A former senior UN aid official has condemned the bloodshed at the notorious US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid food depots, describing the distribition system as having turned into a “catastrophe”.

The number of aid seekers killed continues to climb daily beyond 1000.

Martin Griffiths, director of Mediation Group International and the former Under Secretary General of the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office, said: “I think when many of us saw the first plans of the GHF to launch this operation in Gaza, we were immediately appalled by the way they were proposing to manage it.”

• READ MORE: US envoy visits Gaza as Israeli forces kill starving Palestinians
• NZ ‘lagging behind’ world by failing to recognise Palestinian statehood, says former PM Helen Clark
• What would New Zealand recognising Palestinian statehood mean?
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

“It was clearly militarised. They’d have their own security contractors,” he told Al Jazeera.

“They’d have [Israeli military] camps placed right beside them. We know now that they are, in fact, under instructions by [the Israeli military].

“All of this is a crime. All of this is a deep betrayal of humanitarian values.

“But what I at least did not sufficiently anticipate was the killing and was the absolutely critical result of this operation, this sole humanitarian operation allowed by Israel in Gaza,” Griffiths added.

“The 1000 killed are an incredible statistic. I had no idea it would go that high and it’s going on daily. It’s not stopping.

“I think it’s a catastrophe more than a disappointment,” he said. “I think it’s a great sin. I think it’s a great crime.”

However, he acknowledged it was still an “important form of witness”.

“I’m glad that they’re going,” Griffiths said.

“Maybe they will see things that are unexpected. I can’t imagine because we’ve seen so much. But I don’t see it leading to a major change.

“If I was one of the two million Gazans starving to death, this is a day I would like to go to an aid distribution point,” Griffiths added.

“There’s slightly less risk probably than any other day.”

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

New Zealand is lagging behind the rest of the world through its failure to recognise Palestinian statehood, says Former Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Canada yesterday became the latest country to announce it would formally recognise the state of Palestine when world leaders met at the UN General Assembly in September.

It follows recent similar commitments from the France and the United Kingdom.

• READ MORE: What would New Zealand recognising Palestinian statehood mean?
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon suggested the discussion was a distraction and said the immediate focus should be on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza.

But, speaking to RNZ Midday Report, Clark said New Zealand needed to come on board.

“We are watching a catastrophe unfold in Gaza. We’re watching starvation. We’re watching famine conditions for many. Many are using the word genocide,” she said.

“If New Zealand can’t act in these circumstances, when can it act?”

Elders call for recognition
“The Elders, a group of world leaders of which Clark is a part, last month issued a call for countries to recognise the state of Palestine, calling it the “beginning, not the end of a political pathway towards lasting peace”.

Clark said the government seemed to be trying avoid the ire of the United States by waiting until the peace process was well underway or nearing its end.

“That is no longer tenable,” she said.

“New Zealand really is lagging behind.”

Even before the recent commitments from France, Canada and the UK, 147 of the UN’s 193 member states had recognised the Palestinian state.

Clark said the hope was that the series of recognitions from major Western states would first shift the US position and then Israel’s.

“When the US moves, Israel eventually jumps because it owes so much to the United States for the support, financial, military and otherwise,” she said.

“At some point, Israel has to smell the coffee.”

Surprised over Peters
Clark said she was “a little surprised” that Foreign Minister Winston Peters had not been more forward-leaning given he historically had strongly advocated New Zealand’s even-handed position.

On Wednesday, New Zealand signed a joint statement with 14 other countries expressing a willingness to recognise the State of Palestine as a necessary step towards a two-state solution.

However, later speaking in Parliament, Peters said that was conditional on first seeing progress from Palestine, including representative governance, commitment to non-violence, and security guarantees for Israel.

“If we are to recognise the state of Palestine, New Zealand wants to know that what we are recognising is a legitimate, representative, viable, political entity,” Peters told MPs.

Peters also agreed with a contribution from ACT’s Simon Court that recognising the state of Palestine could be viewed as “a reward [to Hamas] for acts of terrorism” if it was done before Hamas had returned hostages or laid down arms.

Luxon earlier told RNZ New Zealand had long supported the eventual recognition of Palestinian statehood, but that the immediate focus should be on getting aid into Gaza rather than “fragmenting and talking about all sorts of other things that are distractions”.

“We need to put the pressure on Israel to get humanitarian assistance unfettered, at scale, at volume, into Gaza,” he told RNZ.

“You can talk about a whole bunch of other things, but for right now, the world needs to focus.”

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.

We speak with Juliette Touma, director of communications at UNRWA, about deepening starvation in Gaza. Israel has accused the United Nations agency of failing to distribute aid in Gaza, but Touma says Israel continues to block most supplies from entering the territory. Touma notes that there are 6,000 trucks filled with food, medical supplies and other necessities ready to enter Gaza. “We’ve been waiting for a green light to start the wheels of those trucks for nearly five months now,” she says.

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

The NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji has sharply criticised the Fiji government’s stance over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, saying it “starkly contrasts” with the United Nations and international community’s condemnation as a violation of international law and an impediment to peace.

In a statement today, the NGO Coalition said that the way the government was responding to the genocide and war crimes in Gaza would set a precedent for how it would deal with crises and conflict in future.

It would be a marker for human rights responses both at home and the rest of the world.

• READ MORE: Macron says France will recognise Palestinian state in September
• Saudi Arabia and France to lead UN push for recognising Palestinian statehood
• Al Jazeera live-tracker

“We are now seeing whether our country will be a force that works to uphold human rights and international law, or one that tramples on them whenever convenient,” the statement said.

“Fiji’s position on the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestinians starkly contrasts with the values of justice, freedom, and international law that the Fijian people hold dear.

“The genocide and colonial occupation have been widely recognised by the international community, including the United Nations, as a violation of international law and an impediment to peace and the self-determination of the Palestinian people.”

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would formally recognise the state of Palestine — the first of G7 countries to do so — at the UN general Assembly in September.

142 countries recognise Palestine
At least 142 countries out of the 193 members of the UN currently recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state, including European Union members Norway, Ireland, Spain and Slovenia.

However, several powerful Western countries have refused to do so, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.

At the UN this week, Saudi Arabia and France opened a three-day conference with the goal of recognising Palestinian statehood as part of a peaceful settlement to end the war in Gaza.

Last year, Fiji’s coalition government submitted a written statement in support of the Israeli genocidal occupation of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, noted the NGO coalition.

Last month, Fiji’s coalition government again voted against a UN General Assembly resolution that demanded an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

Also recently, the Fiji government approved the allocation of $1.12 million to establish an embassy “in the genocidal terror state of Israel as Fijians grapple with urgent issues, including poverty, violence against women and girls, deteriorating water and health infrastructure, drug use, high rates of HIV, poor educational outcomes, climate change, and unfair wages for workers”.

Met with ‘indifference’
The NGO coalition said that it had made repeated requests to the Fiji government to “do the bare minimum and enforce the basic tenets of international law on Israel”.

“We have been calling upon the Fiji government to uphold the principles of peace, justice, and human rights that our nation cherishes,” the statement said.

“We campaigned, we lobbied, we engaged, and we explained. We showed the evidence, pointed to the law, and asked our leaders to do the right thing.

“We’ve been met with nothing but indifference.”

Instead, said the NGO statement, Fiji leaders had met with Israeli government representatives and declared support for a country “committing the most heinous crimes” recognised in international law.

“Fijian leaders and the Fiji government should not be supporting Israel or setting up an embassy in Israel while Israel continues to bomb refugee tents, kill journalists and medics, and block the delivery of humanitarian aid to a population under relentless siege.

“No politician in Fiji can claim ignorance of what is happening.”

62,000 Palestinians killed
More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war on Gaza, most of them women and children.

“Many more have been maimed, traumatised, and displaced. Starvation is being used by Israel as weapon to kill babies and children.

“Hospitals, churches, mosques,, refugee camps, schools, universities, residential neighbourhoods, water and food facilities have been destroyed.

“History will judge how we respond as Fijians to this moment.

“Our rich cultural heritage and shared values teach us the importance of always standing up for what is right, even when it is not popular or convenient.”

Members of the Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights are Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (chair), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, femLINKpacific, Social Empowerment and Education Programme, and Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality Fiji.

Also, Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is an observer.

The NGO coalition said it stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people out of a shared belief in humanity, justice, and the inalienable human rights of every individual.

“Silence is not an option,” it added.

Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network said it supported this NGO coalition statement.

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

By Dionisia Tabureguci in Suva

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

The International Press Institute (IPI) has joined calls for urgent action to halt the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza as global news organisations warn that their journalists there are experiencing starvation.

Israel must immediately allow life-saving food aid to reach journalists and other civilians in Gaza, IPI said in a statement today.

“The international community must also put effective pressure on Israel to allow all journalists to enter and exit the territory and to document the ongoing catastrophe,”it said.

• READ MORE: BBC, AFP and other news outlets warn journalists in Gaza at risk of starvation
• ‘We are dying’: Palestinians slam world’s inaction as hunger ravages Gaza
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

In an unprecedented joint statement this week, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, BBC News, and Reuters — four of the world’s leading news agencies — said their journalists on the ground “are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families”.

The news outlets added: “Journalists endure many deprivations and hardships in warzones. We are deeply alarmed that the threat of starvation is now one of them.”

Separately, Al Jazeera Media Network said in a statement that journalists on the ground “now find themselves fighting for their own survival” due to mass starvation.

Harrowing accounts
AFP and Al Jazeera journalists shared harrowing accounts of conditions on the ground.

One AFP photographer was quoted as saying, “I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work anymore.”

Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza correspondent said he was “drowning in hunger”.

In an interview with NPR, AFP global news director Phil Chetwynd said that the news agency had been working to evacuate its remaining contributors from Gaza, which requires Israeli permission.

The dramatic warnings come as more than 100 international humanitarian organisations said that mass starvation in Gaza was now threatening the lives of humanitarian aid workers themselves, while the civilian death toll continues to rise.

Gaza under siege — a journalist reports on daily survival   Video: Al Jazeera

Meanwhile, Israel continues to refuse to allow international reporters into Gaza to report and cover the war and humanitarian situation independently, obstructing the free flow of news and limiting coverage of the humanitarian crisis.

The ongoing conflict has taken a devastating toll on journalists and media outlets in Gaza.

Highest media death toll
Since October 2023, at least 186 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza — Al Jazeera puts the figure as at least 230 — the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon, according to monitoring by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

This is the largest number of journalists to be killed in any armed conflict in this span of time.

Independent investigations such as those conducted by Forbidden Stories have found more than a dozen cases in which journalists were intentionally targeted and killed by the Israeli military — which constitutes a war crime under international law.

IPI has made repeated calls, in conjunction with its partners, urging the international community to take immediate measures to protect journalists and allow unimpeded access to the strip from international media.

Today, IPI has strongly and urgently reiterated these calls, as humanitarian conditions in Gaza rapidly deteriorate and as journalists and other civilians face man-made starvation.

The international community must use all diplomatic means at its disposal to pressure Israel to ensure the safe flow of food aid to journalists and other civilians, said IPI in a statement.

“The response by the international community in this critical moment could be the difference between life and death. There is no more time to lose,” IPI said.

RSF warnings over Gaza
In Paris, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reports that for nearly two years it has warned about the precarious conditions faced by journalists in Gaza — which are deteriorating day by day.

Over the past 20 months in Gaza, more than 200 journalists have been killed by the Israeli army, including at least 46 slain while doing their job,” RSF said today in a statement.

“In addition to bombs, forced displacement, and dire humanitarian conditions, Gaza’s journalists, who are the only ones able to document what is happening in the besieged and closed-off enclave, can no longer find food,” the statement said.

“In response to this catastrophe, RSF reiterates its call to open up Gaza to foreign journalists and lift the blockade, in a joint appeal with over 200 media outlets and organisations from around the world.”

Jamie Wiseman is a journalist of the Vienna-based International Press Institute.

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

Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change Adaptation, Ralph Regenvanu, has welcomed the historic International Court of Justice (ICJ) climate ruling, calling it a “milestone in the fight for climate justice”.

The ICJ has delivered a landmark advisory opinion on states’ obligations under international law to act on climate change.

The ruling marks a major shift in the global push for climate justice.

• READ MORE: UN’s highest court finds countries can be held legally responsible for emissions
• ICJ climate crisis ruling: Will world’s top court back Pacific-led call to hold governments accountable?
• Do countries have a duty to prevent climate harm? The world’s highest court is about to answer this crucial question
• Other climate crisis reports

Vanuatu — one of the nations behind the campaign — has pledged to take the decision back to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to seek a resolution supporting its full implementation.

Climate Change Minister Regenvanu said in a statement: “We now have a common foundation based on the rule of law, releasing us from the limitations of individual nations’ political interests that have dominated climate action.

“This moment will drive stronger action and accountability to protect our planet and peoples.”

The ICJ confirmed that state responsibilities extend beyond voluntary commitments under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement.

It ruled that customary international law also requires states to prevent environmental and transboundary harm, protect human rights, and cooperate to address climate change impacts.

Duties apply to all states
These duties apply to all states, whether or not they have ratified specific climate treaties.

Violations of these obligations carry legal consequences. The ICJ clarified that climate damage can be scientifically traced to specific polluter states whose actions or inaction cause harm.

As a result, those states could be required to stop harmful activities, regulate private sector emissions, end fossil fuel subsidies, and provide reparations to affected states and individuals.

“The implementation of this decision will set a new status quo and the structural change required to give our current and future generations hope for a healthy planet and sustainable future,” Minister Regenvanu added.

He said high-emitting nations, especially those with a history of emissions, must be held accountable.

Despite continued fossil fuel expansion and weakening global ambition — compounded by the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement — Regenvanu said the ICJ ruling was a powerful tool for campaigners, lawyers, and governments.

“Vanuatu is proud and honoured to have spearheaded this initiative,” he said.

‘Powerful testament’
“The number of states and civil society actors that have joined this cause is a powerful testament to the leadership of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and youth activists.”

The court’s decision follows a resolution adopted by consensus at the UNGA on 29 March 2023. That campaign was initiated by the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change and backed by the Vanuatu government, calling for greater accountability from high-emitting countries.

The ruling will now be taken to the UNGA in September and is expected to be a central topic at COP30 in Brazil this November.

Vanuatu has committed to working with other nations to turn this legal outcome into coordinated action through diplomacy, policy, litigation, and international cooperation.<

“This is just the beginning,” Regenvanu said. “Success will depend on what happens next. We look forward to working with global partners to ensure this becomes a true turning point for climate justice.”

Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post with permission.

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

Democracy Now!

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

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Microsoft says it has stopped using China-based engineers to support Defense Department cloud computing systems after ProPublica revealed the practice in an investigation this week.

“In response to concerns raised earlier this week about US-supervised foreign engineers, Microsoft has made changes to our support for US Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services,” the company’s chief communications officer, Frank Shaw, announced on X Friday afternoon.

Microsoft’s announcement came hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said his agency would look into Microsoft’s use of foreign-based engineers to help maintain the highly sensitive cloud systems.

“Foreign engineers — from any country, including of course China — should NEVER be allowed to maintain or access DoD systems,” Hegseth wrote in a post on X Friday.

In its investigation, ProPublica detailed how Microsoft uses engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel — leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking or spying from its leading cyber adversary. The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage.

But these workers, known as “digital escorts,” often lack the technical expertise to police the work of foreign engineers with far more advanced skills, ProPublica found.

Earlier Friday, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence, cited ProPublica in a letter to Hegseth asking for details about which DOD contractors use Chinese personnel to maintain the department’s information and computing systems.

China poses “one of the most aggressive and dangerous threats to the United States, as evidenced by its infiltrations of our critical infrastructure, telecommunications networks and supply chains,” Cotton wrote in the letter, which he posted on X. “DOD must guard against all potential threats within its supply chain, including those from subcontractors.”

Since 2011, cloud computing companies like Microsoft that wanted to sell their services to the U.S. government had to establish how they would ensure that personnel working with federal data would have the requisite “access authorizations” and background screenings. Additionally, the Defense Department requires that people handling sensitive data be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

This presented an issue for Microsoft, which relies on a vast global workforce with significant operations in India, China and the European Union.

So the tech giant enlisted staffing companies to hire U.S.-based digital escorts, who had security clearances that authorized them to access sensitive information, to take direction from the overseas experts. An engineer might briefly describe the job to be completed — for instance, updating a firewall, installing an update to fix a bug or reviewing logs to troubleshoot a problem. Then, with little review, an escort would copy and paste the engineer’s commands into the federal cloud.

“We’re trusting that what they’re doing isn’t malicious, but we really can’t tell,” one escort told ProPublica.

In an earlier statement in response to ProPublica’s investigation, Microsoft said that its personnel and contractors operate in a manner “consistent with US Government requirements and processes.”

The company’s global workers “have no direct access to customer data or customer systems,” the statement said. Escorts “with the appropriate clearances and training provide direct support. These personnel are provided specific training on protecting sensitive data, preventing harm, and use of the specific commands/controls within the environment.”

In addition, Microsoft said it has an internal review process known as “Lockbox” to “make sure the request is deemed safe or has any cause for concern.”

Insight Global — a contractor that provides digital escorts to Microsoft — said it “evaluates the technical capabilities of each resource throughout the interview process to ensure they possess the technical skills required” for the job and provides training.

Doris Burke contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Renee Dudley.

Adhikari said, “Koi Bangali Kashmir nahi jayega. Jahan Musalman abaadi zyada hai, main party affiliation mein nahi bolta hu, mai BJP ke MLA (hokar) nahi (bolta hu)… main jiss tareekein se Bitan Adhikary ji ka wife, Samir Guha ji ka wife ka aasun dekha na… mai unko sujhaav de diya. Bhai jahaan musalmaan abaadi hai, usmein mat jao… Kashmir jana hai toh Jammu jao. Kashmir jaana hai toh Jammu mein jao, jahaan musalmaan abaadi zyada hai, mat jao. Mat jao. Apne kapda khulke, aur sindoor dekh ke chunchun ke maara hai. Humara Himachal Pradesh hai jaiye na, Devbhoomi hai. Uttarakhand jaiyena, Jaiye Orissa jaiye…Pura desh ghumna chahiye humlogo ko… lekin Bangal mein mai personal mera mai ek sensible citizen hu, mai airport mein Bitan Adhikari ji ka wife aur Sameer Guha ji ka wife jo mujhe bataya aplogo ka saamne, aur unka jitna bhi aansu dekha hai na… Main Bangali logon (ko) bata raha hu, aap musalmaan jahaan hai zyada, mat jaiye. Jaan pehle. Apne jaan ko raksha kijiye, chhota chhota bachha ko rakhsa kijiye. Didi behen ko raksha (kijiye)…”

(Translation: No Bengali will go to Kashmir. I am not saying this from my party affiliation or as a BJP MLA… The way I saw the tears of Bitan Adhikari’s wife, Samir Guha’s wife… I suggested to them. Don’t go where there is a majority Muslim population… If you want to go to Kashmir, go to Jammu… If you want to go to Kashmir, go to Jammu, but don’t go to a place where there is a majority of Muslims. Don’t go. (They) took off clothes, and checked the vermilion (on the women’s foreheads), and killed selectively. We have Himachal Pradesh, go there, it is our Devbhoomi. Go to Uttarakhand, go to Odisha… We should travel the whole country.. I am a sensible citizen… I saw Bitan Adhikari’s wife and Sameer Guha’s wife at the airport, whatever they told me in front of you people… I have seen their tears. I am telling the Bengali people — do not go to a place which has a majority Muslim population. Life first. Protect your life, protect your children. Protect your sisters.)

#WATCH | Kolkata | On J&K CM Omar Abdullah inviting people of West Bengal to visit J&K, WB LoP and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari says, “… No Bengali will visit Kashmir. I am saying this out of party affiliation, don’t visit places where Muslims are in the majority. Go to Jammu if… pic.twitter.com/Fn0IZ3KEQK

— ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2025

Hours before Adhikari’s comments, Abdullah had assured potential tourists from West Bengal that the J&K government had taken sufficient security-related steps after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam. He also urged people to trust those who had been to Kashmir after the attack rather than believing “those sitting outside and making judgments without even knowing the place.” It is worth noting that on an average, 25-30% of Kashmir tourists are reportedly from Bengal.

In his remarks, Adhikari used the attack in Pahalgam to ‘warn’ Bengalis against visiting Muslim majority areas. Adhikari had met the families of two victims of the attack, Bitan Adhikari and Sameer Guha — both of whom were Bengali. The implications of Adhikari’s remarks are layered. In a statement after India’s retaliatory Operation Sindoor, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had said that the terrorists “didn’t just want to traumatise victims and families to ‘send a message’, but targeted the economy in Jammu Kashmir, and attempted to provoke ‘communal discord’ in India, which failed.”

However, when the Leader of Opposition of West Bengal, a state that provides a significant fraction of tourism to Kashmir, urges the residents of his state to refrain from visiting due to the majority of Muslims, it furthers the communal narrative while also implicitly calling for an economic boycott of Muslims. This clearly amounts to religious discrimination and hate speech.

New Bengal BJP Chief’s ‘Muslim Outreach’

Interestingly, Adhikari’s comments come days after newly elected Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya spoke about the BJP’s outreach to the minority community in West Bengal. “Even if the Muslims do not vote for us, our development must and will reach their homes,” Bhattacharya said in an interview with India Today’s Insight. Before this, in a seeming departure from the party’s erstwhile political stance, Bhattacharya stated that his party was not against Muslims, and envisaged a West Bengal where Muharram and Durga puja immersion could be held side by side without communal clashes. This remark came at the very event where he was formally introduced as the state unit chief and in the presence of Adhikari.

In stark contrast to this, Adhikari has clearly said in the past the Bengal BJP MLAs had been elected by Hindus, while the Mamata Banerjee government was “a govt of Mollahs”. Addressing media persons outside the state assembly on February 17, 2025, Adhikari had said, “I, along with Agnimitra Pal, Biswanath Karak, and Bankim Ghosh, take pride in the fact that we won with Hindu votes — not with Muslim votes. BJP MLAs and MPs hold their positions today because of Hindu and ST votes… this government — a government of Mollahs, a government for Muslims… has targeted me. The chief minister is an appeaser of Muslims, an enemy of Hindus, leading a government that is nothing less than Muslim League 2.0…”

Again, in July 2024, while claiming that Muslims of West Bengal had not voted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha election, Adhikari called for putting an end to the party’s slogan of ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikaas’. Speaking to journalists after the party’s first working committee meeting following the poll results, he also called for doing away with BJP’s ‘minority morchas’.

When asked to comment on Suvendu’s remarks on Kashmir, Bhattacharya said, “I don’t know in what context our Leader of Opposition is saying this. The stone pelting in Kashmir has stopped, and after the Pahalgam incident, there is panic in the minds of the people. I don’t know under what situation he (Adhikari) has said this now, and I haven’t heard (what he said). Maybe he said it because he thinks Himachal Pradesh is more beautiful. There is no dispute in the party about this (the remarks).”

Bhattacharya has also called Adhikari’s controversial remarks on Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas a ‘personal stance’. One wonders whether it is the new state unit chief’s minority outreach agenda that made Suvendu sound the disclaimer on July 10 that he was not speaking from party affiliation.

Adhikari, once Mamata Banerjee’s protege, beat Banerjee from the Nandigram seat in the 2021 assembly polls by a margin of 1,956 votes. According to the 2011 census, Nandigram has a Muslim population of 40.32%, second to the Hindu population of 59.37%.

The post Don’t go to Kashmir & Muslim majority areas, says Bengal LoP Suvendu amid new state BJP chief’s minority outreach appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has called on the New Zealand government to not follow Australia’s policy moves which would effectively criminalise the Palestine solidarity movement.

The Australian government has announced plans to implement recommendations from its anti-semitism envoy which PSNA says creates a “hierarchy of racism” with anti-semitism at the top, while Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism hardly feature.

At least some of the appalling anti-semitic attacks in Sydney have been bogus, said the PSNA in a statement.

• READ MORE: Church leaders, diplomats, condemn Israeli settler violence in West Bank
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

Co-chair John Minto said PSNA had no tolerance for anti-semitism in Aotearoa New Zealand, or anywhere else.

“But equally there should be no place for any other kind of racism, such as Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. Our government must speak out against all forms of discrimination and support all communities when racism rears its ugly head,” he said.

“Let’s not forget the murderous attacks on the Christchurch mosques.”

Minto said the Australian measures would “inevitably” be used to criminalise the Palestinian solidarity movement across the country.

Trump ‘demonising’ support
“We see it happening in the US, to attack and demonise support for Palestinian human rights by the Trump administration.  We see it orchestrated in the UK to shut down any speech which Prime Minister Starmer and the Israeli government don’t like.”

The PSNA statement said that it agreed with the Jewish Council of Australia which has warned the Australian government adopting these measures could result in

“undermining Australia’s democratic freedoms, inflaming community divisions, and entrenching selective approaches to racism that serve political agendas.”

Minto said the free speech restrictions in the US, UK and Australia had nothing to do with what people usually understand as anti-semitism.

“The drive comes from the Israeli government.  They see making anti-semitism charges as the most effective means of preventing anyone publicly pointing to the genocide its armed forces are perpetrating in Gaza,” he said.

“The definition of anti-semitism, usually inserted into codes of ethics or legislation, is from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.  The IHRA definition includes 11 examples.  Seven of the examples are about criticising Israel.”

“It’s quite clear the Israeli campaign is to distract the community from Israel’s horrendous war crimes, such as the round-the-clock mass killing and mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, and deflect calls for sanctions against Israel.

“Already we can see in both the UK and US, that people have been arrested for saying things about Israel which would not have been declared illegal if they’d said it about other countries, including their own.”

Worrying signs
Minto said there were already worrying signs that the New Zealand government, media and police were “falling into the trap”.

“Just over the past few weeks, there has been an unusually wide-ranging mainstream media focus on anti-semitism,” Minto said citing:

• At least one opinion article in the Stuff newspapers from NZ Jewish Council spokesperson Ben Kepes on anti-semitism in New Zealand
• A major interview in Stuff on anti-semitism with NZJC spokesperson Ben Kepes
• A New Zealand Herald opinion article from NZJC spokesperson Juliet Moses
• A New Zealand Herald podcast featuring Holocaust Foundation spokesperson Deborah Hart.  The Holocaust Foundation is partly funded by the Israeli Embassy.
• An enthusiastic 1News item on the latest appeal to the government to adopt similar measures here to those taken in Australia (TVNZ One News, 13 July 2025)
• Stories highlighting anti-semitic graffiti in Wellington — numerous reports along these lines
• Stuff newspapers highlighting the case of an assault on a visiting Israeli after an altercation in Christchurch with the accused held overnight, denied bail and the police claiming it was a “hate crime”

However, New Zealand politicians and media had been silent about:

• An attack which knocked a young Palestinian woman to the ground when she was using a microphone to speak during an Auckland march
• An attack where a Palestine supporter was kicked and knocked to the pavement outside the Israeli embassy in Wellington.  The accused was wearing an Israeli flag.  He was not held in custody and the Post newspaper has reported neither the arrest nor the resulting charge (this case is due in court July 15)
• An attack on a Palestine solidarity marshal in Christchurch who was punched in the face, in front of police, but no action taken.
• An attack in Christchurch when a Destiny Church member kicked a solidarity marshal in the chest (no action taken by police)
• Anti-Palestinian racist attacks on the home of a Palestine solidarity activist in New Plymouth.  One supporter has had their front fence spraypainted twice with pro-Israel graffiti and their car tyres slashed twice (4 tyres in total) and had vile defamatory material circulated in their neighbourhood. (Police say they cannot help)
• The frequent condemnation of anti-semitism by the previous Chief Human Rights Commissioner, but his refusal to condemn the deep-seated anti-Palestinian racism of the New Zealand Jewish Council and Israel Institute of New Zealand.
• The refusal of the Human Rights Commission to publicly correct false statements it published in The Post newspaper which claimed anti-semitism was increasing, when in fact the evidence it was using was that the rate of incidents had declined.

‘Silence on mass killings’
Minto said that in each of the cases above there would have been far more attention from politicians, the police and the media had the victims been Israeli supporters.

“Meanwhile, both our government and the New Zealand Jewish Council have refused to condemn Israel’s blatant war crimes.  There is silence on the mass killing, mass starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza,” he said.

“The Jewish Council and our government stand together and refuse to hold Israel’s racist apartheid regime to account in just about any way.

“This refusal to condemn what genocide scholars, including several Israeli genocide academics, have labelled as a ‘text-book case of genocide’, brings shame on both the New Zealand Jewish Council and the New Zealand government.”

“Adding to the clear perception of appalling bias on the part of our government, both the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs have met with New Zealand Jewish Council spokespeople over the war in Gaza.

“But both have refused to meet with representatives of Palestinian New Zealanders, or the huge number of Jewish supporters of the Palestine solidarity movement.”

Minto said New Zealand must “stand up and be counted against genocide” wherever it appeared and no matter who the victims were.

