. The goal of this march was simply to speak with the program’s director, one Howard Graburn, and demand “a square deal.” Seven workers, part of a “grievance committee,” met with Graburn. As stated at this meeting:

They told him they could not live on $9.60 a week, the amount to be provided on the basis of an order last week from Washington. Until that order came, the men hard earned $15 a week.

The CWA strike shares similarities with several other strikes before, during, and after it in that the police immediately labeled the workers as agitators and demonized their fight as one based on violent tactics. Then-Police Chief Timothy D. McCarthy even believed the idea that the workers were going to the director’s office to “tear the building down.” McCarthy even went as far as sending an emergency squad to the CWA office where one Captain Denis Jankiewicz urged the office to dismiss clerical staff and put the building under lockdown. Jankiewicz’s suggestion was rejected by Chester Smith, the associate director of the Utica office. Of course, this wasn’t the case. The march went off without a single reported incident of violence or use of inflammatory, agitative rhetoric. Patrick McCabe, one of the leaders of this strike, asserted that there would be no violence on the part of him or his fellow workers.

McCabe was integral in providing a voice for his disgruntled comrades. As one of the leaders he signed highly important telegrams sent out to the heads of the CWA in both Washington and New York State. According to one paper, the telegrams go as follows:

The several hundred employees of the CWA here in Utica have quietly left their work and have protested the cut in wages and hours because the same is not keeping up with the spirit of this work as directed by our noble president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

We ask that we be given thirty hours a week and fifty cents an hour which was paid at the beginning of this work.

Accusations of violence from the police here parallel the experiences of striking workers during the Little Falls Textile Strike of 1912-1913. Despite assertions from figures in the strike such as George R. Lunn, Helen Schloss, and several others for the strikers to utilize non-violent tactics in their fight, the police continuously painted the strikers and their supporters in the Socialist Party of America (SPA) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) as agitators who would only bring violence to Little Falls. The strikers faced constant accusations of violence and disruptiveness, but several accounts show that any violence was instigated by the police and the privately hired deputies brought in by the mill owners.

CWA workers in Utica held further grievances with the fact that the white-collar sector of the CWA offices were spared from the cuts that the blue-collar sector faced. A textbook example of classism, leaders of the Utica protests presented a demand for the publication of the names and salaries of the clerical staff who for some reason weren’t thrown into the same perils that they were.

Part of what makes the CWA strikers’ plight so intriguing is that it held valley-wide and national implications. According to one paper, when the strikers presented their issues to Graburn, the director announced that: “…all the strikers might return to work in the morning with the exception of 200 who had been working on protecting walls in a creek project.”

Though they reportedly were spared from these cuts branches of the CWA in the nearby towns of New York Mills, Whitesboro, and Yorkville told McCabe that there was serious consideration to initiate a “sympathy strike” in solidarity with their fellow workingmen. This proposed sympathy strike wouldn’t end up materializing, but the threat of a mass uprising of workers in the Mohawk Valley was present even if only for a very brief period. In the same vein, workers in numerous other cities throughout the country went on strike due to these cuts coming from the federal level. One article highlights strikes in Boston, Massachusetts, in addition to both Bristol and Allenton, Pennsylvania with various motivations, ranging from demanding a return to their previous wages to the reinstating of laid off workers.

Just two days after flooding the streets of Utica, the CWA workers’ demands were officially met on Wednesday the 14th, at least partially. One article from The Daily Sentinel in Rome states that the Utica workers would be regaining both their fifty cents an hour and their thirty-hour workweek, however this is only mentioned in part of the article’s title. Two pieces from The Glens Falls Times point only to the return to the fifty cents. One piece from the paper has no mention of a return to thirty hours, and one published on March 15 states that although the pay would return to normal, the hours would not. Despite the apparent compromise basically thrusted upon the workers, McCabe was met with a roaring applause when he announced to his comrades that they would be able to return to work on Thursday with their original wages.

The Civil Works Administration program would be retired at the end of March, meaning that in retrospect the fight of those in Utica only seemed to delay the inevitable. That being said though, the strike is still of great significance in that it exemplifies the power of organized labor in defending the interests of the working class, in addition to shedding light on the radical history of the Mohawk Valley. May we be inspired by history and use this history of struggle to help us understand how to approach the problems of our day.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by J.N. Cheney.

Onto the Democrats. Factor out but a minor percentage of both their legislators and supporters and you have a party of pragmatists. This writer’s definition of a pragmatist is the guy standing in front of the firing squad asking for a blindfold. The leaders of this party believe all that matters is to get out and vote… nothing more… oh sorry, except to send donations. Let’s go back to 2006 when, during the height of the Bush-Cheney ( or is it Cheney-Bush?). The Cabal’s phony war and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Democrats took over the House of Representatives. Rep. John Conyors, he of the Judiciary Committee, had promised a year or so earlier “Once we take over the House and I am chair of the Judiciary Committee, we are going to have major hearings on the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.” Then, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave the order that “The hearings are OFF the table.” Bye Bye all chances of holding the Cabal responsible for, in my 70+ years of existence, the equally horrific foreign policy act by my nation as the Vietnam War!

So, in my little hamlet of Port Orange, Florida, population at the time of around 60,000, we organized weekly street corner demonstrations against the Iraq invasion and occupation. We stayed at it from before the 2004 presidential election right up until Obama became the candidate in 2008. Once he was the front runner of his party, the 25-30 folks we had on that corner each Tuesday at rush hour now became three or four of us stalwarts. The BS Democratic Party mouthpiece MoveOn.org refused to get behind  regular street demonstrations. No, now it was time to spend all energy in getting Barack elected. Meanwhile, many of us on what is called The True Left wanted Medicare for All. Mr. Obama said he liked the idea of a Public Option, which in essence was just that in a more pragmatic (here we go again) manner. Then, when Obama was out receiving campaign donations of $21+ million vs. $7+ million  for John McCain from the Health Care and Insurance Industries, he changed course. No public option on the table for his Bully Pulpit. Just the Affordable Care Act, another (here we go again) pragmatic program, which helped stop some of the bleeding but not the cause of the wound.

Bill Clinton gave us the Welfare Reform Act which made those folks in dire need feel like interlopers inside the empire. He and his wife really screwed up any idea for Medicare for All, didn’t they as well? You see, those who walk the line between doing good and doing what the empire wants always fall on their faces… or rather their supporters do. Thus, Obama as President during the middle of the terrible Sub Prime Crisis left it up to his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to run his “best and the brightest” meetings while Barack went home to dinner with his family. Emanuel twisted arms and came up with more TARP money gifts to the Wall Street predators, instead of what Ralph Nader and many conservatives and progressives demanded: Putting the toxic Wall Street companies into Receivership. Uncle Sam could have paid pennies on the dollar for those shitty assets, and then sold them to highest bidders down the road.

When it came to the phony Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Obama and his party leadership did squat about the lies and misinformation the Cabal issued to justify those invasions and occupations. We are still suffering as a nation from that mess. Now we have Trump 2.0 or shall I say Trump-Musk 1 and what will the pragmatists on the other side of the aisle finally do? Will they push out all those empire serving hypocrites from their party and rally Americans for real, viable change? Kamala Harris actually took in more money from the big donors and still lost the election. Her party’s leaders and their lemmings said it was because she was a woman and of mixed race (wasn’t Obama mixed race?). No, she lost because Kamala kept dancing to the same Neocon tune that Sleepy Joe sang to. Working stiffs nationwide could not see any difference between her and Trump 2.0. Harris, Biden, the Clintons, Obama et al. forgot what FDR accomplished to save the Capitalism that they all love, by sticking it to the Super Rich with his New Deal. Because of their failings we can today see how Trump and his party are pushing us back in time to that glorious Gilded Age and 21st Century Feudal America.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Philip A. Faruggio.

“It is a decision that we made based on our understanding of the overall political environment,” Chairman Lo Kin-hei told journalists following a meeting of the party’s central committee on Thursday.

“Developing democracy in Hong Kong is always difficult, and it’s been especially difficult in the past few years,” Lo told reporters in the party’s headquarters, adding: “This is not what we wanted to see.”

Lo said he hoped that Hong Kong would return to the values ​​of “diversity, tolerance and democracy” that were the cornerstones of the city’s past success.

The move is widely seen as the symbolic end of any formal political opposition in Hong Kong, where critics of the authorities can face prosecution under security legislation brought in to quell dissent in the wake of the 2019 protests.

It follows repeated calls for the party’s dissolution in Chinese Communist Party-backed media like the Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po.

The news came just weeks after a court in Hong Kong sentenced 45 democratic politicians and activists to jail terms of up to 10 years for “subversion” after they took part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.

The ongoing political crackdown has already seen the dissolution of the Civic Party, which disbanded in May 2023 after its lawmakers were barred from running for re-election in the wake of the 2020 National Security Law.

The pro-democracy youth activist party Demosisto disbanded in June 2020.

‘That light has faded’

Lo said the disbandment couldn’t go ahead without a vote from a general meeting attended by 75% of the party’s members.

He said he will chair a three-person working group to handle the process following what he called a “collective decision” by the Central Committee.

Lo declined to comment on reports that party members had been harassed or threatened by people acting as messengers for the Chinese government. He said the party wasn’t in financial difficulty.

Founding party member Fred Li said the Democratic Party had “done its duty and shone its light on Hong Kong.”

“But we can see today that that light has faded,” Li said in comments reported by the Hong Kong Free Press.

(Anthony Wallace/AFP)

Taiwan-based bookseller Lam Wing-kei, who was detained in mainland China for selling banned political books from Hong Kong, said there was “no point in pretending” that there is still any room for political opposition under Chinese rule.

“This is the total end of party politics in Hong Kong,” Lam told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Friday. “There’s no way the Communist Party is going to allow an opposition party to carry on existing. Under their rule, nobody else is allowed a voice.”

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He said he worries that Beijing’s attention may now focus on moves to destroy democracy in Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, nor formed part of the People’s Republic of China.

“The pace could accelerate in the next few years,” he said of Chinese infiltration in Taiwan.

Taiwan-based Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong said the party had played a hugely important role in the development of Hong Kong’s democracy before the current crackdown.

“Its founder Martin Lee and the kind of values he ​​represented embodied the attitudes of many Hong Kong people towards freedom and democracy -- they were pretty moderate,” Wong said.

(Anthony Wallace/AFP)

He said its death would mark the end of democratic party politics in Hong Kong.

“The Democratic Party was once the most important party when it came to gauging public opinion, so its death actually represents the ultimate death of public opinion [as a political force] in Hong Kong,” Wong said.

‘We must be vigilant’

He said fears that Hong Kong would become a base for opposition to Chinese Communist Party rule had led Beijing to break its promise that the city could keep its freedoms for 50 years after the 1997 handover.

He warned that Beijing was trying to undermine Taiwan’s democracy by placing its supporters in positions of power, much as it did in Hong Kong.

“Taiwanese people must be vigilant and must not believe the Chinese Communist Party’s promises to Taiwan that it can keep its freedoms if it submits to Beijing’s rule,” Wong said. “We must be vigilant, and we must resist.”

Political commentator Sang Pu said the Democratic Party would never be allowed to field candidates under the current system in Hong Kong.

“A political party that doesn’t run for election has no way to raise funds,” Sang said. “They get rejected [by venues] even when they try to hold party events ... for spurious reasons like chefs getting into a fight or broken water meters.”

“They are being badly suppressed, so at this point it’s probably better to give up,” he said.

Recent electoral reforms now ensure that almost nobody in the city’s once-vibrant opposition camp will stand for election again, amid the jailing of dozens of pro-democracy figures and rule changes requiring political vetting.

The last directly elected District Council, which saw a landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates amid record turnout that was widely seen as a ringing public endorsement of the 2019 protest movement.

The first Legislative Council election after the rule change saw plummeting turnout, while Chief Executive John Lee was given the top job after an “election” in which he was the only candidate.

Since Beijing imposed the two national security laws banning public opposition and dissent in the city and blamed “hostile foreign forces” for the resulting protests, hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet amid plummeting human rights rankings, shrinking press freedom and widespread government propaganda in schools.

The government has blamed several waves of pro-democracy protests in recent years on “foreign forces” trying to instigate a democratic revolution in Hong Kong.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kwong Wing for RFA Cantonese, Wang Yun and Hsia Hsiao-hwa for RFA Mandarin.

Party Chairman Lo Kin-hei told journalists that the topic will be up for discussion at the meeting, describing the topic as “inevitable” in the current climate.

The party’s central committee will also discuss many other matters, including its suggestions ahead of the government’s budget on Feb. 26, Lo told a news conference on Wednesday.

The news came just weeks after a court in Hong Kong sentenced 45 democratic politicians and activists to jail terms of up to 10 years for “subversion” after they took part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.

The ongoing political crackdown has already seen the dissolution of the Civic Party, which disbanded in May 2023 after its lawmakers were barred from running for re-election in the wake of the 2020 National Security Law.

The pro-democracy youth activist party Demosisto disbanded in June 2020.

(Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

Lo has previously suggested that the Democratic Party, which was formed in 1994, should try to hold on despite the threat of being targeted by national security police.

“I have no baggage here,” Lo said. “If we really need to [disband], then we will.”

“I’ve said publicly many times over the past two or three years that if the day comes, we will just have to face up to it.”

Few remaining options

A person familiar with the workings of the party told RFA Cantonese that the Democratic Party can only be formally dissolved after multiple discussions and procedures involving the members and the central committee, and after a general assembly vote with 75% attendance.

Exiled former Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui said there are few options left for his former party.

“I understand that a lot of party members and central committee members are becoming more and more worried about their personal safety,” Hui said. “They run the risk of arrest at any time.”

He said if the party does eventually disband, the move would show “the total destruction of any democratic process in Hong Kong.”

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The government has blamed several waves of pro-democracy protests in recent years on “foreign forces” trying to instigate a democratic revolution in Hong Kong.

Recent electoral reforms now ensure that almost nobody in the city’s once-vibrant opposition camp will stand for election again, amid the jailing of dozens of pro-democracy figures and rule changes requiring political vetting.

The last directly elected District Council, which saw a landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates amid record turnout that was widely seen as a ringing public endorsement of the 2019 protest movement.

The first Legislative Council election after the rule change saw plummeting turnout, while Chief Executive John Lee was given the top job after an “election” in which he was the only candidate.

Since Beijing imposed the two national security laws banning public opposition and dissent in the city and blamed “hostile foreign forces” for the resulting protests, hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet amid plummeting human rights rankings, shrinking press freedom and widespread government propaganda in schools.

‘Not surprised’

Democratic Party founding chairman Martin Lee, who has been dubbed the “father of Hong Kong democracy,” told the Ming Pao newspaper that he hasn’t heard from the central committee on the matter, but that he was “not surprised” by the talk of dissolution.

The Communist Party-backed newspaper Ta Kung Pao said the party was heading for dissolution, accusing it of having “committed many evil deeds over the years.”

“If this political cancer isn’t completely eliminated, it will inevitably endanger national security and bring disaster to Hong Kong,” the paper warned.

The party has survived threatening op-eds before.

A 2022 article in the Ming Pao by Lu Wenduan, who plays a leading role in the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front influence operations, warned that the party would be doomed if it “turns a deaf ear to warnings issued by the Wen Wei Po and the Ta Kung Pao.”

Following the jailing of 45 opposition activists in December 2024, the Wen Wei Po said the party was incompatible with the principle of “patriots ruling Hong Kong,” adding that “disbandment is the only option.”

The party has made some nods toward the new political climate, trying to demonstrate its “patriotism” and and being careful not to run afoul of security laws.

But the calls for its demise haven’t let up.

Party members have received harassing and threatening emails and text messages from people describing themselves as “patriotic, Hong Kong-loving citizens,” Lo told the news conference.

And its attempts to hold fundraising events have been forcibly canceled by venues, likely under pressure from the authorities, putting it under financial strain and limiting the scope of its activities.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Ha Syut and Yam Chi Yau for RFA Cantonese.

More than 400 people have taken to the streets to protest against Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown’s recent decisions, which have led to a diplomatic spat with New Zealand.

The protest, led by Opposition MP and Cook Islands United Party leader Teariki Heather, has taken place outside the Cook Islands Parliament in Avarua — a day after Brown returned from China.

Protesters have come out with placards, stating: “Stay connected with New Zealand.”

• READ MORE:  ‘No areas of concern’, says Cook Islands PM on NZ’s China deal fears
• Cook Islands’ deal with China takes NZ government by surprise
• NZ media in the middle of Asia-Pacific diplomatic drama
• Other Cook islands reports

The protest in Avarua today.    Video: RNZ

Some government ministers have been standing outside Parliament, including Foreign Minister Tingika Elikana.

Heather said he was present at the rally to how how much Cook Islanders cared about the relationship with New Zealand and valued the New Zealand passport.

He has apologised to the New Zealand government on behalf of the Cook Islands government.

Leader of the opposition and Democratic Party leader Tina Browne said she wanted the local passport to be off the table “forever and ever”.

“We have no problem with our government going and seeking assistance,” she said.

“We do have a problem when it is risking our sovereignty, risking our relationship with New Zealand.”

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.

China has confirmed details of its meeting with Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown for the first time, saying Beijing “stands ready to have an in-depth exchange” with the island nation.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters during his regular press conference that Brown’s itinerary, from February 10-16, would include attending the closing ceremony of the Asian Winter Games in Harbin as well as meeting with Premier of the State Council Li Qiang.

Guo also confirmed that Brown and his delegation had visited Shanghai and Shandong as part of the state visit.

• READ MORE: Will New Zealand ‘invade’ the Cook Islands to stop China? Seriously – Eugene Doyle
• Should New Zealand invade the Cook Islands?
• Cook Islands opposition files no-confidence motion against PM
• Cook Islands crisis: Haka with the taniwha or dance with the dragon?
• Explainer: The diplomatic row between New Zealand and the Cook Islands
• Other China in Pacific reports

“The Cook Islands is China’s cooperation partner in the South Pacific,” he said.

“Since the establishment of diplomatic ties, the two countries have respected each other, treated each other as equals, and sought common development.”

Guo told reporters that the relationship between the two countries was elevated to comprehensive strategic partnership in 2018.

“Our friendly cooperation is rooted in profound public support and delivers tangibly to the two peoples.

‘New progress in bilateral relations’
“Through Prime Minister Brown’s visit, China stands ready to have an in-depth exchange of views with the Cook Islands on our relations and work for new progress in bilateral relations.”

Brown said on Wednesday that he was aware of the strong interest in the outcomes of his visit, which has created significant debate on the relationship with Cook Islands and New Zealand.

He has said that the “comprehensive strategic partnership” deal with China is expected to be signed today, and does not include a security component.

While on one hand, the New Zealand government has been urged not to overreact, on the other the Cook Islands opposition want Brown and his government out.

Locals in Rarotonga have accused New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters of being a “bully”, while others are planning to protest against Brown’s leadership.

A local resident, Tim Buchanan, said Peters has “been a bit bullying”.

He said Peters had overacted and the whole issue had been “majorly” blown out of proportion.

‘It doesn’t involve security’
“It does not involve our national security, it does not involve borrowing a shit load of money, so what is your concern about?

“Why do we need to consult him? We have been a sovereign nation for 60 years, and all of a sudden he’s up in arms and wanted to know everything that we’re doing”

Brown previously told RNZ Pacific that he had assured Wellington “over and over” that there “will be no impact on our relationship and there certainly will be no surprises”.

However, New Zealand said it should have seen the text prior to Brown leaving for China.

Vote of no confidence
Cook Islands opposition MP Teariki Heather said he did not want anything to change with New Zealand.

“The response from the government and Winston Peters and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, that’s really what concerns us, because they are furious,” said Heather, who is the leader of Cook Islands United Party.

Heather has filed a no confidence motion against the Prime Minister and has been the main organiser for a protest against Brown’s leadership that will take place on Monday morning local time.

He is expecting about 1000 people to turn up, about one in every 15 people who reside in the country.

Opposition leader Tina Browne is backing the motion and will be at the protest which is also about the Prime Minister’s push for a local passport, which he has since dropped.

With only eight opposition members in the 24-seat parliament, Browne said the motion of no confidence is not about the numbers.

“It is about what are we the politicians, the members of Parliament, going to do about the two issues and for us, the best way to demonstrate our disapproval is to vote against it in Parliament, whether the members of Parliament join us or not that’s entirely up to them.”

