On my office wall hangs a framed portrait of Shireen Abu Akleh, the inspiring and celebrated American-Palestinian journalist known across the Middle East to watchers of Al Jazeera Arabic, who was assassinated by an Israeli military sniper with impunity.
Prime Minister James Marape has made two foreign policy gaffes in the space of a week that may come back to bite him as Papua New Guinea prepares for its 48th anniversary of independence this Saturday.
The Melanesian Spearhead Group has thrown away a golden chance for achieving a historical step towards justice and peace in West Papua by lacking the courage to accept the main Papuan self-determination advocacy movement as full members.
New Caledonia’s Kanak national liberation movement has told the UN Decolonisation Committee that France has “robbed” the indigenous people of their independence and has appealed for help.
Two countries. A common border. Two hostage crises. But the responses of both Asia-Pacific nations have been like chalk and cheese.
Papuan independence rebels are playing a desperate game of cat and mouse with Indonesian authorities over their hostage taking last week with a New Zealand pilot caught in the middle.
David Robie also blogs at Café Pacific: A veteran journalist known for covering rights abuses in Indonesia’s militarised Papua region says a bomb exploded outside his home yesterday and a journalists group has called it an act of “intimidation” threatening press freedom.
A tragic day of mourning. Thousands thronged the West Papuan funeral cortège for human rights leader Filep Karma as the banned Morning Star led the way in defiance of the Indonesian military.
Where were the hard media questions in Suva — whether “western or Pacific-style” — about West Papua and Indonesian human rights abuses against a Melanesian neighbour? Surely here was a prime case in favour of doorstopping with a fresh outbreak of violations by Indonesian security forces – an estimated 21,000 troops are now deployed in Papua and West Papua provinces — in the news coinciding with the Forum unfolding last week.
A Frontline investigative journalism article on the politics behind the decade-long Bougainville war leading up to the overwhelming vote for independence is among articles in the latest Pacific Journalism Review. The journal also features ground-breaking research on the current state of journalism across the Pacific