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

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On Monday, June 23, a crowd of about 2,000 people surrounded the Eldorado Hotel & Spa in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet had come for a meeting of the Western Governors’ Association. “Not for sale!” the crowd boomed. “Not one acre!” There were ranchers and writers in attendance, as well as employees of Los Alamos National Laboratory, all of whom use public land to hike, hunt and fish. Inside the hotel ballroom where the governors had gathered, Michelle Lujan Grisham, the New Mexico governor, apologized for the noise but not the message. “New Mexicans are really loud,” she said.

On the street, one sign read “Defend Public Lands,” with an image of an assault rifle. Others bore creative and bilingual profanities directed at Trump, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, who oversees most of the country’s public acreage, and Sen. Mike Lee, the Republican from Utah, who on June 11 had proposed a large-scale selloff of public lands. Lee, who chairs the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, was not in Santa Fe, so the crowd focused on Burgum, who earlier that afternoon had addressed the governors about energy dominance and artificial intelligence. “Show your face!” the crowd chanted. But he had already departed the hotel through a back door. That night, a hunting group projected an image of him on the exterior wall of the hotel. “Burgled by Burgum,” it read.

In the weeks before the meeting, the possibility of selling off large swaths of public lands had seemed as likely as at any time since the Reagan administration. On June 11, Lee had introduced an amendment to the megabill Congress was debating to reconcile the national budget. The amendment mandated the sale of up to 3 million acres of land controlled by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, with the vast majority of proceeds going to pay for tax cuts. Although Lee had framed his measure as a solution to the West’s acute lack of affordable housing, it would have allowed developers to select the land they most desired. Under the amendment’s original language, the ultimate power to nominate parcels for sale fell to Burgum and Brooke Rollins, head of the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service.

In the days after the Santa Fe protest, the outcry from hunting and outdoor recreation groups escalated across the West and the Senate parliamentarian ruled that Lee’s amendment violated the chamber’s rules. Republican lawmakers from Montana opposed the amendment; Burgum also distanced himself from it. (“It doesn’t matter to me at all if it’s part of this bill,” he told a reporter on June 26.)

By the time Burgum made his comments, Lee’s effort seemed doomed, and days later he announced that he was removing the amendment; public land advocates celebrated. “This win belongs to the hunters, anglers, and public landowners,” wrote Patrick Berry, the president of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. But the celebration may have been premature. In a social media post announcing his decision, Lee indicated that he would revisit the issue: “I continue to believe the federal government owns far too much land,” he wrote. And powerful forces still support privatization. At the Santa Fe gathering, Rollins had been asked during a press conference about the effort to sell federal land. She told reporters she wasn’t familiar with the specifics of Lee’s amendment but supported his broader vision and suggested such efforts will continue regardless of the fate of the amendment. “Half of the land in the West is owned by the federal government,” said Rollins. “Is that really the right solution for the American people?”

The circumstances that led to Lee’s proposal continue to simmer. The American West has an acute lack of affordable and attainable housing. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Colorado, with a population of 6 million, is lacking 175,000 rental units for people who earn up to 50% of area median income. New Mexico, which has one-third of Colorado’s population, is lacking 52,000 such rentals; Utah, 61,000. But nowhere is the issue as acute as in Nevada, where Las Vegas and Reno are encircled by public land. The state of 3.27 million is estimated to lack 118,000 such rentals.

The lack of housing emerged as a lever for Lee, who has sought to challenge federal control of public lands since he was first elected to the Senate in 2010. A year after winning his seat, he introduced a bill to sell a limited amount of public land, saying, “There is no critical need for the federal government to hold onto it.” In 2013, he and others in his state’s delegation wrote a letter demanding the transfer of federal lands to Utah and angrily accusing the Bureau of Land Management, which manages 245 million acres nationwide, of “obvious abuse.” And in a 2018 address at a think tank, he compared federal land managers — and people who recreate on public acreage — to feudal lords, ruling from far-off kingdoms on the coasts. He also denounced “elite publications” that advocated for the protection of public lands, and he used the language of political war to describe the conflict over federal land: “It will take years, and the fight will be brutal.” (Lee’s office did not respond to detailed questions from ProPublica.)

But this spring, Lee found support from unlikely places: the coastal elites he previously railed against seemed open to some of his ideas. The arguments in favor of privatization and development use a word of the season: abundance. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s bestselling book of the same name argues that burdensome regulatory processes have crushed the American housing market. While the authors focus on increasing supply in urban areas, in April, The New York Times ran an op-ed calling for building housing on public lands. That same week, the Times Magazine, in a piece titled “Why America Should Sprawl,” framed outward growth, including through the sale of public lands, as all but inevitable. The American Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank, has estimated that the nation could build 3 million homes by opening federal land. In December, AEI leaders advocated for federal land sales in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, promising that disposal could “usher in housing abundance and prosperity.”

When pitching his land-sale bill, Lee adopted a more moderate tone than in years past, focusing squarely on housing. On June 20, he posted on X, “This is to help American families afford a home.” On June 23: “Housing prices are crushing families.” The next day: “This land must go to American families.”

But it’s challenging to build affordable housing on public land for a host of reasons, among them the high cost of infrastructure such as water pipelines and the cumbersome bureaucratic processes involving land agencies. But a primary obstacle is the price of that land itself: When it’s sold at market rate, it’s extremely difficult for developers to create affordable homes. “High land costs alone can kill an otherwise great affordable housing project,” said Waldon Swenson, vice president of corporate affairs for Nevada HAND, which builds affordable rental housing.

In fact, past public land sales have created very little affordable housing. There’s just one prominent test case, in Nevada, where a 1998 law enables the sale of federal land at market rate in the Las Vegas Valley and at steeply discounted prices throughout the state if it’s to be used for affordable housing. Though municipalities can buy BLM land at $100 per acre to create affordable housing, the law has so far created just about 850 affordable units on 30 acres of land. By contrast, the law’s market-value mechanism has enabled the sale of more than 17,000 acres of land at an average of more than $200,000 per acre. In March, the BLM sold 42 acres for $16.6 million. Meanwhile, according to a recent analysis, rents in Clark and Washoe counties have respectively risen by 56% and 47% since 2018.

Lee’s amendment did little to address these issues and lacked any definition of affordable or attainable housing. Furthermore, it allowed private developers to nominate parcels for sale — at market rate only. “It would be an unmitigated disaster,” wrote Mark Squillace, a professor of natural resources law at the University of Colorado law school. John Leshy, a former solicitor for the Department of the Interior during the Clinton administration and an emeritus professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, said that the bill was “not a well-designed scheme to get more acres out there built with affordable houses.” Leshy, the author of “Our Common Ground: A History of America’s Public Lands,” added, “I think it is just a ploy to get your toe in the door to start selling off lots of federal land.”

Congress’ stance toward public land shifted as settlers moved westward, violently displacing tribal nations. During the homesteading era, the General Land Office — a precursor to the BLM — was tasked with disposing of federal lands to states. But in the late 19th century, states began to request that Congress set aside lands for national forests. As a condition of its statehood, in 1896 Utah relinquished any claim to ownership of “unappropriated public lands” — an acknowledgment that appears in its state Constitution. As the conservation movement took off in the early 20th century, lawmakers and presidents set aside more public land. In 1976, Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which codified the BLM’s role in stewarding lands and declared that they would remain public unless their sale served “the national interest.”

Lee has lamented the impact of those historic changes on Utah, where 42% of the state is BLM land, saying in a 2018 speech, “Manifest destiny had left us behind, in some respects.”

A movement in the 1970s tried to reverse those historical currents when Western ranchers and lawmakers calling themselves “Sagebrush Rebels” sought to claim federal lands for states. They found sympathetic ears in Washington, D.C.: Ronald Reagan, during a 1980 campaign stop in Salt Lake City, said, “Count me in as a rebel.” Once elected, he nominated as secretary of the Interior James Watt, an attorney who favored transfer of public lands to the states. Reagan also came to rely on an economic adviser named Steve H. Hanke, who arrived at the White House from Johns Hopkins University. Hanke was more strident about getting rid of public lands than Watt; he has written that public lands “represent a huge socialist anomaly in America’s capitalist system.”

Hanke helped drive an ambitious effort to dispose of national forests and grazing lands, and in 1982 the Interior Department announced plans to sell millions of acres — as much as 5% of the public estate — in order to reduce the national debt. Hanke later joined The Heritage Foundation, entrenching the idea of privatizing lands at the conservative think tank and predicting that Americans would come around to his way of thinking. Since then, the foundation has regularly advocated for selling public lands. (The foundation did not respond to inquiries from ProPublica.)

Lee is deeply tied into The Heritage Foundation, which he has called “a guiding light for generations.” In 2016, The Heritage Foundation suggested that Trump nominate Lee to the Supreme Court. Among Utah’s leadership, his positions on federal land are widely held. Last year, the state attorney general filed suit to the United States Supreme Court, seeking to seize 18.5 million acres of federal public land. The court declined to hear the case.

Public lands are popular, especially among hunters, hikers and off-roaders, and periodic efforts to sell them have incurred wrath. In 2017, Jason Chaffetz, the former Utah representative, retracted a disposal bill after a backlash. Last December, a survey of 500 Utah voters commissioned by the nonprofit Grand Canyon Trust found that a majority of both Democrats and Republicans supported preserving national monuments in the state. In its preelection policy recommendation known as Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation called for the privatization of everything from public education, using school-choice programs, to Medicare, by automatically enrolling patients in insurer-run plans. But it notably didn’t call for the privatization of the public estate.

Instead, Lee has recently focused the debate on affordable housing. In 2022 and 2023, Lee introduced legislation to sell Western lands called the HOUSES Act. The bill was more prescriptive than his reconciliation amendment: It only allowed states and municipalities to nominate lands for disposal, rather than developers, and it required that 85% of nominated parcels be developed as residential housing, at a minimum of four homes per acre, or as parks. But like his amendment to the reconciliation bill, Lee’s HOUSES Act lacked a definition of affordable housing, and critics suggested that it would lead to the building of mansions. In both 2022 and 2023, when Lee reintroduced the bill, it did not pass out of committee.

But it caught the attention of Kevin Corinth, then the staff director on the Joint Economic Committee, which advises Congress on financial matters. After leaving the Capitol, Corinth joined the American Enterprise Institute, which began focusing on building housing on federal lands. This March, AEI held an event with powerful developers to discuss its ideas, which it called “Homesteading 2.0.” Edward Pinto, a former Fannie Mae executive who helps oversee AEI’s housing research, said during the event that the proposal “grew out of an effort that Sen. Lee undertook with the HOUSES Act.”

AEI advocates for dense development of single-family homes, but its ultimate vision remains opaque: The group has spoken of creating unregulated “freedom cities” far from existing infrastructure, and its proposals for 3 million houses seem ambitious. Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit group in Montana, published an analysis finding that existing public land could support less than 700,000 new homes; Nicholas Irwin, the research director for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Lied Center for Real Estate, said he found Headwaters’ numbers more convincing.

When I asked Pinto for a real-world example that illustrates his hopes for the West, he pointed to Summerlin, a planned community in Las Vegas, and Teravalis, a forthcoming development in Buckeye, Arizona, a rapidly expanding city at Phoenix’s edge. Both are owned by Howard Hughes Holdings, a developer based in Texas.

Housing in Summerlin is not easily attainable — its median home price approaches $700,000. Teravalis, meanwhile, was first proposed more than 20 years ago and has been beset by delays, in part due to ongoing litigation with the state, which claims that the developer has not proven that it can obtain a sufficient water supply. A spokesperson for Howard Hughes Holdings, which bought the development in 2021, wrote that the company is “working with local stakeholders around long-term water policy to support the full build out of Teravalis for more than 300,000 residents over several decades.”

Earlier this year, Pershing Square Holdings, which is controlled by the billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, purchased $900 million of stock in the company. (Ackman, a prominent supporter of Trump’s 2024 campaign, is now the executive chairman of Hughes’ board of directors. Through a spokesperson, he declined to comment for this article.)

Teravalis’ first lots sold for a steep $777,000 per acre without homes on them, and Hughes’ plans are for 2.8 dwellings per acre — less than a quarter of the figure that Pinto cited as ideal for naturally affordable housing. Hughes is currently planning a grand opening for November. The company did not say how much homes would cost, but a spokesperson wrote in a statement, “The need for new housing in the Phoenix West Valley is urgent, and Teravalis will help meet that demand.”

When given the option, developers often pursue the profit margins of high-end housing. In 1998, Congress passed a law, the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, that allows any of the state’s municipalities to request the sale of federal lands for affordable housing. (SNPLMA relies on the Department of Housing and Urban Development to define affordable housing, which it says are units within reach of those making up to 80% of the area’s median income.) Still, to date, only about 900 acres have been set aside for affordable housing projects under the law — and only 30 of those acres have been developed into homes where low-income residents can actually live.

It’s unclear why so few affordable housing projects have been built at a time when they are so desperately needed. Clark County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick attributed it to bureaucratic delays: “It’s taken a long time to get through the process with the BLM.” According to Maurice Page, executive director of the Nevada Housing Coalition, the average time the BLM takes to review projects has recently dropped — from between three and five years to one. Only at that point can a developer close a deal. Tina Frias, CEO of the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, said such delays can be crippling.

In 2023, the BLM began selling Nevada land for affordable housing for $100 per acre. (Previous SNPLMA affordable housing sales had averaged nearly $35,000 per acre.) Still, local authorities have not requested the transfer of many parcels in recent years. According to the BLM, only three new affordable housing projects are moving toward approval.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the agency wrote, “BLM Nevada can only offer land after it has been nominated by an eligible entity and BLM has confirmed that there are no encumbrances or restrictions on the parcel. In many cases, the restrictions referenced by stakeholders originate with the nominating entities themselves.”

SNPLMA’s affordable housing mechanism is also poorly understood. Alexis Hill, the chair of Washoe County’s board of commissioners, which includes Reno, told me she didn’t know whether the affordable housing provision applied there. (It does.) When I asked Biden’s former BLM director, Tracy Stone-Manning, who now leads The Wilderness Society, whether the $100-per-acre provision was applicable statewide, she said she did not know. Squillace, the Colorado law professor, also admitted he wasn’t sure how widely the provision applied.

Steve Aichroth, the administrator of the Nevada Housing Division, acknowledged a disconnect between agencies. His office is hiring an official to work with municipalities and the BLM. “If you came back to us in about a year we’d have better answers,” he said.

In the meantime, both of the state’s Democratic senators, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, have proposed legislation that would open federal acreage for housing and transfer it to trust land for tribal nations — while protecting other territory for conservation. The governor, Joe Lombardo, a Republican, recently signed a bill to invest $183 million of state money in developing housing for lower- and middle-class residents. Elsewhere in the West, New Mexico is leasing state lands to develop apartments. In Utah, the state housing office is encouraging cities to change zoning requirements to increase density; it is also using public funds to finance private developments and looking to build on state lands. Before Lee pulled his amendment, I spoke with Steve Waldrip, who directs housing strategy for Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. During our conversation, Waldrip expressed concern that the hyperpoliticized debate around a broad federal land sell-off was hampering focused efforts to alleviate the region’s housing crisis. “There’s no silver bullet that’s going to solve the affordability crisis,” he said.

But some continue to believe a simple solution exists. After Lee’s amendment died, I spoke with Pinto, who directs AEI’s efforts to push for housing on federal lands. He struck a conciliatory tone, given the political climate. (The sweeping GOP bill passed Thursday without Lee’s amendment.) At the moment, Pinto said, there doesn’t appear to be an easy route to sell large swaths of public land for development. “The path forward is to have a much more targeted approach.”

In Nevada, such a thing is already happening. Last year Clark County bought 20 acres from the BLM for $2,000, and the county’s plan is to turn that land into single-family houses for first-time homebuyers. This spring, a new affordable housing development opened in Las Vegas — an apartment complex for people 55 and older with rent starting at $573. The project was built by a developer called Ovation on former public land that was transferred through SNPLMA. It had taken a while — the deal was first proposed in February 2020. But recently, the pace of transfers has picked up. Ovation says it’s also working on a similar project in the city of Henderson. It was nominated for BLM approval last February and, according to Jess Molasky, the company’s chief operating officer, “We hope to be in the ground in the first quarter of next year.”

Gabriel Sandoval contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Abe Streep.

Telemundo Atlanta reported on Monday morning that the activist group Indivisible had scheduled a protest for 6 p.m. that day at the jail.

“We are dismayed that immigration officials have decided to ignore a federal immigration court order last week granting bail to journalist Mario Guevara,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “Guevara is currently the only jailed journalist in the United States who was arrested in relation to his work. Immigration authorities must respect the law and release him on bail instead of bouncing him from one jurisdiction to another.”

The journalist, who was initially arrested while covering a June 14 “No Kings” protest in the Atlanta metro area and charged with three misdemeanors, which local officials declined to prosecute due to insufficient evidence. A local judge ordered Guevara to be released on bond, but he remained in custody after ICE opened a detainer against him.

The Department of Homeland Security headquarters and the department’s Atlanta field office did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

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

Welcomed by Tibetan cultural performers, the Tibetan spiritual leader was greeted by schoolchildren dressed in their school uniforms, monks in their traditional robes, and residents, both young and old, dressed in their finest traditional attire.

The stage featured a backdrop proclaiming “Year of Compassion” with images of Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Teresa. The Dalai Lama was seated alongside Indian government officials and leaders from the Tibetan exiled government. Also on the dais was longtime Tibetan rights supporter Richard Gere and his son.

Birthday messages from international leaders including former U.S. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama were shared from the stage.

“Your unwavering devotion resonates with all those who cherish freedom, democracy and respect for human rights, values that the people of Taiwan hold dear,” said Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te in a statement.

“In the face of regional and global challenges, we remain committed to fostering a peaceful and sustainable future for the next generations based upon understanding, dialogue.”

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

Sunday’s celebration capped a week of events. Wednesday’s reaffirmation by the Dalai Lama that the Dalai Lama lineage would continue, with the next reincarnation of the spiritual leader chosen by the Gaden Phodrang Trust, a non-profit group that he set up, rejecting moves by China to steer his succession.

The Chinese foreign ministry reiterated on Wednesday that the selection of a new Dalai Lama must follow Chinese law and that it had to take place in China.

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

Following comments by Indian minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday in support of the Dalai Lama’s reaffirmation of his succession plans, China’s foreign ministry warned India to be prudent in its words and actions.

“We hope the Indian side will fully understand the highly sensitive nature of Tibet-related issues, recognize the anti-China separatist nature of the 14th Dalai Lama,” said spokesperson Mao Ning.

In a statement released Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent birthday wishes and said, “We support efforts to preserve Tibetans’ distinct linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage, including their ability to freely choose and venerate religious leaders without interference.”

Speaking at Sunday’s event in Dharamsala, Pema Khandu, India’s Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, said, “[We] reaffirm our collective commitment to uphold the traditional Tibetan Buddhism process for the recognition of his reincarnation in line with the guidance of Gaden Phodrang Trust.”

Reporting by Dawa Dolma, visual reporting by Tenzin Woser in Dharamsala; edited by Charlie Dharapak

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

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

The decision, he said in a statement that he read aloud during the opening day of a three-day conference of spiritual leaders in Dharamsala, came after years of appeals from Tibetan religious and secular leaders, as well as people and organizations from around the world.

“In particular, I have received messages through various channels from Tibetans in Tibet making the same appeal,” he said. “In accordance with all these requests, I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue.”

His statement did not mention China by name, but it said that selecting the next Dalai Lama should be carried out “in accordance with past tradition.”

“No one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” he said.

The Chinese foreign ministry reiterated on Wednesday that the selection of a new Dalai Lama must follow Chinese law and that it had to take place in China.

(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)

Tibetan Buddhists believe that when the Dalai Lama dies, his spirit will reincarnate in a new body. A search committee traditionally composed of high-ranking monks and lamas is formed to find a child born within a year of the Dalai Lama’s death who exhibits exceptional qualities and behaviors similar to his predecessor. The current Dalai Lama was two years old when he was identified.

In a book written earlier this year, the Dalai Lama said that his successor would be born in the “free world,” which he described as outside of China.

In 2011, the Dalai Lama said he would decide whether he would have a reincarnated successor “when I am about 90.” The Tibetan spiritual leader turns 90 on Sunday. Celebrations for the milestone birthday kicked off in Dharamsala on Monday.

Reporting by Dawa Dolma, edited by Greg Barber

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

X user Navratn Lal Yadav (@NavrtnYadav) shared the clip on June 29 with a caption in Hindi that translates to: “Now if a Yadav, Lodhi, or Dalit refuses to work as a labourer, their head is shaved, they are hung upside down and made to drink water, paraded through the entire village—this is the Taliban-like punishment of the BJP government. There is no definition for what happened in Jhansi; under the protection of the government of the dominant people, their courage is emboldened. PDA will change the government in 2027”. So far, this post has received over 163,000 views and has been retweeted nearly 2,000 times. (Archive)

यादव , लोधी अब दलित अगर मजदूरी से मना कर देगा तो उसका सर गंजा कर दिया उल्टा लटका के पानी पिलाया पूरे गाँव मे घुमाया ये तालिबानी सजा है भाजपा सरकार की कोई नहीं परिभाषा झाँसी में जो क्रत्य हुईं प्रभुत्ववादी लोगों के सरकार के संरक्षण में जो होसले बुंलन्द है PDA 2027 में सरकार बदलेगा pic.twitter.com/mMyMFKKyCb

— Navratn Lal Yadav (@NavrtnYadav) June 29, 2025

Several other users shared the same clip, claiming that the victim belongs to the Dalit community and the perpetrators are from a dominant caste. Below are a few instances.

Fact Check

We noticed that the Jhansi police clarified, under some of the recent posts carrying the viral clip, that the video is eight months old and that both parties are from the same community.

pic.twitter.com/35KMLHul0X

— Jhansi Police (@jhansipolice) June 30, 2025

To know more about the incident, we broke down the viral video into several keyframes and ran a reverse image search on a few of them. This led us to a report by Aaj Tak from October 25, 2024, which carried a screengrab from the viral clip. The headline of the article said: ‘A young man was punished for not preparing fodder for the buffalo, his head was shaved and he was hung from a tree with his hands and legs tied’.

The report mentioned that the victim, 45-year-old Baba Kabutra, was tortured by four men, who have been referred to as bullies, from the Takori village in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh. According to the report, one of the assailants was pressuring the victim to move from the Padri village to Takori to prepare fodder and clean dung of his cattle. When the victim declined the job, four men—Vijay, Nakul, Shatrughan and Kallu—dragged him from his workplace, shoved him into a car and took him to Takori village where they shaved his head, paraded him through the village, beat him up with his hands and feet tied and hung him upside down from a tree.

A case had been registered at the Sipri Bazar police station after the video of the victim’s head being shaven went viral on social media. The report, however, made no mention of the victim or the assailant’s castes.

We then came across a report by Hindustan Times, also from October 25, 2024. Quoting the station officer of Sipri Bazar police station, the report mentioned that both the accused and the victim belonged to the same caste.

A video statement by superintendent of police, Gyanendra Kumar Singh, shared on Jhansi Police’s official X account on October 26, 2024 made it clear that the victim was “Baba Kabutra”, a resident of Padri village, and the assailants, three of whom had been arrested, were also from the Kabutra community.

सोशल मीडिया के माध्यम से प्राप्त वीडियो के सम्बन्ध में थाना सीपरी बाजार पर सुसगंत धाराओं में अभियोग पंजीकृत कर घटना से सम्बन्धित तीन अभियुक्तों को गिरफ्तार कर अग्रेतर कार्यवाही की जा रही है । इस सम्बन्ध में पुलिस अधीक्षक नगर की बाइट pic.twitter.com/ETmqBsufaf

— Jhansi Police (@jhansipolice) October 25, 2024

To sum up, the viral clip is from October 2024, and is not an instance of caste-based violence. The victim and the assailants are from the same community.

The post Dalit man tortured in Jhansi? Old video resurfaces; police says victim, assailants from same community appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

The Supreme Court has sided with South Carolina’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Lower court rulings allowed Medicaid patients to sue over the state’s restrictions on Medicaid funding for their healthcare clinics, which the Supreme Court overturned in a 6-3 decision on Thursday. Rebecca Grant, who writes about reproductive rights, says South Carolina’s restrictions will likely be taken up by other states and could result in the closure of potentially hundreds of reproductive healthcare clinics. Grant outlines the alternative healthcare methods that many are forced to turn to in the face of dangerous and — since the fall of Roe v. Wade — increasingly draconian abortion restrictions. “We know throughout history that making abortion illegal or trying to ban it does not make it go away,” she says. This underground network of abortion access in the United States is the subject of Grant’s new book, Access: Inside the Abortion Underground and the Sixty-Year Battle for Reproductive Freedom.

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

Last week, Russia’s Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has decided to send 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers, or combat engineers, to support demining and reconstruction efforts in the Kursk border region, according to Russian state media Tass and RIA Novosti.

Since last fall, North Korea has already deployed more than 12,000 troops to Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of the Kursk region in August, according to Ukraine, the United States, and South Korea. In April, Russia and North Korea confirmed their soldiers fought the Ukrainian forces together there but did not disclose how many.

In a closed-door meeting on Thursday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) told a parliamentary committee that North Korea recently began recruiting additional troops and will likely send them to Russia in July or August.

The NIS noted that North Korea’s deployment of military troops to Russia last year also came just a month after Shoigu’s visit to the country where he signed an agreement with officials in Pyongyang, said South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong Kweun who attended the briefing.

(Russian state media)

The NIS also said North Korea has been continuing to contribute significantly to Russia’s war effort, including providing weapons. Moscow, in turn, provided Pyongyang with economic cooperation, air defense missiles, and radio jamming equipment, it said.

Russia has also been providing technical advice to North Korea on satellite launches, drones, and missile guidance capabilities, Lee said, citing the NIS.

“The National Intelligence Service reported that it is working to minimize the impact on the security of the Korean Peninsula as the close relationship between North Korea and Russia may expand due to the additional dispatch of North Korean combat troops,” Lee said.

Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for talks with Kim Jong Un and signed a mutual defense treaty. Since then, the two countries have aligned closely through military cooperation, including the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia.

Reports of North Korean troop deployment to Russia first surfaced last October. While evidence of their presence grew – including when North Korean soldiers were taken captive by Ukrainian forces in Kursk and were interviewed – neither North Korea nor Russia acknowledged their presence until this year in April.

Written by Tenzin Pema. Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Han Do-hyung for RFA Korean.

A new poll by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union shows that almost half of respondents oppose the Cook Islands having automatic New Zealand citizenship.

Thirty percent of the 1000-person sample supported Cook Islanders retaining citizenship, 46 percent were opposed and 24 percent were unsure.

• The Cook Islands government is pursuing closer strategic ties with China, ignoring New Zealand’s wishes and not consulting with the New Zealand government. Given this, should the Cook Islands continue to enjoy automatic access to New Zealand passports, citizenship, health care and education when its government pursues a foreign policy against the wishes of the New Zealand government?
• READ MORE: Other Cook Islands reports

Taxpayers’ Union head of communications Tory Relf said the framing of the question was “fair”.

“If the Cook Islands wants to continue enjoying a close relationship with New Zealand, then, of course, we will support that,” he said.

“However, if they are looking in a different direction, then I think it is entirely fair that taxpayers can have a right to say whether they want their money sent there or not.”

But New Zealand Labour Party deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said it was a “leading question”.

‘Dead end’ assumption
“It asserts or assumes that we have hit a dead end here and that we cannot resolve the relationship issues that have unfolded between New Zealand and the Cook Islands,” Sepuloni said.

“We want a resolution. We do not want to assume or assert that it is all done and dusted and the relationship is broken.”

The two nations have been in free association since 1965.

Relf said that adding historical context of the two countries relationship would be a different question.

“We were polling on the Cook Islands current policy, asking about historic ties would introduce an emotive element that would influence the response.”

New Zealand has paused nearly $20 million in development assistance to the realm nation.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the decision was made because the Cook Islands failed to adequately inform his government about several agreements signed with Beijing in February.

‘An extreme response’
Sepuloni, who is also Labour’s Pacific Peoples spokesperson, said her party agreed with the government that the Cook Islands had acted outside of the free association agreement.

“[The aid pause is] an extreme response, however, in saying that we don’t have all of the information in front of us that the government have. I’m very mindful that in terms of pausing or stopping aid, the scenarios where I can recall that happening are scenarios like when Fiji was having their coup.”

In response to questions from Cook Islands News, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown said that, while he acknowledged the concerns raised in the recent poll, he believed it was important to place the discussion within the full context of Cook Islands’ longstanding and unique relationship with New Zealand.

“The Cook Islands and New Zealand share a deep, enduring constitutional bond underpinned by shared history, family ties, and mutual responsibility,” Brown told the Rarotonga-based newspaper.

“Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens not by privilege, but by right. A right rooted in decades of shared sacrifice, contribution, and identity.

“More than 100,000 Cook Islanders live in New Zealand, contributing to its economy, culture, and communities. In return, our people have always looked to New Zealand not just as a partner but as family.”

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.

“Netanyahu’s purpose was to drag Trump in,” Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, says of the U.S. attack on Iran. Over the weekend, the U.S. directly joined the war between Israel and Iran when it bombed three nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, though it’s unclear how far the strikes have set back the Iranian nuclear program. Israel and the United States accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons, while Iran says its program is for civilian use. United Nations inspectors and U.S. intelligence assessments have said Iran is not building weapons. “The danger now is that, having brought the U.S. into this, Israel will seek to go further up the escalatory ladder,” says Levy. “It wants the chaos.”