The 2001 document argument
Browne said that after reading the constitution and the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration, she agreed with Peters that the Cook Islands should have first consulted New Zealand on the China deal.

“Our prime minister has stated that the agreement does not affect anything that he is obligated to consult with New Zealand. I’m very suspicious of that because if there is nothing offensive, why the secrecy then?

“I would have thought, irrespective, putting aside everything, that our 60 year relationship with New Zealand, who’s been our main partner warrants us to keep that line open for consultation and that’s even if it wasn’t in [the Joint Centenary Declaration].”

Other locals have been concerned by the lack of transparency from their government to the Cook Islands people.

But Cook Islands’ Foreign Minister Tingika Elikana said that is not how these deals were done.

“I think the people have to understand that in regards to agreements of this nature, there’s a lot of negotiations until the final day when it is signed and the Prime Minister is very open that the agreements will be made available publicly and then people can look at it.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the government would wait to see what was in the agreement before deciding if any punishment should be imposed.

With the waiting, Elikana said he was concerned.

“We are worried but we want to see what will be their response and we’ve always reiterated that our relationship is important to us and our citizenship is really important to us, and we will try our best to remain and retain that,” Elikana said.

He did not speculate about the vote of no confidence motion.

“I think we just leave it to the day but I’m very confident in our team and very confident in our Prime Minister.”

‘Cook Islands does a lot for New Zealand’
Cultural leader and carver Mike Tavioni said he did not know why everyone was so afraid of the Asian superpower.

“I do not know why there is an issue with the Cook Islands and New Zealand, as long as Mark [Brown] does not commit this country to a deal with China with strings attached to it,” he said.

Tavioni said the Cook Islands does a lot for New Zealand also, with about 80,000 Cook Islanders living in New Zealand and contributing to it’s economy.

“The thing about consulting, asking for permission, it does not go down well because our relationship with Aotearoa should be taken into consideration.”

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.

A motion of no confidence has been filed against the Prime Minister and his Cabinet following the recent fiasco involving the now-abandoned Cook Islands passport proposal and the comprehensive strategic partnership the country will sign with China this week.

Cook Islands United Party leader Teariki Heather said Prime Minister Mark Brown should apologise to the people and “graciously” step down, or else he would move a no-confidence vote against him in Parliament.

Clerk of Parliament Tangata Vainerere today confirmed that a motion of no confidence has been filed, and he had placed the notice with the MPs.

• READ MORE: China: Cook Islands’ relationship with Beijing ‘should not be restrained’
• Cook Islands crisis: Haka with the taniwha or dance with the dragon?
• Explainer: The diplomatic row between New Zealand and the Cook Islands
• Cook Islands’ diplomatic snub to NZ will be noticed – commentator
• Mark Brown on China deal: ‘No need for NZ to sit in the room with us’
• No debt in China deal – Mark Brown
• Mediawatch: NZ media in the middle of Asia-Pacific diplomatic drama
• Other China in Pacific reports

Parliament will convene for the first time this year next Monday, February 17, to consider various bills and papers, including the presentation of the supplementary budget.

Heather, an Opposition MP, is concerned with Brown’s lack of consultation regarding the passport issue, which the Prime Minister later confirmed was “off the table”, and the China agreement with New Zealand.

New Zealand has raised concerns that it was not properly consulted, as required under their special constitutional arrangement.

However, PM Brown said he had advised them and did not believe the Cook Islands was required to provide the level of detail New Zealand was requesting.

‘Handled the situation badly’
“He [Brown] has handled the situation badly. He has to step down graciously but if he doesn’t, I’m putting in a no confidence vote in Parliament — that’s the bottom line,” Heather told the Cook Islands News.

“I will move that motion and if there’s no support at least I’ve done it, I’ve seen it through.”

Heather also said that he believed the Prime Minister should apologise to the people of the Cook Islands.

“A simple apology, he made a mistake, that’s it.”

Cook Islands News asked the Leader of the Opposition Tina Browne for comment on Heather’s no confidence motion.

Browne on Sunday told PMN that residents were angry, and there was mounting pressure and strong feeling that the PM Brown “should go” (step down).

Backed by cabinet ministers
The Prime Minister has the confidence of his Cabinet Ministers, who are backing their leader and the China agreement, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Tingika Elikana.

Brown is in China on a state visit with his delegation. Yesterday marked the third day of the visit, during which he will oversee the signing of a Joint Action Plan for Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) with China.

He is also expected to meet with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and President Xi Jinping.

The content of the agreement and its signing date remain unknown.

“At this stage, discussions regarding the agreement are still ongoing, and it would be premature to confirm a signing date at this time. However, once there are any formal developments, we will ensure updates are shared through an official MFAI media release,” a spokesperson for the Cook Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration told Cook Islands News.

Public protest march
A public protest march will convene at Parliament House on Monday to challenge the government’s direction for the people of the Cook Islands.

Heather is spearheading the “peaceful” protest march, rallying citizens against PM Brown’s controversial proposal to introduce a Cook Islands passport.

More than 100 people attended Heather’s public meeting last Monday evening at the Aroa Nui Hall to voice their concerns about government’s actions disregarding the voices of the people.

“Do we just sit around no. Te inrinaki nei au e te marama nei kotou te iti tangata,” Heather said.

“We have to do this for the sake of our country. This is not a political protest, it’s people of the Cook Islands uniting to protest, if you understand the consequences, you will understand the reason why.”

Although Brown has since ditched the proposal after New Zealand warned it would require holders to renounce their New Zealand one, “the damage is done”.

This has sparked heated debates about national identity, sovereignty and the implications for the Cook Islands relationship with New Zealand.

Concerns of citizens
Heather has taken onboard the concerns of citizens and argued that such a move could undermine the historical ties and shared citizenship that have long defined the relationship between the Cook Islands and New Zealand.

He has no confidence in Brown’s statement that the proposed Cook Islands identity passport is “off the table”.

“I think it is off the table for now . . .  but for how long?” Heather questioned.

“Then there’s the impact of what he has done with our relationship with New Zealand so we are very much concerned about that.

“We are making a statement. The march is actually to show the government of New Zealand that we the people of the Cook Islands don’t agree with the Prime Minister on that.

“We want New Zealand to see that the people of the Cook Islands – that we love to keep our passport, that we care about our relationship as well.”

Heather said they are also concerned about New Zealand’s reaction to the Cook Islands proposed agreement with China.

‘Peaceful’ protesters welcomed
He welcomes members of the community to join the “peaceful” protest.

On Monday morning, drummers will be located on both sides of Parliament House on the main road.

At 10.45am, the proceedings will start when people start moving towards Parliament. Heather wants all protesters to bring along their New Zealand passports.

Heather would like to remind people not to use dirty language at the protest — “auraka e autara viiviii, don’t bring your dirty laundry . . . ”

First published by the Cook Islands News and republished with permission.

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

But the claim is false. The video was taken at a club in Bangkok, Thailand, in September 2024. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense also said the video was not taken at the ROCS Ma Kong.

The video was shared on X on Jan. 5, 2025.

“New Year’s dance party of Taiwan’s ROCS Ma Kong,” the caption of the video reads.

The 44-second video shows a group of people dressed in what appears to be navy uniforms dancing to music.

(X and YouTube)

ROCS Ma Kong is a Kee Lung-class guided-missile destroyer in active service in Taiwan’s navy.

The Ma Kong has been involved in monitoring and responding to Chinese military activities near Taiwan. For instance, during the Joint Sword-2024A military exercise conducted by China around Taiwan, a Taiwanese sailor aboard the Ma Kong was photographed monitoring the movements of the Chinese destroyer Xian in waters near Taiwan.

In a 2022 incident, a recording featured a voice identifying the vessel as the Ma Kong, warning another ship that it was approaching the outer edge of Taiwan’s contiguous zone, 44.5 kilometers (27.6 miles) from the baseline.

However, the claim about the video taken in Ma Kong is false.

Club in Bangkok

Some X users said in the comment section of the post that the video was taken at a club in Bangkok, named “BEEF.BKK.”

A keyword search found that the club hosted a sailor-themed event in September 2024.

A clip of the event posted by one of the partygoers on Instagram shows that both the ceiling decorations and DJ booth in the club are very similar to those seen in the video posted on X.

(Instagram and X)

A closer look at the video shows people in the video are wearing red bows around their necks, instead of the blue neckerchiefs with two white suns that are a part of standard Taiwanese navy uniforms.

(Taiwan’s Navy Command website and X)

Officials from Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense also dismissed the claim.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu and Dong Zhe for Asia Fact Check Lab.

Sun Chanthy, the president of the Nation Power Party, said that an appeal would “be a loss of time” and not worth the effort.

“I know clearly that the present court is not independent, unjust, gravely corrupted, and does anything according to the order of the government to suppress opposition activists, human rights defenders, unionists, environmental activists, land dispute victims, and independent media,” he wrote from Pursat Provincial Prison.

The two-page letter was dated January 2025, with no specific date. Radio Free Asia confirmed its authenticity with Rong Chhun, an adviser to the party and a longtime labor activist.

Sun Chanthy was arrested in May at Phnom Penh International Airport after returning from meeting Cambodian overseas workers in Japan.

Charges against him stemmed from critical comments he made on social media about the government’s policy on issuing “poverty cards” for the poor to receive free medical treatment or subsidies.

The government said he had “twisted information” to suggest that the cards would only be distributed to those who join the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP.

Sun Chanthy was sentenced by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Dec. 24 to two years in prison for inciting social disorder. He was also hit with a 4 million riel (US$1,000) fine to be paid to the plaintiff –- the government –- and was banned from participating in politics for the rest of his life.

‘Obliterate’ the opposition

The Nation Power Party and Sun Chanthy’s wife condemned the conviction and sentence as politically motivated. His lawyer, Choung Chou Ngy, told reporters just after the sentence was announced that the case lacked strong evidence, adding that he would talk to Sun Chanthy about filing an appeal.

But Sun Chanthy in his letter said that the court was “gravely corrupted” and targeted him because the CPP-led government “wants to obliterate the genuine opposition voice from Cambodia.”

“I am not dispirited since I have already been prepared mentally and physically, and I knew in advance that grave dangers would happen to me since I first entered political struggles for the sake of genuine freedom, justice and democracy in Cambodia, which will not be covered by fresh roses,” he wrote.

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Choung Chou Ngy confirmed to RFA on Tuesday that an appeal won’t be filed.

Neither government spokesperson Pen Bona nor Justice Ministry spokesperson Chin Malin could be reached for comment on Tuesday.

The Nation Power Party was formed in 2023 after the main opposition Candlelight Party was prevented from competing in that year’s general election.

Just days before Sun Chanthy’s conviction in December, the party was forced to move out of its Phnom Penh headquarters after the landlord was threatened by local authorities.

Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Khmer.

"This moment demands a Democratic Party that provides more than just reactive opposition to an administration bent on rigging our economic and political systems in favor of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals on Earth. It demands leaders who put the party’s grassroots base ahead of the donor class and articulate a real vision that rejects Donald Trump’s corporate rule—starting with renouncing corporate money themselves.

"Unfortunately, Democratic leadership is failing disastrously to meet this urgent mandate. Ahead of tonight’s forum, the DNC is actively working to silence rank-and-file Democratic activists and base voters calling for a ban on dark money in primaries and the rejection of corporate funding. In a last-minute move, they shut the event off from the public and even deliberately shared the wrong address for where grassroots supporters are allowed to gather.

"Voters—and all Americans—deserve better than two corporate-controlled parties. The election of the next DNC Chair will shape the opposition to Trump’s second term, and we are already seeing glaring red flags from party leaders who are unwilling to part with the ways of the past that ushered in four more years of a would-be tyrant.”

In the weeks following Donald Trump’s November election win, Our Revolution announced the collection of more than 10,000 petition signatures from active grassroots Democratic volunteers, donors, and local and state party leaders demanding widespread reform of the Democratic National Committee. The petition, which was first reported by POLITICO Playbook, specifically calls for Democratic Party leaders to:

• Ban dark money in primaries and reject corporate money
• Invest in state parties and uplift grassroots organizing
• Make the DNC budget transparent and hold consultants accountable
• Commit to a progressive platform & small donor democracy

In the days following Donald Trump’s inauguration, Our Revolution surveyed more than 5,000 of its members nationwide to assess their confidence in the Democratic Party and their reactions to Trump’s actions during the first days of his presidency. Topline findings from the reveal that:

• Only 14% of respondents indicated that they are ‘very confident’ that the Democratic Party and its leaders in Congress, state houses, and city halls will work to block the worst of the Trump agenda.
• Following the inauguration, 43% of respondents said they are angry, and another 40% said they’re feeling worried, scared, or sad.
• 98% of respondents believe that the United States has entered an unprecedented political movement with Trump’s re-election.
• 88% told us they support efforts to transform the Democratic Party into a real opposition party and to get the party to reject corporate money and power. The remaining 12% told us not to bother because they’ve already given up on the Democratic Party (and these are likely voters who are active in politics and anti-Republican — and who have stuck with us as we’ve worked for 8 years to elect Democrats and transform the party).
• 41% want Our Revolution to focus on fighting Trump and the Oligarchs, 32% say we should focus on taking back the Democratic Party from the corporate class, and the remaining 27% say our focus should be on electing progressives who will fight for them.

Here are two of many comments we received sharing similar sentiments of despair and disgust with the Democratic Party:

• “The Democratic Party needs to stop playing nice and fight fire with fire. I’m sick and disgusted today. I am ashamed of our country and the fact that there is no real plan to overhaul the Democratic Party.”
• “I am not motivated to give Democrats money because I don't think they know how to fight effectively and I don't trust them to do what is necessary to effect real change.”

The respondents, a subset of Our Revolution’s grassroots network of approximately 8 million supporters in all 50 states, include rank-in-file Democratic Party activists and base voters, volunteers, and grassroots donors.

Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese is available to comment on the DNC Chair race and the future of progressive activism during Trump’s second term. To request an interview, please contact: media@ourrevolution.com

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“The evidence brought against Kurdish journalist Safiye Alagaş consists of her professional journalism and does not support accusations that she was a member of a terrorist organization, as indicated by one of the judges’ dissenting from the guilty verdict,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Turkish authorities should not fight Alagaş in her upcoming appeal and stop equating journalism with terrorism.”

Alagaş, a former news editor for the pro-Kurdish JİNNEWS, was charged with being a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey has designated as a terrorist organization. The case began in June 2023, and the evidence against her was based on her journalism, according to CPJ’s review of the indictment and monitoring of her first hearing.

Alagaş was elected co-mayor of the southeastern province of Siirt during the trial. Lawyers for Alagaş said their client would not have been found guilty if she lost the mayoral election.

One of the three judges in Alagaş’s case dissented from the guilty verdict, adding that the requirements defined by the law for the crime to have been committed were not fulfilled, according to CPJ’s review of the verdict. 

CPJ’s email to the Diyarbakır chief prosecutor did not receive a response.

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

North Korea is posthumously granting membership in the Korean Workers' Party to its soldiers killed in action in Russia’s war with Ukraine -- a perk that will benefit their surviving families, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia.

Party membership is a special privilege in North Korea that improves the social status of families related to the member, giving them access to better education, jobs, housing and food rations.

It may also give them the right to live in the capital Pyongyang, which has a far better standard of living than the rest of the country.

But some parents who are notified that their sons have died in battle did not even know they had been sent to Russia, a resident in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The Pentagon and South Korean intelligence estimate that around 12,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia since October. According to South Korean intelligence, at least 300 of these have been killed and 2,700 injured.

Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has acknowledged North Korea’s participation in the conflict.

The North Korean people have not been informed, either, but many seem to have heard about it through word of mouth, the resident said.

“In early January, a couple living in Myonggan county, relatives of my close friend, were told to go to Pyongyang without knowing the reason,” the resident said.

(NKO via AP)

A senior local official -- the county secretary -- took them to the station in his car and and provided train tickets and lunch boxes to eat on the train -- a rarity in North Korea, where most people cannot freely travel, especially not at government expense.

Once in Pyongyang, the couple was given a certificate informing them of their son’s death and a party membership card -- but were told nothing about the nature of his mission or where he died, the resident said.

Authorities urged them to keep quiet.

“They did not even allow the bereaved families to cry out loud,” he said. “They repeatedly urged them not to share information with other relatives or anyone around them.”

Special treatment

Upon their return, the special treatment for the couple continued.

The county secretary picked them up and delivered them to their home, and ordered the factory where the man works to give him a special 10-day vacation, the resident said.

But even though the family is already getting the perks, they would rather have their son alive, he said.

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“According to my friend, his relative believes his son was killed while deployed to fight in the war with Ukraine,” he said. “The couple spends each day in tears, mourning the loss of their only son.”

Posthumous membership in the party is usually only given in combat situations, not to soldiers who die while performing their usual peacetime duties.

Promised homes

Another resident of the same province said that the authorities have promised to allow the family members of the soldiers killed in the war with Ukraine to live in Pyongyang as soon as there are available homes for them.

Since 2021, the country’s leader Kim Jong Un has been pushing his pet development project -- to build 10,000 homes per year and 50,000 by the end of 2025 -- in the capital.

According to the second resident, his wife’s relatives traveled to Pyongyang and received their dead son’s party membership card and death certificate at a ceremony where an official informed them that they would be able to live in the new homes.

“The party has decided that when Hwasong Street, which is currently under construction, is completed, the bereaved families will be called to Pyongyang and live there as Pyongyang citizens,” he said.

In previous reports about the housing project, Pyongyang residents told RFA that their homes were being demolished to build the new apartments. Although they were promised the right to live there once the homes were completed, they were concerned that there would not be enough new apartments to accommodate everyone.

The second resident said that the authorities asked all the bereaved families to not reveal too much information to the outside world, regarding why they are allowed to move to Pyongyang.

“Among the family members from my wife’s side, there are some who envy the relatives who will be living in Pyongyang in the future,” he said. “But the parents who lost their son are expressing their anger, saying, ‘What good is it when we lost our son? He was only 21 years old.”

Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Ahn Chang Gyu for RFA Korean.

Vanuatu’s only incumbent female parliamentarian has lost her seat in a snap election leaving only one woman candidate in contention after an unofficial vote count.

The unofficial counting at polling locations indicated the majority of the 52 incumbent MPs have been reelected but also with some high profile departures.

Former deputy prime minister Jotham Napat, head of the Leaders Party, has secured up to nine MPs, putting him in poll position to try to form a coalition government.

• READ MORE: Leaders Party on track to be Vanuatu’s largest bloc as coalition talks underway
• Vanuatu one month on: aftershocks, a no-go zone and anxiety
• Other Vanuatu election reports

Vanuatu’s snap election last Thursday was called in November and held in spite of a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that devastated the capital Port Vila in December.

The election results will be confirmed by the official count of votes in the capital once all ballot boxes have been transported from electorates to Port Vila.

Former female MP Julia King from the Efate constituency has likely lost her seat.

She made international headlines in 2022 as the first woman elected in Vanuatu in more than a decade and only the sixth woman to serve in Parliament since the nation’s independence in 1980.

Only hope for women
Marie Louis Milne, a candidate for the Port Vila constituency, has emerged as the only hope for a woman to sit in the chamber in the next term. Both Milne and a male candidate claim to have won the sixth and final seat in the electorate, based on the unofficial figures.

“The high number of voters supporting women is a positive indication of changing perceptions surrounding women’s leadership and decision-making,” Milne told BenarNews.

“There are numerous pressing issues we want to address in Parliament, including women’s health and their economic development.”

The possible lack of female representation is a disappointment for Vanuatu governance and development policy specialist Anna Naupa.

Marie Louis Milne, a candidate for the Port Vila constituency, has emerged as the only hope for a woman to sit in the chamber in the next term. Both Milne and a male candidate claim to have won the sixth and final seat in the electorate, based on the unofficial figures.

“The high number of voters supporting women is a positive indication of changing perceptions surrounding women’s leadership and decision-making,” Milne told BenarNews.

“There are numerous pressing issues we want to address in Parliament, including women’s health and their economic development.”

Gender disappointment
The possible lack of female representation is a disappointment for Vanuatu governance and development policy specialist Anna Naupa.

“We will wait for the official results, and if that turns out to be true, it is a sad reality for our country (that) women continue to face significant challenges in entering Parliament,” Naupa told BenarNews.

