Nuclear free and independent Pacific – how the zone began 33 years ago and what now?
The South Pacific Nuclear Free Pacific Zone Treaty 33 years ago ushered in a radical era for the Pacific, which predated NZ’s own nuclear-free law.
The South Pacific Nuclear Free Pacific Zone Treaty 33 years ago ushered in a radical era for the Pacific, which predated NZ’s own nuclear-free law.
“This is not a joke: I’m blacklisted by the Indonesian government. Saya termasuk dalam daftar tangkal Indonesia (terjemahan dibawah). I’ve been refused entry to Bali and have been held in a room at Denpasar airport on a couch since midnight… I explained I was on a holiday.”
Two damning and contrasting books about Indonesian colonialism in the Pacific, both by activist participants in Europe and New Zealand, have recently been published. Overall, they are excellent exposes of the harsh repression of the Melanesian people of West Papua and a world that has largely closed a blind eye to to human rights violations.
When Reporters Without Borders chief Christophe Deloire introduced the Paris-based global media watchdog’s Asia-Pacific press freedom defenders – including from Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea – to his overview last week, it was grim listening.
Pacific environmental and political journalist David Robie has recalled the bombing of the original Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior 33 years ago in an interview with host Sarah Macdonald on the ABC’s Nightlife “This Week in History” programme.
Former Brigadier-General Jerry Singirok, a former commander of the PNG Defence Force has described Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s government response to last week’s Mendi riots as a “premature state of emergency” and a “cheap, reckless and knee-jerk option”.
It was the also the most horrendous day for global media too since the Ampatuan massacre on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao on 23 November 2009. A shocking 32 journalists were murdered that day … To date nobody has been successfully brought to justice.
The original version of this photo, of West Papuan nambas (traditional penis gourds), which was published in the weekend edition of the family newspaper Vanuatu Daily Post and then by Asia Pacific Report, was deemed to have breached Facebook’s “community standards”. The photo was by award-winning photojournalist Ben Bohane, who lives in Vanuatu and whose work was published recently in the PMC book Conflict, Culture and Conscience.
Hele Ikimotu and Blessen Tom bear a close connection to the impact climate change is wreaking on the Pacific region and wider world for their new Bearing Witness challenge. Ikimotu is from Kiribati and his passion for the Bearing Witness project is drawn from his close connection to the Pacific.
“After the shooting was over, the soldiers went and were eating their lunch, really literally next to the ditch, next to the bodies. And that’s how disconnected you get,” Seymour Hersh, the investigative reporter who uncovered the story, said on Democracy Now.