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

That’s the intuitive finding of a paper published Thursday in the journal Science, which involved an analysis of policies to restrict plastic bag use across the United States. The study authors found that, in places with plastic bag bans or taxes, volunteers at shoreline cleanups collected 25 to 47 percent fewer plastic bags as a total fraction of items collected, compared to places with no plastic bag policies. 

The study adds weight to less formal analyses of plastic bag bans conducted by advocacy organizations and could inform negotiations later this summer over the United Nations’ global plastics treaty. “These are large-scale, robust findings that show that these policies are effective in at least limiting plastic bags in the environment,” said Anna Papp, one of the study’s co-authors and an incoming environmental economics postdoc at MIT. 

As litter, plastic bags entangle wildlife and kill more sea turtles, whales, dolphins, and porpoises than any other type of plastic. They also break down into microplastics that have been linked to metabolic disorder, neurotoxicity, and reproductive damage in humans; a study published on Wednesday found that communities living near high concentrations of marine microplastics had an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease, and stroke.

In response to these harms, cities and states across the country have passed laws that ban plastic bags from certain retail locations, or impose a small fee on them — usually 5 to 10 cents. At least a dozen states have banned plastic bags, including Delaware, New Jersey, and Vermont. Jurisdictions with plastic bag fees include Alexandria, Virginia; Duluth, Minnesota; and Howard County, Maryland.

Papp and her co-author — Kimberly Oremus, a marine sciences professor at Delaware University — said they got the idea for their study after learning about beach, riverbank, and lakeshore cleanups organized by the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy. These volunteer cleanups go all the way back to 1986, and reports from each year document the number and type of plastic items collected across jurisdictions. In more recent years, participants have logged their item counts and types in a mobile phone app.

That standardized data could help fill an important research gap, Oremus said, on the connection between plastic bag restrictions and shoreline pollution. Prior scientific analyses had tended to focus on consumer behavior — for example, by counting the number of shoppers who emerge from a supermarket with plastic versus reusable bags. Some studies had focused on plastic bags clogging storm drains, since this can create a flooding hazard. “What we were missing was a direct measurement of the litter in the environment,” Oremus said. 

A small number of analyses looking at this had come from nonprofits, including the Ocean Conservancy, and had not undergone peer review, she added.

Papp and Oremus combined eight years of Ocean Conservancy’s data — constituting more than 45,000 cleanups across the U.S. from between 2016 and 2023 — with information on roughly 180 plastic bag bans and fees implemented between 2017 and 2023. They analyzed plastic bag collection in ZIP codes with and without plastic bag restrictions, and took into account differences in the bag policies, including whether they banned all bags or only certain kinds. 

According to the analysis, plastic bags’ share of collected items increased over the study period: They represented a larger and larger fraction of all the pieces of plastic that volunteers picked up. But this increase was much slower in places covered by a plastic bag restriction, where volunteers collected 25 to 47 percent fewer plastic bags as a fraction of their total haul. The study showed the highest impact from state-level policies compared to local ones, and found that decreases in the share of plastic bags grew over time after bag policies went into effect. 

The study looked at bags as a fraction of plastic items collected rather than the total number of plastic bags because this helped make the measurements more comparable between jurisdictions. “This measure is not sensitive to the size and frequency of cleanups, fluctuations in overall litter, and other factors,” Papp said.

The study also suggested that taxes — like a 10-cent charge per plastic bag — cause a greater reduction in shoreline litter than outright bans, though the researchers said this finding was inconclusive. Not a lot of jurisdictions have fees, Oremus said, so the sample size is small. And there could be explanations that extend beyond the fee itself: Washington, D.C., for example, uses revenue from its plastic bag fee to fund river and shoreline cleanups that might reduce the number of bags found by Ocean Conservancy volunteers. Oremus said it’s also possible that fees have greater coverage than bans — the latter sometimes apply to grocery stores but not to restaurants, for example — or that supermarkets and restaurants are less likely to flout a fee than a ban.

What is clearer, according to Papp, is that “partial bans” aren’t as effective. These policies outlaw plastic bags below a certain thickness, on the basis that thicker bags can count as “reusable” or “recyclable” and are less likely to become litter. Papp and Oremus’ study showed that jurisdictions covered by partial bag bans had the “smallest and least precise” effect on reducing plastic bag litter, potentially because consumers treated the thicker bags just like they had the thin ones. 

Other analyses have shown that California’s partial bag ban led to an increase in the weight of plastic bags used per person between 2014 and 2021. The state closed this loophole last year by banning plastic bags outright, and Oregon followed suit with its own bag ban earlier this month. Lawmakers in other states, however, oppose bag bans altogether — at least 17 states have passed “preemption” laws preventing their cities and counties from restricting the sale of plastic bags.

Susanne Brander, an ecotoxicologist and associate professor at Oregon State University, applauded the research, though she said it’s unfortunate that plastic bag bans have become so politicized that a scientific study is needed to back their effectiveness. “We knew they were working, but this gives hard data to support that,” she said. 

Brander is also a member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, which is advocating for the international agreement — which will enter its sixth round of negotiations in August — to include legally binding limits on plastic production and the use of some types of plastic. One of the articles in the current draft of the treaty proposes restrictions on individual items like balloon sticks, plastic drink stirrers, and “plastic-stemmed cotton bud sticks.” Brander said the new study makes “a strong argument” in favor of broader bans.

“Rather than asking scientists to go and say you need to study Styrofoam containers separately, and study plastic takeaway containers separately, I think we should be able to apply these findings broadly to other bans of harmful products,” she said.

Martin Wagner, a biology professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology who is also a member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, agreed with Brander. He also said the study could be used by U.N. member states to craft their own plastic reduction policies: “These political measures are often discussed in the absence of data — they just say, ‘Let’s ban some items,’” he said. Having concrete evidence that policies can reduce pollution will be “really helpful.”

Celeste Meiffren-Swango, state director of the nonprofit Environment Oregon, said the study in Science reinforces the recommendations of a report she co-authored last year. That report, “Plastic Bag Bans Work,” estimated that five U.S. policies in New Jersey; Vermont; Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon; and Santa Barbara, California, had prevented the use of 6 billion bags per year. Presumably, many of those avoided bags would have become litter.

“There are proven environmental benefits to passing plastic bag laws,” she said. “It’s not just that we want people to change their shopping habits.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Science says plastic bag bans really do work on Jun 19, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

The Big Picture Podcast host, New Zealand-Egyptian journalist and author Mohamed Hassan, interviews Middle East Eye editor-in-chief David Hearst about the rapidly unfolding war between Israel and Iran, why the West supports it, and what it threatens to unleash on the global order.

What does Israel really want to achieve, what options does Iran have to deescalate, and will the United States stop the war, or join it as is being hinted?

Hearst says the war is “more dangerous than we imagine” and notes that while most Western leadership still backs Israel, there has been a strong shift in world public opinion against Tel Aviv.

• READ MORE: Israel-Iran attacks continue; Trump demands unconditional surrender
• Iran war: from the Middle East to America, history shows you cannot assassinate your way to peace
• Attack on Iran’s state media – Israel bombs IRIB building in new war crime
• Why Israel’s ‘humane’ propaganda is such a sinister facade
• Other Israeli war on Iran reports

He says Israel has lost most of the world’s support, most of the Global South, most African states, Brazil, South Africa, China and Russia.

Hearst says the world is witnessing the “cynical tailend of the colonial era” among Western states.

The era of peace is over.             Video: Middle East Eye

Iran ‘unlikely to surrender’
Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, says Iran is unlikely to “surrender to American terms” and that there is a risk the war on Iran could “bring the entire region down”.

Vaez told Al Jazeera in an interview that US President Donald Trump “provided the green light for Israel to attack Iran” just two days before the president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was due to meet with the Iranians in the Oman capital of Muscat.

Imagine viewing, from the Iranian perspective, Trump giving the go-ahead for the attack while at the same time saying that diplomacy with Tehran was still ongoing, Vaez said.

Now Trump “is asking for Iranian surrender” on his Truth Social platform, he said.

“I think the only thing that is more dangerous than suffering from Israeli and American bombs is actually surrendering to American terms,” Vaez said.

“Because if Iran surrenders on the nuclear issue and on the demands of President Trump, there is no end to the slippery slope, which would eventually result in regime collapse and capitulation anyway.”

pic.twitter.com/QcySkOWWGN

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2025

Most Americans oppose US involvement
Meanwhile, a new survey has reported that most Americans oppose US military involvement in the conflict.

The survey by YouGov showed that some 60 percent of Americans surveyed thought the US military should not get involved in the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Iran.

Only 16 percent favoured US involvement, while 24 percent said they were not sure.

Among the Democrats, those who opposed US intervention were at 65 percent, and among the Republicans, it was 53 percent. Some 61 percent of independents opposed the move.

The survey also showed that half of Americans viewed Iran as an enemy of the US, while 25 percent said it was “unfriendly”.

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

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters says countries have the right to choose who enters their borders in response to reports that the Trump administration is planning to impose travel restrictions on three dozen nations, including three in the Pacific.

But opposition Labour’s deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni says the foreign minister should push back on the US proposal.

Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu have reportedly been included in an expanded proposal of 36 additional countries for which the Trump administration is considering travel restrictions.

• READ MORE: Trump administration weighs adding 36 countries to travel ban, memo says
• ‘Why us?’ NZ raises alarm as US eyes travel ban on Tonga, Vanuatu and Tuvalu

The plan was first reported by The Washington Post. A State Department spokesperson told the outlet that the agency would not comment on internal deliberations or communications.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Peters said countries had the right to decide who could cross their borders.

“Before we all get offended, we’ve got the right to decide in New Zealand who comes to our country. So has Australia, so has . . . China, so has the United States,” Peters said.

US security concerns
He said New Zealand would do its best to address the US security concerns.

“We need to do our best to ensure there are no misunderstandings.”

Peters said US concerns could be over selling citizenship or citizenship-by-investment schemes.

Vanuatu runs a “golden passport” scheme where applicants can be granted Vanuatu citizenship for a minimum investment of US$130,000.

Peters said programmes like that could have concerned the Trump administration.

“There are certain decisions that have been made, which look innocent, but when they come to an international capacity do not have that effect.

“Tuvalu has been selling passports. You see where an innocent . . . decision made in Tuvalu can lead to the concerns in the United States when it comes to security.”

Sepuloni wants push back
However, Sepuloni wants Peters to push back on the US considering travel restrictions for Pacific nations.

Sepuloni said she wanted the foreign minister to get a full explanation on the proposed restrictions.

“From there, I would expect him to be pushing back on the US and supporting our Pacific nations to be taken off that list,” she said.

“Their response is, ‘why us? We’re so tiny — what risk do we pose?'”

Wait to see how this unfolds – expert
Massey University associate professor in defence and security studies Anna Powles said Vanuatu has appeared on the US’ bad side in the past.

“Back in March Vanuatu was one of over 40 countries that was reported to be on the immigration watchlist and that related to Vanuatu’s golden passport scheme,” Dr Powles said.

However, a US spokesperson denied the existence of such a list.

“What people are looking at . . . is not a list that exists here that is being acted on,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said, according to a transcript of her press briefing.

“There is a review, as we know, through the president’s executive order, for us to look at the nature of what’s going to help keep America safer in dealing with the issue of visas and who’s allowed into the country.”

Dr Powles said it was the first time Tonga had been included.

“That certainly has raised some concern among Tongans because there’s a large Tongan diaspora in the United States.”

She said students studying in the US could be affected; but while there was a degree of bemusement and concern over the issue, there was also a degree of waiting to see how this unfolded.

Trump signed a proclamation on June 4 banning the nationals of 12 countries from entering the United States, saying the move was needed to protect against “foreign terrorists” and other security threats.

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.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters says countries have the right to choose who enters their borders in response to reports that the Trump administration is planning to impose travel restrictions on three dozen nations, including three in the Pacific.

But opposition Labour’s deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni says the foreign minister should push back on the US proposal.

Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu have reportedly been included in an expanded proposal of 36 additional countries for which the Trump administration is considering travel restrictions.

• READ MORE: Trump administration weighs adding 36 countries to travel ban, memo says
• ‘Why us?’ NZ raises alarm as US eyes travel ban on Tonga, Vanuatu and Tuvalu

The plan was first reported by The Washington Post. A State Department spokesperson told the outlet that the agency would not comment on internal deliberations or communications.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Peters said countries had the right to decide who could cross their borders.

“Before we all get offended, we’ve got the right to decide in New Zealand who comes to our country. So has Australia, so has . . . China, so has the United States,” Peters said.

US security concerns
He said New Zealand would do its best to address the US security concerns.

“We need to do our best to ensure there are no misunderstandings.”

Peters said US concerns could be over selling citizenship or citizenship-by-investment schemes.

Vanuatu runs a “golden passport” scheme where applicants can be granted Vanuatu citizenship for a minimum investment of US$130,000.

Peters said programmes like that could have concerned the Trump administration.

“There are certain decisions that have been made, which look innocent, but when they come to an international capacity do not have that effect.

“Tuvalu has been selling passports. You see where an innocent . . . decision made in Tuvalu can lead to the concerns in the United States when it comes to security.”

Sepuloni wants push back
However, Sepuloni wants Peters to push back on the US considering travel restrictions for Pacific nations.

Sepuloni said she wanted the foreign minister to get a full explanation on the proposed restrictions.

“From there, I would expect him to be pushing back on the US and supporting our Pacific nations to be taken off that list,” she said.

“Their response is, ‘why us? We’re so tiny — what risk do we pose?'”

Wait to see how this unfolds – expert
Massey University associate professor in defence and security studies Anna Powles said Vanuatu has appeared on the US’ bad side in the past.

“Back in March Vanuatu was one of over 40 countries that was reported to be on the immigration watchlist and that related to Vanuatu’s golden passport scheme,” Dr Powles said.

However, a US spokesperson denied the existence of such a list.

“What people are looking at . . . is not a list that exists here that is being acted on,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said, according to a transcript of her press briefing.

“There is a review, as we know, through the president’s executive order, for us to look at the nature of what’s going to help keep America safer in dealing with the issue of visas and who’s allowed into the country.”

Dr Powles said it was the first time Tonga had been included.

“That certainly has raised some concern among Tongans because there’s a large Tongan diaspora in the United States.”

She said students studying in the US could be affected; but while there was a degree of bemusement and concern over the issue, there was also a degree of waiting to see how this unfolded.

Trump signed a proclamation on June 4 banning the nationals of 12 countries from entering the United States, saying the move was needed to protect against “foreign terrorists” and other security threats.

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 Paris-based military and political analyst, Elijah Magnier, says he believes the hostilities between Israel and Iran will only get worse, but that Israeli support for the war may wane if the destruction continues.

“I think it’s going to continue escalating because we are just in the first days of the war that Israel declared on Iran,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview.

“And also the Israeli officials, the prime minister and the army, have all warned Israeli society that this war is going to be heavy and . . .  the price is going to be extremely high.

• READ MORE: Eight killed, dozens wounded in Israel after Iran fires new missile barrage

“But the society that stands behind [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and supports the war on Iran did not expect this level of destruction because, since 1973, Israel has not waged a war on a country and never been attacked on this scale, right in the heart of Tel Aviv,” Magnier said.

“So now they are realising what the Palestinians have been suffering, what the Lebanese have been suffering, and they see the destruction in front of them — buildings in Tel Aviv, in Haifa destroyed, fire everywhere.

“The properties no longer exist. Eight people killed, 250 wounded in one day.

“That’s unheard of since a very long time in Israel. So, all that is not something that the Israeli society has been ready for,” added Magnier, veteran war correspondent and political analyst with more than 35 years of experience covering decades of war in the Middle East and North Africa.

Peters criticised over ‘craven’ statement
Meanwhile, in Auckland, the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) criticised New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters for “refusing to condemn Israel for its egregious war crimes of industrial-scale killing and mass starvation of civilians in Gaza”.

It also said that Peters had “outdone himself with the most craven of tweets on Israel’s massive attack on Iran”.

Iran missiles strikes on Israel for third day in retaliation to the surprise attack. Video: Al Jazeera

Co-chair Maher Nazzal said in a statement that minister Peters had said he was “gravely concerned by the escalation in tensions between Israel and Iran” and that “all actors” must “prioritise de-escalation”.

But there was no mention of Israel as the aggressor and no condemnation of Israel’s attack launched in the middle of negotiations between Iran and the US on Iran’s nuclear programme, said Maher.

“It’s Mr Peters’ most obsequious tweet yet which leaves a cloud of shame hanging over the country.

“Appeasement of this rogue state, as our government and other Western countries have done over 20 months, have led Israel to believe it can attack any country it likes with absolute impunity.”

New Zealand is gravely concerned by the escalation in tensions between Israel and Iran. Any further retaliatory action significantly increases the risk of a regional war. This would have catastrophic consequences in the Middle East.

It is critical that all actors prioritise…

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) June 13, 2025

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

As immigrant rights protests spread to Chicago, we speak with Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez, who is the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants and married to a DACA recipient and recently called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign. She responds to President Trump’s threat to deploy troops in more major cities to quell protests. “What you are seeing is the beginning of fascism,” says Ramirez, who represents parts of Chicago. “For fascists, they select a public enemy. And today, it’s an immigrant. … Tomorrow, it’s anyone they find undesirable.”

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

Activists from around the world are arriving in Egypt ahead of the Global March to Gaza, set to launch June 15, when thousands plan to march to the Rafah border to call for an end to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and its blockade of the territory. Dozens who flew to Cairo for the march have reportedly been detained, interrogated and deported by Egyptian security forces, but organizers say the event will proceed as planned. Former U.S. diplomat Hala Rharrit, who is taking part in the march, spoke with Democracy Now! earlier this week and said she could not turn a “blind eye” to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. “What type of world are we going to be allowing our children to grow up in, if we stand by while an entire civilian population is forcibly starved?” Rharrit asks.

Rharrit was the Arabic-language spokesperson for the State Department before she resigned in 2024 to protest the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. She accuses her former colleague Matthew Miller of “careerism” after he recently admitted on a podcast that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza, even though he regularly denied that while serving as a spokesperson for the State Department under Biden.

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

One of the 12 activists on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aid vessel Madleen has posted an update on their progress, saying the mission would not be deterred by Israel’s threats to block them.

In a video posted to X, Thiago Ávila said the crew, which includes high-profile Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, was not intimidated by a message they had received from Israel on Thursday, reports Al Jazeera.

He said Israeli authorities had said that the Madleen, which is carrying food and medical supplies, would be blocked from entering Gaza — and that if they attempted to deliver them, they would come under attack.

• READ MORE: Al Jazeera live tracker on Madleen
• Kia Ora Gaza website and Kiwi link to March on Gaza
• What activists hope to achieve with the ‘Global March on Gaza’

“It’s important that we understand that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and any other repressive regime throughout history, they actually fear the people, we do not fear them,” he said.

“We know that this is part of a global uprising much larger than this humble mission of 12 people on a small boat. It will not be through force that they will make a way to defeat us.”

While crossing international waters in the Central Mediterranean on its way to Gaza yesterday, the Madleen received a mayday call relayed through one of the Frontex drones operated by Europe’s border security agency.

With no other vessel able to respond, the Madleen diverted to the distressed vessel, where it found 30 to 40 people trapped in a rapidly deflating dinghy.

While the crew of the Madleen were attempting a rescue of their own, they were approached at speed by a unit of the Libyan Coast Guard, specifically one belonging to the Tareq Bin Zayed brigade, which Al Jazeera has previously reported upon.

On realising that the approaching vessel belonged to the Libyan Coast Guard, four dinghy passengers jumped into the water and swam to the Madleen, where they were rescued.

The remainder were taken on board the Libyan Coast Guard’s vessel and presumably returned to Libya.

It’s the 6th day of our journey onboard the Madleen to #breakthesiege of Gaza and create a people’s humanitarian sea corridor! The Freedom Flotilla Coalition will never stop due to the Zionists threats. We know we have billions of people along with the 12 of us on this boat! pic.twitter.com/FfIDDtVbX7

— Thiago Ávila | Gaza Freedom Flotilla (@thiagoavilabr) June 6, 2025

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

We speak with Dr. Rupa Marya, a physician, activist, author and composer, who this week filed two free speech complaints against her former employer, the University of California, San Francisco. The school fired her last month after a lengthy suspension over her criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza and its impact on healthcare in the Palestinian territory. “I didn’t expect that my career-ending move would be to say 'stop bombing hospitals,' for expressing support for Palestinian liberation and for criticizing the U.S.-backed genocide,” says Marya. She was named one of the top 20 most influential women in biomedicine by Nature and served on multiple national advisory boards. Since her firing, over 1,000 healthcare workers and students have signed open letters demanding her reinstatement and denouncing UCSF’s suppression of political expression.

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

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The mother of an Arizona man who died after being unable to find mental health treatment is suing his health insurer, saying it broke the law by publishing false information that misled its customers.

Ravi Coutinho, a 36-year-old entrepreneur, bought insurance from Ambetter, the most popular plan on HealthCare.gov, because it seemed to offer plenty of mental health and addiction treatment options near his home in Phoenix. But after struggling for months in early 2023 to find in-network care covered by his plan, he wasn’t able to find a therapist. In May 2023, after 21 calls with the insurer without getting the treatment he sought, he was found dead in his apartment. His death was ruled an accident, likely due to complications from excessive drinking.

Coutinho was the subject of a September 2024 investigation by ProPublica that showed how he was trapped in what’s commonly known as a “ghost network.” Many of the mental health providers that Ambetter listed as accepting its insurance were not actually able to see him. ProPublica’s investigation also revealed how customer service representatives and care managers repeatedly failed to connect Coutinho to the care he needed after he and his mother asked for help. The story was part of a yearlong series, “America’s Mental Barrier,” that investigated the ways insurers employed practices that interfered with their customers’ ability to access mental health care.

The lawsuit, filed on May 23 in Maricopa County by Coutinho’s mother, Barbara Webber, accused the insurer Centene, along with the subsidiary that oversaw her son’s plan, Health Net of Arizona, of publishing an “inaccurate and misleading” provider directory. The suit also accused the companies of breaking state and federal laws, including ones that require directories to be kept accurate.

The errors in the Ambetter directory gave Coutinho a false impression about the kinds of mental health care that were actually available, the lawsuit said. According to the lawsuit, the failure to correct those errors concealed the fact that Centene companies had provided insufficient services through the Ambetter plan.

The lawsuit draws upon the findings of ProPublica’s investigation, summarizing Coutinho’s repeated attempts to find a therapist in Ambetter’s network and to get Centene representatives to connect him with a mental health provider that he could actually see.

The lawsuit also describes how Arizona insurance regulators had previously informed Health Net of Arizona that it had failed to maintain accurate provider directories. Health Net of Arizona promised to correct the errors. Regulators did not fine the insurer and declined to answer ProPublica’s questions about whether the Centene subsidiary addressed their concerns.

Centene and Health Net of Arizona didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment on the lawsuit. ProPublica previously reached out to Centene and Health Net of Arizona more than two dozen times and sent them both a detailed list of questions. None of their media representatives responded.

One of the 25 largest companies in America, Centene and its subsidiaries have been accused in past lawsuits of purposefully misrepresenting the number of in-network providers by publishing inaccurate directories. Centene lawyers have previously denied such claims in two of the bigger cases, in Illinois and California. Both cases are ongoing.

The top trade group for the industry, AHIP, has told lawmakers that companies contact in-network providers to ensure the listings are accurate. AHIP also stated that the companies could correct inaccuracies faster if providers did a better job updating their listings. Providers have told ProPublica, however, that insurers don’t always remove their names from insurer lists when they officially request to leave their networks.

Mel C. Orchard III, a partner with The Spence Law Firm who is representing Webber, told ProPublica that he intended to bring the case before a jury to hold Centene accountable for negligence and consumer fraud. The lawsuit does not state a specified amount that Webber is seeking in damages.

“Ravi is an example of the abject failure of the insurance industry to do what it’s supposed to do — and that is to insure us in times when we need them the most,” Orchard told ProPublica. “Instead they prey upon our vulnerabilities; that is what happened in this case.”

Watch a live performance of Max Blau’s investigation of Ravi Coutinho’s death, performed by actors Oscar Isaac, Kathryn Erbe and Bill Camp, produced by Theater of War Productions and presented by WNYC.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Max Blau.

On May 15, the Tamaulipas Electoral Institute (IETAM) ordered de Mauleón – one of Mexico’s most well-known investigative journalists – to take down his May 1 column, which mentioned corruption allegations against a relative of a candidate, Tania Contreras, in the northern state and to refrain from publishing articles linking her to criminal individuals or acts. The woman sued de Mauleón and his newspaper El Universal on May 15 for slander and political violence based on gender. De Mauleón was found guilty, but the dates of the verdict and his sentencing were not made public.

Such vexatious lawsuits are an increasingly popular tool for Mexican politicians to censor critical journalism, and CPJ has documented their use since 2016, when a court in Mexico City eliminated the maximum compensation plaintiffs could sue for in moral damages suits. Over the past five years, at least 158 journalists faced libel suits, according to the office in Mexico of Article 19, a London-based advocacy group and CPJ partner organization.

It’s a global trend. In Europe and the United States, Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation, commonly known as SLAPPs, are widely used as retaliatory measures to intimidate journalists and suppress public interest reporting.

Political violence based on gender

The crime of political violence based on gender, introduced in 2020, was designed to protect female candidates in a country where gender violence is among the highest in the world, including against women running for or holding public office, numerous studies found.

Reporter Arturo Ángel Arrellano Camarillo of Al Calor Político news site has been found guilty of the same crime in the eastern state of Veracruz. In January of this year he was ordered to pay an unspecified fine and reparations to Mara Chama, a woman he named in a 2021 article about politicians’ relatives running for office, according to the court ruling, reviewed by CPJ.

Arellano’s name will also be added to a register of Persons Sanctioned for Political Violence against Women held by the National Electoral Institute, which organizes Mexico’s federal elections.

“The rulings against journalists Héctor de Mauleón and Arturo Arellano are clear examples of judicial harassment, with politicians abusing the law to silence critical reporting – an increasingly common phenomenon in Mexico,” said CPJ Mexico Representative Jan-Albert Hootsen. “We call on Mexican politicians to stop bringing meritless cases to court to prevent the publication of news that is in the public interest.”

In both cases, lower courts rejected the charges, but their rulings were overturned.

The charges against the two journalists appear to be baseless, as there was no evidence of political violence or of the journalists singling out the women because of their gender, human rights lawyer Jorge Ruiz del Ángel told CPJ. “There appears to be little merit in these cases”, he said. “In either one the damage the articles would have caused is not clear, nor the specific component of gender.”

At risk

De Mauleón did not withdraw the article, despite the risk of arrest. He told CPJ that retracting it would create a dangerous precedent of self-censorship for journalists in Mexico.

He is used to being harassed over his work. For the last decade, De Mauleón been threatened multiple times for his reporting on organized crime, extortion, drug trafficking, and corrupt networks involving politicians and celebrities.

But this case concerned him because the court order was handed to him at his Mexico City home.

“I was told that my personal information was given to the IETAM, which I believe places me at risk,” De Mauleón told CPJ.

Mexico is the deadliest country in the Americas for journalists, according to CPJ research. Since 2020, 40 journalists and media workers were killed in work-related, or possibly work-related incidents, according to CPJ research. Mexico ranked eighth on CPJ’s 2024 Global Impunity Index.

CPJ made several attempts to reach Tania Contreras via calls to her campaign’s office in Tamaulipas and to Mara Chama via the Teocelo municipal government in Veracruz for comment, but none of the calls were answered.

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

Fiji cannot compete with Australia and New Zealand to retain its teachers, the man in charge of the country’s finances says.

The Fijian education system is facing major challenges as the Sitiveni Rabuka-led coalition struggles to address a teacher shortage.

While the education sector receives a significant chunk of the budget (about NZ$587 million), it has not been sufficient, as global demand for skilled teachers is pulling qualified Fijian educators toward greener pastures.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji education reports

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Biman Prasad said that the government was training more teachers.

“The government has put in measures, we are training enough teachers, but we are also losing teachers to Australia and New Zealand,” he told RNZ Pacific Waves on the sidelines of the University of the South Pacific Council meeting in Auckland last week.

“We are happy that Australia and New Zealand gain those skills, particularly in the area of maths and science, where you have a shortage. And obviously, Fiji cannot match the salaries that teachers get in Australia and New Zealand.

According to the Education Ministry’s Strategic Development Plan (2023-2026), the shortage of teachers is one of the key challenges, alongside limited resources and inadequate infrastructure, particularly for primary schools.

Hundreds of vacancies
Reports in local media in August last year said there were hundreds of teacher vacancies that needed to be filled.

However, Professor Prasad said there were a lot of teachers who were staying in Fiji as the government was taking steps to keep teachers in the country.

“We are training more teachers. We are putting additional funding, in terms of making sure that we provide the right environment, right support to our teachers,” he said.