“We really need to look back at systems we have in place to help facilitate voices of women and vulnerable groups in our society.

“This means the new legislature needs to pull up its socks to listen to all people, at every level of society.”

This election there were seven women among the 217 candidates contesting, matching the number in 2022 but down from 18 in 2020.

Several high profile MPs losing seats
The unofficial results show several high profile MPs are likely to lose their seats, including four-time prime minister Sato Kilman, head of the People’s Progressive Party.

Leaders from seven parties were re-elected including former prime minister Charlot Salwai from the Reunification Movement for Change, former prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau of the Union of Moderate Parties and former foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu of the Graon mo Jastis Pati.

“I am happy to return again and start working very soon — that’s all I have to say for now,” Regenvanu told BenarNews.

Other leaders thanked their voters on social media for their re-election.

Hopes for a generational change in Parliament rest with the few new MPs who look likely to be elected, including Matai Kaltabang in Julia King’s former electorate in Efate.

If elected, the member of the Iauko Group will be the youngest person in the 14th Parliament, at the age of 28 years old, and one of the youngest ever elected.

Parliamentary standing orders require the first sitting of the house be convened within 21 days of the election.

Despite the setbacks in the unofficial results for women, Milne remains optimistic, urging the six other female candidates who participated in the elections to persevere.

“I encourage them to never give up, build on what they have, and continue to make a difference in their communities so that in four years, we can see more women represented in Parliament,” she said.

Leah Lowonbu is a BenarNews contributor. Stefan Armbruster contributed to this report from Brisbane. Copyright BenarNews 2025 and republished with permission.

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

Vanuatu’s Parliament is starting to take shape according to preliminary election results.

As of Saturday, the Leaders Party was on track to becoming the largest in Parliament with 11 MPs.

Vanua’aku Party is next with seven, and United Moderates and Reunification Movement for Change are tied on six seats each.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu one month on: aftershocks, a no-go zone and anxiety
• Other Vanuatu election reports

Iauko Group had five and Graon Mo Jastis, four.

Coalition talks, already underway, are set to be complicated because in the last Parliament at least two parties had MPs split across both the government and opposition benches.

Ballot boxes from all around the country have been transported back to Port Vila where the Vanuatu Electoral Commission is conducting the official count.

Many Port Vila voters spoken to by RNZ Pacific said they wanted leaders who would act quickly to rebuild the quake-stricken city.

Others said they were sick of political instability.

Last week’s snap election was triggered by a premature dissolution of Parliament last year — the second consecutive time President Nike Vurobaravu has acted on a council of ministers’ request to dissolve the House in the face of a leadership challenge.

Counting the latest election Vanuatu will have had five prime ministers in five years.

Last June, a referendum agreed to two changes to the country’s constitution aimed at helping to settle the troubled political arena.

Ni-Vanuatu voters in New Caledonia
Meanwhile, New Caledonia’s diaspora also voted in Vanuatu’s snap poll to renew the 52-seat Parliament.

The only polling station, set up in the capital Nouméa near the Vanuatu Consulate-General, counted as part as the Vanuatu capital Port Vila’s constituency.

It was open to voters last Thursday from 7:30am to 8pm.

For New Caledonia, the estimated number of ni-Vanuatu registered voters is about 1600.

Bus shuttles were also organised for ni-Vanuatu voters residing in the Greater Nouméa area (Mont-Dore, Dumbéa and Païta).

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

Samoa’s prime minister and the five other ousted members of the ruling FAST Party are reportedly challenging their removal.

FAST chair La’auli Leuatea Schmidt on Wednesday announced the removal of the prime minister and five Cabinet ministers from the ruling party.

Twenty party members signed for the removal of Fiame Naomi Mata’afa and five others, including Deputy Prime Minister Tuala Iosefo Ponifasio and two original members.

• READ MORE: Explainer: Power struggle: where to from here?
• Samoa Observer: For the people or for themselves? — Editorial
• Samoa’s political future hangs in balance with Fiame leadership challenge
• Let law take its course: PM Fiame on Laauli’s charges
• Other Samoan politics reports

Samoa media outlets have been reporting that in a letter dated January 17, one of the removed members, Faualo Harry Schuster, wrote: “We all reject the letter of termination as relayed as unlawful and unconstitutional.”

In the letter, which is circulating on social media, he claimed they were still members of the FAST party.

Local media reports had suggested members of the FAST party had called for Fiame’s removal as prime minister.

Meanwhile, the government’s Savali newspaper has confirmed the removal of 13 associate ministers of Fiame’s Cabinet.

“The termination of their appointments stem from the issue of confidence in the Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa to continue work with the associate ministers, as well as the associate ministers’ expression of no confidence in her leadership,” it said.

“The official statement emphasises that the functions and responsibilities of the Executive Arm of Government continues under the leadership of the Prime Minister — Fiame Naomi Mata’afa and Cabinet.”

Fiame had last week removed three members of her Cabinet, after she also stood down La’auli, who is facing criminal charges.

Parliament is scheduled to reconvene on Tuesday, January 21.

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

After Biden’s major foreign policy address Monday at the State Department, we go to Jerusalem and get an analysis of Biden’s foreign policy decisions in Israel and Palestine from Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders. “There’s simply no question at this point that the laws of war have been egregiously violated,” he says of the Israeli military’s genocidal conduct against Palestinians in Gaza. “When it comes to America’s friends and allies, he has a different standard.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who died on December 29 at the age of 100, has been laid to rest in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, following a state funeral held in Washington, D.C. “He was the last president to actively encourage participation and involvement in governmental processes by the progressive civil community,” remembers the celebrated civil society and consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Nader compares Carter’s progressive credentials to President-elect Donald Trump’s flouting of the law and embrace of dangerous beliefs like climate denialism. Carter “brought the best out of people,” Nader says, while “Trump brings the worst out of people.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

To be Jewish does not mean an automatic identification with the rogue state of Israel. Nor does it mean that Jews are automatically threatened by criticism of Israel, yet our media and Labor and Liberal politicians would have you believe this is the case.

We are seeing a debate in Australia about the so-called rise of antisemitism which includes rally chants for Gaza at a time when we are witnessing the most horrific Israeli genocide of Palestinians in which our government is complicit.

Jewish peak bodies here and internationally have continually linked their identity to that of Israel.

• READ MORE: Attorney-General Dreyfus’ trip to Israel makes a mockery of Labor’s foreign policy
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

Why? Can generations of Jews in this country still believe that Israel represents anything like the myths that were perpetrated at its inception?

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Zionist Federation of Australia, the Jewish Board of Deputies and others, all staunchly defend this apartheid state that is accused of plausible genocide by the UN International Court of Justice and confirmed by dozens of human rights and legal NGOs, UN Rapporteurs, medical organisations and holocaust scholars.

Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defence Minister have been charged as war criminals by the International Criminal Court and must be arrested and tried in the Hague, yet Australia maintains a cosy relationship with Israel and our media dutifully repeats its outright lies verbatim.

Conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism has been the main focus of the Israeli state and its defenders for decades. With the emergence of the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement in 2005, Israel’s narrative was countered, leading to a persistent Israeli directed campaign to link BDS with antisemitism.

Colonial, occupying power
BDS focuses on the actions of Israel as a colonial, occupying power violating international law against the indigenous people of Palestine. It is anti-racist and human rights-centred.

On December 11, we heard Prime Minister Albanese at the Jewish Museum in Sydney combining his support for Jewish people with his ongoing condemnation and active campaigning against BDS.

He referred to the Marrickville Council BDS motion, (which I proposed back in 2010 along with my Greens councillor colleague, Marika Kontellis), and again repeated the bald-faced mistruths that were spread back then about BDS and the intent and focus of the Marrickville motion.

“I was part of a campaign against BDS in my own local government area. At the time I argued that if you start targeting businesses because they happen to be owned by Jewish people, you’ll end up with the Star of David above shops.

“And that ended in World War II, during the Holocaust, with six million lives lost, murdered. We need an end to antisemitism.”

In one sentence we see Albanese’s extremely offensive equation of the horror of the Holocaust and antisemitism, directly linked to BDS. Why would a prime minister and local federal member deliberately mischaracterise BDS, given the movement has always been clear that its targets are global companies and corporations that are complicit in the Israeli state’s apartheid and genocidal actions, as well as Israeli government bodies and arms companies?

What is in it for Albanese, Wong, Plibersek or Dutton and all of the politicians back in 2010/2011 who appeared to think there was political advantage in scapegoating BDS by jumping on the frenzied anti-BDS campaign?

Fawning support for Israel
It was obvious back then, as it is now, that their fawning support for the rogue Israeli state knows no bounds. Lock step in line with the United States outlier position, Australia has maintained its repugnant inaction in the face of 15 months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza despite continued condemnation by the UN and a majority of states.

But Australia has, however, appointed a public supporter of Zionism and the Israeli state, as its special envoy on antisemitism.

The inaction by all states since 1948 to apply sanctions has gifted Israel the impunity that’s led to its industrial scale slaughter of innocents in Gaza and its continuing violence and killing of civilians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. All governments must bear responsibility for this.

Albanese has been described as an opportunist, liar and a bully.

At the time of the Marrickville BDS, he used the situation to attempt to discredit the Greens who were challenging the incumbent Labor state member, Carmel Tebbutt (his former wife). He fanned the national media frenzy that was fed by pro-Israel Jewish lobbyists who were the long-time custodians of the “reputation” of Israel.

Marrickville Council and the Greens were characterised as antisemites who would be pulling Jewish books out of the local library.

This insanity was akin to what is happening today. The legitimate opposition to the worst, most egregious, brutality of the Israeli state has somehow been cleverly morphed into so-called expressions of antisemitism.

Absurd claims on protest
In the media conference of December 11, Albanese also made absurd claims that the peaceful 24-hour protest outside his electorate office in Marrickville was displaying Hamas symbols in a vile attempt to discredit the constituents he had refused to meet for more than eight months.

He and his colleagues in Canberra continue to appease the powerful Israel lobby at the expense of our rights and the rights and visibility of the whole Palestinian population here and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories who are now literally on death row.

Back then, we heard locally that he and the party had bullied the four Labor councillors to vote to rescind the Marrickville BDS motion that they had all previously wholeheartedly supported. Some months earlier these same councillors had also supported a motion condemning the latest Israeli strike against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The meaning of BDS was no secret to them — they appreciated that it was important for a council to check its ethical purchasing guidelines to ensure that it was not supporting companies that were in violation of international human rights law by operating in the illegal Israeli settlements or by providing technology or services that maintained Israel’s apartheid and dispossession of Palestinians.

They knew then, as we know now, that this is not antisemitic. They knew then that no Jewish businesses per se were the target of this peaceful civil rights movement. And they knew then that the Labor Party was lying for political gain.

Now, as for far too many decades, political parties in power in this country have failed Palestinians for political gain and at the behest of Israel lobby groups which dare to speak on behalf of anti-Zionist Jews like me.

Despite all the gratuitous rhetoric, these politicians have failed to uphold the basic precepts of human rights law — rights they regularly give lip service to, but rights they will never defend by taking the action required of them as signatories to numerous UN conventions.

Australia must sanction Israel
To act with humanity and to act as required by international law, Australia must sanction and end all economic and military ties with the Israeli state.

We must expel the Israeli ambassador and bring our ambassador back and we must prosecute any Australian citizen or resident who has joined the IDF to kill Palestinians. We must also support Palestinian refugees and take all action necessary to assist those in Gaza for as long as it takes.

But as we have seen so clearly this year, most governments have not acted to pressure Israel to end its barbaric colonial project. To protest as allies and to call out the hypocrisy of governments and politicians that speak of a rules-based order while enabling a state that has continually breached fundamental human rights laws, is to be called antisemitic.

The pressure applied to governments, universities and the like in recent years to adopt the discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism is precisely because it equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

It’s the perfect tool for shutting down condemnation of Israel’s grave human rights violations. We’ve seen some universities and parliaments endorse it in deference to this pressure, despite the serious flaws that have been identified, including from Jewish Israeli experts.

Now more than ever BDS is imperative.

BDS campaigns will work to isolate Israel as it should be isolated until it complies with international law. Multinational companies are increasingly loath to be associated with this terror state.

Major pension funds are divesting from companies that are complicit in Israel’s human rights violations and local councils, unions and universities are taking steps to ensure they divest from any partnerships or investments that would make them part of the chain of complicity and liable for prosecution by the International Court of Justice as enabling Israel’s genocide.

The facts are indisputable. Australia’s complicity with Israel’s genocide and colonisation of Palestine can be countered by individuals, churches, unions, councils and students taking immediate and urgent BDS action.

Do not wait for Labor or Liberal politicians in this country to act, as they are doing their best to shut us down and to appease Israel. Their complicity will never be forgotten.

Cathy Peters is a former Greens councillor on the Marrickville Council from 2008-2011 and the co-founder of BDS Australia. She worked as a radio producer and executive producer for the ABC for 30 years making some documentaries on the Israeli occupation. She is Jewish and her grandparents and other relatives perished in the Holocaust. She has travelled to Gaza and throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories on a number of occasions and is a long-time advocate for Palestinian rights and justice. First published in the Australia social policy journal Pearls and Irritations and republished with permission.

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

The official social media accounts of BJP Delhi, including its X handle and Facebook page, also shared the image with a caption mocking the AAP government’s infrastructure claims. The caption read, “After a little rain, the condition of the roads is of European standard.” (Archived link 1, link 2)

थोड़ी सी देर की बारिश के बाद यूरोपियन स्टैण्डर्ड सड़कों का हाल pic.twitter.com/3XMtKMNnnh

— BJP Delhi (@BJP4Delhi) December 28, 2024

BJP IT Cell national head Amit Malviya amplified the claim by sharing the same image on his social media accounts. It is important to note that Malviya has a history of sharing misleading and inaccurate information on social media platforms. (Archived link)

थोड़ी सी देर की बारिश के बाद यूरोपियन स्टैण्डर्ड सड़कों का हाल pic.twitter.com/3XMtKMNnnh

— BJP Delhi (@BJP4Delhi) December 28, 2024

Several other BJP leaders also circulated the image to reinforce similar claims against the AAP government. These included Santosh Ojha, president of BJP Delhi Purvanchal Morcha and BJP scheduled caste morcha Delhi, along with leaders such as Sanjeev Choudhary and Rajiv Babbar.  (Archived link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4)

Supporters and members of the BJP further amplified the image with the same claim.

Fact-check

To verify the authenticity of the viral image, Alt News performed a reverse image search. This led us to a similar photograph uploaded by photographer Sanchit Khanna on the Getty Images website on September 30, 2024.

Getty Images is a well-known photo stock platform where professional photographers and photojournalists upload their work. There are some significant differences between the original image on Getty Images and the one being circulated. In the original, the road did show some signs of wear and damage, but it did not contain as many potholes and craters as depicted in the viral version. 

According to the caption provided with the image, Delhi chief minister Atishi, along with officials from the public works department (PWD), inspected road conditions near the Outer Ring Road in Kalkaji on September 30, 2024. During this inspection, the chief minister identified potholes near the NSIC complex and instructed officials to ensure that repairs were completed before Diwali.

It is worth noting that the original image dates back to September 30, and is unrelated to the rainfall that occurred recently. 

Media outlets such as News18 and Hindustan Times had reported on the September 30 inspection. Their coverage highlighted that chief minister Atishi, accompanied by engineers from the PWD, had surveyed several roads in Delhi. During the inspection, Atishi reassured residents that the roads would be repaired and maintained to ensure a “pothole-free” Diwali.

To sum it up, leaders from the BJP and BJP Delhi shared an edited image, falsely linking it to the rainfall in Delhi on December 27 to target the Aam Aadmi Party. 

The post BJP Delhi, party leaders share doctored image to show potholes on roads appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

Former Nation Power Party president Sun Chanthy was also hit with a 4 million riel (US$1,000) fine to be paid to the plaintiff — the government — and was banned from participating in politics for the rest of his life.

Sun Chanthy was charged with inciting the public to oppose the government of Prime Minister Hun Manet in May by spreading false information on social media.

Critics said his conviction is the latest example of how the government uses the judicial system to prosecute political opponents.

“This is a decision based on political influence,“ said National Power Party advisor Rong Chhunhe. ”Those who are being jailed in Cambodia are those who want to restore Cambodia’s reputation and respect of human rights and democracy.”

Sun Chanthy’s lawyer, Choung Chou Ngy, told reporters outside the courthouse that the case lacked strong evidence to charge the politician. He said he would talk to Sun Chanthy about filing an appeal.

Arrested at airport

Authorities arrested Sun Chanthy at Phnom Penh International Airport in early May after he returned from meeting Cambodian overseas workers in Japan.

His charged stemmed from a comment Sun Chanthy made on social media that criticized the government’s policy on issuing “poverty cards” for the poor to receive free medical treatment or subsidies. The government said he had “twisted information” to suggest that the cards would only be distributed to those who join the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

Nation Power Party officials and Sun Chanthy’s wife called the conviction by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court unfair, saying the politician is innocent and that alleged statements he made were meant only as constructive criticism.

Sun Chanthy’s wife, Yan Sreyyan, told Radio Free Asia that she was disappointed with the verdict, issued while she was in the hospital after giving birth.

She said her husband, who was convicted in absentia because he chose not to attend the trial, was a good man and had not committed any of the crimes alleged by the court, She urged judicial authorities to drop the charges and release him.

Complete mockery

In a joint statement issued Monday, the opposition Candlelight Party and Khmer Will Party said the verdict violated voting rights and the right to run for an office, which are protected by Cambodia’s constitution. They urged the court to drop the charges against Sun Chanthy and release him.

RFA could not reach Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman Y Rin for comment.

Phil Robertson, director of the consultancy Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates, posted on social media Monday that the Cambodian government’s repression of the political opposition is now systemic and widespread, and that Cambodia has made a complete mockery of the idea of “democracy.”

Am San Ath, operations director at the human rights group Licadho, said the verdict would further expose Cambodia to criticism by international rights groups that it restricts freedoms and political rights.

Cambodia should return to restoring democracy and fully opening up the space for freedoms for its citizens and opposition politicians, he said.

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Khmer.

On Nov. 26, Vietnam’s government enacted Decree 126, which makes it more difficult to establish an association and gives the government more power to control and monitor the activities and funding sources of associations once they are up and running.

Decree 126 replaces an earlier decree known as Decree 45 and grants the government the power to suspend and dissolve associations in Vietnam — a power it did not have previously.

Ben Swanton, co-director of human rights group Project 88, said in a statement accompanying an analysis of the new decree that it is part of “a new wave of repression that is shaping policymaking in a way that will further suppress civil society.”

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In issuing Decree 126, Vietnam’s government said the additional restrictions were needed to “ensure party control over associations,” “prevent foreign influence on domestic affairs,” and “clarify the role of associations in policymaking.”

“Taken together, the government’s reasons for replacing Decree 45 paint a picture of paranoid leaders who want to tighten their chokehold on associations in the country,” Project 88 said.

On July 13, 2023, the Communist Party issued Directive 24, which labels foreign influence a threat to Vietnam’s national security and orders further restrictions on local organizations. The Ministry of Home Affairs named Directive 24 as a driving force behind the need to replace Decree 45 with Decree 126.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, as of December 2022, there were 71,669 registered associations operating in Vietnam. Student groups, community organizations, and civil society advocacy coalitions, as well as artistic collectives and social clubs, fall within the parameters of the decree, Project 88 said.

Contradictions

Project 88 said in its analysis that the new decree contradicts both Vietnam’s constitution and international law.

“Vietnamese citizens have a constitutional right to free association, which is also guaranteed under international law,” the group said. “But Decree 126 grants the government unfettered authority to stop people from forming associations and to stop associations from operating independently.”

The new decree also introduces new controls over the activities of associations, which “can only engage in policy advocacy at the request of the state.”

“They must abide by all government regulations, and cannot do anything to harm national security, social order, morality, or the cultural identity of the nation,” Project 88 said. “None of these terms are defined by the decree, leaving it up to the discretion of public officials to determine what precisely constitutes a harm to one of these government interests.”

Project 88 said that Decree 126 establishes a database to track the members and activities of all associations permitted to operate in the country, and gives authorities the right to request unlimited information of associations.

Latest policy targeting associations

The decree is the latest in a series of policy measures targeting associations in Vietnam, Project 88 said.

In addition to Directive 24, earlier policies imposed onerous requirements for those that receive foreign funding and required government approval to host a conference related to national sovereignty, security, human rights, ethnicity, or religion.

“The fears of the communist party towards an independent civil society have been known for some time,” the report said. “In various fora, the party has expressed concern about the potential for an independent Vietnamese civil society to interfere with the [party’s] control over the country’s internal affairs, particularly with regards to setting government policy.”

The group said that a major goal of Decree 126 is “to ensure that associations in Vietnam will remain under state control.”

“A related objective is to tighten control over associations as the country further integrates with the international community,” it said.

Project 88 called on the Vietnamese government to repeal Decree 126 and Directive 24, and “stop enacting policies ... that impose onerous requirements on associations.”

The group also urged the government to stop forcibly closing associations, ensure that associations can engage in policy advocacy without fear of intimidation, and develop training programs to improve the knowledge of officials about freedom of association.

Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Vietnamese.

“We are deeply shocked and outraged by Rapid Support Forces’ brutal killing of journalist Hanan Adam and her brother in al-Gezira state, which further illustrates the extreme conditions journalists and their families currently face in Sudan,” said CPJ Interim MENA Program Coordinator Yeganeh Rezaian, from Washington, D.C. “Sudanese authorities must launch an immediate and thorough investigation into Adam’s death, and all parties involved in the conflict must uphold their obligation to protect journalists who risk their lives to report the truth.”

Adam also worked at the Ministry of Culture and Information in al-Gezira state. Two journalists who spoke with CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, said they believed the RSF targeted Adam for her work for al-Midan and the Ministry.

The Sudanese Journalists’ Union condemned the killings in its Tuesday Facebook statement and said it held the RSF fully responsible for their deaths. CPJ was unable to confirm other details about the killing. 

Since the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF began in mid-April 2023, the RSF has killed at least five journalists.

CPJ’s Telegram messages to the RSF requesting comment on Adam’s death did not receive any replies.

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

Vietnam has jailed five party members for feeding information to Duong Van Thai, a blogger who is believed to have been abducted in Thailand last year and resurfaced in Vietnamese custody, the human rights group 88 Project reported, citing sources inside the government.

The report sheds new light on the case of Thai, who fled Vietnam in 2019 fearing political persecution for his many YouTube and Facebook posts criticizing the government of corruption and over its policies.

Thai disappeared in April 2023 in what his supporters and rights advocates say was an abduction. Shortly thereafter, he turned up in Vietnamese custody.

It turns out that after Thai’s arrest in April 2023, Vietnamese police arrested seven people for giving Thai information for his critical social media posts, the 88 Project report said.

In October, at the same closed-door trial where Thai was convicted and sentenced to 12 years for disseminating information harmful to the state, five party members and two others were also convicted and given sentences ranging from 30 months to 5.5 years for giving him information, the report said.

RFA Vietnamese confirmed the sentences with a source inside the government.

The convicted party members were:

• Truong Cong Dai, the former director of the Sub-Department of Environmental Protection under the Bac Giang provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment
• Vu Anh Tuan, the head of the Organizational and Inspection Division of the Bac Giang Youth Union
• Nguyen Van Van, the former chairman of the Board of Directors at the Gia Nguyen Group Joint Stock Company
• Bui Thi Khanh Phuong and Nguyen Thanh Tung, two Party members whose specific titles were not disclosed.

The other two convicted people were Tran Quoc Khanh, the former director general of the G7 International Investment Consulting Joint Stock Company and Nguyen Thiet Hung, a freelance engineer.

Hanoi has not confirmed that Thai was abducted, but Vietnam has in the past abducted its own citizens from Thailand and elsewhere.

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The information these people provided to Thai was embarrassing for the government, because it reveals a lack of ideological conformity among officials, said Ben Swanton, The 88 Project’s co-director in an email with RFA.

“It seems that the government decided to hold a closed trial to prevent information about the case from getting out,” he said. “This case reveals that Hanoi is not only willing to criminally prosecute bloggers and journalists for exercising their right to free speech, but also the sources who provide them with information.”

RFA contacted the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the 88 Project’s report, but did not receive a response.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Vietnamese.

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), has unveiled the main outcome of its congress last weekend, including its plans for the French Pacific territory’s political future.

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday in Nouméa, the party’s newly-elected executive bureau, now headed by Emmanuel Tjibaou, debriefed the media about the main resolutions made during its congress.

One of the motions was specifically concerning a timeframe for New Caledonia’s road to independence.

• READ MORE: Mixed reactions to Tjibaou’s election to key Kanak pro-independence party
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Tjibaou said UC now envisaged that one of the milestones on this road to sovereignty would be the signing of a “Kanaky Agreement”, at the latest on 24 September 2025 — a highly symbolic date as this was the day of France’s annexation of New Caledonia in 1853.

‘Kanaky Agreement’ by 24 September 2025?
This, he said, would mark the beginning of a five-year “transition period” from “2025 to 2030” that would be concluded by New Caledonia becoming fully sovereign under a status yet to be defined.

Several wordings have recently been advanced by stakeholders from around the political spectrum.

Depending on the pro-independence and pro-France sympathies, these have varied from “shared sovereignty”, “independence in partnership”, “independence-association” and, more recently, from the also divided pro-France loyalists camp, an “internal federalism” (Le Rassemblement-LR party) or a “territorial federation” (Les Loyalistes).

Charismatic pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Emmanuel’s father who was assassinated in 1989, was known for being an advocate of a relativist approach to the term “independence”, to which he usually preferred to adjunct the pragmatic term “inter-dependence”.

Negotiations between all political parties and the French State are expected to begin in the next few weeks.

The talks (between pro-independence, anti-independence parties and the French State) are scheduled in such a way that all parties manage to reach a comprehensive and inclusive political agreement no later than March 2025.

The talks had completely stalled after the pro-indeoendence riots broke out on 13 May 2024.

Over the past three years, following three referendums (2018, 2020, 2021, the latter being strongly challenged by the pro-independence side) on the question of independence (all yielding a majority in favour of New Caledonia remaining part of France), there had been several attempts to hold inclusive talks in order to discuss New Caledonia’s political future.

But UC and other parties (including pro-France and pro-independence) did not manage to sit at the same table.

Speaking to journalists, Emmanuel Tjibaou confirmed that under its new leadership, UC was now willing to return to the negotiating table.

He said “May 13 has stopped our advances in those exchanges” but “now is the time to build the road to full sovereignty”.

Back to the negotiating table
In the footsteps of those expected negotiations, heavy campaigning will follow to prepare for crucial provincial elections to be held no later than November 2025.

The five years of “transition” (2025-2030), would be used to transfer the remaining “regal” powers from France as well as putting in place “a political, financial and international” framework, accompanied by the French State, Tjibaou elaborated.

And after the transitional period, UC’s president said a new phase of talks could start to put in place what he terms “interdependence conventions on some of the ‘regal’ — main — powers” (defence, law and order, foreign affairs, currency).

Tjibaou said this project could resemble a sort of independence in partnership, a “shared sovereignty”, a concept that was strongly suggested early November 2024 by visiting French Senate President Gérard Larcher.

But Tjibaou said there was a difference in the sense that those discussions on sharing would only take place once all the powers have been transferred from France.

“You can only share sovereignty if you have obtained it first”, he told local media.

One of the other resolutions from its congress held last weekend in the small village of Mia (Canala) was to reiterate its call to liberate Christian Téin, appointed president of the FLNKS (Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front) in absentia late August, even though he is currently imprisoned in Mulhouse (north-east of France) pending his trial.

Allegations over May riots
He is alleged to have been involved in the organisation of the demonstrations that degenerated into the May 13 riots, arson, looting and a deadly toll of 13 people, several hundred injured and material damage estimated at some 2.2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion).

Tjibaou also said that within a currently divided pro-independence movement, he hoped that a reunification process and “clarification” would be possible with other components of FLNKS, namely the Progressist Union in Melanesia (UPM) and the Kanak Liberation Party (PALIKA).

Since August 2024, both UPM and PALIKA have de facto withdrawn with FLNKS’s political bureau, saying they no longer recognised themselves in the way the movement had radicalised.

In 1988, after half a decade of a quasi civil war, Jean-Marie Tjibaou signed the Matignon-Oudinot agreements with New Caledonia’s pro-France and anti-independence leader Jacques Lafleur.

The third signatory was the French State.

One year later, in 1989, Tjibaou was shot dead by a hard-line pro-independence militant.

His son Emmanuel was aged 13 at the time.

‘Common destiny’
In 1998, a new agreement, the Nouméa Accord, was signed, with a focus on increased autonomy, the notions of “common destiny” and a local “citizenship” and a gradual transfer of powers from France.

After the three referendums held between 2018 and 2021, the Nouméa Accord prescribed that if there had been three referendums rejecting independence, then political stakeholders should “meet to examine the situation thus generated”.

On Thursday, Union Calédonienne also stressed that the Nouméa Accord remained the founding document of all future political discussions.

“We are sticking to the Nouméa Accord because it is this document that brings us to the elements of accession to sovereignty”.

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.

“Turkish authorities once more raided the homes of multiple journalists in the middle of the night, in order to portray them as dangerous criminals, and detained them without offering any justification. CPJ has monitored similar secretive operations in the past decade, and not one journalist has been proven to be involved with actual terrorism,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “The authorities should immediately release the journalists in custody and stop this systematic harassment of the media.”

In a statement Tuesday, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said police had conducted simultaneous operations in 30 cities and detained a total of 261 people who suspected of having ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or alleged offshoot organizations. At least 12 journalists are reported to be held in custody:

• Erdoğan Alayumat, former reporter for the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya News Agency in Istanbul
• Suzan Demir, Istanbul-based freelance reporter
• Tuğçe Yılmaz, Istanbul-based reporter for the independent news website Bianet
• Emrah Kelekçier, Diyarbakır-based freelance photographer
• Ahmet Sümbül, Diyarbakır-based freelance reporter
• Roza Metina, chairperson of the Mesopotamia Women Journalists Association in Diyarbakır
• Bilal Seçkin, Istanbul-based freelance photographer
• Bilge Aksu, Istanbul-based freelance reporter
• Mehmet Uçar, Batman-based freelance reporter
• Doğan Güzel, Diyarbakır-based political cartoonist
• Abdurrahman Aydın, Antalya-based columnist for the independent news website Gazete Duvar
• Havin Derya, Antalya-based freelance reporter

The reasons for the detentions are unknown, as there is a court order of secrecy on the investigation, preventing the detainees and their lawyers from being informed of the investigation’s details and possible charges, a common practice in such crackdowns.

CPJ emailed Turkey’s Interior Ministry for comment but received no reply.

Separately, Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the government ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), threatened the pro-opposition outlet Halk TV and its commentators for criticizing his party with a vow that the MHP will make them suffer.

“We are taking note, one by one, of the ignorant and arrogant commentators, especially Halk TV,” Bahçeli said Tuesday at a MHP meeting in Ankara. In October, he had told the outlet to “watch your step.”

Editor’s note: The alert was updated to correct the name of Ahmet Sümbül.

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

The five, along with two children, were sent over the border to the Cambodian town of Poipet through the main land crossing between the countries on Sunday, Cheat Khemara, a Cambodian opposition member who is taking refuge in Thailand, told Radio Free Asia.

“I am concerned that Hun Sen will not tolerate them and if they are imprisoned, they will receive the harshest treatment,” Cheat Khemara said.

Veteran authoritarian leader Hun Sen stepped down as prime minister last year to be replaced by his son, Hun Manet.

Hun Sen retains the posts of ruling party leader and president of the Senate, while the government under his son has shown no sign of taking a more moderate line with criticism.

The five – Pen Chan Sangkream, Hong An, Mean Chanthon, Yin Chanthou and Seun Kunthea - were all members or supporters of the Cambodian National Rescue Party, or CNRP, fellow activists said.

The CNRP was founded by veteran opposition leader Sam Rainsy in 2012 and dissolved by a court in 2017 after being accused of plotting to topple the government, which the party denied.

Along with the five adults was a seven-year-old grandson of Hong An and Yin Chanthou’s daughter.

Fellow activists said the deportees had been recognised as refugees by the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR. The agency’s regional spokesperson did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

A spokesperson for Cambodia’s national police, provincial police and the Phnom Penh Municipal Court could not be reached for comment.

A Thai immigration official confirmed that the seven had been detained in Pathum Thani province, in Bangkok’s northern suburbs on the weekend and sent back to Cambodia.

“Based on immigration law, we had to deport them on Sunday evening,” said the officer, who declined to be identified.

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‘Harassment and persecution’

International human rights groups have condemned Thailand in recent years for assisting neighbors, including Vietnam and Cambodia, to undertake what the groups say is unlawful action against human rights defenders and dissidents, making Thailand increasingly unsafe for those fleeing persecution.

Human Rights Watch criticized what it called a “swap mart” of transnational repression in which foreign dissidents in Thailand are effectively traded for critics of the Thai government living abroad.

Thailand has rejected such criticism saying it only implements its immigration laws.

Prum Chantha, a representative of the Friday Wives, a rare voice of defiance in Cambodia named for its weekly protests against repression, said authorities had told her that the five were sent to a court in the capital, Phnom Penh, but she did not know if they would be charged.

Authorities had asked her to take care of Hong An’s grandson, she said.

Soeung Sen Karuna, director of the Australia-based Khmer Democracy Organization said the Cambodian and Thai governments were collaborating in transitional repression.

“It is very inhumane that Thailand turns to collaborate with the Cambodian government to deport Cambodian opposition activists back to their homeland where they face severe prosecutions,” Soeung Sen Karun said.

“Thailand fails to honor human rights law and refugees rights as a member of the UN. I condemn the Thai authorities. They should stop such harassment and persecutions and not be judged as joining hands with the Phnom Penh government.”

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA contributed to this report.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Khmer.

The election of Emmanuel Tjibaou as the new president of New Caledonia’s main pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), has triggered a whole range of political reactions — mostly favourable, some more cautious.

Within the pro-independence camp, the two main moderate parties UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia) and PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party), have reacted favourably, although they have recently distanced themselves from UC.

UPM leader Victor Tutugoro hailed Tjibaou’s election while pointing out that it was “not easy” . . . “given the difficult circumstances”.

• READ MORE: UN experts ‘alarmed’ by Kanaky New Caledonia deaths
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

“It’s courageous of him to take this responsibility,” he told public broadcaster NC la 1ère.

“He is a man of dialogue, a pragmatic man.”

PALIKA leader Jean-Pierre Djaïwé reacted similarly, saying Tjibaou “is well aware that the present situation is very difficult”.

Both PALIKA and UPM hoped the new UC leadership could have the potential to pave the way for a reconciliation between all members of the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), which has been experiencing profound differences for the past few years.

‘Real generational change’
On the pro-France (and therefore anti-independence) side, which is also divided, the moderate Calédonie Ensemble’s Philippe Michel saw in this new leadership a “real generational change” and noted that Tjibaou’s “appeasing” style could build new bridges between opposing sides of New Caledonia’s political spectrum.

“We’ll have to leave him some time to put his mark on UC’s operating mode,” Michel said.

“We all have to find our way back towards an agreement.”

Over the past two years, attempts from France to have all parties reach an agreement that could potentially produce a document to succeed the 1998 Nouméa autonomy Accord have failed, partly because of UC’s refusal to attend discussions involving all parties around the same table.

Pro-France Rassemblement-LR President Alcide Ponga said it was a big responsibility Tjibaou had on his shoulders in the coming months.

“Because we have these negotiations coming on how to exit the Nouméa Accord.

“I think it’s good that everyone comes back to the table — this is something New Caledonians are expecting.”

‘Wait and see’
Gil Brial, vice-president of a more radical pro-France Les Loyalistes, had a “wait and see” approach.

“We’re waiting now to see what motions UC has endorsed,” he said.

“Because if it’s returning to negotiations with only one goal, of accessing independence, despite three referendums which rejected independence, it won’t make things any simpler.”

Brial said he was well aware that UC’s newly-elected political bureau now included about half of “moderate” members, and the rest remained more radical.

“We want to see which of these trends will take the lead, who will act as negotiators and for what goal.”

UC has yet to publish the exact content of the motions adopted by its militants following its weekend congress.

Les Loyalistes leader and Southern province President Sonia Backès also reacted to Tjibaou’s election, saying this was “expected”.

Writing on social media, she expressed the hope that under its new leadership, UC would now “constructively return to the negotiating table”.

She said her party’s approach was “wait and see, without any naivety”.

Tjibaou’s first post-election comments
Tjibaou told journalists: “Now we have to pull up our sleeves and also shed some light on what has transpired since the 13 May (insurrection riots).”

He also placed a high priority on the upcoming political talks on New Caledonia’s institutional and political future.

“We still need to map out a framework and scope — what negotiations, what framework, what contents for this new agreement everyone is calling for.

“What we’ll be looking for is an agreement towards full emancipation and sovereignty. Based on this, we’ll have to build.”

He elaborated on Monday by defining UC’s pro-independence intentions as “a basket of negotiations”.

He, like his predecessor Daniel Goa, also placed a strong emphasis on the need for UC to take stock of past shortcomings (especially in relation to the younger generations) in order to “transform and move forward”.

CCAT ‘an important tool’
Asked about his perception of the role a UC-created “field action coordinating cell” (CCAT) has played in the May riots, Tjibaou said this remained “an important tool, especially to mobilise our militants on the ground”.

“But [CCAT] objectives have to be well-defined at all times.

“There is no political motion from UC that condones violence as a means to reach our goals.

“If abuses have been committed, justice will take its course.”

At its latest congress in August 2024 (which both UPM and PALIKA decided not to attend), the FLNKS appointed CCAT leader Christian Téin as its new president.

Téin is in jail in Mulhouse in the north-east of France, following his arrest in June and pending his trial.

In the newly-elected UC political bureau, the UC’s congress, which was held in the small village of Mia (near Canala, East Coast of the main island of Grande Terre) has maintained Téin as the party’s “commissar-general”.

Tjibaou only candidate
Tjibaou was the only candidate for the president’s position.

His election on Sunday comes as UC’s former leader, Daniel Goa, 71, announced last week that he did not intend to seek another mandate, partly for health reasons, after leading the party for the past 12 years.

Goa told militants this was a “heavy burden” his successor would now have to carry.

He also said there was a need to work on political awareness and training for the younger generations.

He said the heavy involvement of the youth in the recent riots, not necessarily within the UC’s political framework, was partly caused by “all these years during which we did not train (UC) political commissioners” on the ground.

He told local media at the weekend this has been “completely neglected”, saying this was his mea culpa.

After the riots started, there was a perception that calls for calm coming from UC and other political parties were no longer heeded and that, somehow, the whole insurrection had got out of control.

The 48-year-old Tjibaou was also elected earlier this year as one of New Caledonia’s two representatives to the French National Assembly (Lower House in the French Parkiament).

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.

National Federation Party president Parmod Chand has described Fiji Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry as a “self-professed champion of the poor” and criticised him over “hallucinating” about the country.

Chand made the comment when responding to remarks made by Chaudhry during FLP’s Annual Delegates Conference in Nadi on Saturday.

Chaudhry described Fiji’s coalition government leadership as self-serving and lacking integrity, transparency and accountability.

“As the un-elected Finance Minister in the regime of Frank Bainimarama after the 2006 coup, [Chaudhry] famously stated that people must learn to live with high prices of basic food items essentials,” said Chand.

“The coalition government has been for the past 23 months re-establishing the foundation for genuine democracy, accountability, transparency and good governance dismantled firstly by the regime that Chaudhry was an integral part of for 18 months”.

“The likes of Mahendra Chaudhry can continue hallucinating”.

The current Coalition Finance Minister is Professor Biman Prasad, who is leader of the NFP.

Republished with permission.

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

Hong Kong’s main opposition Democratic Party held its 30th anniversary dinner on the weekend but only after a last-minute scramble to book a venue, reflecting what one senior party loyalist said was the shrinking political space in the city.

The party, one of the last pro-democracy political organizations operating in the former British colony after a sweeping crackdown on dissent by pro-Beijing authorities, celebrated the anniversary of its founding in 1994 on Saturday evening.

The restaurant in the Tsim Sha Tsui district where party members gathered was their third choice.

The first restaurant the party booked canceled the reservation on Nov. 1, saying a deposit had not been paid.