“In the last two years, we have increased the salaries of the civil service right across the board, and those salaries and wages range from between 10 to 20 percent.

“We are again going to look at how we can rationalise some of the positions within the Education Ministry, right from preschool up to high school.”

Meanwhile, the Fiji government is currently undertaking a review of the Education Act 1966.

Education Minister Aseri Radrodro said in Parliament last month that a draft bill was expected to be submitted to Cabinet in July.

“The Education Act 1966, the foundational law for pre-tertiary education in Fiji, has only been amended a few times since its promulgation, and has not undergone a comprehensive review,” he said.

“It is imperative that this legislation be updated to reflect modern standards and address current issues within the education system.”

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.

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

An Auckland University law academic says Samoa’s criminal libel law under which a prominent journalist has been charged should be repealed.

Lagi Keresoma, the first female president of the Journalists Association of Samoa (JAWS) and editor of Talamua Online, was charged under the Crimes Act 2013 on Sunday after publishing an article about a former police officer, whom she asserted had sought the help of the Head of State to withdraw charges brought against him.

JAWS has already called for the criminal libel law to be scrapped and Auckland University academic Beatrice Tabangcoro told RNZ Pacific that the law was “unnecessary and impractical”.

• READ MORE: Samoa press group calls for repeal of criminal libel laws after journalist charged
• Samoan journalists association calls to repeal law
• Treating journalists with respect – Samoa Observer editorial
• Other Samoa media freedom reports

“A person who commits a crime under this section is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding 175 penalty units or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months,” the Crimes Act states.

JAWS said this week that the law, specifically Section 117A of the Crimes Act, undermined media freedom, and any defamation issues could be dealt with in a civil court.

JAWS gender representative to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said Keresoma’s arrest “raises serious concerns about the misuse of legal tools to independent journalism” in the country.

Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson called on the Samoan government “to urgently review and repeal criminal defamation laws that undermine democratic accountability and public trust in the justice system”.

Law removed and brought back
The law was removed by the Samoan government in 2013, but was brought back in 2017, ostensibly to deal with issues arising on social media.

Auckland University’s academic Beatrice Tabangcoro told RNZ Pacific that this reintroduction was widely criticised at the time for its potential impact on freedom of speech and media freedom.

She said that truth was a defence to the offence of false statement causing harm to reputation, but in the case of a journalist this could lead to them being compelled to reveal their sources.

The academic said that the law remained unnecessary and impractical, and she pointed to the Samoa Police Commissioner telling media in 2023 that the law should be repealed as it was used “as a tool for harassing the media and is a waste of police resources”.

Tonga and Vanuatu are two other Pacific nations with the criminal libel law on their books, and it is something the media in both those countries have raised concerns about.

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.

Journalists in Papua New Guinea are likely to face legal threats as powerful individuals and companies use court actions to silence public interest reporting, warns Media Council of PNG president Neville Choi.

As co-chair of the second Community Coalition Against Corruption (CCAC) National Meeting, he said lawfare was likely because Parliament had passed no laws to protect reporters and individuals from such tactics.

Choi said journalists were being left unprotected against Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) — legal actions used by powerful individuals or corporations to silence criticism and reporting.

• READ MORE:The Media Council of PNG

“In Papua New Guinea right now, we don’t have any law to stop SLAPPs,” Choi said.

“Big corporations or organisations with more money can use lawsuits to silence people, civil society and the media. That’s the reality.”

SLAPPs are lawsuits filed not to win on merit, but to drain resources, silence critics, and stop public debate.

In some other countries, anti-SLAPP laws exist to protect journalists and whistleblowers. But in PNG, no such legal shield exists.

Legal pressure for speaking out
“We’ve seen it happen,” Choi added, referring to ACTNOW PNG’s Eddie Tanago, a civil society advocate who has faced legal pressure for speaking out.

“He’s experienced it. And we know it can happen to journalists too.”

Despite increasing threats, journalists do not have access to legal defence funds or institutional protection.

Choi confirmed that there was no system in place to defend reporters who were hit with defamation lawsuits or other forms of legal retaliation.

“Our advice to journalists is simple. Do your job well. The truth is the only protection we have,” he said.

“If you stick to facts, follow professional ethics and report responsibly, you reduce your risk. But if you make a mistake, you leave yourself open to lawsuits.”

The Media Council, in partnership with Transparency International under the CCAC, are discussing the idea of drafting an anti-SLAPP law but no formal proposal has been put forward yet.

Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

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

The review could in principle lead to a suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. CPJ has been calling for a suspension, as well as for the EU to adopt targeted sanctions against IDF officials and others responsible, since August 2024, on the basis of Israel’s violations of international human rights and criminal law.

Ireland and Spain had previously pressed for an EU review; however, divisions remained within the bloc on openly and publicly challenging Israel. The EU’s decision, along with today’s UK move to pause “its free trade agreement negotiations with Israel” could signal a shift in political opinion in Europe. 

“Although today’s decision is welcome, it comes too late,” said Tom Gibson, CPJ’s deputy advocacy director, EU. “A review must now be carried out swiftly and EU member states must be ready to finally hold Israel to account for its unprecedented attack on press freedom and egregious abuses of international law.”

A suspension of the EU agreement would need to be made unanimously by member states and with the agreement of the European Commission.

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

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the May 19, 2000, coup led by renegade businessman George Speight.

The deposed Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, says Speight’s motive had less to do with indigenous rights and a lot more to do with power, greed, and access to the millions likely to accrue from Fiji’s mahogany plantation.

On this day 25 years ago, the elected government was held hostage at the barrel of the gun, the Parliament complex started filling up with rebels supporting the takeover, Suva City and other areas in Fiji were looted and burnt, and innocent people were attacked just because of their race.

• READ MORE:  Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali reflects on the 2000 coup
• Archive: Fiji – why the media were also Speight’s hostages
• Other Fiji coup reports

Chaudhry said indigenous emotions were “deliberately ignited to beat up support for the treasonous actions of the terrorists”.

He said the coup threw the nation into chaos from which it had not fully recovered even to this day.

Chaudhry said using George Speight as a frontman, the “real perpetrators” of the coup, assisted by a group of armed rebels from the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF), held Chaudhry and members of his government hostage for 56 days as they plundered, looted and terrorised the Indo-Fijian community in various parts of the country.

The Fiji Labour Party leader said that, as with current Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who led the first two coups in 1987, so with Speight in May 2000, that the given reason for the treason and the mayhem that followed was to “protect the rights and interests of the indigenous community”.

Chaudhry said today that it was widely acknowledged that the rights of the indigenous community was not endangered either in 1987 or in 2000.

He added that they were simply used to pursue personal and political agendas.

The FLP leader said those who benefitted were the elite in Fijian society, not ordinary people.

Chaudhry said this was obvious from current statistics which showed that currently the iTaukei surveyed made up 75 percent of those living in poverty.

He said poverty reports in the early 1990s showed practically a balance in the number of Fijians and Indo-Fijians living in poverty.

The former prime minister says it was obvious that the coups had done nothing to improve the quality of life of the ordinary indigenous iTaukei.

Instead, he said the coups had had a devastating impact on the entire socio-economic fabric of Fiji’s society, putting the nation decades behind in terms of development.

Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali reflects on the 2000 coup.

Chaudhry said the sorry state of Fiji today — “the suffering of our people and continued high rate of poverty, deteriorating health and education services, the failing infrastructure and weakened state of our economy” — were all indicators of how post-coup governments had failed to deliver on the expectations of the people.

He said: “It is time for us to rise above discredited notions of racism and fundamentalism and embrace progressive, liberal thinking.”

Chaudhry added that leaders needed to be judged on their vision and performance and not on their colour and creed.

Republished with permission from FijiVillage News.

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

Amid this geopolitical conflict, social media was flooded with reports of drone and missile sightings across both countries. There was panic, and worries over the damage an all-out war could cause. Adding to this chaos was the coverage by several Indian news channels that aired a series of sensational and unverified claims—from Islamabad facing attacks by the Indian armed forces to Pakistan army chief Asim Munir being arrested. As the conflict intensified and public confusion mounted, sections of the Indian media descended into a maddening frenzy.

A May 11 report by Scroll said 21 Indian civilians, including five children, were killed in J&K in the first four days of the India-Pakistan conflict. On May 10, foreign secretary Vikram Misri announced that India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire.

Among all the “news” reports broadcast during the cross-border shelling, one story stood out: the decimation of the Karachi port. Many visuals showing the Karachi port in shambles surfaced on social media and were aired on segments of news channels.

Do These Visuals Show A Wrecked Karachi Port?

The short answer is no. The visuals aired by news outlets (added above) and circulated on social media had nothing to do with the Karachi Port.

For instance, Bengali news channel ABP Ananda aired a clip that apparently showed damage at the Karachi port after it was struck by naval aircraft carrier INS Vikrant. However, an Alt News probe revealed that the footage was actually three months old. Worse, it depicted scenes in Philadelphia after a plane crash. Philadelphia is in Pennsylvania, United States, thousands of miles away from Karachi. The channel also used a screengrab from the viral video in their online report that INS Vikrant had attacked the Karachi port, as well as their X post. However, these were later replaced by generic images of INS Vikrant and a Pakistan flag, respectively. No clarification was issued by the outlet for using the misleading image. The news report and the X post claiming  ‘extreme action’ INS Vikrant led to the Karachi port being destroyed are still live.

In another instance, an image purportedly showing INS Vikrant’s strike on the Karachi port was used in online reports of several news outlets, including Zee News, TV9, and Amar Ujala, among others. Alt News found that the image was actually from a 2023 naval drill, not an attack. In fact, the warship featured in the viral photo wasn’t INS Vikrant, but INS Vikramaditya.

Similarly, another visual of an explosion illuminating the night sky and smoke billowing was also circulated with claims that it showed INS Vikrant attacking the Karachi port. Alt News found that the image dates back to 2020 and is of Israel’s airstrike on Gaza. It has no connection to the India-Pakistan conflict.

On the intervening night of May 8 and 9, news outlets had almost established that the Indian Navy had wiped out the Karachi port. It remains unclear whether they picked visuals of attacks and destruction from social media or vice versa. It’s also hard to say which is worse.

Alt News has debunked several such clips shared with claims that they were scenes from the Karachi port.

The Spectacle by Broadcast Media

Late on May 9, many mainstream news channels, such as India Today, Aaj Tak, TV9 Bharatvarsh, ABP and Zee News, declared that the Indian Navy had attacked the Karachi port. They said the international port, where major business happens, was in shambles.

‘Exclusive’ reportage by India Today had commentary from a retired lieutenant general of the Indian Army on the ‘attack’ by the Indian Navy. Tickers flashed ‘Indian Navy attacks Pakistan’s Karachi’ and ‘Exclusive’ across the screen.

#EXCLUSIVE | “India has done a smart thing…”: Retd Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (@atahasnain53) on Indian Navy attacking Karachi@SwetaSinghAT & @SandeepUnnithan join in with more details.#OperationSindoor #IndiaStrikesTerroristan | @GauravCSawant pic.twitter.com/C3rMaEDyeB

— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) May 8, 2025

Its Hindi counterpart, Aaj Tak, too, claimed that the Indian Navy had launched an attack on the port. As if the sequence of events and the way they were described were not dramatic enough, a blaring siren played in the background for added theatrics. Senior journalist and anchor Anjana Om Kashyap, whose face has often been associated with the channel, kept telling her co-anchor Sweta Singh that “we” successfully surrounded Pakistan from all sides. The whole production was embellished by ‘representational’ visuals of drones being launched. These representative visuals were later circulated by Pakistan-based media outlets and social media users with claims that they showed the Pakistan Army firing with its multi-rocket launcher near the Line of Control (LoC). However, Alt News fact checked this visual and found that it was sourced from the video game Arma 3.

#BreakingNews : एक्शन में आई भारतीय नौसेना, कराची पर किया हमला#IndianNavy #OperationSindoor #IndiaFightsTerroristan #IndianArmy #IndianAirForce | @anjanaomkashyap | @SwetaSinghAT pic.twitter.com/41HytjDMVE

— AajTak (@aajtak) May 8, 2025

Zee News also said on air that the navy launched an offensive on Karachi with similar siren sounds playing in the background to heighten the drama. During one of these segments, the anchor says, “Karachi port ko tabah kar diya hain nausena ne” (The Karachi port has been demolished by the Indian Navy). This is followed by sounds of applause.

#BreakingNews | समंदर से पाकिस्तान पर बड़ा एक्शन, नौशेरा ने कराची पोर्ट को किया तबाह #OperationSindoor #IndianAirForce #AirStrike #Pakistan #IndiaPakistanWar #JammuKashmir #JammuAttack #DroneAttacks #IndianNavy @ramm_sharma pic.twitter.com/HWQ18r8Ved

— Zee News (@ZeeNews) May 8, 2025

TV9 Bharatvansh’s broadcast said that multiple explosions were heard at the Karachi port. One of the hosts of the segment says in Hindi that before making their moves on the chess board, India set all the pieces beforehand; the preparations were so meticulous that no one had an inkling. It further said that they could not reveal anything more because it would be akin to revealing intel and “we are responsible” unlike the media in Pakistan.

The sound of the siren was used here too. This was an “All-out attack against Pakistan,” the channel said, sharing these updates on X. “Heavy damage to Karachi port due to Indian strike”.

पाकिस्तान के खिलाफ ऑल आउट अटैक जारी
भारत के हमले से कराची पोर्ट पर भारी नुकसान #IndiaPakistanTension | #AirStrike | #OperationSindoor | @nishantchat | @sumairakh | @SumitDefence pic.twitter.com/XY8i8rTUYI

— TV9 Bharatvarsh (@TV9Bharatvarsh) May 8, 2025

ABP News, too, claimed that the Indian Navy attacked Karachi. The anchor said that nearly 12 explosions were ‘reportedly’ heard in Karachi.

#WATCH | कराची में INS विक्रांत की कार्रवाई, कराची पोर्ट पर बीती रात हुए कई धमाके .@anchorjiya | https://t.co/smwhXURgtc #OperationSindoor #Pakistan #JammuKashmir #BreakingNews pic.twitter.com/c9347ZOJrX

— ABP News (@ABPNews) May 9, 2025

By May 10, the Directorate General Fire Service, Civil Defence and Home Guards had to issue an advisory directing media channels to refrain from using air raid siren sounds in their broadcast segments. “Routine use of sirens may likely to reduce the sensitivity of civilians towards the air raids sirens,” the directive said.

Trolls Come For The Telly

While the Indian media was busy running these segments and propagating myths about the Karachi port, posts from social media users in Pakistan came as a brutal reality check. At 5:29 am on May 9, one social media user said, “I even woke up after sleeping, but according to Indian media, Karachi had been destroyed and I had died”. On the bulletin by Times Now Navbharat that Karachi port was attacked by INS Vikrant, another user wrote, “I think they put the wrong Karachi location in Google Maps!” One user chimed in saying, “Can someone from the indian navy currently taking over Karachi closest to my location come over I need someone to watch my baby while i pray”? Another user, seemingly confused, asked which Karachi they were showing.

Jibes from Pakistani accounts were one thing, but then came an official statement from the Karachi Port Trust. At 8:40 am on May 9, they said they were “operating normally & securely. All port functions, activities & operations are taking as normal routine activity.” They called the Indian media coverage “completely false and baseless”.  (Archive)

An hour before this statement was shared, the port had already said that they were safe and their X account had been hacked. This came barely minutes after a post saying “Karachi Port has sustained heavy damage following a strike by India, resulting in unacceptable loss of property. Emergency response efforts are underway. Updates on restoration will be provided regularly. We stand resilient. #IndianNavyAction #IndiaPakistanWar #KarachiPort” was made from this account. (Archives 1, 2)

To make clear the point that the port sustained no damage, Pakistan-based journalist Sanjay Sadhwani (@sanjaysadhwani2) posted a video of himself standing near the Karachi port at 5:25 am on May 9. (Archive)

How Not To Report During Conflict

This was not a case of a source going rogue or one reporter or channel getting something wrong, which can very well happen. This was a battery of news outlets making viewers believe something completely fictional in a war-like situation. A major port like Karachi being destroyed would have significantly escalated tensions. The blaring sirens and visuals of INS Vikrant may have given viewers a sense that these were sights and sounds from the site of conflict. They had little reason to doubt it since multiple channels were airing it.

And all this despite some Indian journalists, such as WION foreign affairs editor Sidhant Sibal, clarifying that there was “No Indian Navy Action at Karachi.”

No Indian Navy Action at Karachi. The Indian Navy, of course remains operational in the Arabian sea.

— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) May 8, 2025

In a press briefing on May 9, foreign secretary Vikram Misri, colonel Sofiya Qureshi, and wing commander Vyomika Singh gave updates on Pakistan’s drone attack and India’s subsequent military retaliation. At no point during this did they say anything about military action by the navy or any ‘offensive’ launched in Karachi.

Even on May 11, Indian Navy vice admiral AN Pramod said that Indian Navy warships “remain deployed in the northern Arabian Sea in a decisive and deterrent posture with full readiness and capacity to strike select targets at sea and on land, including Karachi, at a time of our choosing”. He did not once mention that the navy had carried out an attack.

It’s hard to find a word that fully captures the reportage that unfolded late on May 8. It was not only embarrassing and irresponsible, but absurd.

A country’s citizens, teetering on the edge for any updates on what was happening, were led to believe that India was launching offensives in areas of civilian habitation in Pakistan and using warships as a final blow to ‘attack’ a major port. All this when the Indian defence forces kept reiterating that their military strikes were non-escalatory, focused and measured. An average citizen could have been panic-sticken and afraid. And then to be told that none of it happened is slightly bizarre.

In future, the ‘destruction’ of the Karachi port will serve as an example of what not to do when reporting in sensitive times of conflict.

The post The fictional strikes on the Karachi port and what it says about Indian media appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

About 2000 New Zealand protesters marched through the heart of Auckland city today chanting “no justice, no peace” and many other calls as they demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israeli atrocities in its brutal war on the besieged Palestinian enclave.

For more than 73 days, Israel has blocked all food, water, and medicine from entering Gaza, creating a man-made crisis with the Strip on the brink of a devastating famine.

Israel’s attacks killed more than 150 and wounded 450 in a day in a new barrage of attacks that aid workers described as “Gaza is bleeding before our eyes”.

• READ MORE: Tory MP admits he ‘got it wrong’ on Israel
• 4 dead children pulled from Gaza’s rubble as Israel kills at least 54
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports
• More images and videos of the protest

in Auckland, several Palestinian and other speakers spoke of the anguish and distress of the global Gaza community in the face of Western indifference to the suffering in a rally before the march marking the 77th anniversary of the Nakba — the “Palestinian catastrophe”.

“There are cracks opening up all around the world that haven’t been there for 77 years,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair John Minto in an inspired speech to the protesters.

“Right through the news media, journalists are up in arms against their editors and bosses all around the world.

“We’ve got politicians in Britain speaking out for the first time. Some conservative politician got standing up the other day saying, ‘I supported Israel right or wrong for 20 years, and I was wrong.’

‘The world is coming right’
“Yet a lot of the world has been wrong for 77 years, but the world is coming right. We are on the right side of history, give us a big round of applause.”

Minto was highly critical of the public broadcasters, Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand, saying they relied too heavily on a narrow range of Western sources whose credibility had been challenged and eroded over the past 19 months.

He also condemned their “proximity” news value, blaming it for news editors’ lapse of judgment on news values because Israelis “spoke English”.

Minto told the crowd that that they should be monitoring Al Jazeera for a more balanced and nuanced coverage of the war on Palestine.

His comments echoed a similar theme of a speech at the Fickling Centre in Three Kings on Thursday night and protesters followed up by picketing the NZ Voyager Media Awards last night with a light show of killed Gazan journalists beamed on the hotel venue.

About 230 Gazan journalists have been killed in the war so far, many of them allegedly targeted by the Israeli forces.

Minto said he could not remember a previous time when a New Zealand government had remained silent in the face of industrial-scale killing of civilians anywhere in the world.

“We have livestreamed genocide happening and we have our government refusing to condemn any of Israel’s war crimes,” he said.

NZ ‘refusing to condemn war crimes’
“Yet we’ve got everybody in the leadership of this government having condemned every act of Palestinian resistance yet refused to condemn the war crimes, refused to condemn the bombing of civilians, and refused to condemn the mass starvation of 2.3 million people.

“What a bunch of depraved bastards run this country. Shame on all of them.”

Palestinian speaker Samer Almalalha spoke of the 1948 Nakba and the injustices against his people.

“Everything we were told about international law and human rights is bullshit. The only rights you have are the ones you take,” he said.

“So today we won’t stand here to plead, we are here to remind you of what happened to us. We are here to take what is ours. Today, and every day, we fight for a free Palestine.”

and he told a harrowing story from his homeland. As a 14-year-old boy, he and his family were driven out of Palestine during the Nakba.

He described “waking up to to the smell of gunpowder” — his home was close to the Deir Yassin massacre on April 9, 1948, when Zionist militias attacked the village killing 107 people, including women and children.

‘Palestine will be free – and so will we’
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said: “What we stand for is truth, justice, peace and love.

“Palestine will be free and, in turn, so will we.”

She said only six more MPs were needed to have the numbers to have the Greens’ Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Sanctions Bill passed in Parliament.

Israel has blocked all food, water, and medicine from entering Gaza, creating a man-made crisis, with the integrated food security agency IPC warning that famine could be declared any time between now and September, reports Al Jazeera.

The head of the UN Children’s Fund, Catherine Russell, said the world should be shocked by the killing of 45 children in Israeli air strikes in just two days.

Instead, the slaughter of children in Gaza is “largely met with indifference”.

“More than 1 million children in Gaza are at risk of starvation. They are deprived of food, water and medicine,” Russell wrote in a post on social media.

“Nowhere is safe for children in Gaza,” she said.

“This horror must stop.”

Famine worst level of hunger
Famine is the worst level of hunger, where people face severe food shortages, widespread malnutrition, and high levels of death due to starvation.

According to the UN’s criteria, famine is declared when:

• At least 20 percent (one-fifth) of households face extreme food shortages;
• More than 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition; and
• At least two out of every 10,000 people or four out of every 10,000 children die each day from starvation or hunger-related causes.

Famine is not just about hunger; it is the worst humanitarian emergency, indicating a complete collapse of access to food, water and the systems necessary for survival.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), since Israel’s complete blockade began on March 2, at least 57 children have died from the effects of malnutrition.

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

A video showing deceased soldiers near what appears to be a boundary wall with fires around is being circulated by many social media accounts. In the video, it seems as though the person recording it is saying that there was heavy shelling at the border, in which Pakistan killed many Indian soldiers. Those sharing the video also claimed that 52 soldiers of the 20 Raj Battalion of the Indian Army were martyred.

This video has emerged amid a sea of unverified visuals and claims on social media that try to show damage caused by India or Pakistan in the recent conflict that was triggered by the killing of 26 civilians in Kashmir. A fortnight after this, India launched Operation Sindoor to target terror bases in Pakistan. Shortly after, the Pakistan armed forces retaliated with shelling across border areas, also targeting Indian military infrastructure.

Pakistan-based account War Analyst, withheld in India, shared the video claiming it showed footage from Pakistan’s strike on the Sangar post of Chirikot, and the visual was being shared among army folks in India on WhatsApp. The user wrote that India was covering up the loss of 52 Indian soldiers along the Line of Control while their families were mounting pressure on the Indian government to reveal these deaths.

The video was shared by Conflict Watch with the same claim as well as RTEUrdu, a Turkish media outlet. RTEUrdu wrote that the video was taken by an Indian soldier.

Fact Check

Several things in the video raise doubts.

• Firstly, the claims alleged that an Indian Army post faced heavy shelling. But in the video, the so-called post seems safe. If there was heavy shelling that caused a fire, far more damage would clearly be visible, which is not the case here.
• Secondly, the tone of the person recording the video is funny, as though it is being enacted or forcefully dramatised. In such a situation it is more likely that someone recording the footage would worried or distraught.
• Thirdly, the viral post claims that 52 Indian soldiers have been killed and their families are pressuring the government. But had this been true and the government were hiding it, news outlets in India would have surely carried stories on it. The Indian Army has said that it lost five soldiers.

Importantly, the uniform worn by the soldiers in the viral video is old. The Indian Army does not don this uniform anymore; it was changed in 2022. A comparison of the old and new uniforms can be seen below.

A report by The Indian Express from January 2022 also explained the difference between the old and new uniforms of the army. Below is a screenshot of their graphic.

The fact-checking unit of the Indian government, PIB Fact-Check, also dubbed the video fabricated and said there was no unit called “20 Raj Battalion” in the Indian Army. It added that this was part of a propaganda campaign to create panic and mislead people during the conflict.

Staged Video Alert

Fake video is being circulated by Pakistani handles alleging that an Indian Post was destroyed by the #Pakistani Army

#PIBFactCheck:

The claim is completely false, and the video is staged

There is no unit called “20 Raj Battalion” in the… pic.twitter.com/959rc9OrTH

— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) May 8, 2025

Based on these findings, Alt News established that the video does not depict martyred soldiers from the recent India-Pakistan conflict. Claims that 52 soldiers were martyred in firing by Pakistan are unsubstantiated.

The post 52 Indian soldiers killed by Pakistan in shelling? No; viral video is staged, says PIB appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

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In what could be a significant escalation of U.S. pressure on Mexico, the Trump administration has begun to impose travel restrictions and other sanctions on prominent Mexican politicians whom it believes are linked to drug corruption, U.S. officials said.

So far, two Mexican political figures have acknowledged being banned from traveling to the United States. But U.S. officials said they expect more Mexicans to be targeted as the administration works through a list of several dozen political figures who have been identified by law enforcement and intelligence agencies as having ties to the drug trade.

The list includes leaders of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s governing party, several state governors and political figures close to her predecessor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the U.S. officials said. They insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive policy plans.

The governor of the Mexican state of Baja California, Marina del Pilar Ávila, confirmed that she and her husband, a former congressman, were told their U.S. visas were revoked because of “a situation” involving her husband. “The fact that the State Department has cancelled my visa does not mean that I have committed something bad,” she said at a news conference on Monday.

Sheinbaum said her government had asked U.S. officials to explain why Ávila was stripped of her visa but had been told that such matters are private and no further information was given.

The visa actions represent the latest political challenge for the new Mexican leader and her leftist National Regeneration Movement, known as Morena. Despite the country’s historic sensitivity to any hint of U.S. meddling, Sheinbaum has thus far bolstered her support at home by asserting Mexico’s sovereignty in discussions with President Donald Trump while also moving to meet his demands for action against the biggest traffickers.

Mexican journalists reported that U.S. immigration officials also pulled the visa of another border-state governor, Américo Villarreal of Tamaulipas, an assertion that the governor’s spokesperson dismissed as “unconfirmed.” (Villarreal has been frequently accused of having ties to drug trafficking, which he has denied.) Last month, the mayor of that state’s second-largest city, Matamoros, was stopped from crossing the border into Brownsville, Texas, but he, too, insisted he had not been formally stripped of his visa.

A State Department spokesperson declined to comment, noting that visa records are confidential under U.S. law.

Three U.S. officials said the visa actions will likely in some cases be accompanied by Treasury Department sanctions that block individuals from conducting business with U.S. companies and freeze financial assets they have in the United States. Ávila said that she did not have any U.S. bank accounts and faced no such sanction.

A spokesperson for the Treasury Department declined to comment on the sanctions plan.

When the administration imposed tariffs on Mexico in early March, it asserted that the country’s government had granted “safe havens for the cartels to engage in the manufacturing and transportation of dangerous narcotics, which collectively have led to the overdose deaths of hundreds of thousands of American victims.”

As part of what it has described as an all-out fight against fentanyl and other illegal drugs, the administration has designated some of the biggest Mexican trafficking gangs as terrorist organizations and explored the possibility of unilateral U.S. military actions against them, officials said.

The review of Mexican drug corruption was initiated by a small White House team that requested information from law enforcement agencies and the U.S. intelligence community about Mexican political, government and military figures with criminal ties.

Officials said the group has been shaping the administration’s security policy with Mexico under the leadership of a deputy White House homeland security adviser, Anthony Salisbury. It is overseen by the deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller.

A spokesperson for the White House declined to comment in response to questions about the group’s role in initiating the travel sanctions.

One official familiar with the team’s list said it overlaps with a file of about 35 Mexican officials that was compiled by Drug Enforcement Administration investigators in 2019, after López Obrador began shutting down Mexico’s cooperation with the United States in counterdrug programs.

That earlier effort sought to identify Mexican government figures who could be criminally prosecuted for aiding drug traffickers. It led to the 2019 indictment in the U.S. of the country’s former security chief, Genaro García Luna, and his conviction on drug charges three years later in a New York federal court.

The two former DEA officials in Mexico City who oversaw the compilation of the 2019 list, Terrance Cole and Matthew Donahue, also proposed that the State Department cancel the U.S. visas of some of the Mexican political figures named on it. Senior U.S. diplomats rejected that proposal.

Cole is now awaiting Senate confirmation as the Trump administration’s new DEA administrator.