But a former chairwoman of the party, Emily Lau, said the establishment had not asked for a payment to secure the booking, the South China Morning Post reported.

A second venue canceled the booking the night before the banquet saying two of its chefs got into a fight.

Then during the dinner, which party members said was smaller than previous such dinners, several policemen arrived at the restaurant saying they were responding to a complaint but they made no arrests and left.

Lau said it was a pity so many hurdles had been encountered “for various reasons” in trying to organize a simple party dinner.

Lau added the party used to hold annual banquets on a much larger scale and the obstacles it now faced reflected the shrinking political space in the city.

The party has run into similar problems in the past with events being canceled, due to what members have attributed to the fears that many people have of being associated with it.

Political activity has been severely curtailed since Beijing imposed a national security law in the Asian financial hub in 2020 in response to huge pro-democracy protests the previous year.

Hundreds of pro-democracy politicians and activists have been jailed or have gone into exile, and many media outlets and civil society groups have been shut down.

Critics say China has broken a promise made when Britain handed the city back in 1997, that it would retain its autonomy under a “one country, two systems” formula.

Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed government rejects accusations from its domestic critics and Western countries, including the United States and Britain, that it has smothered freedoms in the once-vibrant society.

The city government and Beijing say stability must be ensured and what they see as foreign interference must be stopped to protect the city’s economic success.

The party’s current chairman, Lo Kin-hei, and vice chairman Bonnie Ng attended the dinner but there were several notable no-shows including former party chairman Martin Lee and former legislative councilor James To.

The Democratic Party was formed in 1990 with a platform of supporting China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong while calling for the protection of the rule of law, personal freedom, and human rights.

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Following the 2019 protests, candidates representing a coalition of pro-democracy parties won the largest percentage of votes in that year’s city election.

However, subsequent measures taken by Beijing effectively curbed pro-democracy parties’ ability to run in regular elections.

Legislation in 2023 reduced the number of directly elected seats in the city’s legislature and local elections, while also requiring candidates to pass national security background checks and get nominations from committees that support the government.

The Democratic Party did not contest the city’s 2021 Legislative Council elections or district council elections last year and holds no seats in either.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.

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

That stratagem turned out to be correct about the Republican establishment but wrong about the electorate. In any case, Trump went on to not only capture the GOP but the archaic Electoral College as well.

The DNC reprised that strategy with the same suicidal results this year, putting all their deplorable eggs into the one basket of running on a platform of “not-Trump.”

Trump campaigned on the gambit of asking whether Americans felt they were better off now after four years of Joe Biden. The populace roared back a resounding “NO.” Pitching to a disaffected and dispossessed citizenry, he threw them reactionary red meat, scapegoating immigrants and others.

Kamala Harris flew the blue banner but her woke message that she was “not Trump” was less convincing. A red tsunami has swept the Democrats not only out of the White House but congress and many governorships. Trump is on track to win the popular vote.

This “triumph of the swill,” borrowing from the Dead Kennedys, will have consequences for the Supreme Court and the larger makeup of the US politics going into the future. MAGA has now firmly infected the body politic and threatens to metastasize. Hillary Clinton’s smug words in 2016, “Trump is the gift that keeps on giving,” turned out to be unintentionally prescient.

Would it have been any different had the DNC not rigged the 2016 presidential nomination for establishment candidate Clinton by sabotaging Bernie Sanders, who campaigned on issues of empowerment and economic benefit that also appealed to Trump voters? For them, the fear that Sanders could activate and organize genuine grassroots discontent into a social movement was greater than the risk of a Trump presidency.

But the faux independent senator from Vermont had a fatal flaw – “though shalt not do anything that harms the Democratic Party.” This was all the DNC needed to crush his campaign. His “Our Revolution” was domesticated, while Bernie shepherded progressives into the big blue tent.

Green Party campaign manager Jason Call, speaking personally on election night, said it was better to vote for a third party candidate who was opposed to the genocide in Palestine. Even if one accepts the bogus argument that doing so throws the election to Trump, in the larger picture, that would still be preferable to telling the Democrats, who are the party in power, that their conduct is acceptable.

Democratic Party supporters, of course, disagree. They claim that Trump is even more pro-Zionist than their candidate, which may be true. Although today the Democratic Party is arguably the leading war party, we will have cold comfort with the Republicans in power. And domestically the Democrats spout a better line on some social wedge issues that don’t threaten elite rule, such as women’s reproductive rights, although their walk is not as good as their talk.

Yes, things will get worse under Trump. But things would also get worse under Harris. This is because the entire political discourse has been staggering to the right regardless of which wing of the duopoly is in power.

In contrast, the voting public is well to the left of them on almost every issue, from universal public healthcare to opposition to endless war. By any objective measure, Jill Stein’s Green Party campaign was middle of the road compared to her corporate party competitors.

The lesser-evil voting strategy itself bears some degree of responsibility for this reactionary tide. By unconditionally supporting the Democrats, progressive-leaning voters become a captured constituency to be ignored. They incentivize the Democrats to scurry even further to the right to try to pick up the votes of the undecided and to further cater to the class interests of their corporate funders.

Wednesday morning quarterbacks (election day is on Tuesday) are saying that the Democrats should have given more emphasis in their campaign messaging to economic issues affecting working people. This ignores the fact that Harris, and Biden before her, had claimed that they had turned the economy around.

The debate on how much better the post-Covid economy is and who benefited leads to a deeper question. The current incarnation of capitalism, what is popularly called “neoliberalism,” has failed to meet the material needs of working people. This structural problem, not simply a question of policy, begs for another economic model.

The now manifest failure of the Democrats to offer a platform beyond “not Trump” exposes their bankruptcy. They do not even pretend to have an agenda to address the underlying economic distress, because the limits of the economic system that they embrace provides no succor.

In fact, neither of the major parties offer an alternative to neoliberalism. Both duopoly wings tend to campaign on cultural rather than substantive economic issues precisely because neither have solutions to the erosion of the quality of life for most citizens.

The Republican’s capitalized on popular discontent with the incumbents. But come the mid-term elections in two years, the tables will be turned. This drama is being played out abroad with social democrats getting the boot in places like Argentina and Austria, part of a larger blowback filling the sails of an international far-right insurgence.

A major left-liberal concern is the supposed imminent threat of fascism. Their fear is focused on Trump’s dysfunctionality and his “deplorable” working class minions; not on the security apparatus of the state, which they have learned to love. However, fascism is not a personality disorder. The ruling class – whether its nominal head wears a red or blue hat – has no reason to impose a fascist dictatorship as long as people embrace rather than oppose the security state.

The New York Times reported: “US stocks, the value of the dollar, and yields on Treasury bonds all recorded gains as Mr. Trump’s victory became clear.” That is good for the ruling class but not so much for the rest of us.

Lesser-evil voting contributes to the rightward trajectory of US politics at this time when structural change is needed. Absent a third-party alternative, the two-party duopoly doesn’t even recognize existential threats, such as global warming or nuclear annihilation, let alone address them.

Meanwhile, the US military launched a test hypersonic nuclear missile right after the polls closed on November 5. The scariest thing about their “reassurance” to the American public regarding this practice run for World War III was that it was “routine.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Roger D. Harris.

We speak with historian Robin D. G. Kelley about the roots of Donald Trump’s election victory and the decline of Democratic support among many of the party’s traditional constituencies. Kelley says he agrees with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who said Democrats have “abandoned” working-class people. “There was really no program to focus on the actual suffering of working people across the board,” Kelley says of the Harris campaign. He says the highly individualistic, neoliberal culture of the United States makes it difficult to organize along class lines and reject the appeal of authoritarians like Trump. “Solidarity is what’s missing — the sense that we, as a class, have to protect each other.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“This is a collapse of the Democratic Party.” Consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader comments on the reelection of Donald Trump and the failures of the Democratic challenge against him. Despite attempts by left-wing segments of the Democratic base to shift the party’s messaging toward populist, anti-corporate and progressive policies, says Nader, Democrats “didn’t listen.” Under Trump, continues Nader, “We’re in for huge turmoil.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

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In public remarks, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly made unfounded claims about the threat of widespread voting by “illegal aliens” and noncitizens in the 2024 election.

Away from the spotlight, though, at least one Republican National Committee official is telling volunteer poll watchers a completely different story: that such voting is close to impossible.

In a private Oct. 29 training session for poll watchers in Pennsylvania, an RNC election-integrity specialist told volunteers not to worry about noncitizen voting in the 2024 election because the electoral system had safeguards in place to prevent illegal votes.

ProPublica obtained a recording of the training session. The RNC official’s comments have not been previously reported.

The RNC official’s assurance contradicts statements made by Trump and his Republican allies warning about “illegal aliens” casting ballots this year and potentially swinging the election in favor of Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

“It is good to see the RNC official recognizing the truth, in contrast to the many lies about noncitizen voting coming from Trump and his allies,” said Rick Hasen, a professor and election-law expert at the UCLA School of Law. “It would be even better for the officials to say it publicly.”

The RNC official who led the training session and a spokesperson for the RNC did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to ProPublica that Democrats were “pushing for non-citizens to vote and influence the future of our country,” adding, “President Trump and the RNC will continue the fight to secure tomorrow’s election so that every American vote is protected.”

Voting by noncitizens is illegal under federal law and it almost never happens. State and federal elections require voters to be U.S. citizens. Government election officials from both parties have emphasized that there are protections in place across the country to prevent noncitizens from casting a ballot.

Yet that hasn’t stopped Trump and some of his most high-profile supporters from making unfounded claims that noncitizens are registering and voting in large numbers this year. “THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO ‘STUFF’ VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS,” Trump posted on Truth Social in September. Other prominent Trump supporters, including billionaire tech investor Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, have also amplified unfounded claims about Democrats seeking to “import” such voters.

But on the ground, Trump’s own party, at least in the important battleground state of Pennsylvania, is undercutting those dark visions of illegal voting. During the Oct. 29 training session, Joe Neild, a member of RNC’s election integrity team in the state, said such a scenario is nearly impossible.

A participant in the training session asked Neild about the potential for noncitizens to cast votes in the election and what poll watchers could do to stop them.

Neild replied that, in Pennsylvania, undocumented people can’t legally register to vote and so they would not be included in the list of eligible voters used at voting precincts, known as poll books.

Here is the exchange:

Training participant: “I have two questions. The first one is: How do you know if they are illegal aliens or not, like, when they’re voting, as far as what you were explaining with the ID? And if they’re from another country it was OK as long as they had an ID. How do you know if they’re illegal aliens? How can you stop that?”

Neild: “Well, if they’re illegal aliens, they’re not going to be inside the poll book. Because if they’re illegal aliens, they’re not going to be able to register to vote, because they’ll need a driver’s license number or a Social Security number.

“And since the recent litigation in the years past, you do have — to be able to get a driver’s license here in Pennsylvania, you have to show proof of citizenship. So that is one way that they will not be able to get a driver’s license.

“And then you have to be — since they’re illegal, they’re not going to be able to get a Social Security number either.”

Three election-law experts reviewed the exchange between Neild and the poll-watcher trainee. All of them said that Neild’s description of the law and the safeguards in place against noncitizen voting were accurate.

Adam Bonin, a lawyer in Philadelphia who practices election law, said Neild gave an accurate description of Pennsylvania law and the safeguards against noncitizen voting there. Bonin said Neild’s comments were “absolutely consistent” with what Pennsylvania’s secretary of the commonwealth, Al Schmidt, a Republican, has said about preventing noncitizen voting.

"As has been the case before, Trump has local experts on his team who know what the law is here in Pennsylvania and who understand the reality of how our elections work,” Bonin said.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School and an expert on voting rights who worked in the Obama and Biden administrations, said he applauded Neild for using factual information in his training session. Levitt added that he was not surprised to hear Republican volunteers raising fears of noncitizen voting given Trump’s campaign rhetoric.

“There’s been a very effective effort to misinform,” Levitt said. “But I’m glad that when push comes to shove and it comes time to really get training, they’re being set straight.”

In addition to the registration hurdles Neild pointed out, Levitt explained that there are clear incentives to discourage noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections. Criminal penalties can include a hefty fine and prison time as well as deportation and losing the ability to become a U.S. citizen in the future. What’s more, Levitt added, the very act of voting creates a clear and obvious paper trail, making it that much easier for law enforcement to bring criminal charges for illegal voting.

“Every once in a blue moon you see noncitizens showing up on the rolls,” he said. “It’s usually by mistake because it’s just not worth it, and they’re gonna get caught, guaranteed.”

Levitt said that he only wished the factual information given out by the RNC at the grassroots level was also reaching the party’s presidential nominee. “It sounds like the former president should be sitting in on some sessions with the people training his poll watchers,” Levitt said.

Do you have information about the Trump campaign or voting irregularities that we should know? Andy Kroll can be reached by email at andy.kroll@propublica.org and by phone or Signal at 202-215-6203.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Andy Kroll.

Together with another young math teacher, Rong Chhun — who later became a prominent labor activist — they formed a teachers' union to combat what they viewed as injustices at the school.

“We were called ‘democratic teachers,’” Chea Mony, 55, told Radio Free Asia in an interview. 

“I did not like corruption. I did not like to see an exploitation of our schoolteachers’ hours,” he said. “I did not like to see the students having to cross a river to go to school, and when they did not have the money to pay the boat fares, they were not allowed to take the boats to school.”

“Because of that, we organized a protest,” he said.

Chea Mony went on to become a leader of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, or CITA, which he founded with Rong Chhun. It worked closely with the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia, led by his brother Chea Vichea.

After Chea Vichea, a popular union labor organizer and outspoken critic of former Prime Minister Hun Sen, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2004, the workers’ union elected Chea Mony as president. 

Now, he faces the greatest challenge of his life as president of the National Power Party, or NPP, formed in 2023 to oppose the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, led by Prime Minister Hun Manet, son of longtime ruler Hun Sen.

Squashing opposition

For years, the CPP has acted to suppress any political opposition. 

In 2017, the country’s top court dissolved the main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party. The subsequent opposition Candlelight Party was barred from participating in 2023 elections on a technicality. 

Police have arrested activists and political opponents — including Sun Chanthy, the NPP’s previous chief, who was jailed on incitement charges.

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“I have many years of experience as a civil society leader, and my struggle is fighting for freedom, for the benefit of justice,” he said. 

”So, for me as the current leader of the National Power Party, I am not paying attention to [anything else] because my struggle is to focus on freedom and people, and it is not illegal [to do so]."

The NPP contested in Cambodia’s 2024 senate elections and the 2024 provincial elections, but none of its candidates won seats.

Humble roots

Born in Kratie province, in eastern Cambodia, Chea Mony grew up in Kandal province, which surrounds Phnom Penh, with his four brothers and two sisters.

His father was a former civil servant during the Sangkum Reastr Niyum period, also known as the First Kingdom of Cambodia from 1955 to 1970 when Prince Norodom Sihanouk ruled.

His mother, a housewife, died of an illness when he was young.

His father was killed in 1976 by the Khmer Rouge, the radical communist movement that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and killed an estimated 2 million people through overwork, starvation or executions.

After he graduated with a degree in chemistry from the Royal University of Phnom Penh in 1993, he taught at Hun Sen Saang High School in Saang district of Kandal province until 2000, when he transferred to Boeung Trabek High School in Phnom Penh.

That was where he met Rong Chhun, who became chairman of the teachers’ union they founded, CITA.

“Rong Chhun and I have the same character,” Chea Mony said. “We do not like oppression, exploitation and violation of rights.”

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, CITA and the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia engaged in many demonstrations to demand higher wages for teachers and factory workers, and to pressure the government to respect human rights.

Though his nonviolent activism resulted in dozens of lawsuits, authorities never arrested him. 

“We are the union leaders; we have to sue for justice [for the workers],” he said. “I've always [led] strikes [by] demanding that a labor court to resolve labor disputes,” he said. “It is better to take the labor case to an arbitration tribunal.”

2017 lawsuit

One of the most significant lawsuits against Chea Mony was filed by 120 pro-government unions in late 2017. 

They accused him of inciting the European Union and the United States to inflict economic sanctions against Cambodia after Chea Mony gave an interview to RFA about the impact of such sanctions on government and factory workers, if imposed. 

This occurred after Hun Sen repeatedly invited the international community to immediately impose sanctions on his regime. The court proceeded quickly, deciding to summon and charge Chea Mony, who instead fled abroad to escape harassment by the court. 

The case was dropped after Cambodia's Labor Ministry settled it outside the court, following intervention by the International Labor Organization and a request by major garment buyers that the government drop the charges against Chea Mony and other union leaders.

Rong Chhun, also 55, who is now an adviser to the NPP, described Chea Mony as a liberal and strong-willed advocate for democracy and respect for human rights.

“He is also a sharp advocate, strong in the face of adversity, when leading demonstrations and strikes,” he said.

Rong Chhun was granted conditional release from jail in September, but he cannot travel or participate in political meetings and must keep authorities informed of his whereabouts.

Chea Mony, who is married and has a daughter and a son, said that his new role is a heavy burden for him, but he is determined to do a good job.

Translated by Sum Sok Ry for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Yang Chandara for RFA Khmer.

The prison’s deputy director and spokesman, Nuth Savana, will continue in those roles while adding the director title, Minister of Interior Sar Sokha said in a statement on Wednesday.

No reason was given for the appointment, but it comes just days after Prime Minister Hun Manet ordered a probe into the video, which began circulating on Facebook and other social media accounts last week. 

It shows one young man – clad in just his underwear and a pair of sunglasses – dancing next to two prisoners who hug each other as they sway to an electronic beat. In the foreground, another prisoner chops up a white powder as others bop around amid flashing lights.

Nuth Savana told Radio Free Asia on Thursday that an investigation he led this week found that the video footage was taken in January 2023 during the Chinese New Year holiday and was shot inside Prey Sar.

“I am working on the case step by step,” he said. “The minister of interior ordered strict measures against those who were involved. He ordered inspectors to go there in addition to my team.”

On Tuesday, Hun Manet said at a public appearance in Kandal province that he had asked Sar Sokha to investigate why inmates were allowed to have a party in what looks to be a prison’s common area.

“We don’t know for sure what is happening on the Facebook video,” the prime minister said, according to a video of his speech that was posted to Facebook. “Maybe the [video] was 10 years old but we need to investigate, and we especially need to reform and strengthen the prisons across the country.”

He suggested that management of Prey Sar could be strengthened “by shuffling its leadership.”

‘Strict measures’ ordered

In June, prison officials in northern Stung Treng province were accused of taking bribes and then releasing eight Chinese prisoners who authorities said had illegally crossed into Cambodia.

The prisoners had told police that they had been smuggled across the border and planned to travel to Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, a seaside resort that has become a hotbed of criminal activity over the last decade. 

Prey Sar, located on the outskirts of the capital, is Cambodia’s largest prison with about 8,000 inmates. 

The prison’s male facility, known as Correctional Center 1, has been criticized for poor conditions and overcrowding. 

Prey Sar’s previous director, Yin Kun, retired on Sept. 9. The acting director who was named to the role last month was sidelined by Nuth Savana’s appointment this week.

As the new director, Nuth Savana said he wanted to reform the prison so that human rights are fully respected and the well-being of prison guards and prisoners is ensured.

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.

“Togolese authorities must urgently identify those responsible for the physical attacks on journalists Hyacinthe Gbloedzro, Godfrey Akpa, Yawo Klousse, Yvette Sossou, Romuald Koffi Lansou, and Albert Agbeko, and hold them to account,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program. “Covering a political meeting should not mean putting yourself at risk of violence.”

The journalists attacked included:

• Hyacinthe Gbloedzro, a reporter with the privately owned Nana FM radio, who told CPJ that attackers in plain clothes threw chairs at the conference table and journalists in front of it, causing a stampede. An assailant then hit him with a chair.
• Godfrey Akpa, a reporter with the privately owned Ici Lomé news website, who told CPJ that an attacker punched him in the face and that, after he fell, more than 10 others beat him, trying to take his phone. Akpa said gendarmes watched without intervening.
• Yvette Sossou, a reporter for the privately owned newspaper La Dépêche, who told CPJ that she was grabbed, knocked to the ground, and punched, resulting in severe abdominal pain and headaches. The attackers also took her phone, equipment, and money.
• Yawo Klousse, news director of the privately owned online website Afrique en ligne, who told CPJ that assailants hit him with chairs and took his bag.
• Romuald Koffi Lansou, a reporter for the private news YouTube channel TogoVisions, who told CPJ that the assailants punched him in the back and threw his tripod and other colleagues’ phones into a nearby well.
• Albert Agbeko, publishing director of the privately owned news site Togo Scoop, who told CPJ that he was hit on his back with a chair and that an attacker snatched his phone while he was filming. On October 4, an unidentified person called Agbeko and said that “they were going to hit him” for continuing to cover rallies when “they were asked to stop,” according to a recording of the call shared with CPJ.