Some current and former U.S. officials expressed concerns about the latest White House-led plan. They noted that the standard of proof required for both visa cancellations and Treasury sanctions is well below that of a criminal trial, which could encourage proponents of the measures to act on what might be less-than-solid information.

Officials said the visa actions were being taken under Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which stipulates that noncitizens can be found ineligible for entry to the United States if the government “knows or has reason to believe” that the foreigner “is or has been a knowing aider, abettor, assister, conspirator or colluder with others in the illicit trafficking” of illegal drugs. The law also allows the State Department to cancel the visas of relatives of a sanctioned official who may have benefited from their illicit gains.

One U.S. official said that while the visa withdrawals might send a powerful signal of the United States’ new willingness to challenge Mexican corruption, they could also stir new conflict between the two governments.

“We should be using all the resources of the government to go after these people,” the official said, referring to corrupt Mexican officials. “But the bigger question is: Does this work with President Sheinbaum? Are you going to lose an opportunity now with a Mexican government that has been very compliant on the drug front?”

A former Mexican ambassador to Washington, Arturo Sarukhaan, said further visa actions against prominent figures in Sheinbaum’s party would make it hard for her to continue claiming a “good” relationship with the United States despite Trump’s often openly confrontational tone.

“But at the same time,” Sarukhaan added, “it gives her — a nationalistic president with a very chauvinistic party behind her — a perfect excuse to say that everything bad that’s happening in Mexico with the economy and everything else is because of U.S. imperialism.”

López Obrador, who came to power in 2018, had promised to fight corruption as never before. Instead, he presided over an administration that denied having any corruption problem in its own ranks even as journalists produced report after report that officials close to the president and even his own sons were engaged in profiteering and graft.

Sheinbaum has struck a different tone. In a message to a Morena party congress on May 4, she warned the faithful about the dangers of cronyism, nepotism and corruption.

“All members of Morena should conduct themselves with honesty, humility and simplicity,” she said. “There cannot be any collusion with crime — whether organized or white collar.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Tim Golden.

Anyone who witnessed or was affected by Baltimore’s failed experiment with zero-tolerance policing during the aughts remembers the unrelenting chaos it created. As reporters working for a newspaper, we witnessed the onslaught of so-called quality of life arrests as a fast-moving crisis that seemed to accelerate with each illegal charge.

The policy was driven by the idea that even the most minor infraction, like drinking a beer on a stoop, was worthy of detainment in the pursuit of stopping more violent crimes. However, it soon spiraled out of control to roughly 100,000 arrests per year between 2000 and 2006. It led to bizarre examples of over-policing, like Gerard Mungo, the seven-year-old boy arrested for sitting on an electric dirt bike, or the incarceration of attendees of an entire cookout over a noise complaint. 

But aside from the individual horror stories of people who ended up in jail without committing a crime, there was something else just as shocking: all of the suffering occurred in a blue city, with little if any political opposition or pushback from the Democratic establishment.  

If you’re skeptical, don’t be. Post 9-11 Democrats wanted to look tough. And they were looking for a political superstar to replace former President Bill Clinton. 

Then-Mayor Martin O’Malley fit the bill. He was a rising political star who the local Democratic establishment believed would eventually ascend to the presidency. Throughout his tenure, he oversaw this policy of mass arrests, hoping the ensuing drop in crime would bolster his future candidacy. Predictably, his presidential aspirations fizzled under the weight of the 2015 uprisings after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, and crime didn’t go down. 

But the results were undeniably horrific: tens of thousands of people placed in cuffs without committing a crime. An authoritarian policy embraced by a Democratic establishment that seemed to have few qualms with allowing police to create untenable conditions within predominantly African-American neighborhoods.

During the zero tolerance heyday, prosecutors were so overwhelmed by the onslaught of detentions that they invented a previously unheard-of legal terminology to address it: ‘abated by arrest.’ It was a legal classification intended to reckon with the fact that there was no legal basis for charging thousands of people police were putting into handcuffs. In other words, the arrest was illegal; prosecutors just invented a way to make it seem less so.  

The city’s Central Booking facility, constructed in the ’90s with the expectation it would process around 40,000 arrests annually, was so overwhelmed that many detainees would be given what was known as a ‘walk through,’ which entailed simply walking in and out of the facility in a long serpentine line guided by corrections personnel. This overcrowding was exacerbated by the jump-out boys, who would arrive in predominantly Black neighborhoods to lead people, whose only crime was living in an area police deemed suitable for mass illegal incarceration, into the back of vans.

The point was, and is, that zero tolerance was, in some sections of Baltimore, worse than authoritarianism—it led to a reconfiguration of the Constitution. People would be illegally detained and then disappear into the Central Booking facility for months without due process. Many victims weI interviewed were often released without charging documents, unable to describe or otherwise recount the crime that had landed them in jail. Baltimore was essentially non-constitutional—a bastion of notably unlawful law enforcement.  

All of this backstory is a prelude to the astonishing and terrifying argument made recently by prominent Johns Hopkins professor of Political Science and Africana Studies Lester Spence. 

Spence is one of a handful of innovative political scientists who examine national politics through the prism of urban governance. He is the author of Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. In it he argues that cities, once bastions of progressive policymaking, have become laboratories for neoliberalism.  

But Spence has taken this idea one step further by making an argument that makes the Trump administration’s current unconstitutional actions even more terrifying. 

During an interview for the TRNN documentary ‘Freddie Gray: A Decade of Struggle,’  Spence linked the wildly unconstitutional policing that precipitated the uprising to the anti-democratic impulses from the Trump administration that are infiltrating the country’s institutions. 

“To the extent that if you looked at a map of the country and you looked and you layered density and then voted on that map, what you’d see is the most Democratic places are the densest places, and all the rest is red,” Spence explained. 

“Now, if you layer onto those values about democracy, should everybody be able to get a right to vote? Should people accept the results of elections? But then, should people have a right to healthcare? Should people have a right to solid education? Should people have a right to a living wage? All those attitudes are concentrated in metropolitan areas. If you constrain the ability of those spaces to articulate those values and policy, then you constrain the ability to state on one hand… and then the nation-state on the other to actually fight for those values,” he said. 

“So the sort of authoritarianism comes out of the policing and the lack of opportunity and the dysfunction of democracy.”

There are obvious connections that Spence is making here. Illegal arrests have been proven to diminish political participation. Specious criminal charges literally erode the type of citizenship that a democracy depends on.

It estranges, isolates, and otherwise marginalizes entire swathes of a community. Affected residents subsequently cannot access public housing, student loans, or even admission to higher education. All of these factors conclusively diminish the strength and vibrancy of our citizenry, and, as Spence suggests, mute the constituency most likely to advocate for progressive policies. 

But Spence’s idea has even more profound implications if you delve deeper into the history of policing in blue cities like Baltimore. To understand its true significance, just consider a less direct force undermining democracy which is precipitated by Democrats’ commitment to aggressive law enforcement. 

It starts with the conservative narrative of the failed city. 

The so-called failed “Dem-run city” is shorthand for broader attacks on Democratic competence. It boils broader ideas of liberal excesses into simple narratives: The chaotic blue communities are beset by criminals and immigrants. The lawlessness and moral bankruptcy of cities that have run amok. All of it espoused by Republican candidates and right-leaning news media outlets as probable cause to run Democrats out of Washington.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post published daily stories on crime and dysfunction in San Francisco. Similarly, in our own hometown, right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting has touted a ‘City in Crisis’ series that again equates crime to failed Democratic policies and the mayhem they supposedly engender. All of this, manufactured or true, creates a perception that Democrats are wildly incompetent.

That perception gains traction, according to Spence’s idea, because—in some cases—it’s accurate.

That’s because cities under Democratic administrations have invested billions in the ostensibly flawed idea that policing was a key to reducing crime. Just like with zero tolerance in Baltimore, many Democratic mayors and elected officials not just allowed but touted aggressive and illegal policing as a proficient means to an end.

That commitment to a flawed policy has not only led to failure, but has given Republicans plenty of fodder to justify the Trump administration’s authoritarian rule. The easy-to-construct narrative that Democrats can’t and will not impose order and don’t know how to do so has simply made right-wing talking points more salient and appealing.

The irony is, as Spence points out, that blue cities like Baltimore invested massive sums in policing for decades with meager results. Defunding the police has hardly been the problem. Here in Baltimore, for example, public safety spending has outpaced education spending for decades. 

Nevertheless, Baltimore’s recent drop in homicides suggests that all this spending overlooked what appears to be the most effective solution: investment in community-based programs. 

Dayvon Love, public policy director for the Baltimore-based think tank Leaders of Beautiful Struggle, made this point in the same documentary. The Baltimore Police Department, he noted, has been grappling with a historic number of vacancies, fluctuating somewhere between 500 and 1,000 officers. However, even with fewer officers to patrol the streets, violent crime and homicides have dropped significantly. In 2024 homicides dropped to 201, a 20% decrease from the year prior. This year, nonfatal shootings and homicides have continued to fall another 20% to a record low. 

Some have attributed this to a broader national trend towards lower homicide rates. But, as Mayor Brandon Scott recently pointed out, Baltimore has always bucked fluctuations in homicides and violent crime.  

Instead, Scott attributes the drop to the city’s commitment to community-based programs like the Gun Violence Reduction Strategy, which uses a coordinated community-based approach to persuade high-risk residents to get a job rather than commit a crime. The city, with the help of the state of Maryland, has also made historic investments in Safe Streets, a violence interruption program in which former felons mediate disputes before they turn violent. 

All of this points to the fact that Democrats’ past use of aggressive policing has been a boon for Republicans because it was not just the wrong solution, but a prescription for electoral failure as well. Whether or not the Republican depiction of this policy has been fair, the fact remains that Democrats across the country have invested countless billions into authoritarian policing with little impact on crime, and as a result have paved the way for an authoritarian national movement.

If these two trends continue, as Spence suggested is possible, then we are in big trouble. 

Just consider the findings of the Justice Department report that was released after its 2016 investigation into the Baltimore Police Department in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. It found that, among other abuses, police arrested one man 44 times. It also revealed that several extremely poor and mostly African-American neighborhoods were targeted with mass arrests to the point that a person could be detained for simply walking in an area where they did not live.

If that sounds scary, consider the fact that the editor of the paper I worked for was arrested after we published the overtime earnings of all the officers on the force during the zero-tolerance era. Police contrived a crime to effectuate the arrest, accusing him of pointing a shotgun at his neighbors. The case fell apart after his lawyers pointed out that all of this occurred in the privacy of his home and that the aggrieved neighbor had only witnessed the infraction through a shut window. However, that did not stop a cadre of heavily armed officers from dragging him into the same Central Booking facility as the other victims of the city’s mass arrest movement. 

Even more troubling were the sheer numbers of arrests effectuated by a relatively small number of officers. At its peak, BPD had roughly 3,000 sworn cops—and the number of people they managed to arrest was thousands of times greater. Imagine if the vast federal bureaucracy embarked on a similar program of nationwide detentions.

That program is, actually, already happening. The Trump administration has enlisted the FBI and IRS to help arrest immigrants, a task usually outtside their respective purviews. 

The point is, we have witnessed how over-policing changes the contours of government, and if this same mentality pervades the federal institutions and agencies, it will be more terrifying than it’s already been. 

Spence’s insight should be heeded as not just a cautionary tale, but a call to action. Baltimore has made positive changes to commit resources towards a community based approach to crime intervention. The question is, will it be enough?

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Stephen Janis and Taya Graham.

A decision by the Broadcasting Standards Authority to uphold a complaint against a 1News broadcast last November is a warning to news media, says the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa.

The authority ruled that a TVNZ news item on violence in Amsterdam in the Netherlands breached BSA rules.

1News described violence in the streets of Amsterdam on November 7 and 8 following a soccer match as “disturbing” and ‘antisemitic’ and stated the graphic video of beatings were Maccabi Tel Aviv fans under attack just for being Jewish.

• READ MORE: Framing violence: How Israel shaped the narrative and its impact on Dutch politics
• Israeli football hooligans bring culture of genocide to Amsterdam
• Inaccurate 1News reporting on football violence breached broadcasting standards, rules BSA

Videographers who took the footage which 1News had used, complained to their news agencies that this description was wrong. The violence had been perpetrated by the Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv fans against those they suspected of being Arab or supporters of Palestine.

The visiting Israelis were the attackers — not the victims, said the PSNA statement, as widely reported by global media correcting initial reports.

Before the match these same Maccabi fans had gathered in large groups to chant “Death to Arabs” — a racist genocidal chant which if used with the races reversed (“Arabs” replaced by Jews”) “would have been rightly condemned in purple prose by Western news media such as TVNZ”, said PSNA co-chair John Minto in the statement.

“But no such sympathy for Palestinians or Arabs,” he added.

Requested broadcast correction
PSNA said in its statement that it had immediately requested that TVNZ broadcast a correction. TVNZ refused, though admitting they had got the story wrong.

PSNA then referred a complaint to the BSA which upheld the complaint as failing to meet the accuracy standard.

Minto said in the statement that the BSA decision should be seen as a warning to news media to be aware that Israel was using “fabricated charges of antisemitism, to justify and divert attention from its genocide in Gaza and silence its critics”.

“Just because [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and the then US President Joe Biden made statements turning Amsterdam attackers into victims, doesn’t mean TVNZ news should automatically parrot them,” Minto said.

“That’s effectively what the BSA concluded.”

Framing violence: How Israel shaped the narrative and the impact on Dutch politics   Video: Al Jazeera

Minto also pointed to what he called a recent fabricated hysteria about antisemitism in Sydney, which the New South Wales police found to be completely based on hoaxes by a criminal gang.

“In the US, Trump is using the same charge as an excuse to close down university courses and expel anyone who protests against the Israeli genocide in Gaza,” Minto said.

“Of course, we strongly condemn the real antisemitism of anti-Jewish, Nazi-type Islamophobic groups,” Minto says.

Call for media ‘self education’
“It should be easy for professional reporters and editors to tell the difference between criticism of Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing and violence on one hand, and on the other hand Nazis and their fellow travellers who condemn Jews because they are Jews.

“The BSA is, in effect, demanding the news media educate themselves.”

In a half-hour report on 16 November 2024 headlined “Media bias, inaccuracy and the violence in Amsterdam”, Al Jazeera’s global mediawatch programme The Listening Post said “one night of violence revealed … Western media’s failings on Israel and Palestine”.

“In the wake of an ugly eruption of violence on the streets of Amsterdam, the media coverage of the story [was] put under the microscope with editors scrambling to revise headlines, rework narratives, and reframe video content.”

In an investigative documentary, The Full Report, on 22 January 2025, Al Jazeera’s Dutch correspondent Step Vaessen reported how Israel had framed the violence, shaped the narrative, manipulated the global media, and impacted on Dutch politics.

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

The leader of the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has reacted to the election of the new pope.

Pope Leo XIV was elected by his fellow cardinals in the Conclave on Thursday evening, Rome time.

Leo, 69, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is originally from Chicago, and has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru.

• READ MORE: Pope Leo XIV faces limits on changing the Catholic Church − but Francis made reforms that set the stage for larger changes
• What’s in a name? The history of the papal name Leo
• Other Pope Leo XIV reports

He became a cardinal only in 2023 and has become the first-ever US pope.

PCC general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan said he was not a Vatican insider, but there had been talk of cardinals feeling that the new pope should be a “middle-of-the-road person”.

Reverend Bhagwan said there had been prayers for God’s wisdom to guide the decisions made at the Conclave.

“I think if we look at where the decisions perhaps were made or based on, there had been a lot of talk that the cardinals going into Conclave had felt that a new pope would need to be someone who could take forward the legacy of Pope Francis, reaching out to those in the margins, but also be a sort of a middle-of-the-road person,” he said.

Hopes for climate response
Reverend Bhagwan said the Pacific hoped that Pope Leo carried on the late Pope Francis’s connection to the climate change response.

He said Pope Francis released his “laudate deum” exhortation on the climate shortly before the United Nations climate summit in Dubai last year.

“The focus on care for creation, the focus for ending fossil fuels and climate justice, the focus on people from the margins — I think that’s important for the Pacific people at this time.

“I know that the Catholic Church in the Pacific has been focused on on its synodal process, and so he spoke about synodality as well.

“I know that there were hopes for an Oceania synod, just as Pope Francis held a synod of the Amazon. And I think that is still something that’s in the hearts of many of our Catholic leaders and Catholic members.

“We hope that this will be an opportunity to still bring that focus to the Pacific.”

Picking up issues
New Zealand’s Cardinal John Dew, who was in the Conclave, said the new pope would not hesitate to speak out about issues around the world.

He said they were confident Pope Leo would pick up many of the issues Francis was well known for, like speaking up for climate change, human trafficking and the plight of refugees; and within the church, a different way of meeting and talking with one another — known as synodality — which is an ongoing process.

“I think any pope needs to be able to challenge things that are happening around the world, especially if it is affecting the lives of people, where the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.”

Pope Leo appeared to be a very calm person, he added.

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

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

The documentary “Who Killed Shireen?”, produced by U.S.-based media company Zeteo, claims to have identified the Israeli soldier who killed Abu Akleh on May 11, 2022, while she was covering an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in the West Bank town of Jenin. The IDF said in September 2022, following a brief investigation, that it was not possible to “unequivocally determine” the source of the gunfire, but there was a “high possibility” that Abu Akleh was “accidentally hit” by Israel. An FBI investigation is now in its 30th month with no resolution in sight, while the International Criminal Court has not responded to repeated calls to launch a probe. 

“Criminal accountability throughout the chain of command is the only path to justice. Shireen Abu Akleh was an American citizen and journalist, and the U.S. has a clear responsibility to investigate her killing thoroughly and swiftly, and to punish the perpetrators,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “These delays are unacceptable. U.S. failure to protect its own citizens and journalists worldwide allows these killings to continue with impunity.”

The Zeteo documentary identified 20-year-old Alon Scagio as having fired the fatal shot. After the IDF released its internal investigation in September 2022, Scagio — who began serving for the first time in the West Bank that year — was transferred to another unit and then killed by an explosive in Jenin in 2024, the filmmakers said.

According to CPJ’s data, which dates back to 1992, it is the first time that a potential suspect has been named in connection with an Israeli killing of a journalist.

‘System that enables impunity’

In May 2023, CPJ’s “Deadly Pattern” report showed that over 22 years, members of the IDF killed at least 20 journalists. Despite numerous IDF probes, no one has ever been charged for these deaths. The systemic impunity has continued into the current war: the IDF has conducted no criminal investigations into any of at least 174 Palestinian and Lebanese journalists it has killed since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, even in cases where there is significant evidence of a war crime. 

“Failure to fully investigate and hold accountable those responsible for the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and 19 other journalists killed by Israel prior to her murder has effectively given Israel permission to silence hundreds more,” Ginsberg said.

Multiple investigations concluded that Abu Akleh – a household name in the region – was shot by the IDF, which said its troops were in the area “to arrest suspects in terrorist activities.” Some analyses, including one by CNN, said there was evidence that Abu Akleh was deliberately targeted.

The IDF concluded in 2022 that there was a “high possibility” that Abu Akleh was “accidentally” killed by Israeli forces but declined to open a criminal investigation into the killing.

“Regardless if the soldier’s identity is known or whether he is dead or alive doesn’t change the fact that Shireen was intentionally targeted and killed, and that happened within a system that enables impunity,” the journalist’s niece, Lina Abu Akleh, told CPJ.

“Accountability cannot stop at one name or one face. Justice demands that the full chain of command — those who gave the orders, those who covered it up, and those who continue to deny responsibility — be held to account. Only then can there be any hope for real closure, not just for Shireen, but for every journalist and family seeking truth,” Abu Akleh said.

It has been two and a half years since the U.S. Department of Justice notified Israel it was conducting an FBI investigation into the killing, after it faced repeated congressional calls to do so. Israel said it would not cooperate, and there is still no timeline for completion of the investigation.

Despite the filing of multiple complaints to the International Criminal Court, including by Shireen’s family and Al Jazeera, the prosecutor has still not opened an investigation into her killing.

Abu Akleh’s then producer, Ali Al Samoudi – who is featured in the documentary and was wounded at the time by a shot in his back – is facing six months of administrative detention without charge in the West Bank, following a raid on his home on April 29, 2025. 

CPJ’s emails seeking comment from the IDF’s North America Media Desk, the FBI, and the ICC did not receive an immediate response.

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

The author of the book Eyes of Fire, one of the countless publications on the Rainbow Warrior bombing almost 40 years ago but the only one by somebody actually on board the bombed ship, says he was under no illusions that France was behind the attack.

Journalist David Robie was speaking last month at a Greenpeace Aotearoa workship at Mātauri Bay for environmental activists and revealed that he has a forthcoming new book to mark the anniversary of the bombing.

“I don’t think I had any illusions at the time. For me, I knew it was the French immediately the bombing happened,” he said.

• READ MORE: David Robie on Eyes of Fire — Greenpeace video
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• The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior — Greenpeace
• From Rongelap to Mejatto – how Rainbow Warrior helped move nuclear refugees — David Robie

“You know with the horrible things they were doing at the time with their colonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, assassinating independence leaders and so on, and they had a heavy military presence.

“A sort of clamp down in New Caledonia, so it just fitted in with the pattern — an absolute disregard for the Pacific.”

He said it was ironic that four decades on, France had trashed the goodwill that had been evolving with the 1988 Matignon and 1998 Nouméa accords towards independence with harsh new policies that led to the riots in May last year.

Dr Robie’s series of books on the Rainbow Warrior focus on the impact of nuclear testing by both the Americans and the French, in particular, on Pacific peoples and especially the humanitarian voyages to relocate the Rongelap Islanders in the Marshall Islands barely two months before the bombing at Marsden wharf in Auckland on 10 July 1985.

Detained by French military
He was detained by the French military while on assignment in New Caledonia a year after Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior was first published in New Zealand.

His reporting won the NZ Media Peace Prize in 1985.

David Robie’s 2025 talk on the Rainbow Warrior.     Video: Greenpeace Aotearoa

Dr Robie confirmed that Little island Press was publishing a new book this year with a focus on the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior.

“This edition is the most comprehensive work on the sinking of the first Rainbow Warrior, but also speaks to the first humanitarian mission undertaken by Greenpeace,” said publisher Tony Murrow.

“It’s an important work that shows us how we can act in the world and how we must continue to support all life on this unusual planet that is our only home.”

Little Island Press produced an educational microsite as a resource to accompany Eyes of Fire with print, image and video resources.

The book will be launched in association with a nuclear-free Pacific exhibition at Ellen Melville Centre in mid-July.

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

Entities and individuals that thrived under the previous government with public relations contracts now want to be part of the media or run media organisations, says Fiji Media Association (FMA) secretary Stanley Simpson.

He made the comments yesterday while speaking at a World Press Freedom Day event hosted by the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific.

“We were attacked by fake accounts and a government-funded propaganda machine,” he said.

• READ MORE: PINA on World Press Freedom Day – facing new and complex AI challenges
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“It is ironic that those who once spinned and attacked the media as irrelevant  — because they said no one reads or watches them anymore — now want to be part of the media or run media organisations.”

“There are entities and individuals that thrived under the previous government with PR contracts while the media struggled and now want to come and join the hard-fought new media landscape.”

Simpson said the Fijian media fraternity would welcome credible news services.

“We have to be wary and careful of entities that pop up overnight and their real agendas.”

“Particularly those previously involved with political propaganda.

“And we are noticing a number of these sites seemingly working with political parties and players in pushing agendas and attacking the media and political opponents.”

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

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

An ethnic army that has been fighting a 10-year battle against Myanmar’s military in Shan state said it refused a request from the junta to hand back captured territory despite joint pressure from the military regime and China.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA has captured 12 towns in the eastern state and others in Mandalay region, including the ruby-rich town of Mogok.

The TNLA, the armed branch of the Palaung State Liberation Front, said its representatives were invited to several rounds of China-brokered talks in the southwest city of Kunming where junta officials demanded the return of land captured by rebel forces.

At the talks on April 28 and 29, a delegation led by PSLF Lt. Gen. Ta Joke Ja and another led by junta Lt. Gen. Ko Ko Oo, were joined by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs special envoy Deng Xijun.

The PSLF/TNLA requested a cessation of airstrikes and heavy artillery attacks on its territory, free movement for the population in areas it controls and the reopening of border trade with China.

Junta officials asked the TNLA to withdraw from territory captured since the coup, including Nawnghkio, Hsipaw, Kyaukme and Mogok, the army said in a statement published on Friday but the ethnic army refused.

“From our side, we just can’t agree to the junta’s demand of surrendering Mogok and other towns. We can’t surrender yet,” TNLA spokesperson Lway Yay Oo told reporters at the online press conference on Sunday. “We’re carrying out the same actions as before.”

RFA contacted the Chinese embassy in Yangon for more information on the discussions, but it did not respond by the time of publication.

The next peace talks will be in August.

China has long maintained an interest in settling Myanmar’s more than-four year civil war peacefully. However, officials in the border town of Ruili sent threats to armed groups when conflict began to spill over the border in August.

“I have to say that there have been threats. I think everyone will remember the letter that the Ruili government sent,” Lt. Gen. Ta Pan La said. “Not only that, they regularly use pressure, both verbally and through other means, rather than direct threats.”

The junta has continued to bomb TNLA-controlled territory, including Mogok, Nawnghkio and Kyaukme, the TNLA said in a statement published on Monday, adding that the civilian population had fled, with further details to come.

RFA contacted junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for more information on the attacks and negotiations, but he did not answer the phone.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

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

The ministry said China is open to talks and urged Washington to correct its “erroneous” practices and cancel tariffs, the state-controlled Global Times reported.

“We will fight, if fight we must,” a commerce ministry spokesperson said, according to the report. “Our doors are open, if the U.S. wants to talk.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed 145% tariffs on Chinese goods, demanding the country buy more American products. China responded with 125% tariffs on U.S. goods.

Trump said last month that Washington and Beijing were in talks on the tariffs and expressed confidence that the world’s two largest economies would reach a deal over three to four weeks. China’s commerce ministry had only said it was maintaining working-level communication with its U.S. counterparts.

Friday’s announcement from the commerce ministry confirms a report the day before on Chinese social media platform Weibo by Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account linked to state broadcaster CCTV.

It said the U.S. had reached out “through multiple channels” without giving details.

China had no need to engage in talks, the post said. “China needs to observe closely, even force out the U.S.’ true intentions, to maintain the initiative in both negotiation and confrontation,” it said.

Trump said Wednesday there was a “very good chance” of a deal with China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that high tariffs on both sides needed to be addressed in order for talks to progress.

“I am confident that the Chinese will want to reach a deal. And as I said, this is going to be a multi-step process,” Bessent said. “First, we need to de-escalate, and then over time, we will start focusing on a larger trade deal.”

Edited by Stephen Wright and Taejun Kang.

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

Additionally, the Expectations Index dropped to 54.4, the lowest level since October 2011, and well below the threshold of 80 that usually signals a recession. Expectations of inflation over the next year have climbed to 7.0%, the highest since November 2022.

Groundwork Executive Director Lindsay Owens released the following statement:

“Today’s numbers are sobering and signal that we are plunging headfirst into a recession. If this is the level of pain the president is willing to inflict on Americans in just a few short months, it’s no wonder that consumers and businesses are bracing themselves for a long, dark road ahead.
“This is a man-made crisis. In his first 100 days, Trump did all he could to engineer a recession.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with a Groundwork expert about Trump’s economic mismanagement.

BACKGROUND

• Consumer confidence fell by 7.9 points in April to 86.0, reaching its lowest point in 13 years. Meanwhile, the Expectations Index for the future dropped 12.5 points to 54.4, its lowest level since October 2011, and meets the threshold that typically signals an upcoming recession. Expectations about inflation over the next year have climbed to 7.0%, the highest since November 2022.
  • Final consumer sentiment data from the University of Michigan survey last week showed that economic expectations have fallen 32% since January, the steepest three-month percentage decline seen since the 1990 recession.
• President Trump’s approval rating on the economy has plunged to new lows since he took office, while economic indicators continue to show he is pushing the economy toward a recession.
  • A Gallup poll last week showed that for the first time in at least 25 years, a majority of Americans (53%) said their personal financial situation was getting worse. This is higher than the Great Recession, the pandemic, and when inflation peaked in the summer of 2022.

• Businesses are similarly experiencing rising uncertainty under Trump. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index dropped 3.3 points to 97.4 in March 2025, marking its lowest level since October 2024, and falling below market expectations, which had forecasted a reading of 101.3.
  • The term “recession” was mentioned on 44% of earnings calls in the first quarter of this year. Only 3% of earnings calls mentioned “recession” in the last quarter of 2024.
  • Additionally, Trump’s promised manufacturing boom hasn’t just failed to materialize – the sector as a whole is weakening.
• Economic growth is also projected to take a significant hit due to Trump’s policies. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s gold-adjusted GDPNow tracker projects that the economy will shrink by 1.5% in the first quarter of this year.
  • New IMF Growth Projections have the United States at 1.8%, down from 2.8% in 2024.

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

This article was produced by ProPublica in partnership with The Oregonian/OregonLive. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

They are lines in the payroll ledger of a Cambodian baby clothing factory, invisible lives near the bottom of the global economy.