On September 30, Togolese police announced they opened an investigation and that security forces had not taken protective measures because the rally had been banned.

When CPJ called the armed forces ministry, a representative said they had no information about the incident.

Calls and messages to Yawa Kouigan, Togo’s minister of communication, media, and culture,  and spokesperson for the Togolese government, went unanswered.

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

Yet as the month transpires and November nears, I think we might expect what for many will be the unexpected, as Bob Dylan reminds us with “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Listen: “I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warnin’/I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world.”

A Black Swan event or the expected?

And if that hard rain does fall, it won’t just be those ravishing leaves that will be pounded down and die. First comes the beauty, then the dying follows, as every fall decrees.  And while nature always brings the rebirth of spring, in their hubris, humans, thinking they are gods, have devised a technological solution that can bring all life to an end for good – nuclear weapons.

That their government is provoking their use by waging a war against Russia via Ukraine and backing the Israeli Middle East slaughter and genocide is not a thought that most Americans choose to entertain as they blithely go about their lives.  Such lucidity is deemed too depressing.

Dylan wrote that song in the summer of 1962, 62 years ago (a symbolic number by the way), shortly before the Cuban Missile Crisis that October when nuclear annihilation was avoided at the last minute when John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev came to their senses.

Today we are even closer than ever to a nuclear war, as those who closely follow such events tell us.  Scott Ritter, the former U.S. Marine and UN weapons inspector who tried to stop the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 by reporting that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is one.  He is joined by a host of lonely voices crying out their warnings: ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, journalist Pepe Escobar, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the late Daniel Ellsberg and Randy Kelher, the author James W. Douglass who has been writing and demonstrating (with his wife Shelley) against nuclear weapons for nearly half-a-century, peace activist and former CIA officer Elizabeth Murray, et al. (my apologies for limiting the list).  Many of these irenic and fatidic voices warning the world of the closeness of nuclear war have appeared on Andrew Napolitano’s illuminating Judging Freedom interview show.  Their voices are easily available, for now.

Ritter, who is being hounded by the U.S. government, has just written an article, “Life Pre-empted” whose opening line reads as follows: “If you’re not thinking about the end of the world by now, you’re either braindead or stuck in some remote corner of the world, totally removed from access to news.” [my emphasis]

He is right, although contemplating our nearness to nuclear war no doubt gives most people such a serious case of the megrims that they turn away. It is understandable but must be resisted if the world is to avoid disaster.  A world-wide antinuclear movement is necessary, one that links the dangers of the U.S. aggressive Ukrainian proxy-war against Russia with the U.S./Israeli genocide of Palestinians and its expanded war throughout the Middle East together with the U.S. provocations of China.

Even the corporate mainstream media are here and there starting to recognize the growing danger of nuclear war.  Of course, they blame Russia for this, as they do for everything, even as most of the world correctly points the finger at the United States.

For it is the USA together with its NATO lap dogs that have brought us to this point, as they have spent decades surrounding Russia with troops and missiles and waging a war to conquer Russian via Ukraine.  For those who don’t know this history, they are in for a big surprise if Russia responds and the nuclear missiles fly, as Pepe Escobar recently tweeted about a statement by Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia and presently the deputy chairman of its Security Council:

IT’S THUNDERBOLT TIME Medvedev Unplugged does know his Latin. But then Russian educational standards are in a class by itself, as I never cease to learn here in Moscow. Commenting on the update of Russia’s nuclear doctrine, Medvedev noted, “This change in our country’s guidelines for using nuclear weapons, in and of itself, may cool the ardor of those of our opponents who have not yet lost their sense of self-preservation. As for the dim-witted, only the Roman maxim remains: caelo tonantem credidimus Jovem Horace’s Odes. AnRegnare …” All of us who studied Latin know that comes straight from Horace and it goes straight to the point: thunder out of the sky reminds everyone that Jupiter rules. Medvedev’s metaphor is a beauty: the only way the “dim-witted” – Hegemonic and the vassal swamp – will learn is when the Russian Jupiter releases a thunderbolt.

Let us hope it doesn’t come to that.  But the danger of a nuclear war has increased dramatically as the Biden administration continues to up the ante with its support for Ukraine and Israel.  If it approves the Ukrainian request to use U.S., British, and French-supplied long-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russia, all bets are off.  And the world awaits Russian ally Iran’s response to the current Israel bombing of Lebanon and the killing of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement, a war crime of another government that believes there will be no repercussions for their actions.

The American public’s problem is not really ignorance of Latin (that is a symptom of a much greater ignorance), but being unable to recognize the truth about its leaders’ insane aggression and nuclear gamesmanship.  A knowledge of the Roman and Greek Classics reminds us that evil is real and tragedy descends on those who surpass the limits.  The tragic flaw – hamartia – is not part of the American lexicon. Disney World talk is.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently issued a warning to the US/NATO that Russia’s nuclear policy has changed as a result of US/NATO/Ukraine’s attacks inside Russia.  “Aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, with the participation or support of a nuclear state, is proposed to be considered as a joint attack on the Russian Federation,” he said.  As a result, he added, “We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus.”

But the Biden/Harris administration’s idiot leaders push the nuclear envelope thinking Russia is bluffing.  In their desire to conquer Russia, they have lost all reason and continue on a trajectory that started long ago but has now hit a crisis point.

For those who think this war against Russia will come to a peaceful conclusion, I refer them to a series of articles in the propaganda organ of the U.S. “deep state,” which is really very shallow and obvious – the journal Foreign Affairs ( January/February 2023) – the mouthpiece for the Council of Foreign Relations.  There you will read articles promoting the destruction of Russia, regime change, and the removal of Vladimir Putin, etc.  All justified by America’s God-given right to rule the world.  One article by Robert Kagan, the neoconservative adviser to Republican and Democratic administrations and the husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland, a central figure in the 2014 US-engineered Ukrainian coup d’état, is laughable, but that it is taken seriously is a sign that the ruling elites are so deluded and intent on never stopping to try to destroy Russia that they will claim anything, no matter how contrary to obvious facts.  They just make things up to fit their narrative.

In “A Free World If You Can Keep It,” Kagan writes, presumably with a straight face, the following: “Similarly, Putin’s serial invasions of neighboring states have not been driven by a desire to maximize Russia’s security. Russia’s never enjoyed greater security on its western frontier than during the three decades after the end of the Cold War…. But at no time since the fall of the Berlin Wall has anyone in Moscow had reason to believe that Russia faced the possibility of attack by the West.” [my emphasis]

This crap is so laughable if it weren’t so dangerous and delusional.  If Kagan actually believes what he is saying, which I doubt, then he is dumber that a rock. Since the end of the Cold War, US/NATO has, contrary to their promises, continually moved east, surrounding Russia right up to its borders with troops, bases, and missiles aimed at Russia.  Clear provocations and threats that Russia has been complaining about for a long time.

*****

So October approaches, the month of Halloween, actors, and masks.  Gore Vidal got a laugh when years ago he referred to Ronald Reagan as our “acting president.”  But we’ve had six acting presidents since and their acts have left millions dead and wounded around the globe, including thousands of American troops.  The American electoral system is a horror show, a spectacle in what Guy DeBord called “The Society of the Spectacle.”  Many Americans have acquiesced in this ongoing tragedy, playing their parts in this deadly charade. The ghosts of all these victims walk among us, and they will haunt us until we come to life by admitting our own complicity in their deaths. The show must not go on, but it will, as long as we keep acting our parts.

The Classical scholar Norman O. Brown so well describes our stage set: “Ancestral voices prophesying war; ancestral spirits in the danse macabre or war dance; Valhalla, ghostly warriors who kill each other and are reborn to fight again.  All warfare is ghostly, every army an exercitus feralis (army of ghosts), every soldier a living corpse.”

So many Americans mask themselves from this savage truth in a futile, face-saving, phony performance.  The act is wearing thin. It is time to see through the illusion that a world war is not in the making, unless vast numbers arise from their sleep and oppose it.

It is not just our “leaders” who perform at the Devil’s Masquerade Ball, which is the charade we call American Exceptionalism or The American Way of Life. I think of how all persons are, by definition, masked, the word person being derived from the Latin, persona, meaning mask.  Another Latin word, larva, occurs to me, it too means mask, ghost, or evil spirit.

The living masks light up for me as I think of ghosts, the dead, all the souls and spirits circulating through our days.  The murdered ghosts demanding retribution, and the spirits of the brave and truthful ones urging us to oppose the killers.

While etymology might seem arcane, I rather think it offers us a portal into our lives, not just personally, but politically and culturally as well. Shakespeare was right, of course, “all the world’s a stage,” though I would disagree that we are “merely” players. It does often seem that way, but seeming is the essence of the actor’s show and tell.

Who are we behind the masks? Who is it uttering those words coming through the masks’ mouth-holes (the per-sona, Latin, to sound through)?

October’s surprise party is coming.

“I heard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening,” sings Dylan.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Edward Curtin.

The U.S. presidential election is just 45 days away, and for antiwar voters, the policy differences between the two leading candidates are vanishingly thin. As the Biden-Harris administration continues to supply billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, the Uncommitted National Movement, which for months has attempted to steer the Democratic Party toward a more critical stance on Israel, has announced it is not endorsing Kamala Harris. Neither does the organization recommend casting a third-party vote, citing the risk of splitting the two-party vote and ushering in a second term for Donald Trump. “We were not met in good faith with our policy demands,” says the Uncommitted National Movement’s co-founder Lexis Zeidan about its attempts to parley with the Harris campaign. Zeidan says the organization will continue to pressure Democrats from within and outside of the party. “What we’re asking is not outrageous.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The Guardian reported this week a source from within the Foreign Office confirming what anyone paying close attention already knew.

By last February, according to the source, Britain’s then Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, had received official advice that Israel was using British arms components to commit war crimes in Gaza. Cameron sat on that information for many months, concealing it from the House of Commons and the British public, while Israel continued to butcher tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

Several points need making about the information provided to the Guardian:

1. The source says that the advice to Cameron on Israeli war crimes was “so obvious” it could not have been misunderstood by him or anyone else in the previous government. Given that the new Labour government has been similarly advised, forcing it to partially suspend arms sales, one conclusion only is possible: Cameron is complicit in Israel’s war crimes. The International Criminal Court must immediately investigate him. Its British chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, needs to issue an arrest warrant for Cameron as soon as possible. No ifs or buts.

2. Now in government, Labour has a legal duty to make clear the timeline of the advice Cameron received – and who else received it – to help the ICC in its prosecution of the former Foreign Secretary and other British officials for complicity in Israel’s atrocities.

3. The current furore being kicked up over Labour’s suspension of a tiny fraction of arm sales to Israel needs to be put firmly in context. David Lammy, Cameron’s successor, is keen to evade any risk of complicity charges himself. Leaders of the previous government are denouncing his decision on arms sales only because it exposes their own complicity in war crimes. Their outrage is desperate arse-covering – something the media ought to be highlighting but isn’t.

4. Labour needs to explain why, according to the source, the advice it has published has apparently been watered down from the advice Cameron received. As a result, Lammy has suspended 30 of 350 arms contracts with Israel – or 8 per cent of the total. He has avoided suspending the British components most likely to be assisting Israel in its war crimes: those used in Israel’s F-35 jets, made in the US.

Why? Because that would incur the full wrath of the Biden administration. He and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, dare not take on Washington.

In other words, Lammy’s decision has not only exposed the complicity of Cameron and the previous Tory leadership in Israeli war crimes. It also exposes Lammy and Starmer’s complicity. Put bluntly, following this week’s announcement, they are now 8 per cent less complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity than Cameron and the Tories were.

5. There has been lots of fake indignation from Israel and its lobbyists, especially in Britain’s Jewish community, about how offensive it is that the government should announce its suspension of a small fraction of arms sales to support Israel’s genocide in Gaza the day six Israeli hostages were buried.

The chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, for example, is incensed that the UK is limiting its arming of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, saying it “beggars belief”. He is thereby calling for the UK to trash international law, and ignore its own officials’ advice that Israel risks using British weapons to commit war crimes. He is demanding that the UK facilitate genocide.

The British Board of Deputies, which claims to represent British Jews, has retweeted Mirvis’ comment. The Board’s president has been all over the airwaves similarly decryingLammy’s decision.

Israel would, of course, have always found some reason to be appalled at the timing. There is an obviously far more important consideration than the bogus “sensitivities” of Israel and genocide apologists like Rabbi Mirvis. Each day the UK government delays banning all arms to Israel – not just a small percentage – more Palestinians in Gaza die and the more Britain contributes to Israel’s crimes against humanity.

But equally to the point: according to the rules Starmer imposed on the Labour party – that Britain’s Jewish leaders get to define what offends Jews and what amounts to antisemitism, especially on issues concerning Israel – the Labour government is now, judged by those standards, antisemitic. You can’t have one set of rules for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour left, and another for Starmer and the Labour right.

Or rather you can. That is precisely the game the entire British establishment has been playing for the past seven years. A game that has facilitated Israel’s genocide in Gaza even more than the sales of British weapons to Israel.

6. Many have dismissed the significance of recent rulings against Israel from the International Court of Justice – that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza and that its decades of occupation are illegal and a form of apartheid – as well as moves from the International Criminal Court to arrest Netanyahu as a war criminal.

Here we see how mistaken that approach is. Those legal decisions have set the two wings of the British establishment – the Tories and the Starmerite Labour right – at loggerheads. Both are now desperate in their different ways to distance themselves from charges of complicity.

The rulings have also opened up a potential rift with Washington. The State Department spokesman has been shown having to frantically justify why the US is not banning its own arms sales.

Journalist Humeyra Pamuk questioned State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on why the US has not followed the UK's decision to suspend arms sales to Israel over concerns about potential violations of international law. pic.twitter.com/mujwDyblgZ

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 4, 2024

Admittedly, these are only small fissures in the western system of oligarchy. But those fissures are weaknesses – weaknesses that those who care about human rights, care about international law, care about stopping a genocide, and care about saving their own humanity can exploit. We have few opportunities. We need to grasp every single one of them.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Grandnieces explained how to pronounce her first name and an assortment of previous well-respected Democrat luminaries detailed why they love and we should love candidate Harris. Finally, the real-life Kamala Harris took the stage, eloquently traced the course of her life and outlined her recommended policies, including the awaited “ticking bomb” that has divided the Democratic Party  ─ handling of the Middle East crisis. Did the real Kamala Harris stand up?

To the eager Democrats, more from being influenced by the engineered media than what they saw, Kamala Harris was convincing, presenting herself as a patriotic and  dedicated American, fighting  for people’s rights, and demonstrating ability to handle the previously mentioned critical issue facing the Democratic Party ─ the Middle East crisis. Driven by the manipulated euphoria, the followers of the Democratic Party ruled that the real Kamala Harris stood up.

A surface phenomena!

Kamala Harris did not have to express herself with the narratives that she used. Her presentation reinforced the reasons that guide those who have been driven to the Trump candidacy — Democratic support for NATO  and foreign wars, liberal hypocrisy, promotion of the military-industrial complex, interference in other nations, and claiming  the moral high ground. Candidate Harris may have harmed her candidacy. Parse the words.

Before a delegation, chanting Trump rhetoric of “USA, USA, USA,” VP Harris said, “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. Because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.”

U.S. foreign policy defends its global hegemony — economic, cultural, and militarist — against perceived opponents in China and Russia. Harris’ dialogue prompted many questions:

Why does Israel deserve unique attention? How does Israel fit in with U.S. objectives and U.S. worldwide conflicts any more than Egypt?
Why does a president seeker single out support for a nation, which, if it disappeared, would not change U.S. life, U.S. global strategy, or U.S. direction by one monkey tail?
Why defend apartheid Israel in its theft of Palestinian lands, dehumanizing  the Palestinian people, and murdering their children?
Where are the adversaries that Israel must defend itself against? Are they Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, who have no offensive capabilities, and  — no air force, no tanks, no navies and no desire to be vanquished? [Iran has an aged and minor air force, but it has a navy and hypersonic missiles; some military analysts consider that Hezbollah defeated Israel — DV ed]

By some weird (favored word these days) thinking, adopting Israel’s problems as America’s problems is an ordinary consideration. Israel’s adversaries are immediately America’s adversaries. Problems that the U.S. has with China and Russia receive no attention in Israel; hey, Russia and China are two of Israel’s favored partners.

If Kamala Harris does not want “the people of Israel to again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival,” shouldn’t she warn Israel that it is preferable that a terrorist organization called Zionism does not inflict upon the people of Palestine the horrors it has caused them for 75 years, including unspeakable violence against the population and massacres of infants? Unlike Israel, which has killed many American civilians and service people (USS Liberty), Hamas has not done any damage to Americans and, from an American perspective, cannot be  designated a terrorist organization, no more that the U.S., who committed several atrocities in Vietnam and Iraq, can be labelled a terrorist organization.

Reading a document scripted by AIPAC, became evident by the additional Harris comment, “At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.”

This is the usual and cunning  Zionist practice of presenting everything with the “good guy” and “bad guy” balanced approach. Keep up the hopes. Don’t be concerned that Israel is favored, there are also elements who realize that “what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating.” Note that Harris delineates Hamas committing devastation upon Israelis, but makes no mention of who caused the devastation in Gaza and uses “many innocent lives lost,” rather than “innocent people murdered.” Who promoted “desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again, and who induced “the scale of suffering that is heartbreaking.” The culprit Israel is never mentioned.

For the umpteenth time, we hear, “With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock because now is the time to get a hostage deal and cease-fire done,” and “President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.” Mention of Palestinians’ “right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination” has been an annual ritual and Democrat’s doctrine for decades. The “time to get a hostage deal and cease-fire done” was nine months ago, before tens of thousands of Palestinians were slaughtered and almost all of them were several times displaced.

The heir to Anthony Blinken, the most incapable Secretary of State in all U.S. history, will probably be saying the same in year 2030, except for replacing the words “Palestinian people,” with the words, “the  ten surviving Palestinians.”

By some weird (favored word these days) thinking, the convention invited the parents of a Zionist American, who was captured by Hamas, to plead for his release. The parents stated he had migrated to Israel to be with his people. Let’s place this in perspective.

This is a person who grew up in the United States, received his education and training in the United States, speaks English. and identifies with American culture.  He has no identification with Israelis, who speak Hebrew, eat different foods, and have a different history and culture. Does he share much with a Moroccan or Tunisian Jew? Are these his people? Isn’t he American?

This person deserted the nation that nurtured him and, for no adequate reason, assisted a despotic nation in its genocide of the Palestinians. The Americans of Palestinian descent, murdered, harassed, and detained by Israel received no attention.

VP Harris continued her pandering to the military-industrial complex with the brilliant remarks, “And know this: I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists,” followed with, “Trump, on the other hand, threatened to abandon NATO. He encouraged Putin to invade our allies, he said Russia could “do whatever the hell they want… as President, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.”

In the 2016 election, a major part of the American electorate rejected the conventional wisdoms of using NATO for offensive purposes, enhancing the military-industrial complex, and waging constant wars. In 2024, eight years later, the Dems still do not realize why Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election.

All that Kamala Harris said could have been iterated in a more politically preferred manner — stopping wars rather than helping others in wars, ending the Middle East strife rather than assisting in genocide, finding ways to gain Iran and DPRK friendships rather than threatening them, striving to reduce conflict rather than strengthening NATO.

Moving voters away from the Democratic Party emerged from a hypocritical statement, “…to be clear, my entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people.” If so, why did Harris pander to one class, the middle class, by offering, “Well, instead of a Trump tax hike, we will pass a middle-class tax cut that will benefit more than 100 million Americans.”

Tax cuts are controversial and usually occur during times of recessions. Is Harris saying that the present tax rates, which are the lowest since World War II, are still not sufficiently low, and that the Biden administration ignored the middle class and will make amends? Is it wise to cut taxes and increase consumer demand during an inflationary period? This suggested tax cut is a disaster for the American economy. Not wanting to drift this article too far from its central issue, I’ll defer discussion of the proposed tax cut for another article.

Number one issue

There are a multitude of reasons that the U.S. participation in the genocide of the Palestinian people is the number one issue in the U.S. today and, unless that issue is justly satisfied, it does not matter who gets elected.  Supporting the genocide,

• Turns the Declaration of Independence and Constitution into words on paper, which are used to benefit an elite and cajole the masses.
• Reduces democracy, human rights, freedom, justice, and right to self-determination to farce.
• Intensifies the divisions that have already polarized America.
• Drives many Americans to despair, unable to comprehend how an obvious genocide by an obvious tyrant is supported and permitted. The American government and its mass of citizens exhibit insensitivity to the genocide, insensibility to the forces driving it, lack of concern for the Palestinian people, and have bewildered the knowing America.
• Betrays American sacrifices in World War II, where the U.S. fought against a tyranny and now supports its almost identical lookalike.
• Ratifies the use of those killed in Nazi labor camps to justify the mass killings of innocent Palestinians.
• Increases resentment to Jews and reinforces charges that Jews manipulate power and control media and courts. I know people who now refuse to socialize with Jews unless they are assured these Jews are not pro-Israel.
• Disturbs American youth who cannot understand how a legitimate and necessary protest against genocide becomes charged as an anti-Semitic diatribe and their pleas for human tights turns them into anti-Semites.

Many of us have become ashamed of being Jews. Must we now become ashamed of being Americans?

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

A high-ranking official with a new Cambodian opposition party, the Nation Power Party, was arrested Monday and charged with incitement, in what the party said was an attempt to intimidate government opponents.

Chin Bunnaroth, the party’s director-general of administration in southern Takeo province, was arrested by six civilian-clothes police officers in Phnom Penh on Monday, according to a National Power Party statement.

No arrest warrant was presented and it was unclear what prompted the “incitement to cause serious social chaos” charge, the party said.

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, often puts pressure on police to arrest political opposition members on politically motivated charges – particularly in the run-up to elections to ensure its own politicians retain power or win new seats in contested areas.

Last May’s local elections featured a crackdown on opposition activists, including the arrests of three opposition party members on May 9.

The Nation Power Party’s president, Sun Chanthy, was one of the three. He was arrested at Phnom Penh International Airport upon his return from Japan, where he had addressed Cambodian supporters. He was also charged with incitement.

Another example of intimidation

Chin Bunnaroth was placed under pre-trial detention at Prey Sar prison in Phnom Penh on Tuesday, according to National Police spokesman Chhay Kim Khoeun.

The Nation Power Party called on the government to unconditionally release Chin Bunnaroth. The arrest was another example of the government’s use of the courts to threaten and intimidate political activists, the party said in its statement.

Rong Chhun, a prominent labor activist and an adviser to the Nation Power Party, told Radio Free Asia that the arrest appeared to violate human rights principles. 

Eventually, arresting political opponents will have a negative effect on Cambodia’s international reputation and could severely damage the investment and tourism climate, he said.

“The party’s statement is a political issue,” Chhay Kim Khoeun told RFA. “I have nothing to say. We just enforce the law by following the court’s order.” 

The Nation Power Party was formed in 2023 by breakaway members of the Candlelight Party, the main political organization opposing the government under the CPP, which has ruled the country since 1979.

The party has stated that it wants to promote a truly democratic Cambodia through free, fair and equitable elections.

Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.

“We are deeply saddened by the tragic August 23 drone strike that killed two journalists and injured a third in Iraqi Kurdistan,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim MENA program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Turkish authorities should swiftly investigate this attack and determine if the reporting team was targeted for their work.”

The attack killed Gulistan Tara, a 40-year-old Turkish journalist, and Hero Bahadin, a 27-year-old Iraqi video editor. All three journalists worked for Chatr Multimedia Production Company, which operates Sterk TV and Aryen TV, news channels funded by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK.) Turkey, the U.S., and the European Union have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization, and Iraq’s National Security Council banned the group earlier this year.

Turkey has escalated its military operations in the Kurdistan Region, targeting the PKK, which has been engaged in a decades-long conflict with Turkey. On July 8, a Turkish strike in Sinjar, northern Iraq, led to the death of a Çira TV reporter.

Rebin Bakir, an Iraqi video editor and social media officer injured in the August 23 attack, is in stable condition after treatment at Shar Hospital in Sulaymaniyah for broken legs and hands, according to Hawzhin Shwan, a Sterk TV reporter and anchor, who spoke to CPJ.

The three were on a reporting mission in an unmarked car along the Sulaymaniyah-Halabja road near the village of Goptapa when they were hit, Kamal Hamaraza, head of Chatr Multimedia Production Company, told CPJ, adding that they were journalists “with no direct or indirect connection to politics or military activities.”

“We have faced ongoing threats from Turkish attacks due to our consistent coverage of their operations and violations in the Kurdistan region,” Hamaraza said.

Salam Abdulkhaliq, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Region Security Agency, told CPJ that the agency “will publish publicly if they issue anything.” 

CPJ’s email requesting comment from the Permanent Mission of Turkey to the United Nations did not receive a response.

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

Photograph Source: Office of Governor Tim Walz & Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan – Public Domain

In choosing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate, Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has not only picked a progressive governor and a Midwestern populist to lead the party’s national ticket but she also may have signaled that the Democratic Party is ready to take back its reputation as the education party.

Walz, a former public school teacher and football coach in Mankato, Minnesota, draws on his experience as an educator to inform his political persona and policy beliefs, saying in a 2007 interview with Education Week—after he was elected to Congress—that teachers are “more grounded in what people really care about.”

As governor of Minnesota, he acted on that philosophy of caring by pushing for and signing into law a $72 billion state budget in May 2023 that significantly increased funding for the state’s public schools, provided for a new $1,750-per-child tax credit, free college tuition for families earning less than $80,000 per year, funding for free school meals for K-12 students statewide, and paid sick leave for workers, as well as a paid family and medical leave.

The “historic” education spending Walz approved included a $5.5 billion increase over the next four years, a substantial raise to the state’s per-pupil funding formula, and an increase in funding for full-service community schools consisting of $7.5 million for two years and then $5 million per year in the future. Community schools practice a holistic education approach that entails attending to the non-academic needs of students and families, including access to technology, social services, physical and mental health care, adult education, and after-school and summer programs.

It’s also telling that in picking Walz to be her running mate Harris rejected Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who prominent centrist Democrats claimed was Harris’s “best chance” of wooing political moderates in an election that is expected to be a close race to the finish.

But Shapiro had set off alarms among public school advocates. In a letter sent in July 2024 to the Harris campaign, which was picked up by numerous media outlets, more than two dozen grassroots education groups warned against selecting Shapiro because of his support for taxpayer-funded private school vouchers.

The letter stated that Shapiro “has supported education policies mirroring Project 2025,” the right-wing manifesto from the Heritage Foundation that is expected to provide a blueprint for a new Trump administration and “includes measures to funnel federal education funds directly to families through education savings accounts,” stated WITF.

“Through Project 2025,” the letter further read, “[conservatives] have made it abundantly clear the end goal of gutting public education and privatizing what is left via irresponsible voucher systems like those in Florida and Arizona.”

“Walz has pretty much been the best governor on education in Minnesota in decades,” wrote Sarah Lahm in an email to Our Schools. Lahm is a veteran education journalist based in the state and an Our Schools contributing writer. Choosing Walz to be the nominee “is good news,” she said, “especially compared to Shapiro and his school choice record.”

No doubt, in selecting a running mate, the Harris team weighed numerous issues, but the fact that opposition to school vouchers came to the fore is unusual in Democratic political circles where education is often not considered to be an important national issue.

When Democrats Were the Education Party

The last time the Democratic Party had a former K-12 school teacher running for vice president was in 1960, and the candidate was Lyndon Johnson. Although most experts insist that vice presidents have little influence on federal policies, Johnson ultimately became president and was instrumental in pushing through the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965 that is still, in its current version called Every Student Succeeds Act, and is the blueprint for federal education policy today.

The Democratic Party burnished its reputation as the education party in 1979 when then-Democratic President Jimmy Carter approved legislation to create the U.S. Department of Education as a Cabinet-level entity.

In 2004, Frederick Hess and Andrew Kelly of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute wrote, “Historically, Democrats have enjoyed a substantial advantage over the Republicans on education due to their support for education spending and their decades-old alliance with unions and public employees.”

But that advantage began to erode in the late 1980s, Hess and Kelly contended, due to “Reaganite critiques of liberalism and expensive social programs.” Democrats responded to those attacks by “seek[ing] a more moderate course on domestic policies, including education,” they noted, and by late 2002, when Congress passed the bipartisan No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, popular opinion on which party was best on education was nearly split.

Nevertheless, Democrats seemed to have regained the advantage by 2012 when polling by Pew Research Center found, “By about two-to-one (53 percent to 27 percent), more [voters] say Democrats can do a better job improving the education system in the country.”

But the Democrats’ resurgence as the favored party for education didn’t last, and when Pew surveyed voters again in 2014, the party had only a 4 percent advantage over Republicans in handling education.

“Taken as a whole, the data suggest that Democrats are struggling more on education than at any other time in the past two decades,” Hess wrote in 2022 when he again examined which party had the best education cred.

The Democratic party’s declining reputation for supporting public schools did not mean Republicans were gaining much favorability, Hess found, but “Democrats have been losing voters’ confidence for a half-decade, and that decline has become noticeably steeper over the past two years,” he wrote, noting that nearly one in five voters didn’t trust either party.

Also in 2022, a poll of voters in key battleground states conducted by Hart Research for the American Federation of Teachers found 39 percent of voters trusted Republicans compared to 38 percent who showed confidence in the Democrats on education issues. Another poll conducted the same year by Democrats for Education Reform, an organization that advocates for privatizing schools with charters and vouchers, found a more lopsided Republican advantage, with 47 percent saying they trusted Republicans “to handle education” and 43 percent saying they trusted Democrats.

What Happened?

Republicans would have you believe that the source for the shift in popular approval on education policy away from Democrats was due to mask mandates that Democratic government officials supported during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another narrative that right-wing operatives like to spin is that when the pandemic forced students to shift to remote learning, parents saw firsthand that their children were being instructed in so-called leftist ideology and “Democratic indoctrination.”

Although many media outlets have reported these narratives as factual, they really aren’t.

First, surveys of parents during the pandemic years found that they were mostly supportive of how schools responded to the situation, and when schools went back to face-to-face learning, parents remained satisfied with the schools.

Also, as the above survey data from Pew in 2014 show, voters started to sour on the Democratic Party’s education politics before the COVID-19 outbreak.

Without a doubt, the Democratic Party’s declining popularity related to education has something to do with the policies the party supported or failed to support. During the years that Pew was tracking the party’s declining reputation on education issues, the Obama presidential administration’s education agenda and his ham-handed Secretary of Education Arne Duncan were so disastrous that Congress was spurred to rewrite ESEA to rein in some of the federal government’s powers to shape local education policies.

Further, during President Trump’s administration, while Republicans coalesced around so-called school choice policies that give parents taxpayer funds to pull their kids out of public schools, the Democratic Party countered with, well, basically nothing.

It bears noting that when Joe Biden ran for president, he did not continue with the education policies of the Obama administration, and his administration, likely at the urging of the strong public school advocacy of First Lady Jill Biden, returned to a relatively safe narrative of education as an essential “investment.” But he never really gave the Democrats a programmatic education brand the party could hang its hat on.

Having Tim Walz on the Democratic Party’s presidential campaign is an opportunity to change that.

‘Sitting on the Edge of Our Seats’

Based on his accomplishments in Minnesota, Walz has demonstrated his inclination to back education policies that matter most. He also eschews policy gimmicks that have been favored by both parties.

In his 2007 interview with Education Week, Walz criticized NCLB as a “bureaucratic nightmare” and said “the application of it [had] very little impact on real student achievement.”

As governor, he has “stood firmly against school voucher programs,” according to the Baltimore Sun, and opposed Minnesota’s Republican-controlled Senate that wanted to create education savings accounts that give parents taxpayer money to pull their children out of public schools and use other education options.

With Walz now elevated to a vice-presidential nominee, public education advocates and policy experts are “sitting on the edge of our seats to see the policy implications of a teacher as the vice president of the United States of America,” wrote education professor Phelton Moss in an August 2024 op-ed for Education Week. “A Harris-Walz administration could be a historic next phase in education policy,” he wrote.

Of course, it’s still early in the long presidential campaign season to say whether or not education becomes a prominent issue. A Harris-Walz victory is far from being assured, and vice presidents often have little influence over policy directions in a presidential administration.

But Harris’s decision to choose Walz as her running mate creates an opportunity to overhaul the outdated education policies of the Democratic Party establishment and remake the party’s image of being a genuine hero for public schools and children.

This article was produced by Our Schools.

The post Can Vice-Presidential Pick Tim Walz Make Democrats the Education Party Again? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jeff Bryant.

The atmosphere in Kiribati is “very calm” and “the hype is not as it is in other countries”, a local I-Kiribati resident says.

People in the Micronesia nation are casting their ballots in the first round of voting today.

Polling stations opened at 7am NZ time.

• READ MORE:  Kiribati elections 2024 – what’s at stake in today’s vote
• Other Kiribati reports

There are 115 candidates contesting for 44 parliamentary seats — 97 males and 18 females. The 45th seat is nominated by the Banaban community, majority of who live on the island of Rabi in Fiji.

A local resident in the capital Tarawa, Robert Karoro, told RNZ Pacific via email last night the election was an “important moment” for people of Micronesian nation.

But he said the polls in his country were different compared to other democracies in the world “because of the nature and culture of the people of Kiribati”.

“People of Kiribati are very respectful and respecting each other as candidates is common practice here.”

Candidates unopposed
He said three islands currently have already confirmed their MPs because the candidates stood unopposed.

The ruling Tobwaan Kiribati Party (TKP) is in the lead as three out of the four candidates from the three islands are from the incumbent government.

He said the outcome of the election “will be determined by those casting their votes and electing the leaders for the next four years”.

As for parties, Karoro said voters will have a clearer picture after the first round of voting concludes this evening.

The capital South Tarawa (TUC), which is part of Tarawa, has 23 candidates — the highest ever so far, he added.

The voting will close at 6pm.

‘Women have power’
A former Kiribati journalist is one of the 18 women candidates vying of a seat in Maneaba ni Maungatabu (Parliament).

Kairao Bauea is making her political debut standing for Kiribati’s largest electorate, South Tarawa, BenarNews reports.

Bauea, 47, is advocating for a greater role for women in politics and believes she is ready to step up to a bigger household beyond her home — the parliament of Kiribati.

“Women have power, perhaps not ‘manpower’, but the power to change things for the better,” she was quoted as saying according to the BenarNews report.

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.

Sheikh Hasina was the longest-serving prime minister in Bangladesh’s history. She was the prime minister from 1996 to 2001, and then from 2009 to 2024—a total of 20 years. This was a sharp contrast to her father Sheikh Mujib, who was assassinated in 1975 after four years in power, or General Ziaur Rahman who was assassinated in 1981 after six years in power. In a scene reminiscent of the end of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s rule in Sri Lanka, jubilant crowds of thousands crashed the gates of Ganabhaban, the official residence of the prime minister, and jubilantly made off with everything they could find.

Tanzim Wahab, photographer and chief curator of the Bengal Foundation, told me, “When [the masses] storm into the palace and make off with pet swans, elliptical machines, and palatial red sofas, you can feel the level of subaltern class fury that built up against a rapacious regime.” There was widespread celebration across Bangladesh, along with bursts of attacks against buildings identified with the government—private TV channels, and palatial homes of government ministers were a favored target for arson. Several local-level leaders in Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League have already been killed (Mohsin Reza, a local president of the party, was beaten to death in Khulna).

The situation in Bangladesh remains fluid, but it is also settling quickly into a familiar formula of an “interim government” that will hold new elections. Political violence in Bangladesh is not unusual, having been present since the birth of the country in 1971. Indeed, one of the reasons why Sheikh Hasina reacted so strongly to any criticism or protest was her fear that such activity would repeat what she experienced in her youth. Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-1975), the founder of Bangladesh, was assassinated in a coup d’état on August 15, 1975, along with most of his family. Sheikh Hasina and her sister survived because they were in Germany at that time—the two sisters fled Bangladesh together on the same helicopter this week. She has been the victim of multiple assassination attempts, including a grenade attack in 2004 that left her with a hearing problem. Fear of such an attempt on her life made Sheikh Hasina deeply concerned about any opposition to her, which is why up to 45 minutes before her departure she wanted the army to again act with force against the gathering crowds.

However, the army read the atmosphere. It was time for her to leave.

A contest has already begun over who will benefit from the removal of Sheikh Hasina. On the one side are the students, led by the Bangladesh Student Uprising Central Committee of about 158 people and six spokespersons. Lead spokesperson Nahid Islam made the students’ views clear: “Any government other than the one we recommended would not be accepted. We won’t betray the bloodshed by the martyrs for our cause. We will create a new democratic Bangladesh through our promise of security of life, social justice, and a new political landscape.” At the other end are the military and the opposition political forces (including the primary opposition party Bangladesh National Party, the Islamist party Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, and the small left party Ganosamhati Andolan). While the Army’s first meetings were with these opposition parties, a public outcry over the erasure of the student movement forced the Army to meet with the Student Central Committee and listen to their primary demands.

There is a habit called polti khawa or “changing the team jersey midway through a football match” that prevails in Bangladesh, with the military being the referee in charge at all times. This slogan is being used in public discourse now to draw attention to any attempt by the military to impose a mere change of jersey when the students are demanding a wholesale change of the rules of the game. Aware of this, the military has accepted the student demand that the new government be led by economist Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s only Nobel Prize winner. Yunus, as the founder of the microcredit movement and promoter of “social business,” used to be seen as primarily a phenomenon in the neoliberal NGO world. However, the Hasina government’s relentless political vendetta against him over the last decade, and his decision to speak up for the student movement, have transformed him into an unlikely “guardian” figure for the protesters. The students see him as a figurehead although his neoliberal politics of austerity might be at odds with their key demand, which is for employment.

Students

Even prior to independence and despite the rural character of the region, the epicenter of Bangladeshi politics has been in urban areas, with a focus on Dhaka. Even as other forces entered the political arena, students remain key political actors in Bangladesh. One of the earliest protests in post-colonial Pakistan was the language movement (bhasha andolan) that emerged out of Dhaka University, where student leaders were killed during an agitation in 1952 (they are memorialized in the Shaheed Minar, or Martyrs’ Pillar, in Dhaka). Students became a key part of the freedom struggle for liberation from Pakistan in 1971, which is why the Pakistani army targeted the universities in Operation Searchlight which led to massacres of student activists. The political parties that emerged in Bangladesh after 1971 grew largely through their student wings—the Awami League’s Bangladesh Chhatra League, the Bangladesh National Party’s Bangladesh Jatiotabadi Chatradal, and the Jamaat-e-Islami’s Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir.

Over the past decade, students in Bangladesh have been infuriated by the growing lack of employment despite the bustling economy, and by what they perceived as a lack of care from the government. The latter was demonstrated to them by the callous comments made by Shajahan Khan, a minister in Sheikh Hasina’s government, who smirked as he dismissed news that a bus had killed two college students on Airport Road, Dhaka, in July 2019. That event led to a massive protest movement by students of all ages for road safety, to which the government responded with arrests (including incarceration for 107 days of the photojournalist Shahidul Alam).

Behind the road safety protests, which earned greater visibility for the issue, was another key theme. Five years previously, in 2013, students who were denied access to the Bangladesh Civil Service began a protest over restrictive quotas for government jobs. In February 2018, this issue returned through the work of students in the Bangladesh Sadharon Chhatra Odhikar Songrokkhon Parishad (Bangladesh General Students’ Rights Protection Forum). When the road safety protests occurred, the students raised the quota issue (as well as the issue of inflation). By law, the government reserved seats in its employment for people in underdeveloped districts (10 percent), women (10 percent), minorities (5 percent), and the disabled (1 percent) as well as for descendants of freedom fighters (30 percent).