There is Phan Oem, 53, who says she clocked up to 76 hours a week producing clothing for Nike and other American brands, sometimes forced to work seven days a week. She says she feared being fired if she didn’t work through lunch breaks, on holidays and occasionally overnight. After 12 years spent packaging clothes, her base pay was the minimum wage: $204 a month.

There is Vat Vannak, 40, who at six months pregnant traveled by bus to join hundreds of workers who protested in the streets last year after Nike pulled out and the factory went bankrupt, leaving them unpaid. The authoritarian Cambodian government warned them to stop.

And there is the medical worker who said she saw one or two factory employees a month being sent to the hospital after falling unconscious. She said they were among eight to 10 workers a month who became too weak to work. Three other former employees said they sometimes saw two to three people go to the clinic for these issues in a single day. The reason, the medical worker said, was that they didn’t sleep much, didn’t eat enough and worked long hours.

Nike’s manufacturing apparatus in Southeast Asia has been shaken in recent weeks by news about President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Cambodia and Vietnam, mainstays of Nike’s supply chain, have faced import taxes of 49% and 46%, among the highest of any nation. Nike shares have been hammered.

The stories of workers at Cambodia’s Y&W Garment illuminate the longer-term legacy of Nike’s push into the region more than two decades ago, when labor abuses led co-founder Phil Knight to acknowledge that Nike products had become synonymous with “slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse.” The former employees’ recent experiences cast doubt on the company’s commitment to reform.

Unless tariffs force Nike to return manufacturing to the United States, labor advocates say, the company will have to offset the higher import taxes either by raising prices on its apparel or by pressuring its foreign factories for greater productivity, squeezing workers and their wages.

Nike has prided itself on the story of its reinvention since the 1990s sweatshop scandal. “We’ve gone from a target of reformers to a dominant player in the factory reform movement,” Knight wrote in his 2016 memoir, “Shoe Dog.”

The company has worked to convince consumers that it is improving the lives of its factory workers, not exploiting them. It became the first major apparel brand to disclose the names and locations of its suppliers. It established a written code that requires its suppliers to create a safe, healthy workplace, prohibit forced overtime and honor workers’ right to form unions. The company reports annually about its progress. In Nike’s marketing materials, contract factory workers are often smiling.

A key tentpole of Nike’s claims is that its suppliers pay competitive wages. Nike says contract factory workers for whom it has data now earn an average of 1.9 times their local minimum wage, without counting overtime.

Scrutinizing that claim is extraordinarily difficult. Nike acknowledges that the analysis omits more than a third of the 1.1 million people who make its sneakers and apparel worldwide. Nike says its focus in collecting wage data has been on its biggest suppliers. It hasn’t said which of its 37 producing countries are included.

ProPublica obtained a rare view of wages paid to the factory workers who produce Nike clothing: a highly detailed payroll list for 3,720 employees at Cambodia’s Y&W Garment. Covering earnings from longtime managers down to freshly hired 18-year-old sewing machine operators, the spreadsheet shows the workforce falling far short of the amount Nike says its factory workers typically earn.

Just 41 people, or 1% of the Y&W workforce, earned 1.9 times the local minimum wage of about $1 per hour — even when counting bonuses and incentives. These higher-paid employees included accountants, supervisors and a human resources manager.

Nike didn’t answer specific questions about ProPublica’s findings, including whether it dropped Y&W as a supplier because of any violations of its code of conduct.

In a statement, Nike said its code sets clear expectations for suppliers and that it “is committed to ethical and responsible manufacturing.”

“We build long-term relationships with our contract manufacturing suppliers,” the statement said, “because we know having trust and mutual respect supports our ability to create product more responsibly, accelerate innovation and better serve consumers.”

Nike added that it expects its suppliers “to continue making progress on fair compensation for a regular work week.”

Representatives of Y&W Garment and its Hong-Kong-based parent, Wing Luen Knitting Factory Ltd., did not respond to emails, text messages or phone calls seeking comment, and Wing Luen’s website is defunct. New York-based Haddad Brands, which Y&W workers said was an intermediary for Nike at the factory, did not respond to emailed questions about conditions at the factory and hung up on a reporter who called. Its website says it makes children’s clothing for Nike and that it enforces Nike’s code of conduct.

ProPublica interviewed 13 former Y&W workers in the Cambodian capital and surrounding villages, plus another one by phone, during two weeks in January.

In spare concrete homes and earthen courtyards that smelled of burbling fish sauce, they described workplace abuses that Nike promised to eradicate long ago. In addition to low wages, fainting workers and forced overtime, they spoke of bosses who mocked them if they underperformed and a life of debts that kept piling up.

They told ProPublica that what they made in Cambodia’s standard 48-hour, six-day week wasn’t enough to make ends meet. Some feared being fired or angering their supervisors if they refused extra hours. Others said they needed to work overtime simply to keep up. Still, many said they wished the factory hadn’t shut down.

Khun Tharo, program manager at the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, a Cambodian legal aid group also known as CENTRAL, said his country’s garment workers — including those at Y&W — do what circumstances require.

“When you ask them, ‘Do you want to have the weekend off with your family, your kids?’ yes, they do,” he said. “But how can they afford that? They’re stuck. There’s no choice.”

Nike’s arrival inside the corrugated metal walls at Y&W Garment was a big deal.

It was December 2021, workers said, when the company began trial production runs inside the expansive factory complex in southern Phnom Penh, about two miles from one of the notorious killing fields of the Khmer Rouge’s 1970s genocide.

Supervisors told ProPublica that the owner, a man they called “thaw kae” — the big boss — gave them a message to deliver to line workers: Nike was coming. Money and benefits would follow. And they wouldn’t have to work extra hours.

Workers were happy. Earning more would let them save, pay off debts and stop borrowing from friends to make it to the next month. They said they felt secure knowing that it was Nike, a company they had heard respected labor laws.

But the promise of the big American brand was never realized, according to the workers who spoke to ProPublica. “After Nike came, nothing has changed,” one worker said.

The former Y&W employees said neither their working conditions nor their pay improved while Nike goods were made at the factory. They instead described problems that would violate Nike’s code of conduct, which prohibits forced overtime and verbal abuse.

Three workers said they faced intense pressure to meet production targets. Two said workers were blamed if they missed their goals. Managers would yell at team leaders when that happened, one of them said; “If you can’t do it, just go back home,” the former worker recalled employees being told. If workers hit their targets, he said, managers set higher ones. If employees refused to work the extra hours needed to get there, two workers said, then managers would tell them their contracts wouldn’t be renewed or that they should resign.

Y&W’s payroll sheet covers March 2024, when the factory’s total employment was down from a previous high of about 4,500 people. The spreadsheet shows that even with bonuses and incentives, more than three-quarters of workers made close to Cambodia’s minimum wage — at most, 15% above it.

Workers with seniority earned only a little more. Of the 183 workers who’d been at Y&W a decade or longer, more than three-quarters had base pay, bonuses and incentives that put them, at most, 25% ahead of minimum wage.

It’s hard to know if wages at Y&W are an outlier or emblematic of Nike’s Southeast Asia supply chain; comprehensive pay records aren’t readily available for other factories. But 18 paystubs ProPublica collected at three of Nike’s other 25 Cambodian suppliers also show workers at or slightly above the minimum wage. Separately, a 2023 survey by labor advocates found similar results at two factories that supplied Nike.

The average pay at Y&W, without overtime but with bonuses and incentives included, is slightly below the $250 to $260 a month that Ken Loo, secretary general of the Textile, Apparel, Footwear and Travel Goods Association in Cambodia, estimated is standard for the industry.

Loo said wage increases must be balanced against productivity “because it will impact our competitiveness” with other garment-producing countries.

In December 2023, two years after Nike arrived at Y&W, workers said Nike pulled out. They said they were told to destroy any remaining Nike labels, a standard demand to prevent counterfeit or unauthorized products from being created. Hundreds of workers were let go.

In early 2024, around the time of the Lunar New Year, workers said, the factory owner left Phnom Penh for what many thought was a new year’s trip home to China. He didn’t return. Factory suppliers began calling in their debts, hauling away hundreds of rented sewing machines. The factory fell silent.

Workers slept in front of the factory’s locked gates to prevent the buildings from being cleared out. Hundreds marched in the streets, hoping to get the attention of the government and the brands for whom they’d produced.

Nike, in its statement, did not explain why it left Y&W. It said its suppliers have an obligation to pay severance, social security or other separation benefits. “In the event of any closure or divest, Nike works closely with the supplier to conduct a responsible exit,” the statement said.

A California-based brand that shipping records show also did business with Y&W before its closure, True Classic, did not respond to written questions.

Workers said they never heard from the brands. They said they did hear from the government, which was unhappy about their protests. Labor ministry officials called and told them to stop inciting their co-workers, threatening arrest. In March 2024, Cambodian news reports said the government seized the factory’s assets and distributed the proceeds to workers. But workers told ProPublica they received far less than they were owed.

The garment workers said they took what they could get.

It might be hard to understand how far a dollar stretches in Cambodia’s economy. The country’s current $208 monthly minimum wage — a $4 increase from last year — doesn’t sound like much to Americans. ProPublica heard from workers about why it isn’t enough for Cambodians, either.

Two women who worked at Y&W Garment and recently gave birth said they each spend $120 a month on powdered infant formula — four cans a month at $30 apiece.

Sar Kunthea, 34, who packaged clothing at Y&W, pays $282.70 a month on $12,000 she borrowed to make drainage improvements that would keep out floodwaters, which rose halfway up her home’s doors during the rainy season.

Vat Vannak, who added metal buttons to clothing, said she typically earned about $250 a month by tacking on two hours at the end of her regular, six-day-a-week 7 a.m.-to-4 p.m. shifts. The overtime pushed her workweek close to 60 hours. Her husband also brings home a paycheck from construction. But their monthly household costs included $109 for a motorbike, $50 for a room near the factory, $60 for food and about $40 for school expenses. She said she’d saved nothing.

Labor advocates have long pushed brands like Nike to pay what’s known as a living wage, calling it a basic human right. Although methods for estimating it vary, a living wage usually includes enough for food, water, housing, education, transportation, health care, energy, clothing, a phone and unforeseen expenses.

Nike does not explicitly require its factories to pay a living wage, but it says that every worker “has a right to compensation for a regular work week that is sufficient to meet workers’ basic needs and provide some discretionary income.” Nike reports that two-thirds of its key suppliers for which it was able to collect data paid above living wage benchmarks for their countries.

Estimates from the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, which represents labor unions based in Asia, put that benchmark for Cambodia at $659 a month. The WageIndicator Foundation, an independent Dutch nonprofit, puts it at $276 to $360 a month.

But Nike’s preferred estimate is just $232, based on research by the Anker Research Institute, which is part of the Global Living Wage Coalition. Nike has sponsored the institute’s work.

In a statement, the institute’s founders and one member of the wage coalition told ProPublica: “Our estimates are always fully independent. Companies have no influence over the methodology or estimates.”

Regardless of what researchers say, Ngin Nearadei says what she earned at Y&W was not enough.

Ngin, 26, worked in quality control and found herself with hefty debt payments because, like other workers, recent flooding required her to raise the floor of her house. How much would she need to earn monthly to forgo overtime? About $400, she said, maybe $500. That’s up to 30% more than what Nike says its contract workforce earns, on average, compared to the minimum wage.

Speaking in her home, Ngin disappeared for a moment and returned with two creased paystubs. One, covering roughly two weeks, showed just how much she had to work to get close to what she said she needs.

She was scheduled to work 104 hours as part of a regular schedule that runs eight hours a day, Monday through Saturday. On top of that, she added 64 hours of overtime, including eight hours on Sunday, the paystub shows.

Her total work time for the period was 168 hours, an average of roughly 11 to 12 hours a day if she worked every day. (Paychecks came twice a month; the exact pay period covered was not printed on Ngin’s document.)

When combined with her other paycheck for the month, she earned $341.65.

The workers who make Nike’s products have helped Knight, the cofounder, become one of the richest people on earth. Nike’s market capitalization was $13 billion in 1998, when Knight delivered his mea culpa about “slave wages.” Although its stock has been trading far below its 2021 peak, Nike was still worth about $80 billion as of April 21, 2025.

The company has been a cash machine. In just its last two fiscal years, Nike has returned $13.9 billion to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends.

According to Dennis Arnold, an associate professor of human geography at the University of Amsterdam who’s studied the Cambodian garment industry, unless Nike and others choose lower profit margins for the sake of higher pay, little is likely to change for factory workers.

Governments like Cambodia’s fear that raising the minimum wage dramatically will drive away manufacturing, he said, because companies that benefit from Cambodia’s low wages must also wait longer and pay more to get garments to Western markets due to shipping costs and the country’s poor infrastructure.

“All said, it’s not the most appealing place in the world, and the government is not taking much initiative to try to change the situation for the better,” Arnold said.

So far, no brand has guaranteed its factory workers a living wage, according to the Clean Clothes Campaign, a Dutch advocacy group. H&M, the Swedish retailer, was quoted by numerous news outlets in 2013 promising that its top suppliers would pay a “fair living wage” by 2018. An analysis by the Clean Clothes Campaign in 2019 concluded that the promise was not fulfilled. (H&M did not respond to questions from ProPublica.)

Recently, H&M and 11 other brands made a smaller commitment in an agreement with a global labor union, IndustriALL: to guarantee production volumes when Cambodian unions sign bargaining agreements that include higher wages, and to pay for the resulting higher labor costs.

Nike is not a signatory.

European and U.S. regulators could take measures to increase accountability for wages. Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University, said they could require publicly traded companies like Nike to consistently disclose what factory workers earn when producing their goods.

H&M currently reports what its foreign suppliers pay workers on a country-by-country basis, for example. Puma did too, until stopping this year. Nike did it once — in 2001.

“Companies have enormous leeway in what they report,” Judd said. “It’s enormously difficult to compare within firms across years. Between firms, impossible. Companies are able to pick and choose how they tell their story.”

Knight, who did not respond to requests for comment, wrote in his 2016 memoir that the question of wages for Nike’s factory workers would always remain.

“The salary of a Third World factory worker seems impossibly low to Americans, and I understand,” wrote Knight, whose net worth Forbes put at $28.5 billion as of April 21. “Still, we have to operate within the limits and structures of each country, each economy; we can’t simply pay whatever we wish to pay.”

Knight recounted a story, one that’s hard to verify. When Nike tried to raise wages in an unnamed country, “we found ourselves called on the carpet, summoned to the office of a top government official and ordered to stop. We were disrupting the nation’s entire economic system, he said. It’s simply not right, he insisted, or feasible, that a shoe worker makes more than a medical doctor.”

At Y&W Garment, payroll data shows, line workers were nowhere close to making that much.

On average, they earned $236.25 a month with incentives.

The factory doctor made $581.

The Y&W Garment payroll ledger that ProPublica obtained was for March 2024, around the time the factory shut down. The data shows workers’ monthly base pay and how much they earned from bonuses and incentives, which are also paid on a monthly basis. More than a dozen former workers verified details about their own pay shown in the spreadsheet. To estimate total earnings for each worker, we included base salary, incentives and bonuses for transportation, seniority and attendance, but we excluded overtime pay — as Nike does in its calculations of average wages — and a meal incentive related to overtime. We assumed every worker got a $10 attendance bonus that Cambodian law requires. Although the spreadsheet did not indicate that $10 transportation bonuses were universal, we assigned this amount to every worker.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Rob Davis, photography by Sarahbeth Maney.

A couple months earlier, TVA’s CEO Jeff Lyash had announced his retirement. When the board of directors, whose seats are appointed by the president, chose Lyash’s successor, they selected someone from among the utilities current staff — Don Moul, who had been the executive vice president and chief operating officer since 2021. Blackburn and Hagerty expressed concern over the utility’s direction and leadership, saying a new direction was needed if it was to move quickly on building nuclear technology and lead “America’s Nuclear Renaissance.”

“With the right courageous leadership, TVA could lead the way in our nation’s nuclear energy revival, empower us to dominate the 21st century’s global technology competition, and cement President Trump’s legacy as ‘America’s Nuclear President,’” the senators wrote. 

“As it stands now,” the senators continued, “TVA and its leadership can’t carry the weight of this moment.”

Blackburn and Hagerty called for Moul’s replacement, intimated a need for reframing the focus of the board, and demanded a stronger focus on development of small modular nuclear reactors, which are purported to be safer, easier to build, and cheaper to run than larger nuclear plants, though only China and Russia have successfully built SMRs to date.

“If we, as a nation, fail to meet this moment,” they wrote, “American leadership in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, and the ability to win conventional wars will be put at risk. If we choose to lead, a Golden Age lies ahead.”

About a week after the op-ed was published, President Trump fired two members of the board — including the chair. It appeared as though the senators were getting what they wanted. But the move may end up backfiring.

Under its prior leadership, the TVA was already moving toward an expansion of nuclear power. During the Biden administration, which touted nuclear as a key ingredient of its decarbonization plans, the TVA marketed itself as a clean energy leader, pointing to its massive fleet of hydroelectric dams and nuclear plants. Lyash was a proponent of nuclear power. He sat on the board of the Nuclear Energy Institute and oversaw plans to build a new small modular reactor in TVA territory. 

Now, though, according to Simon Mahan, the executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, the recent changes could slow down any movement toward new nuclear plants rather than, as Blackburn and Hagerty hope, speed it up. The TVA’s board is operating without the quorum it needs to make major decisions, including electing a new board chairperson and approving new energy projects — like, for instance, a nuclear plant. 

“There are some real concerns that TVA’s plan is not matching up with their implementation, and it will be even harder for that to be synced up without a full functioning board,” Mahan said.

Some observers say that such concerns have to do with an inability to learn from TVA’s own history. 

“Tennessee has a long and troubled history when it comes to nuclear energy,” said Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which opposes nuclear energy, preferring renewables as a cheaper and more quickly deployable option. 

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In the 1960s, about 30 years after the TVA was founded, it planned to build 17 nuclear power plants. Compared to the private utilities, the TVA seemed like a natural fit for the development of nuclear energy: It was easier for a public utility to take on the risk of the long, expensive construction periods without the need for immediate profit. But during the oil crisis of the 1970s and after the Three Mile Island disaster, the political support for nuclear power dissipated. Only seven of the plants that TVA planned for were completed — three of which are active today. The utility is still paying off billions in debt from the partially completed construction of reactors that simply never came online.

Nuclear plants are extremely expensive to build, they are risky investments for the private sector, and they require huge trained workforces and the coordination of many players with different interests, including reactor designers, construction firms, utility companies, regulators, and customers. For nuclear advocates, it’s an open question whether the Trump administration’s energy officials recognize the scale of the state-led effort that would be required to achieve their purported ambition for a nuclear revival — so far, there are few indications that they do. Aside from the personnel troubles at the TVA, firings at the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office and President Trump’s newly announced tariffs could also hobble an expansion of nuclear plants in Tennessee and throughout the country.

Despite the growing bipartisan political consensus in favor of nuclear energy, only two new U.S. plants have been built in the last three decades — two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, which were completed last year, after long delays and at a cost so enormous they contributed to the bankruptcy of their designer. A $9 billion project in South Carolina to build a pair of the same reactors was abandoned in 2017 before its completion. Multiple project executives were convicted of fraud and sent to prison.

The completion of the Vogtle expansion project cemented a belief among some nuclear advocates that the primary obstacle to a nuclear build-out was perhaps no longer the environmental regulations many had long seen as the main roadblock, but rather a problem of the decline of American industrial capacity. Now that Vogtle is completed, though, some in the nuclear industry hope that the ingredients are in place for that project’s knowledge and workforce to kick-start similar projects in other states. 

The costs, however, may still just be too high. “I see a lot of people who want to somehow find a way to get around the cost problem,” said John Parsons, an economist at MIT who studies investment in energy markets. But he suggested that pinning hopes for a nuclear revival on individual states’ willingness to shoulder the burden and risks of paying for another reactor ignores the necessity of state-driven funding and coordination of the kind that TVA could be particularly well positioned to administer — if it’s returned to its roots as a national incubator for energy innovation.

TVA spokesperson Scott Brooks told Grist that the agency’s plans for a new small modular reactor are moving forward. The utility plans to apply for additional Department of Energy funding for the project, supplemented with private funding. 

Among the main vehicles that the Biden administration used to defray costs for nuclear investment — notably including billions in loan guarantees for the new reactors at Plant Vogtle — was the Loan Programs Office, or LPO; under Trump, staffing at that office is being decimated. The news outlet Heatmap reported that about half of the LPO’s staff have requested to take a buyout in anticipation of future layoffs orchestrated by Elon Musk’s initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency.

Added to the high costs of nuclear development are the economic uncertainties caused by President Trump’s tariffs, which are likely not only to drive up costs for imported materials like steel, but also to dissuade private-sector investment. 

“We might be moving into an environment where people are shy about investing in major infrastructure projects because there’s so much uncertainty now about what the inputs are going to be for such a project,” said Emmet Penney, an energy researcher at the Foundation for American Innovation, a right-leaning think tank. 

“In that case, the fact that the LPO can get long-term, low-interest loans for these projects is going to be vital to getting people comfortable getting to the table and agreeing to build these projects,” Penney continued. “If there isn’t that guarantee, we could see even private capital dry up for both traditional nuclear and for small modular reactors.”

According to Brooks, the TVA spokesperson, President Trump’s tariffs will not have much of an effect on the utility’s current operations. The majority of TVA’s economic activity, Brooks said, “is domestic — most based within the Tennessee Valley.” He preferred not to speculate on the tariff situation a decade from now, when the first of TVA’s new SMRs is set to be complete. 

But developing nuclear power plants does tend to require an international supply chain. Even if the TVA is all set for now, much of the nuclear supply chain is deeply tied in with international markets. A 2022 DOE report shows connections between the U.S. nuclear industry and manufacturers in countries like Japan, China, France, and Germany. There is also a continual need for critical minerals, most of which are mined outside the United States — China once again being among the dominant suppliers. Uranium and a large number of critical minerals may be exempted from Trump’s tariffs currently, but other materials, such as basic construction components like steel, are not. 

State Representative Aftyn Behn, a Democrat, supports diversifying the utility’s energy portfolio, but, looking toward the future, is more concerned about transparency and accountability.

“There’s some bipartisan interest in ‘advanced nuclear,’” Behn told Grist. But, she continued, “the Republican supermajority isn’t interested in a good-faith energy debate. They’re interested in handing TVA over to big utilities and fossil fuel donors, locking us into expensive, inflexible systems with no public oversight.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Trump administration says it wants a ‘nuclear renaissance.’ These actions suggest otherwise. on Apr 24, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Gautama Mehta.

Since taking office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “communication” with North Korea and that Washington “may do something” with Pyongyang.

“I have been saying that we need to engage,” said Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA.

“You cannot have a country like this which is completely off the charts with its nuclear arsenal,” he said at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. thinktank.

North Korea’s nuclear program, said Grossi, has “spawned exponentially” and it is currently building a third enrichment facility – a crucial part of building nuclear bombs.

The U.N. has imposed sanctions on North Korea aimed at limiting its nuclear weapons development, but these measures have largely failed to stop Pyongyang’s programs. The North may have up to 50 nuclear warheads, according to a 2024 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Grossi challenged the approach that demands Pyongyang “disarm or we don’t talk,” arguing that “things are more complicated ... you have to start by talking.”

He praised high-level diplomacy, specifically mentioning Trump’s letters during his first term to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“Presidential diplomacy is important,” the IAEA chief said.

Asked if Beijing and Moscow would encourage renewed IAEA dialogue with North Korea, Grossi said he doesn’t see the two countries as “against” some form of engagement. But he added that he doesn’t see either country pushing it as a priority.

The watchdog’s chief has consistently expressed concern about North Korea’s nuclear advancements.

During his visit to Japan in February, he advocated for renewed engagement with North Korea, suggesting the IAEA should reestablish its presence in the country.

The IAEA’s inspectors were kicked out of North Korea in April 2009, when Pyongyang told the agency it was “immediately ceasing all cooperation” with the U.N. body.

In November, Grossi reported continued development of a reactor at Yongbyon and apparent work on an undeclared centrifuge enrichment facility at the Kangson complex. More recently, in March, he noted indications of a new reprocessing campaign at the Yongbyon reactor.

As official policy, the U.S. has long refused to recognize Pyongyang as a nuclear power, despite its arsenal of nuclear weapons.

However, the Trump administration has veered from the official line, as the president has called North Korea a “nuclear nation” numerous times since taking office.

Most recently, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described North Korea as a “nuclear-armed” country in an apparent recognition of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons capabilities.

Rubio used the expression in a podcast interview released Wednesday, in which he discussed security challenges facing the United States, including from China, Russia and Iran.

“We live in a world with a nuclear-armed North Korea, with a nuclear-ambitious Iran,” the secretary said in the podcast hosted by The Free Press, according to a transcript provided by the State Department.

The phrase “nuclear power” has sparked concern in South Korea, as it could be interpreted as formal U.S. recognition of North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability – potentially legitimizing Kim’s regime.

Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.

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

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The post 12 states sue to stop tariffs, as Trump says he’ll be nice to China – April 23, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

The U.S. and China are waging a tit-for-tat trade battle, which threatens to stunt the global economy. The U.S. imposed tariffs of 145% on Chinese imports, prompting China to retaliate with tariffs reaching 125% on American goods. The U.S. also has imposed new tariffs on most other countries.

Trump told a White House news conference that “145% is very high” and could be lowered through China-U.S. negotiations.

“It’ll come down substantially. But it won’t be zero ‒ used to be zero. We were just destroyed. China was taking us for a ride.”

“But ultimately,” Trump said, “they have to make a deal because otherwise they’re not going to be able to deal in the United States. So we want them involved, but they have to ‒ and other countries have to ‒ make a deal, and if they don’t make a deal, we’ll set the deal.”

Trump’s remarks came after comments Tuesday by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said the high tariffs are unsustainable and that he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

“I do say China is going to be a slog in terms of the negotiations,” Bessent said, according to a transcript reviewed by The Associated Press. “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable.”

Trump did not say if he also thought the situation with China was unsustainable. He said the U.S. was “doing fine” with China.

“We’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together,” he said.

The tariff shock therapy, Trump has said, is aimed at encouraging a revival of American manufacturing, which fell as a share of the economy and employment over several decades of free trade and competition from production in lower-cost countries.

Any changes could take years as many American corporations have made substantial investments in overseas production. Efficient manufacturing in the U.S., like elsewhere, is reliant on components produced in other countries.

Higher tariffs could also raise costs for Americans and U.S. corporations while simultaneously lowering incomes for exporting nations.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday said more than 100 countries have approached the U.S. for trade talks and 18 have submitted proposals, but China was not among them.

Leavitt said she did not have anything to report on communications between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump said last week that Washington and Beijing were in talks on tariffs and expressed confidence that the world’s two largest economies would reach a deal over the next three to four weeks. He declined to say if he had spoken to Xi.

China’s commerce ministry said it had been maintaining working-level communication with its U.S. counterparts.

Edited by Stephen Wright.

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

Hanoi will acquire at least 24 of the Lockheed Martin single-engine fighters which, combined with other U.S. military ware, could add up to the biggest ever defense deal between two countries, 19FortyFive said Saturday. It is likely Hanoi will opt for the F-16 V model, which Lockheed calls the most advanced fourth-generation fighter, the site said.

The U.S. is also considering selling Lockheed Martin’s Hercules C-130 military transport plane to Vietnam, according to Reuters news agency. The U.S. lifted a longstanding arms embargo on its former enemy Vietnam in 2016.

In 2022, Hanoi said it was ready to reduce its heavy reliance on Russian arms, which accounted for around 80% of total weapons imports at the time.

A year later, during then-President Joe Biden’s visit to Hanoi, Vietnam and the U.S. began talking in earnest about a major deal.

It may have come to fruition this month, after Vietnam scrambled to cut its record trade surplus with the U.S. in the face of threatened 46% tariffs.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said earlier in April that Vietnam would buy more American weapons as part of addressing the trade imbalance between the two countries.

The Vietnamese foreign ministry did not answer Radio Free Asia’s calls about the reported F-16 deal. An email to the U.S. State Department was unanswered at the time of publication.

US military trainers

In November last year, Vietnam received delivery of five Beechcraft single engine turboprop aircraft, the first batch of 12 ordered from the U.S.

The planes, built by Textron Aviation, are used to train fighter jet pilots, which sparked speculation a deal on the F-16 was close.

(STR/AFP)

Russia has supplied most of Vietnam’s military planes, including 35 Sukhoi Su-30s and more than 30 Su-22s but there has been growing concern about safety and maintenance of the ageing fleet.

At the start of last year, a Vietnam Air Force Su-22 tactical fighter-bomber lost control and crashed during a routine training flight in Quang Nam province.

In November, a Russian Yak-130 training aircraft exploded mid-air in Binh Dinh province. Its two pilots ejected and survived.

Chinese concerns

Military deals with the U.S. could alarm Vietnam’s communist neighbor China, whose president and defense minister both visited Vietnam this month.

China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper was critical of possible U.S.-Vietnam military ties when the Biden administration raised the prospect of F-16 sales two years ago.