It is the latter quota that has been contested since 2013 and which returned as an emotive issue this year for the student protesters—especially after the prime minister’s incendiary comment at a press conference that those protesting the freedom fighter quotas were “rajakarer natni” (grandchildren of war traitors). British journalist David Bergman, who is married to prominent Bangladeshi activist lawyer Sara Hossain and was hounded into exile by the Hasina government, called this comment the “terrible error” that ended the government.

Military Islam

In February 2013, Abdul Quader Mollah of the Jamaat-e-Islami was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s liberation war (he was known to have killed at least 344 civilians). When he left the court, he made a V sign, whose arrogance inflamed large sections of Bangladesh’s society. Many in Dhaka gathered at Shahbag, where they formed a Gonojagoron Moncho (Mass Awakening Platform). This protest movement pushed the Supreme Court to reassess the verdict, and Mollah was hanged on December 12. The Shahbag movement brought to the surface a long-term tension in Bangladesh regarding the role of religion in politics.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman initially claimed that Bangladesh would be a socialist and secular country. After his assassination by the military, general Ziaur Rahman took over the country and governed it from 1975 to 1981. During this time, Zia brought religion back into public life, welcomed the Jamaat-e-Islami from banishment (which had been due to its participation in the genocide of 1971), and—in 1978—formed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on nationalist lines with a strong critical stance toward India. General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who took control after his own coup in 1982 and ruled until 1990, went further, declaring that Islam was the state’s religion. This provided a political contrast with the views of Mujib, and of his daughter Sheikh Hasina who took the reins of her father’s party, the Awami League, in 1981.

The stage was set for a long-term contest between Sheikh Hasina’s centrist-secular Awami League and the BNP, which was taken over by Zia’s wife Khaleda Zia after the General was assassinated in 1981. Gradually, the military—which had a secular orientation in its early days—began to witness a growing Islamist mood. Political Islam has grown in Bangladesh with the rise of piety in the general population, some of it driven by the Islamization of migrant labor to the Gulf states and to Southeast Asia. The latter has steadily reflected growth in observance of the Islamic faith in the aftermath of the war on terror’s many consequences. One should neither exaggerate this threat nor minimize it.

The relationship of the political Islamists, whose popular influence has grown since 2013, with the military is another factor that requires much more clarity. Given the dent in the fortunes of the Jamaat-e-Islami since the War Crimes Tribunal documented how the group was involved on the side of Pakistan during the liberation struggle, it is likely that this formation of political Islam has a threshold in terms of its legitimacy. However, one complicating factor is that the Hasina government relentlessly used the fear of “political Islam” as a bogeyman to obtain US and Indian silent consent to the two elections in 2018 and 2024. If the interim government holds a fair election on schedule, this will allow Bangladeshi people to find out if political Islam is a dispensation they wish to vote for.

New Cold War

Far away from the captivating issues put forward by the students which led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina are dangerous currents that are often not discussed during these exciting times. Bangladesh is the eighth-largest country in the world by population, and it has the second highest Gross Domestic Product in South Asia. The role it plays in the region and in the world is not to be discounted.

Over the course of the past decade, South Asia has faced significant challenges as the United States imposed a new cold war against China. Initially, India participated with the United States in the formations around the US Indo-Pacific Strategy. But, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, India has begun to distance itself from this US initiative and tried to put its own national agenda at the forefront. This meant that India did not condemn Russia but continued to buy Russian oil. At the same time, China had—through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—built infrastructure in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, India’s neighbors.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that four governments in the region that had begun to collaborate with the BRI have fallen, and that their replacements in three of them are eager for better ties with the United States. This includes Shehbaz Sharif, who came to power in Pakistan in April 2022 with the ouster of Imran Khan (now in prison), Ranil Wickremesinghe, who briefly came to power in Sri Lanka in July 2022 after setting aside a mass uprising that had other ideas than the installation of a party with only one member in parliament (Wickremesinghe himself), and KP Sharma Oli, who came to power in July 2024 in Nepal after a parliamentary shuffle that removed the Maoists from power.

What role the removal of Sheikh Hasina will play in the calculations in the region can only be gauged after elections are held under the interim government. But there is little doubt that these decisions in Dhaka are not without their regional and global implications.

The students rely upon the power of the mass demonstrations for their legitimacy. What they do not have is an agenda for Bangladesh, which is why the old neoliberal technocrats are already swimming like sharks around the interim government. In their ranks are those who favor the BNP and the Islamists. What role they will play is yet to be seen.

If the student committee now formed a bloc with the trade unions, particularly the garment worker unions, there is the possibility that they might indeed form the opening for building a new democratic and people-centered Bangladesh. If they are unable to build this historical bloc, they may be pushed to the side, just like the students and workers in Egypt, and they might have to surrender their efforts to the military and an elite that has merely changed its jersey.

• This article was produced by Globetrotter.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

“CPJ is alarmed by the sentencing of Syrian journalist Sleman Ahmed, who has been detained for nine months,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim MENA program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “We urge Iraqi Kurdistan authorities to release him without further delay and stop persecuting journalists for their work.”

Authorities charged Ahmed with espionage on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), according to Ramazan Tartisi, one of Ahmed’s lawyers, who spoke to CPJ. Tartisi and Luqman Ahmed, another member of the legal team who has no relation to the journalist, told CPJ that the journalist denied the charges and plans to appeal. 

The separatist PKK is designated a terrorist organization by several countries and institutions, including the U.S., Turkey, and the European Union. Iraq officially banned the group last week. 

Ahmed is the Arabic editor for the local news website RojNews, based in Sulaymaniyah, a city in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region. RojNews is pro-PKK and regularly reports on the organization’s activities. 

The charges were “merely a means to retaliate against the journalist,” Luqman Ahmed told CPJ, saying that the court had no evidence for the conviction and the legal process was “very unfair,” adding that the lawyers were only allowed to attend the trial after pressure from the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq and foreign consulates.

Iraqi Kurdish authorities arrested Ahmed on October 25, 2023, when he re-entered Kurdistan after a family visit in Syria. The Security Directorate (Asayish), responsible for border security in Duhok Governorate, accused him of conducting “secret and illegal” work for the PKK.

CPJ’s call to Duhok Asayish Director Zeravan Baroshky for comment did not receive any reply.

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

Trong, who state media said died of “of old age and serious illness,” served for 13 years as the most powerful leader in the Southeast Asian country’s one-party political system, and spearheaded a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that some critics say has been used to settle factional scores. 

President To Lam, who took over Trong’s duties the day before his death was announced, led mourners at the National Funeral Hall in the Vietnamese capital, alongside Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

Trong’s coffin was bedecked with his medals and a portrait as his family greeted mourners, who were asked not to bring flowers or envelopes of cash, media reported.

Flags flew at half mast across Vietnam, with somber services also held in Ho Chi Minh City and Trong’s home village of Lai Da in Hanoi’s Dong Anh district.

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The state funeral will last for two days, ending with Trong’s burial at the Mai Dich cemetery, where he will be laid to rest alongside many of the country’s old leaders, on Friday afternoon.

Cambodia’s Senate president and former prime minister Hun Sen and South Korean Prime Minister Han Duk-soo were among the foreign officials attending but many countries sent lower-ranking representatives rather than their top leaders. 

“The general secretary had strengthened the enduring brotherly friendship with Cambodia and persistently strived over the years to enhance close cooperation not only between the Cambodian People’s Party and the Communist Party of Vietnam but also between our two governments and peoples,” Hun Sen said in a statement.

Trong was the main architect of Vietnam’s “blazing furnace” anti-corruption drive. The campaign has netted scores of suspects including several senior Communist Party officials and business leaders. 

But it has also raised concern about political stability, unnerving some foreign investors, while also fueling complaints that some leaders have used accusations of corruption to settle scores and improve their standing.

“People remember Nguyen Phu Trong through his ‘blazing furnace’ campaigns, but it was this fight against corruption that helped expose the nature of a one-party dictatorship,” said Viet Tan, a pro-democracy group with members inside Vietnam and abroad, which says it aims to aid a transition to democracy.

“Too many communist officials sought to exploit public resources and plunder the people’s property. Not surprisingly, the burning furnace campaigns failed. After many years of rule, the Communist Party of Vietnam has made corruption endemic.”

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

Vietnam’s Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong died on Friday at the age of 80, domestic media reported, after serving for 13 years as the most powerful leader in the Southeast Asian country’s one-party political system. 

Party Secretary General Trong, who spearheaded a sweeping anti-corruption campaign known as the “Blazing Furnace,” had been sick for some time and had stepped back from his official duties.

“Party Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has passed away following a period of illness, despite the care and treatment by the Party, the state, doctors and leading health experts,” VNExpress reported.

Trong had been at the helm of the party since 2011 but had hardly been seen in public since January when he attended an extraordinary session of the National Assembly.

State media reported on Thursday that newly appointed president, To Lam, 67, had assumed Nguyen’s duties as Communist Party chief. 

Lam was named president in May. As acting general secretary, he is now Vietnam’s top leader and will oversee the work of the Party Central Committee, the Politburo and the Secretariat, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

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Trong was the main architect of the anti-graft drive that has netted senior party officials and business leaders but also raised new concerns about political stability in what is considered Southeast Asia’s manufacturing hub, and is heavily dependent on foreign investment and trade.

Foreign policy ‘pragmatist’

Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the University of New South Wales, said Trong would be remembered as a staunch adherent to the Vietnamese tenets of Marxism-Leninism and socialism, and a proponent of party-building and one-party rule by the Communist Party. 

“He will also be viewed as a pragmatist in foreign policy but a stern opponent of peaceful evolution and a ‘color revolution,’” Thayer said

“Particularly in his first term, Trong reined in the sprawling complex of state-owned corporations, general corporations and state banks that flourished as a result of high GDP growth rates and aggressively prosecuted corrupt officials and their networks,” he added.

Trong was born in Hanoi in 1944. He earned a bachelor’s degree in literature from Vietnam National University and was a professor and PhD holder in political science, according to the Nhan Dan newspaper.

He worked as an editor at the Communist Review. In 1996, he was named deputy secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee and afterward ascended through the party ranks.

U.S. Ambassador Marc Knapper noted in a statement that Trong became the first Vietnamese leader to visit the United States when he traveled to Washington to meet with then-President Barack Obama in 2015.

Vietnam and the United States upgraded their relationship to “comprehensive strategic partners” during President Joe Biden’s 2023 visit to Hanoi, Biden said in a statement on Friday.

“The people of Vietnam and the United States – and people across the Indo-Pacific region – enjoy greater security and opportunity today because of the friendship between our two countries,” Biden said in the statement. “That is thanks to him.”

Edited by Mike Firn and Matt Reed.

This story has been updated to add details from Trong’s early career and statements from the U.S ambassador and President Biden.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

The party’s Central Inspection Commission announced on Tuesday that Van had “degenerated in political ideology, morality, lifestyle, self-evolution and self-transformation.”

Police detained Van on July 10 in Thai Binh province and investigated him for “taking advantage of position and power to influence others for personal gain.”

The Thai Binh Police Investigation Agency said his detention was part of an expanded investigation into former National Assembly delegate Luu Binh Nhuong, who was detained for alleged “extortion of property and taking advantage of position and power to influence others for personal gain.”

Both Van and Nhuong had spoken out strongly about national issues in Vietnam’s parliament.

A Vietnamese lawyer, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said the Central Inspection Commission was within its rights to express the party’s view on members but it must also give them the opportunity to defend themselves.

“The party believes that he has ‘evolved and transformed’ himself, so where and how has he evolved and transformed himself?” the lawyer said, using an expression to describe what authorities regard as the right course of action for those seen as critical.

“It must be clear and cannot be made in a press release.”

The lawyer added that the information about Le Thanh Van’s arrest was vague and one-sided, making it impossible for the public to know exactly what had really happened.

“With such little information, it is difficult for outsiders to assess Van’s role and responsibility in this case,” he said. “However, in Vietnam, it can be seen that it is extremely easy to attribute or accuse someone of any criminal act.”

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The expulsion comes in the midst of an anti-corruption drive known as the “Blazing Furnace” launched by Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, in which dozens of officials and business partners of politicians have been caught up.

The high-profile purges have roiled financial markets and foreign investor confidence and critics say the campaign has been used to target factional rivals.

Speaking out

Van is well-known for speaking out against state agencies and organizations. 

In May 2020, he asked the chairman of the National Assembly to consider implementing parliament’s supreme supervision over court operations, through the case of death row prisoner Ho Duy Hai. He said that the Supreme Court’s verdict on Hai’s appeal was unconvincing as there were many unclear issues that concerned the public.

In November 2022, Van said National Assembly delegates needed to discuss and debate more, not just read aloud.  

In November 2023, Van spoke about the Dai Ninh hydroelectric plant project in Lam Dong province. 

A number of government inspectors had been prosecuted for accepting bribes in connection with the project, and he said a government working group had changed its conclusion from saying in 2020 that it was illegal and should be withdrawn, to amending the project and granting an extension to investors. Van called this “completely illegal.”

Van spoke to parliament In June 2023 about officials “not daring to act and being afraid of taking responsibility,” saying civil servants who did nothing were breaking the law because legal behavior includes action and inaction, and not taking action meant not performing the duties and obligations assigned by the state, which must be handled.

Nguyen Tien Trung, a Vietnamese political observer based in Germany, told RFA he did not believe the charges against Van and Nhuong were justified.

“These are two National Assembly representatives who have made many thorny and controversial statements in the National Assembly,” he said.

“Based on the recent situation of suppressing the Vietnamese democracy movement and arresting many people, I see this as part of a general trend, a general tendency of the Ministry of Public Security to suppress all opposing voices, including opposing voices loyal to the Communist Party, such as Communist Party members like Le Thanh Van.”

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

Sok Ey San was asked last week if Cambodia would push for an end to Vietnam’s restrictions on the nearly 1.3-million strong indigenous Khmer Krom community that live in a part of Vietnam that was once southeastern Cambodia.

The July 9 comments prompted criticism on social media among Cambodians. Support for the Khmer Krom is a sensitive political issue in Cambodia, where many people believe the lower Mekong delta region was unfairly handed over to Vietnam by France in 1949.

The spokesman for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party told RFA in the interview that Khmer Krom “call themselves Khmer Krom, but in fact, all of them have Vietnamese nationalities.”

Sok Ey San, who is also a senator, talked to RFA ahead of Vietnam State President To Lam’s July 12-13 visit to Cambodia. He noted that no Khmer Krom hold Cambodian passports or citizenship, and all are Vietnamese citizens.

“Why is it necessary for the Royal Government of Cambodia to demand on behalf of the Khmer Krom?” he asked.

On Wednesday, Sok Ey San said in a statement that he had no intention to “discriminate or be narrow minded” in his remarks. 

“And if my words spoken out via interviews with the media hurt the feelings of brothers and sisters, I apologize,” he said.  

The Khmer Krom community has faced serious limitations on freedom of expression, assembly and movement. Additionally, the Vietnamese government has tried to restrict and control Buddhist temples attended by Khmer Krom people.

As Khmers, they are ethnically similar to most Cambodians, and are considered outsiders in Vietnam, where they face social persecution and strict religious controls.

Thers Chantrea, president of the Khmer Krom Youth Council, said the Cambodian government does have a responsibility to look out for the interests of the Khmer Krom. 

The Vietnamese government has often made statements to officials in Phnom Penh about the well-being of Vietnamese immigrants to Cambodia, he said.

“Shouldn’t we respect what the late King Norodom Sihanouk said – that for Khmer people, regardless where they live, they are still Khmer,” he said. “So, the Khmer Krom is also Khmer.” 

Translated by Sum Sok Ry. Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.

Politico reporter Ian Ward interviewed Ohio Senator J.D. Vance at length for a recent profile and joins us to discuss Vance’s biography and ideology after he formally accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination to run with Donald Trump, whom he once staunchly opposed.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The four-day, closed-door meeting, chaired by President Xi Jinping, is expected to unveil tax system revisions and other debt-reduction measures, steps to deal with a massive property crisis, and policies to  boost domestic consumption, policy advisers have said.

Previous third plenum sessions of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee – more than 300 full and alternate members – have unveiled policy initiatives for the next five to 10 years. Some have announced significant shifts.

The 1978 plenum launched Deng Xiaoping’s historic economic reform and opening policies, while the 1984 event confirmed the reform direction in the face of resistance. The 1993 gathering pledged a recommitment to market economic reforms after the clampdown following the Tiananmen massacre.

The 12 years of the Xi Jinping era have put the brakes on market reforms as Xi consolidated power in the party, analysts said.

Xi’s third plenum 2013 “laid out a series of economic reforms, most of which have not succeeded, most of which have not been carried through,” said Barry Naughton, the So Kwan Lok Chair of Chinese International Affairs at the University of California San Diego.

“So everyone is very curious and puzzled to see what this new third plenum is going to bring,” he told Radio Free Asia Mandarin.

The previous plenum, 2018, saw Xi further consolidate power with the scrapping of presidential term limits. 

Interventionist policies

This plenum, normally held once every five years, was expected last autumn but delayed without explanation until this month.

Yu Jie, a senior research fellow on China at Chatham House, a British think tank, said the plans to be unveiled in coming days “are unlikely to be policies eagerly waited and favored by private enterprises and global investors.”

Instead of stimulus measures to boost growth, expect “further government intervention to channel economic resources into the strategic and innovation sectors and to guarantee minimum social welfare to the poor,” she wrote on the Chatham House website.

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The Communist Party will introduce two economic slogans during the plenum: “New quality productive force” describing making the Chinese economy a leader in technological innovation, and “new national system” of stronger centralized control allocating capital and resources to sectors with strategic significance,” Yu wrote.

“The underlying emphasis here is not on the economy but on geopolitics,” she added.

Chinese state media have tried to create an upbeat mood for the secretive gathering Jingxi Hotel in Beijing.

“Entering July, Chinese people’s expectations will be running high,” according to a June 30 commentary in the Global Times newspaper, predicting “a holistic package of new reform plans” that is expected from the meeting.

“After more than 40 years’ reform and opening-up, Chinese policymakers are becoming both astute and experienced in managing a giant economy like China’s,” it said.

Ahead of the conclave, China is ramping up its “stability maintenance” system, which kicks into high gear targeting those the authorities see as potential troublemakers ahead of top-level meetings and politically sensitive dates in the calendar.

Authorities across China are targeting dissidents and petitioners ahead of next week’s key meeting of the ruling Communist Party, placing them under house arrest or escorting them out of town on enforced “vacations,” Radio Free Asia reported this week.

Several high-profile activists including political journalist Gao Yu, rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and political commentator Zha Jianguo have been targeted for security measures ahead of the third plenary session of the party’s Central Committee, a person in Beijing familiar with the situation who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals said.

Reporting by Ting I Tsai. Editing by Paul Eckert.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Mandarin.

The two Çira TV reporters—Mydia Hussen and Murad Mirza—were with their driver Khalaf Khdir returning from covering the tenth anniversary of an ISIS attack on the southern village Tal al-Qasab, according to Argash Shingali, a board member of Germany-based satellite broadcaster Çira TV. Shingali said “the car lacked any media markings.” 

The strike hit the journalists’ car in Sinjar (Shingal) District in northern Iraq on Monday, July 8, according to Shingali and Mehvan Hinji, head of Êzidxan Asayish forces, which is affiliated with the Shingal Resistance Units (YBS), a Yazidi militia with ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey, the U.S., and the European Union have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization, and Iraq’s National Security Council banned the group earlier this year.

A Monday statement by Cira TV and a report by pro-PKK media outlet Rojnews said the strike was carried out by Turkish forces, a claim repeated by Kurdistan Region’s Directorate General of Counter Terrorism in a Monday press release. Shingali told CPJ that the outlets confirmed it was a Turkish strike after speaking to Êzidxan Asayish forces.

Hinji told CPJ via messaging apps that they were still investigating whether the strike originated from Turkish forces.

Both reporters are currently being treated for head injuries at Sinjar Hospital in Sinjar city, Shingali said. The driver was also injured, he said.

“Iraqi and Turkish authorities must immediately and thoroughly investigate the car strike that injured two Çira TV reporters and their driver to determine its cause,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “Local authorities must ensure journalists’ safety in northern Iraq as they report on crucial events.”

Sinjar is part of a disputed territory in northern Iraq and has been occupied by a succession of Iraqi and non-Iraqi sub-state actors. Turkey often conducts strikes in Sinjar, targeting YBS fighters.