It cited defense experts as saying a deal “serving the U.S.’ hegemonic goals of containing China, would stir up troubles that sabotage peace and stability in the region.”

Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright

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

The U.S. and China are waging a tit-for-tat trade battle, which threatens to stunt the global economy, after Trump announced new tariffs on most countries. Specifically, the U.S. has imposed tariffs up to 145% on Chinese imports, prompting China to retaliate with tariffs reaching 125% on American goods.

“We are confident that we will work out something with China,” he said during a late Thursday afternoon executive order signing in the Oval Office.

“Top officials” in Beijing had reached out to Washington “a number of times” said Trump, adding that the two sides have had “very good trade talks” but that more remained, though he offered no evidence of any progress.

Asked about timing on any agreement, Trump said: “I would think over the next three to four weeks.”

Trump declined to say if he had spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He also declined to say whether he would raise further the current tariffs he has imposed on Chinese imports but said: “I may not want to go higher, or I may not want to even go up to that level. I may want to go to less, because, you know, you want people to buy.”

Trump also expressed confidence that the sale deal of Chinese social media app TikTok he seeks would be forthcoming.

“We have a deal for TikTok but it is subject to China so we will delay it until this thing gets worked out,” he said, adding that the deal would not take more than “five minutes” to finalize after discussions take place.

Trump said earlier in April that China’s objections to new U.S. tariffs stalled a deal to sell off TikTok and keep it operating in the United States.

Trump administration officials have been working on an agreement to sell the U.S. assets of the popular social media app, owned by China-based ByteDance, to an American buyer, as required by a bipartisan law enacted in 2024. But this also requires China’s approval.

Trump’s remarks came a few hours after China’s commerce ministry said it had been maintaining working-level communication with its U.S. counterparts.

“China’s position has been consistent – it remains open to engaging in economic and trade consultations with the U.S. side,” commerce ministry spokesperson He Yongqian said.

Noting that the unilateral imposition of tariffs was entirely initiated by the U.S. side, she quoted an old Chinese saying “It is the doer of the deed who must undo it” to urge the U.S. to correct its approach.

“We urge the U.S. to immediately cease its maximum pressure tactics, stop coercion and intimidation, and resolve differences with China through equal dialogue on the basis of mutual respect,” she said.

Nvidia chief’s visit to China

Jensen Huang, chief executive of U.S. chipmaker Nvidia, said on Thursday that China was a “very important market” for his company after the U.S. imposed a ban on sales of its H20 artificial intelligence chips to the country.

“We hope to continue to cooperate with China,” Huang said in a meeting with Ren Hongbin, head of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, cited by China’s state-run broadcaster CCTV.

Huang arrived in Beijing earlier in the day at the invitation of the trade organization.

His visit comes at a time when the U.S. imposed restrictions on the export of Nvidia’s H20 chips to China, tightening its grip on advanced AI technology trade with Beijing as part of Washington’s strategy to pressure China amid an ongoing tariff battle.

Nvidia said Tuesday it was notified by the U.S. government on April 9 that exporting its H20 chips to China would now require government approval. It separately said that the restriction would remain in place indefinitely.

While the H20 chip has relatively modest computing power, it has other features that make it suitable for building high-performance computing systems.

The U.S. government reportedly based its decision on concerns that the H20 chips could be used in or adapted for Chinese supercomputers. Until now, the H20 was the most advanced artificial intelligence chip legally exportable to China.

The H20 chip gained attention following its use by DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, which in January unveiled a cost-effective and competitive AI model trained using the chip.

Huang reportedly met DeepSeek founder, Liang Wenfeng, in Beijing, to discuss new chip designs for the AI company that would not trigger the new U.S. bans.

Edited by Mike Firn.

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

A researcher says the Israeli prison system aims to subjugate the Palestinian people as rallies across the West Bank marked Prisoners’ Day today while yet another prisoner was reported dead.

“When you have the statistics that one in every five Palestinians has been arrested and you understand that 50 percent of our population are children under 18 — that means that roughly one in every two male adults has been arrested, subjugated and criminalised by Israeli authorities,” researcher and former detainee Al-Aboudi told Al Jazeera.

He is the director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development, based in Ramallah, occupied West Bank.

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The goal, said Al-Aboudi, who himself was detained in 2019, is to break Palestinian resilience.

“It’s only in Israeli jails that you will find doctors, professors, academics, physicists — the creme de la creme of Palestinian civil society is being targeted, incarcerated because Israel doesn’t want any kind of Palestinian agency, any Palestinian collective agency, any kind of Palestinian leadership,” he said.

Palestinians mark Prisoners’ Day on April 17 each year, reports Al Jazeera.

Human rights organisations warn that Palestinian detainees are subject to some of the worst conditions in Israeli prisons.

Detainees tell of torture, starvation
They are not allowed visits from family, lawyers or doctors, and former detainees tell of torture, abuse and starvation by Israeli prison authorities.

Musab Hassan Adili, a 20-year-old Palestinian prisoner from the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, was reported to have died on Wednesday night in Israel’s Soroka Hospital, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Palestine marches for prisoners’ freedom.    Video: Al Jazeera

Adili had been detained in March last year and sentenced to 13 months in Israeli prison. He was supposed to be released in a couple of days, his family said.

His death brings the number of Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli prisons to 64 since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel in 2023.

‘Shameless double standard’
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has condemned what it calls the “clear and shameless double standard” of those demanding the release of Israeli captives in Gaza but staying silent while thousands of Palestinians languish in Israel’s jails, including women and children.

In a statement marking Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, PIJ said the “international community is tarnished by its silence regarding the suffering of tens of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, which has continued for decades”.

Of the nearly 10,000 Palestinians that support groups say are held in Israeli prisons, 3498 are held without charge or trial under what’s known as “administrative detention”.

PIJ said that 400 children and almost 30 women are among those held, while some 2000 people from Gaza have been arrested by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023, and that the prisoners who have died in Israeli jails suffer from medical negligence and torture.

According to PIJ, the October 7 attacks on Israel were launched “primarily to impose a genuine prisoner exchange deal that would free prisoners from the occupation’s prisons and alleviate the suffering of our people”.

“Their liberation has become an unwavering goal in the battle for dignity and freedom,” it said.

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

The Trump administration is now seeking to deport Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who is being held in a prison in northwest Vermont. He was detained by Homeland Security agents when he went to an immigration services center to take a civics test that is the final step in the process of becoming a naturalized citizen. Mahdawi moved to Vermont from the West Bank in 2014 and has been a legal permanent resident, or green card holder, since 2015.

All three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation are calling for Mahdawi’s release, including Congressmember Becca Balint. “This should terrify every single person living in this country, regardless of your citizenship status,” says Balint. “This is Trump creating his own army of brownshirts right here in our country.”

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

Groundwork Collaborative Senior Fellow Kitty Richards released the following statement applauding the tool’s success and raising the alarm on the Trump Administration’s repeated attacks on the IRS:

“Direct File is a crystal clear example of government efficiency at work. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay exorbitant fees to predatory for-profit companies just to file their taxes. As cost-of-living remains top of mind for so many Americans, the government should invest in and expand tools like Direct File that put money back into the pockets of working families.

“Unfortunately, the president is waging a war against the IRS – and hamstringing vital taxpayer services like Direct File in the process – so his wealthy donors can cheat on their taxes. The only people who benefit from a weakened IRS are billionaires like Donald Trump and Elon Musk.”

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

We speak to Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, and José Olivares, an award-winning investigative journalist specializing in Latin American politics, about El Salvador’s immigrant detention collaboration with the United States. Over 300 people have been disappeared to El Salvador’s dangerous maximum-security prisons, including at least one man who was targeted for removal by mistake. U.S. President Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele now say they have no power to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States, despite a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” his return. “What we saw yesterday was political theater and a set of administration officials lying to the American public,” says Gupta about Trump and Bukele’s meeting Monday in the Oval Office, which was open to the press. “Donald Trump and his administration can absolutely bring home Mr. Abrego Garcia. That is well within their power and authority.” Olivares recounts the origins of U.S.-Salvadoran collaboration and the Salvadoran government’s own close ties to the MS-13 criminal organization.

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

About 180 Taiwanese were arrested together with seven alleged Chinese coconspirators on March 31, during raids on an online fraud center in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh.

After receiving notification of the arrests on April 1, Taiwan’s representative office in Ho Chi Minh City began negotiating with the Cambodian government, said the ministry. Cambodia deported nearly 190 suspects to China in three groups on Sunday night and early Monday morning but hadn’t provided nationality information, the ministry said.

Taiwan and Cambodia do not maintain official diplomatic relations as the Southeast Asian country, like most other nations, recognizes Beijing and backs its position that Taiwan is part of China’s territory.

The representative office had requested that Cambodian authorities provide a complete list of names of the Taiwanese suspects and deport them to Taiwan to face legal consequences in accordance with international norms, according to the ministry.

Despite these requests, the Cambodian government has yet to provide a complete list or specific number of suspects, the ministry said.

“Cambodia, under pressure from China, did not provide a list of our country’s nationals or the total number deported, and the ministry not only continues to urge Cambodia to provide the list as soon as possible, but also expresses its serious concern and protest,” said the ministry.

The ministry also urged Taiwanese not to engage in illegal activities overseas such as telecom fraud.

Cambodia has become a regional hub for scam operations involving human trafficking and forced labour.

The scam operations are largely run by Chinese criminal syndicates based in guarded compounds in cities such as Sihanoukville, according to media reports. Victims – many from Taiwan, Myanmar and other Asian countries – are lured with fake job offers, only to be coerced into perpetrating online scams.

Taiwan has previously complained about countries deporting its nationals to China after being arrested on suspicion of involvement in telecom fraud, including Cambodia, Kenya and Spain.

According to Taiwan’s estimation, more than 600 Taiwanese people arrested overseas for their alleged involvement in online fraud were deported to China between 2016 and May 2024.

Neither the Cambodian nor Chinese foreign ministries immediately commented.

In recent years, Cambodia and China have significantly deepened their relationship across economic, political and military spheres.

China has become Cambodia’s largest investor and trading partner, with bilateral trade surpassing US$15 billion in 2024. Major infrastructure projects, such as the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway and a US$1.7 billion canal plan, have been developed under China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Politically, Cambodia has consistently supported China’s positions in international forums, including on contentious issues such as the South China Sea.

The two nations have also strengthened military ties, including the Chinese-funded expansion of the Ream Naval Base, which has raised concerns in the region about a potential Chinese military presence in the Gulf of Thailand.

Edited by Stephen Wright.

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

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was raising tariffs on Chinese imports to 125%. But the White House said Thursday that did not include a 20% tariff the U.S. had previously imposed on China for fentanyl trade. Adding that in takes the new China tariffs total to 145%.

Trump’s tariff hike against China came as he announced a surprise 90-day pause on sweeping duties for more than 75 other countries. He said those countries had sought to negotiate with the United States and had not resorted to any retaliatory measures.

At a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Trump indicated he was open to working out a deal with China. He also warned that he would revert to higher tariffs if the U.S. does not reach a deal with many of its trading partners during the temporary tariff suspension period.

“If we can’t make the deal that we want to make, or we have to make, or that’s good for both parties … then we go back to where we were,” said Trump.

He declined to say whether he would extend the pause period in such an eventuality. “We have to see what happens at that time,” he said.

Trump also said he expects “transition cost and transition problems” related to his tariff measures. But he defended his actions, contending that the measures were helping the U.S. rake in billions of dollars every day.

(Richard Drew/AP)

The market rollercoaster that began when Trump declared the tariff “Liberation Day” last week continued Thursday. U.S. benchmark stock indexes pared back much of the gains that had been made on Wednesday when the market had posted a historic rally.

“(China has) really taken advantage of our country for a long period of time. They’ve ripped us off… All we’re doing is putting it back in shape where we’re setting the table,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.

Trump open to deal with China

Notwithstanding the incipient trade war and tough rhetoric, Trump called Chinese President Xi Jinping a “friend” and indicated the U.S. would be open to working out a mutually beneficial deal.

“We’ll see what happens with China. We’d love to be able to work a deal,” Trump told reporters.

“I have great respect for President Xi. In a true sense, he has been a friend of mine for a long period of time and I think we’ll end up working out something that is very good for both countries. I look forward to it.”

In response to Trump’s latest tariff hike, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jiian said China does not want to fight trade and tariff wars, but will not flinch when a trade and tariff war comes.

China had announced its own retaliatory levies of 84% on all US imports.

On Thursday, Xi called for building a community with a “shared future with neighboring countries,” a move that analysts see as a strategic attempt by China to mitigate the impact of the ongoing tariff war with the U.S. through stronger engagement with South and Southeast Asian nations.

Xi’s statement at a conference on work related to neighboring countries came ahead of his official visit to Malaysia, Vietnam, and Cambodia next week.

Impact of trade war

China-based businessman Zhang Shengqi told RFA he expects both China and the United States to suffer in the short term from the trade war, but believes China will be hit harder in the long term due to its heavy dependence on exports to the United States.

The United States, on the other hand, can use this opportunity to promote the repatriation of the supply chain and gain negotiating advantages, and gradually rebuild its sovereign economic system, he said.

(Go Nakamura/Reuters)

“The 125% tariff imposed by the United States on China is not a real trump card, but a deterrent card, intended to reshape the global fair trade order and force China to renegotiate,” said Zhang.

A Taiwanese businessman, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said his friends and partners in mainland China feel helpless about the situation but are forced to accept the reality.

Operations of many factories in China have been cut back significantly, with only those that cater to the most basic needs of consumers still operating, he said, citing the examples of food, clothing, housing and transportation industries.

He pointed out that China earns more than $300 billion in annual trade with the United States. “If this export income is greatly reduced, it will have a huge impact on the Chinese economy,” he said.

A large number of factories that rely on exports to the United States may face a wave of closures, which will lead to large-scale unemployment, he added.

“Factories will be unable to repay bank loans, which will cause debt risks in the financial system. At the same time, the increase in the number of unemployed people will further hit domestic demand, creating a vicious cycle,” he added.

But experts warn there will also be negative effects on U.S. consumers, who have grown used to low-cost products made in China, and U.S. manufacturers that rely on inputs from China to sustain their business.

In 2024, U.S. exports to China stood at $143.5 billion, while imports totaled $439.9 billion, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

According to research published Thursday by The Budget Lab at Yale, Trump’s latest tariffs would hurt average American households, costing them $4,700 annually.

RFA Mandarin journalist Huang Chun-mei contributed reporting. Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Tenzin Pema and Huang Chun-mei for RFA.

Zelenskyy, in a post on X, said Ukraine was working to verify all the details concerning the two captured Chinese soldiers and others with Russia’s invading forces.

“Ukraine believes that such blatant involvement of Chinese citizens in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine during the war of aggression is a deliberate step towards the expansion of the war and is yet another indication that Moscow simply needs to drag out the fighting,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

“This definitely requires a response,” he said.

On April 8, Ukraine said the Chinese soldiers were captured in the Donetsk Oblast region of eastern Ukraine. Identification documents, bank cards, and other personal information were found on them. The captured Chinese nationals are being held by the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU.

Zelenskyy did not say the Chinese nationals had been sent by Beijing, but Ukraine’s foreign minister summoned the Chinese chargé d’affaires to protest and demand an explanation.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told journalists that China was still “verifying the relevant situation with Ukraine.”

“The Chinese government has always required its citizens to stay away from armed conflict areas, avoid being involved in armed conflicts in any form, and especially avoid participating in any military operations of any party,” he said.

The U.S. and South Korea have estimated that North Korea, an ally of Russia and China, has sent as many as 12,000 troops to serve in Russia’s Kursk region, which was partly occupied by a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the presence of Chinese soldiers in Ukraine “undermines Beijing’s credibility as a responsible permanent member of the UN Security Council.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce described the reports as “disturbing” and said that cooperation between nuclear powers China and Russia would increase global instability.

“China is a major enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine,” she said. “China provides nearly 80 percent of the dual-use items Russia needs to sustain the war.”

This month, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and told Russian state media that China was ready to play a “constructive role” in resolving the war.

Beijing professes a neutral stance on the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv. It also supplies Russia with electronic components which could be used in weapons systems.

Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.

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

Israel has been targeting journalists in the occupied Palestinian territory with more intensity since October 7, 2023, says Australian journalist and author Antony Lowenstein.

Pointing to studies that tracked the number of media workers killed in conflicts, he told Al Jazeera: “The number of journalists killed in Gaza is greater than that of all conflicts in the last 100 years combined.”

Lowenstein, author of the landmark book The Palestine Laboratory, which has been translated into several languages and was the basis of a recent two-part documentary series, cited a study by Brown University’s Cost of War project.

• READ MORE: The graver Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, the quieter the BBC grows
• NZ protesters honour killed Gaza journalists – ‘targeted’ say press freedom groups
• Other Gaza media freedom reports

He added that the figures pointed to a “deliberate targeting of journalists”.

Among Western countries, “there is far more interest if China, Russia and Iran target journalists but far less if Israel does”, Lowenstein said.

“The lack of international outrage speaks volumes about how suddenly the press have a hierarchy of who is important, and Palestinians are not top of that list.”

Israel’s war on Gaza ‘worst ever conflict for reporters’
An Israeli attack that killed two people, including a journalist, in Khan Younis comes days after the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University said Israel’s war on Gaza was the “deadliest” for media workers ever recorded.

The US-based think tank, in a report published on April 1, said Israeli forces had killed 232 journalists since October 7, 2023.

That averages 13 a week.

It means that more journalists have been killed in Gaza than in both world wars, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia and the US war in Afghanistan combined.

Since the report’s publication, at least two more journalists have been killed.

They are Helmi al-Faqawi, who was killed yesterday, and Islam Maqdad, who was killed on Sunday along with her husband and their child.

BREAKING: More journalists have died in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023 than in both World Wars and other major wars, combined.

Our new report outlines the costs of war to journalists – and the journalism we all rely on. [THREAD, 1/8] https://t.co/oeeqPqw5i2 pic.twitter.com/gSXWYjtXSl

— The Costs of War Project (@CostsOfWar) April 1, 2025

Meanwhile, the Gaza Government Media Office said that the number of media personnel killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 2023 had risen to 210 after the killing of al-Faqawi.

Al-Faqawi was among at least two people killed when Israeli warplanes bombed a tent for journalists near a hospital in Khan Younis.

At least seven people were wounded in the attack.

In a report published on April 1, the Watson Institute’s report said Israeli forces had killed 232 journalists since October 7, 2023.

This figure apparently included the West Bank and Lebanon as well as Gaza.

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

International aid groups who want to provide assistance to earthquake-hit areas of Myanmar must gain prior approval from junta authorities, said the military’s top official, as the death toll surpassed 3,500.

The 7.7 magnitude quake, which struck between Sagaing town and Mandalay city on March 28, left many people without food, clean water and shelter in Naypyidaw, Bago and Magway regions as well as Shan state.

Residents and international human rights groups have accused the junta, which seized power from the democratically-elected civilian administration in 2021, of hampering aid efforts and of exacerbating disaster by launching aerial attacks nationwide.

“Relief teams are not permitted to operate independently, regardless of other organizations,” the junta’s deputy prime minister Gen. Soe Win said in a speech published by the junta’s Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces.

“They must be entities that have obtained prior authorization, and a policy will be implemented to ensure that permission is granted only in cooperation with relevant officials,” he said adding the policy was necessary, as some organizations may “enter the country for negative purposes by exploiting the earthquake.”

At least 3,514 people are dead and another 4,809 injured, with 210 people still missing, junta authorities reported on Sunday night.

Junta soldiers have also enforced strict checks for groups entering Sagaing town in central Myanmar, which may cause the deaths of those desperately in need of urgent assistance, aid workers told Radio Free Asia.

“If the junta allows it, people are going to die, of course,” he said, adding that if international organizations, including the United Nations, are going to help, they need to be allowed entry on humanitarian grounds as fast as possible.

“It’s like us just sitting around and watching as people are being killed while they are still alive.”

Airstrikes continue

Residents across Magway, Sagaing and Mandalay region, as well as Shan state, have also reported attacks with heavy weapons on communities, which have killed seven people and injured seven more despite ceasefire agreements from both junta authorities and insurgent groups.

Junta soldiers attacked parts of Rakhine state, Bago and Ayeyarwady region from April 2 to 7 by land, sea and sky, the Arakan Army, or AA, said in a statement published on Saturday.

The AA controls 14 of 17 townships in Rakhine state, and has launched attacks in Chin state and into Ayeyarwady region, but has not seized junta strongholds in Rakhine’s capital of Sittwe or Kyaukpyu township with heavy Chinese infrastructure and investment.

In Kyaukpyu on April 2, junta troops fired near villages on the border of Pauktaw township with drone-operated bombs nearly 90 times, and fired up to 60 times with heavy weapons, the AA said.

In the following days, junta forces fired on villages in the township with fighter jets and ships dozens more times and bombed Sittwe township on Saturday, it said, adding that there was damage in the capital township but did provide further details.

The junta accused insurgent groups such as the AA of violating the ceasefire first.

“The AA arrived with soldiers in areas near Ayeyarwady and began shooting,” junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said in a speech broadcast on a state-owned television channel.

Junta authorities previously stated that they would respond in kind to any shots fired by insurgent groups, he added, but did not comment on casualties or damage across Sittwe, Kyaukpyu or Pauktaw townships.

The AA and allied groups said they would continue to honor the ceasefire to assist those affected by the earthquake, but also stated that the group had captured a strategic base in western Bago region’s Nyaung Kyoe village on April 2.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Teajun Kang and Mike Firn.

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

International aid groups who want to provide assistance to earthquake-hit areas of Myanmar must gain prior approval from junta authorities, said the military’s top official, as the death toll surpassed 3,500.

The 7.7 magnitude quake, which struck between Sagaing town and Mandalay city on March 28, left many people without food, clean water and shelter in Naypyidaw, Bago and Magway regions as well as Shan state.

Residents and international human rights groups have accused the junta, which seized power from the democratically-elected civilian administration in 2021, of hampering aid efforts and of exacerbating disaster by launching aerial attacks nationwide.

“Relief teams are not permitted to operate independently, regardless of other organizations,” the junta’s deputy prime minister Gen. Soe Win said in a speech published by the junta’s Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces.

“They must be entities that have obtained prior authorization, and a policy will be implemented to ensure that permission is granted only in cooperation with relevant officials,” he said adding the policy was necessary, as some organizations may “enter the country for negative purposes by exploiting the earthquake.”

At least 3,514 people are dead and another 4,809 injured, with 210 people still missing, junta authorities reported on Sunday night.

Junta soldiers have also enforced strict checks for groups entering Sagaing town in central Myanmar, which may cause the deaths of those desperately in need of urgent assistance, aid workers told Radio Free Asia.

“If the junta allows it, people are going to die, of course,” he said, adding that if international organizations, including the United Nations, are going to help, they need to be allowed entry on humanitarian grounds as fast as possible.

“It’s like us just sitting around and watching as people are being killed while they are still alive.”

Airstrikes continue

Residents across Magway, Sagaing and Mandalay region, as well as Shan state, have also reported attacks with heavy weapons on communities, which have killed seven people and injured seven more despite ceasefire agreements from both junta authorities and insurgent groups.

Junta soldiers attacked parts of Rakhine state, Bago and Ayeyarwady region from April 2 to 7 by land, sea and sky, the Arakan Army, or AA, said in a statement published on Saturday.

The AA controls 14 of 17 townships in Rakhine state, and has launched attacks in Chin state and into Ayeyarwady region, but has not seized junta strongholds in Rakhine’s capital of Sittwe or Kyaukpyu township with heavy Chinese infrastructure and investment.

In Kyaukpyu on April 2, junta troops fired near villages on the border of Pauktaw township with drone-operated bombs nearly 90 times, and fired up to 60 times with heavy weapons, the AA said.

In the following days, junta forces fired on villages in the township with fighter jets and ships dozens more times and bombed Sittwe township on Saturday, it said, adding that there was damage in the capital township but did provide further details.

The junta accused insurgent groups such as the AA of violating the ceasefire first.

“The AA arrived with soldiers in areas near Ayeyarwady and began shooting,” junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said in a speech broadcast on a state-owned television channel.

Junta authorities previously stated that they would respond in kind to any shots fired by insurgent groups, he added, but did not comment on casualties or damage across Sittwe, Kyaukpyu or Pauktaw townships.

The AA and allied groups said they would continue to honor the ceasefire to assist those affected by the earthquake, but also stated that the group had captured a strategic base in western Bago region’s Nyaung Kyoe village on April 2.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Teajun Kang and Mike Firn.

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

Trump administration officials have been working on an agreement to sell the popular social media app, owned by China-based ByteDance, to an American buyer, as required by a bipartisan law enacted in 2024. But this also requires China’s approval.

“We had a deal pretty much for TikTok – not a deal but pretty close – and then China changed the deal because of tariffs,” Trump told reporters. “If I gave a little cut in tariffs they would have approved that deal in 15 minutes, which shows the power of tariffs.”

Trump on Wednesday signed a far-reaching “reciprocal tariff” policy at the White House, in which he imposed a 34% tariff rate on China. Coupled with the existing 20% tariffs on Chinese imports, the true tariff rate on China is now 54%.

China on Friday announced it was retaliating, with its own 34% tariff on all imports from the U.S. starting April 10. It also announced plans to restrict exports of some rare earth items.

Before Trump announced widespread tariffs, the TikTok deal was reportedly close, advanced by a consortium of U.S. investors, but Trump said China’s objections impeded the pact. The Washington Post reported earlier that Trump’s moves to heighten tariffs on China stalled the talks.

Trump previously said he may consider reducing China tariffs to help facilitate a TikTok deal.

The U.S. Congress had initially mandated that the short-video platform find a new, non-Chinese owner by Jan. 19 for national security reasons, with Trump later extending the deadline until April 5.

During his first term as president, Trump had tried to ban TikTok, but a U.S. federal judge ruled the president did not have the authority to ban the app. Following that judicial rebuke, Congress passed the bill calling for TikTok’s sale, which then-President Joe Biden signed.

Some lawmakers in the U.S. said that China could gain access to TikTok’s personal data for the purpose of influencing political opinion in the country, but the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said the country’s government has never asked companies to “collect or provide data, information or intelligence” held in foreign countries.

TikTok, which has offices in Singapore and Los Angeles, has said it prioritizes user safety.

(Mandel Ngan/AFP)

Trump said that he would maintain tariffs on foreign nations unless the trade deficits the U.S. faces with various countries, including China, were eliminated.

“Hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose with China,” Trump told reporters on Sunday

“And unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal,” said Trump, adding that he was “willing to deal with China, but they have to solve their surplus.”

The 10% baseline tariff imposed by Trump on almost all trading partners became effective Saturday morning, with a second wave of tariffs set to take effect Wednesday morning. These new measures, combined with recently implemented tariffs on foreign metals, automobiles, and goods from Canada, Mexico, and China, have increased U.S. import tariffs by nearly ten times their previous levels.

Trump’s trade policies have sparked widespread opposition, drawing criticism even from U.S. allies.

China responded with a series of aggressive countermeasures, while other countries are attempting to negotiate reduced rates.

Vietnam, which faces one of the highest proposed tariff rates at 46%, for instance, is requesting a 45-day postponement and has offered to eliminate its own tariffs.

Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, on Sunday offered zero tariffs as the basis for talks with the U.S., pledging to remove trade barriers and saying Taiwanese companies would increase their U.S. investments.

Asian markets plunged on Monday, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei falling by more than 8% shortly after opening.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped by 9% in early trade, with shares in Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent falling more than 8%.

In South Korea, trading on the Kospi index was halted for five minutes at 9.12 a.m. as stocks plummeted.

Taiwan’s stock exchange fell almost 10% on the Monday open, the first day of trading since the tariffs were announced due to a two-day holiday last week. Falls were driven by the world’s largest chipmaker TSMC and the world’s largest contract manufacturer Foxconn, and marked the largest daily point and percentage loss on record, according to local media.

Trump said he had spoken to leaders from Europe and Asia over the weekend, who hope to convince him to lower tariffs that are as high as 50% and due to take effect this week.

“They are coming to the table. They want to talk but there’s no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis,” he said.

Separately, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said more than 50 nations had started negotiations with Washington since last Wednesday’s announcement.

“He’s created maximum leverage for himself,” Bessent said on NBC News’ Meet the Press, referring to Trump.

Bessent added there was “no reason” to anticipate a recession, citing stronger-than-anticipated U.S. jobs growth last month, before the tariffs were announced.

Neither Trump nor Bessent named the countries or offered details about the talks.

Edited by Mike Firn.

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

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This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.

In 2022, conservative groups celebrated a “great victory” over “wokeified” curriculum when the Texas State Board of Education squashed proposed social studies requirements for schools that included teaching kindergartners how Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez “advocated for positive change.”

Another win came a year later as the state board rejected several textbooks that some Republicans argued could promote a “radical environmental agenda” because they linked climate change to human behavior or presented what conservatives perceived to be a negative portrayal of fossil fuels.

By the time the state board approved science and career-focused textbooks for use in Texas classrooms at the end of 2023, it appeared to be comfortably in sync with conservatives who had won control of local school boards across the state in recent years.

But the Republican-led state education board had not gone far enough for the conservative majority on the school board for Texas’ third-largest school district.

At the tail end of a school board meeting in May of last year, Natalie Blasingame, a board member in suburban Houston’s Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, proposed stripping more than a dozen chapters from five textbooks that had been approved by the state board and were recommended by a district committee of teachers and staffers.

The chapters, Blasingame said, were inappropriate for students because they discussed “vaccines and polio,” touched on “topics of depopulation,” had “an agenda out of the United Nations” and included “a perspective that humans are bad.”

In a less-publicized move, Blasingame, a former bilingual educator, proposed omitting several chapters from a textbook for aspiring educators titled “Teaching.” One of those chapters focuses on how to understand and educate diverse learners and states that it “is up to schools and teachers to help every student feel comfortable, accepted and valued,” and that “when schools view diversity as a positive force, it can enhance learning and prepare students to work effectively in a diverse society.”

Blasingame did not offer additional details about her opposition to the chapters during the meeting. She didn’t have to. The school board voted 6-1 to delete them.

The decision to strip chapters from books that had already won the approval of the state’s conservative board of education represents an escalation in local school boards’ efforts to influence what children in public schools are taught. Through the years, battles over textbooks have played out at the state level, where Republicans hold the majority. But local school boards that are supposed to be nonpartisan had largely avoided such fights — they weighed in on whether some books should be in libraries but rarely intervened so directly into classroom instruction. Cypress-Fairbanks now provides a model for supercharging these efforts at more fine-grained control, said Christopher Kulesza, a scholar at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

“One of the things that would concern me is that it’s ideology pushing the educational standards rather than what’s fact,” he said.

The board’s actions send a troubling message to students of color, Alissa Sundrani, a junior at Cy-Fair High School, said. “At the point that you’re saying that diversity, or making people feel safe and included, is not in the guidelines or not in the scope of what Texas wants us to be learning, then I think that’s an issue.”

With about 120,000 students, nearly 80% of whom are of Hispanic, Black and Asian descent, Cy-Fair is the largest school district in Texas to be taken over by ideologically driven conservative candidates. Blasingame was among a slate of candidates who were elected through the at-large voting system that ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found has been leveraged by conservative groups seeking to influence what children are taught about race and gender. Supporters say the system, in which voters cast ballots for all candidates districtwide instead of ones who live within specific geographic boundaries, results in broader representation for students, but voting rights advocates argue that it dilutes the power of voters of color.

Blasingame and others campaigned against the teaching of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that discusses systemic racism. Most of the winning candidates had financial backing from Texans for Educational Freedom, a statewide PAC that sought to build a “stronghold” of school board trustees “committed to fighting Critical Race Theory and other anti-American agendas and curriculums.” The PAC helped elect at least 30 school board candidates across the state between 2021 and 2023, in part because it focused on anti-CRT sentiment, said its founder, Christopher Zook Jr. “You could literally go out and say, CRT, you know, ‘Stop critical race theory in schools,’ and everyone knew what that means, right?” he said. “The polling showed that that messaging works.”

Shortly before Blasingame and two fellow conservatives won election in 2021, Texas lawmakers passed a landmark law that sought to shape how teachers approach instruction on race and racism. The law, which aimed to ban critical race theory, prohibits the “inculcation” of the notion that someone’s race makes them “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

Blasingame made no mention of the law when she pushed to remove chapters about teaching a diverse student body, but pointed to it as the reason for her objection in text messages and an interview with ProPublica and the Tribune. Though Blasingame acknowledged that one of the chapters had “very good presentation on learning styles,” she said removing the whole chapter was the only option because administrators said individual lines could not be stricken from the book.

The textbook referred to “cultural humility” and called for aspiring teachers to examine their “unintentional and subtle biases,” concepts that she said “go against” the law. The school board needed to act because the book “slipped through” before the state’s education agency implemented a plan to make sure materials complied with the law, Blasingame said.

State Board Chairman Aaron Kinsey, who is staunchly anti-CRT, declined to say if he thought the body had allowed textbooks to slip through as Blasingame suggested. Kinsey, however, said in a statement that contracts with approved publishers include requirements that their textbooks comply with all applicable laws. He did not comment on Cy-Fair removing chapters.

Cy-Fair appears to have taken one of the state’s most aggressive approaches to enforcing the law, which does not address what is in textbooks but rather how educators approach teaching, said Paige Duggins-Clay, the chief legal analyst for the Intercultural Development Research Agency, a San Antonio-based nonprofit that advocates for equal educational opportunity.

“It definitely feels like Cy-Fair is seeking to test the boundaries of the law,” Duggins-Clay said. “And I think in a district like Cy-Fair, because it is so diverse, that is actively hurting a lot of young people who are ultimately paying the cost and bearing the burden of these really bad policies.”

The law’s vagueness has drawn criticism from conservative groups who say it allows school districts to skirt its prohibitions. Last month, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Coppell school district in North Texas and accused administrators of illegally teaching “woke and hateful” CRT curriculum. The suit points to a secret recording of an administrator saying that the district will do what’s right for students “despite what our state standards say.” The lawsuit does not provide examples of curriculum that it alleges violates state law on how to teach race. In a letter to parents, Superintendent Brad Hunt said that the district was following state standards and would “continue to fully comply with applicable state and federal laws.”

Teachers and progressive groups have also argued that the law leaves too much open to interpretation, which causes educators to self-censor and could be used to target anything that mentions race.

Blasingame disputes the critique. A longtime administrator and teacher whose family emigrated from South Africa when she was 9 years old, she said she embraces diversity in schools.

“Diversity is people and I love people,” she said. “That’s what I’m called to do, first as a Christian and then as an educator.”

But she said she opposes teaching about systemic racism and state-sanctioned efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, saying that they overemphasize the importance of skin color.

“They seed hate and teach students that they are starting off behind and have unconquerable disadvantages that they will suffer all their lives,” Blasingame said. “Not only does this teach hate among people, but how could you love a country where this is true?”

The assertion that teaching diversity turns students of color into victims is simply wrong, educators and students told the news organizations. Instead, they said, such discussions make them feel safe and accepted.

One educator who uses the “Teaching” textbook said the board members’ decision to remove chapters related to diversity has been painful for students.

“I don’t know what their true intentions are, but to my students, what they are seeing is that unless you fit into the mold and you are like them, you are not valued,” said the teacher, who did not want to be named because she feared losing her job. “There were several who said it made them not want to teach anymore because they felt so unsupported.”

The board’s interpretation of the state’s law on the teaching of race has stifled important classroom discussions, said Sundrani, the student in the district. Her AP English class, a seminar about the novel “Huckleberry Finn,” steered clear of what she thinks are badly needed conversations about race, slavery and how that history impacts people today.

“There were topics that we just couldn’t discuss.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by .

The junta, which took control of the country in a 2021 coup, said on state TV that 170 people were still missing and 3,900 people were injured. The shadow National Unity Government, made up of former civilian leaders, gave a higher death toll of 2,418.

Near the epicenter of Friday’s quake, in Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city, a 75-year-old grandmother and her two teenage granddaughters were pulled out alive from under their partially collapsed 11-story apartment building, residents told Radio Free Asia.

While holding onto each other in the darkness, the girls, 16 and 13, used their cell phones to signal their location under the Sky Villa condominium. On Sunday, they were happily reunited with their families.

The United Nations Office in Myanmar, meanwhile, issued a statement on Monday asking for unhindered access to earthquake-hit areas to deliver humanitarian aid.

Myanmar, which is mired in a four-year civil war after the military overthrew the democratically-elected government in the coup, is poorly equipped to respond to the disaster.

(AP)

Even before this earthquake, nearly 20 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance, Marcoluigi Corsi, the U.N. resident and acting humanitarian coordinator for Myanmar, said in a statement.

“This latest tragedy compounds an already dire crisis and risks further eroding the resilience of communities already battered by conflict, displacement, and past disasters,” Corsi said.

U.N. agencies and humanitarian partners have allocated an initial US$15 million to support the response and are deploying emergency medical teams, shelter materials and food aid.

“We have a significant presence in Mandalay and surrounding areas, and we are doing everything we can to reach people in need despite serious logistical challenges,” Corsi said.

The U.N. said many survivors were suffering from “fractures, open wounds and crush syndrome – all conditions that pose a high risk of infection."

In a daily humanitarian update, the U.N. recounted a tragedy at a private preschool which was in session during the earthquake in the Mandalay area. The classroom building collapsed, resulting in the deaths of 50 children and two teachers.

In response to the earthquake, rescue teams from Russia, China, Belarus, India, Thailand, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Malaysia have been providing assistance. The United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Bangladesh have sent financial aid and rescue supplies.

The earthquake was centered near Mandalay in the middle of the country and caused severe destruction in Sagaing, Magway, Bago, Naypyidaw, Shan state and eastern Taungoo.

The junta declared a seven-day period of national mourning until April 6 to remember those who lost their lives in the earthquake.

Thai efforts continue

Aftershocks were still being felt in the Burmese cities of Mandalay and Naypyidaw as well as the Thai capital of Bangkok -- 1,000 kilometers from the epicenter -- although no additional damage was reported.

(Myanmar Rescue via RFA Burmese)

In Bangkok, multinational rescuers, including the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, used K-9 dogs and electronic sensors to detect signs of life in the rubble of a 30-story building.

According to the rescue center at the site of the collapsed state audit office near Chatuchak Park, as of 8 a.m. on Monday, 76 people remained missing, 11 were confirmed dead with nine injured. A woman’s body was brought out of the rubble mid-afternoon, bringing the death toll to 12.

The search was continuing beyond the conventional 72-hour window for finding survivors, Bangkok Gov. Chadchart Sittipunt said, saying signs of life had been detected Monday morning.

Thailand’s labor ministry said it would give 1.73 million baht (US$51,000) to families for each of the construction workers – many foreign nationals - who died in the collapse.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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

Yashar Shohret, 26, who previously participated in the 2022 “White Paper” protests in China, has been missing since his arrest on Aug. 9, 2023, in Chengdu, Sichuan province, where he had been going to university.

A new report by Weiquanwang, or Rights Protection Network, a loose network of volunteers in China and abroad seeking to promote legal reforms in China, found that Shohret had been sentenced on June 20, 2024, to three years in prison on charges of “promoting extremism” and “illegally possessing items promoting extremism.”

He appealed the verdict, but the second trial upheld the original sentence, with the prison term lasting until Aug. 8, 2026. He is currently serving his sentence at the Wusu Prison in Xinjiang, the group said.

Radio Free Asia could not independently confirm that. Calls to the prison and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Prison Administration Bureau were not answered. Chinese search engines yielded no public records of Shohret’s arrest, trial or sentencing.

Overseas Uyghur youth activist Aman, who prefers a pseudonym for safety reasons, said the Chinese Communist Party has used high-profile arrests to set an example, but now they often make people “disappear quietly,” without announcing charges or public sentencing.

‘White Paper Protests’

Shohret originally hailed from Bole city, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwestern China, where 12 million Uyghurs live and face widespread persecution and surveillance under Beijing’s rule.

Previously, Shohret had been detained for three weeks for participating in the November 2022 “White Paper” protests, when thousands took to the streets of Chinese cities to protest harsh COVID-19 restrictions.

The rare public protests were triggered by a big apartment building fire in Urumqi in which several Uyghur residents died. Many demonstrators held up white sheets of paper to express that their voices were stifled.

Shohret sang a memorial song in Uyghur language for the fire victims and was immediately suppressed by the police and detained for 21 days on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order” before being released, Weiquanwang said.

‘Charged out like cheetahs’

Shohret, who performed under the stage name “Uigga,” seems to have gotten in trouble for songs he composed.

One of them, a 2023 song titled “Wake Up” that was listed on NetEase Cloud Musica popular Chinese music streaming service, contained the following Uyghur lyrics:

“They charged out like cheetahs.

Who? A group of hunters...

When I woke up,

The surroundings made me sink into deep thought."

In his lyrics, Shohret appears to metaphorically refer to himself as prey in a hostile environment, his fate already decided, said Sawut Muhammed, director of East Asian Affairs at the advocacy group World Uyghur Congress.

Those words were probably viewed as threatening to the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, said Muhammed.

“In the CCP’s view, emphasizing the Uyghur language could lead to a rise in Uyghur nationalism,” he said. That’s “detrimental to Xi Jinping’s vision of building a unified Chinese nation.”

Sawut pointed out that after 2017, when there was mass internment of Uyghurs in camps, China arrested many Uyghur scholars, singers, poets and writers. Many were accused of using politics in their art.

Although China’s constitution guarantees the right to use one’s mother tongue, the implementation of bilingual education after the year 2000 effectively requires Uyghur students to learn Mandarin and suppresses the Uyghur language, he said.

Gong Zi Shen, a Chinese current affairs commentator living in the United States, said Shohret’s lyrics are not explicitly political, but describe inner emotions. While the White Paper movement was sparked by dissatisfaction with the lockdown and zero-COVID policies, Shohret was not a leading student figure, he said.

However, Beijing cannot tolerate even the suggestion of dissent, and sentenced him for “extremism,” a punishment far more severe than would be applied to majority Han Chinese, Shen said.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Xiaohua Xia for RFA Mandarin.

The announcement came as South Korea reported that the North appeared to have dispatched at least another 3,000 soldiers to Russia in January and February.

Speaking about efforts to settle the war during his visit to Murmansk, Russia, Putin said not just the United States, but also all BRICS countries, as well as North Korea, could be partners for cooperation, according to the Russian news agency Tass.

“This is not only the United States but also the People’s Republic of China, India, Brazil, South Africa, all BRICS countries,” Putin said.

“And many others, for example, including the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” he said, using North Korea’s official name, without elaborating.

​The United States brokered a tentative ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russia this week to halt hostilities in the Black Sea and ensure safe navigation for commercial vessels.

However, Russia’s compliance is contingent upon the lifting of certain Western sanctions, particularly those affecting its agricultural exports. European leaders have expressed skepticism about easing sanctions, saying that the time is not right for such actions.

China has maintained a complex stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, emphasizing respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty while also acknowledging Russia’s security concerns regarding NATO expansion.

​North Korea has reportedly deployed up to 12,000 troops and supplied ballistic missiles to support Russia’s efforts in Ukraine, marking its first significant military involvement abroad since the 1950s. Neither Russia nor North Korea has confirmed the claims made by the U.S. and South Korea.

Additional troops to Russia

The Russian leader’s remarks came as the South Korean military confirmed that North Korea appeared to have additionally dispatched at least 3,000 soldiers to Russia in January and February in support of Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

“Of the some 11,000 North Korean soldiers dispatched to Russia, 4,000 casualties have occurred, and it appears that some 3,000 or more have been additionally dispatched in January and February,” the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, or JCS, said.

The JCS said the North continued to supply missiles, ammunition and artillery equipment to Russia, including “a considerable amount of short-range ballistic missiles and around 220 pieces of 170 millimeter self-propelled howitzers and 240 mm rocket launchers.”

It added Pyongyang appeared to be making technological upgrades to launch another military spy satellite, although there were no imminent signs of such a launch.

The JCS also noted that North Korea appeared to be carrying out a smaller number of wintertime military training sessions compared with last year, attributing the fall to troop mobilization for various construction works, preparation for additional deployment to Russia and chronic energy shortage.

North Korea unveiled on Thursday what appears to be its first airborne radar system and suicide attack drones equipped with artificial intelligence, adding to indications that Russia has provided technical assistance in exchange for the North sending troops to fight Ukraine.

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North Korean leader’s visit to Russia

Separately, Russia’s top official said preparations were under way for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s visit to Russia this year, the latest sign of deepening ties between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Speaking to journalists in Moscow on Thursday, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Andrey Rudenko said Moscow was preparing for Kim’s visit to the country, Tass reported, without elaborating.

It would be Kim’s third visit to Russia, following his trip to Vladivostok in 2019 and the Vostochny Cosmodrome space center in the Amur region in 2023.

Russia and North Korea have aligned closely since Putin and Kim signed a mutual defense treaty during the Russian leader’s visit to Pyongyang last year. It elevated military cooperation and resulted in the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia.

Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.

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

A key member of the pro-democracy Vietnam Restoration Movement, Thuan was arrested in March 2017 on charges of “conducting propaganda against the state. In early 2018, he was later sentenced to eight years in prison and five years of probation.

On Feb. 22, 2025, he was released, eight days earlier than scheduled.

After his release, Thuan said he had been hospitalized for treatment of serious health problems. During that time, local police came to install two surveillance cameras in the home where he lives with his 95-year-old fatehr and 80-year-old stepmother.

One camera is in the entrance by the door, and other one is in the living room, he said, providing photos to RFA Vietnamese. They have been operating for about a week, he said.

RFA has not been able to verify Thuan’s allegations with local authorities.

“While I was in a coma and unconscious at Thai Binh Provincial Hospital, they forced my parents to let them install cameras,” Thuan said. “My father was paralyzed and could not move, and my stepmother objected, but they still ignored it.”

(Vu Quang Thuan)

“I feel very indignant about this issue,” he said. “No law allows such human rights violations.”

Under the probation order, Thuan cannot leave the Thai Thuy district in Thai Binh province without permission.

He also said that the installation of surveillance cameras was an escalation by local police in invading his privacy, as the police had previously searched his home without a warrant.

“About 10 days after I was released from prison, the Commune Police Chief called me out to talk, but when I arrived at the station, I was detained by nearly 10 police officers, and then they sent people to search my house without a warrant,” Thuan said.

Faced with the actions of the police and local authorities, Thuan said he felt like he was dealing with “gangsters” rather than law enforcement agencies.

Former political prisoners are usually placed under house arrest by local authorities after their release, and are required to report to police headquarters once a month.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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

The Trump administration might let hundreds of millions of dollars in aid pledged to Pacific island nations during former President Joe Biden’s time in office stand, says New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

The Biden administration pledged about $1 billion in aid to the Pacific to help counter China’s influence in the strategic region.

However, Trump last month froze all disbursements of aid by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), for 90 days pending a “review” of all aid spending under his “America First” policy.

• READ MORE: Political analyst hopes NZ, Australia will ‘step up’ over USAID cuts gap
• Other USAID reports

Peters told reporters on Monday after meetings with Trump’s USAID acting head, Peter Marocco, and his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, “more confident” about the prospects of the aid being left alone than he was before.

Peters said he had a “very frank and open discussion” with American officials about how important the aid was for the Pacific, and insisted that they “get our point of view in terms of how essential it is”.

“In our business, it’s wise to find out the results before you open your mouth, but we are looking ahead with more confidence than when we arrived,” Peters said, pushing back against claims that the Trump administration would be “pulling back” from the Pacific region.

“We don’t know that yet. Let’s find out in April, when that full review is done on USAID,” he said. “But we came away more confident than some of the alarmists might have been before we arrived.”

Frenzied diplomatic battle
The Biden administration sought to rapidly expand US engagement with the small island nations of the Pacific after the Solomon Islands signed a controversial security pact with China three years ago.

The deal by the Solomon Islands sparked a frenzied diplomatic battle between Washington and Beijing for influence in the strategic region.

Biden subsequently hosted Pacific island leaders at back-to-back summits in Washington in September 2022 and 2023, the first two of their kind. He pledged hundreds of millions of dollars at both meets, appearing to tilt the region back toward Washington.

The first summit included announcements of some $800 billion in aid for the Pacific, while the second added about $200 billion.

But the region has since been rocked by the Trump administration’s decision to freeze all aid pending its ongoing review. The concerns have not been helped by a claim from Elon Musk, who Trump tasked with cutting government waste, that USAID would be shut down.

“You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair. We’re shutting it down,” Musk said in a February 3 livestreamed video.

However, the New Zealand foreign minister, who also met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday, said he held out hope that Washington would not turn back on its fight for influence in the Pacific.

“The first Trump administration turned more powerfully towards the Pacific . . .  than any previous administration,” he said, “and now they’ve got Trump back again, and we hope for the same into the future.”

Radio Free Asia is an online news service affiliated with BenarNews. Republished from BenarNews with permission.

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

The rising trend has also been spotted in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, a gambling and tourism hub catering to Chinese visitors in northern Bokeo province that has earned a reputation as a haven for criminal activities, including prostitution.

“Their customers are Chinese guys who seem to not like to use condoms,” the director of the Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS, or APLPlusLaos, told RFA on Tuesday.

In some instances, a man will pay a Lao woman for sexual services, and then arrange for his co-workers to also have sex with the woman, she said, requesting anonymity for security reasons.

“They share the girl with 10 men,” the director said. “They take turns.”

Additionally, a large potash mine in central Khammouane province that employs several thousand Chinese laborers has drawn impoverished young women looking to sell sex, sources told RFA last year.

Risk of expanded epidemic

The number of people testing positive for HIV has ticked up every year since 2022, according to Laos’ Center for HIV/AIDS.

According to the World Bank, just 0.42 percent of adults in Laos tested positive for HIV in 2024.

But unsafe sexual practices and the use of injected narcotics have put the country in danger of an expanded epidemic, health officials said.

The trend was discussed at a National AIDS Committee meeting held in December in Vientiane, where officials acknowledged that a lack of proper sexual education in remote areas has also been a factor.

“They have forgotten that HIV/AIDS still exists,” the APLPlusLaos director said. “The government doesn’t have the budget to produce sexual education programs or introduce projection awareness among young Laotians.”

Some information about how to prevent HIV/AIDS transmission is shared on social media, but not all young Laotians in rural areas can access social media – and the rural areas are where the mines and hydroelectric dams are being built, she said.

Public disdain toward those with HIV/AIDS has also kept many people from seeking out testing, a Ministry of Health official told RFA.

Translated by Khamsao Civilize. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

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

The Ukrainian military said Wednesday that an aerial reconnaissance unit from the 14th Separate Drone Regiment identified the M-1978 howitzers hidden among trees and coordinated fire from Ukrainian rocket artillery.

“The M-1978 Koksan self-propelled artillery system is North Korea’s longest-range tubed artillery. Equipped with a 170mm gun, it has a range of up to 60 kilometers,” the unit said on its official Telegram channel.

“The system was originally designed with the capability to strike Seoul from the north of the demilitarized zone. Now, the Russian Armed Forces are using it in the war against Ukraine to offset their artillery losses,” it said.

As many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of Kursk in an August counterattack, according to the U.S. and Ukraine. Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow has acknowledged their presence.

Evidence also has mounted that impoverished North Korea has supplied weaponry to Russia, likely to offset Russian artillery losses.

In February, Ukraine reported that its drone squad struck a North Korean self-propelled howitzer in the Luhansk region of Ukraine.

The Khortytsia, or east, group of forces said it was the first time since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that a “very rare” North Korean M-1978 Koksan howitzer had been hit by a Ukrainian drone.

A troop formation with North Korean equipment was spotted in Russia’s Tyumen region in December. It had 10 modernized Koksan howitzers known as the M-1989.

South Korea said in October that the North had sent about 7,000 containers of weapons to Russia over the previous two months, bringing the total number of containers at that point to 20,000.

RELATED STORIES

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The Washington Post this week cited Ukrainian soldiers and officials as saying that a fresh influx of North Korean troops along with air superiority, and overwhelming numerical advantage enabled Russia to recapture the town of Sudzha last week, Ukraine’s final stronghold in Kursk.

The heavy reliance on North Korean forces and equipment to reclaim nearly the entire Kursk region after seven months of Ukrainian control highlights the Kremlin’s determination to regain lost territory at any cost, the newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Since the signing of a mutual defense treaty in Pyongyang in June, North Korea and Russia have deepened relations across various sectors.

A Russian delegation, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, visited North Korea last week, holding meetings with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui and Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jong Gyu.

The North’s state media did not provide details, but the two sides were expected to discuss defense matters related to North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia amid a U.S.-proposed ceasefire for the war.

Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.

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

Photograph Source: Gage Skidmore – CC BY-SA 2.0

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who oversees the health of more than 340 million Americans, says vitamin A can prevent the worst effects of measles rather than urging more people to get vaccinated.

The post RFK Jr Says Vitamin A Protects You From Deadly Measles, But Here’s What the Study He Cites Actually Says appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Evangeline Mantzioris.

The Biden administration pledged about $1 billion in aid to the Pacific to help counter China’s influence in the strategic region.

However, Trump last month froze all disbursements of aid by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, for 90 days pending a “review” of all aid spending under his “America First” policy.

New Zealand’s foreign minister told reporters on Monday that he had exited meetings with Trump’s USAID acting head, Peter Marocco, and his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, “more confident” about the prospects of the aid being left alone than he was before.

Peters said he had a “very frank and open discussion” with American officials about how important the aid was for the Pacific, and insisted that they “get our point of view in terms of how essential it is.”

(Vincent Thian/Reuters)

“In our business, it’s wise to find out the results before you open your mouth, but we are looking ahead with more confidence than when we arrived,” Peters said, pushing back against claims that the Trump administration would be “pulling back” from the Pacific region.

“We don’t know that yet. Let’s find out in April, when that full review is done on USAID,” he said. “But we came away more confident than some of the alarmists might have been before we arrived.”

Pacific theater

The Biden administration sought to rapidly expand U.S. engagement with the small island nations of the Pacific after the Solomon Islands signed a controversial security pact with China three years ago.

The deal by the Solomon Islands sparked a frenzied diplomatic battle between Washington and Beijing for influence in the strategic region.

Biden subsequently hosted Pacific island leaders at back-to-back summits in Washington in September 2022 and 2023, the first two of their kind. He pledged hundreds of millions of dollars at both meets, appearing to tilt the region back toward Washington.

The first summit included announcements of some $800 billion in aid for the Pacific, while the second added about $200 billion.

But the region has since been rocked by the Trump administration’s decision to freeze all aid pending its ongoing review. The concerns have not been helped by a claim from Elon Musk, who Trump tasked with cutting government waste, that USAID will be shuttered.

“You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair. We’re shutting it down,” Musk said in a Feb. 3 livestreamed video.

However, the New Zealand foreign minister, who also met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday, said he held out hope that Washington would not turn back on its fight for influence in the Pacific.

“The first Trump administration turned more powerfully towards the Pacific … than any previous administration,” he said, “and now they’ve got Trump back again, and we hope for the same into the future.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster

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

The labor situation in Houaphan province highlights lax oversight of foreign investment in Laos, where companies — many of which are based in China and Vietnam — flock to exploit natural resources with little regard for the impact on the environment and communities.

Authorities typically give foreign companies free rein to operate in Laos because the country is starved for outside investment.

On March 6, Sounthone Xayachack, the vice president of the Lao National Assembly, or parliament, ordered Houanphan authorities to “solve worker shortages” and “prevent foreign companies from bringing in their own workers” while on an official visit to the province.

She noted that in 2024, the Lao government could only provide slightly more than 26,000 jobs for domestic workers. According to the World Bank, the Lao labor force totaled just over 3.5 million people in 2023 — approximately 42,000 of whom were unemployed.

A 2023 report from the Ministry of Planning and Investment claimed that there were 2,600 companies in Laos looking to fill at least 153,315 positions.

(Jorge Silva/Reuters)

Despite the shortage of workers, an official from the Department of Labor and Social Welfare recently told RFA Lao that foreign firms operating in the country aren’t interested in hiring locally because “the majority of Lao workers have no skills or experience.”

“They don’t meet the requirements of the companies' needs, so both Vietnamese- and Chinese-owned companies do not want to hire our workers,” said the official who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal.

“The government lacks the budget necessary to train Lao workers with the skills that they need.”

Few willing to hire Lao workers

A Houanphan provincial official agreed that it would be “impossible” to prevent foreign firms from bringing their own workers “because our Lao workers don’t meet their requirements.”

“[The hiring situation] depends on each company’s needs,” said the official, who also declined to be named. “There are a few foreign companies that are willing to hire Lao workers.”

Another high-ranking labor ministry official told RFA that Houanphan province “has been facing a worker shortage,” but did not provide statistics to back up her claim.

It was not immediately clear if the shortage the official mentioned referred to a lack of workers or a lack of “skilled” workers, but she did note that “even Vientiane province also relies on Burmese workers.”

In Houanphan, she said, many Lao workers choose not to work for foreign companies “because of lower compensation” and because the province is located along the border with Vietnam, and they worry that they would lose their jobs to Vietnamese nationals who are looking for work.

The official said that many Chinese and Vietnamese investors run businesses in the province — including Chinese mining firms — “but I don’t think they ever hire local people.”

Bribes exacerbate problem

Other observers told RFA that a lack of skilled domestic workers is only part of a larger problem, which includes local officials receiving bribes to look the other way when foreign firms bring in their own employees without work permits.

“It may be because of officials receiving money under the table so that they keep quiet and never inspect the projects,” she said. “Additionally, Lao government officials are scared to confront Vietnam or China.”

A resident of Houaphan confirmed to RFA that many of the workers “are migrant workers” from countries that foreign investors are based in, while local Lao workers are choosing to relocate to other provinces to find jobs.

“I admit that our Lao workers' skills are not good,” he said, adding that even the Lao government is forced to hire foreign workers for certain projects.

“For example, a Vietnamese-owned company was granted a project to build a building for the Lao government, but in the end, most of the workers were from Vietnam,” he said.

Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

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