'Opportunistic, reactionary alliance' - an open letter on Fiji

A one-time outspoken Fiji trade unionist, academic, author and commentator, Scott MacWilliam, who believes in free speech declares in an open letter to the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) president Ged Kearney why he won't be supporting the "Destination Fiji" campaign.

Dear Ged,

UNFORTUNATELY, on this occasion the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has the situation in Fiji wrong. As offensive as all democrats find a military regime, the party and trade union opposition to the Bainimarama government in Fiji does not have clean hands either.

The trade union officials who are, quite rightly, opposed to many of the restrictions imposed by the regime have been mostly supporters of a political party, the Fiji Labour Party, which is undemocratic, unrepresentative - except of a few cane farmers and long-term party hacks - and definitely not a desirable alternative to the present government. Indeed, the FLP is in the process of forming an electoral alliance with the most reactionary ethnic Fijian/itaukei party which includes all "the born to rule", anti-Indo-Fijian chiefs.  The alliance is purely opportunistic and represents a return to the past which produced the military regime in the first place.

Coups, conflicts and human rights - Pacific media challenges in the digital age

AT THE heart of a global crisis over news media credibility and trust has been Britain's so-called Hackgate scandal involving allegations of phone-hacking and corruption against the now defunct Rupert Murdoch tabloid newspaper News of the World.

Major inquiries on media ethics, professionalism and accountability have been examining the press in Australia, Britain and NZ over the past two years.

The Murdoch media empire has stretched into the South Pacific with the sale of one major title being forced by political pressure.

The role of news media in global South nations and the declining credibility of some sectors of the developed world's Fourth Estate also pose challenges for the future of democracy.

Truth, censorship, ethics and corporate integrity are increasingly critical issues in the digital age for a region faced with coups, conflicts and human rights violations, such as in West Papua.

Media academic warns over digital surveillance, calls for new robust ethical model

Audio report by AUT student journalist Michael Sergel for the Pacific Media Centre.

By Anna Majavu

A LEADING journalism academic has voiced concern at the high levels of digital surveillance facing journalists today and has urged journalists to adopt a new ethical model of reporting for social good.

Dr Mark Pearson, professor of journalism and social media at Griffith University and the Australian correspondent for Reporters Without Borders, spoke at New Zealand's inaugural UNESCO World Press Freedom Day 2013 lecture marking May 3, organised and hosted by AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and School of Communication Studies.

The lack of press freedom in the Asia-Pacific region was well documented with media in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Fiji needing government licences to operate, and journalists in Malaysia facing 53-year-old “internal security” laws under which they could be detained for long periods for “prejudicing national security”, Dr Pearson said.

But Professor Pearson said his concerns were not limited to these cases, and that his major worry was the “ever-increasing government regulation of media and social media everywhere”, including the anti-terror laws introduced all over the world since 9/11, modelled on the US Patriot Act.

These laws “typically give intelligence agencies unprecedented powers to monitor the communications of all citizens. There is also an inordinate level of surveillance, logging and tracking technologies in use in the private sector – often held in computer clouds or multinational corporate servers in jurisdictions subject to search and seizure powers of foreign governments”, said Dr Pearson.

Media freedom and social media - Pacific trends on Press Freedom Day

A LEADING Australian journalism law professor and freedom of the press advocate will give New Zealand’s inaugural UNESCO World Press Freedom Day lecture at AUT University today.

Dr Mark Pearson, professor of journalism and social media at Griffith University near Brisbane, will be speaking on the theme “Press freedom, social media and the citizen”, at the university on May 3, observed globally as media freedom day.

The public address is being hosted by AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and supported by the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO and the School of Communication Studies.

UNESCO, the UN agency with a mandate for freedom of expression through its Communications and Information Programme, takes a lead role in promoting this freedom as a human right through its celebration each year of World Press Freedom Day.

This year’s international theme is: “Safe to speak: Securing freedom of expression in all media”.

Media ignores major 'young leaders' Pacific politics forum

New Zealand Labour MPs Louisa Wall and Kris Fa'afoi, a former journalist, speaking about the Marriage Amendment Bill and Pacific culture in Parliament. The bill, designed to amend the 1955 Marriage Act to enable gay couples to marry, decisively passed its third reading. The MPs also spoke at this week's Pacific Parliament and Politics Forum in Wellington. Video: Tagata Pasifika/NZ Parliament

Thanks to Pacific Media Watch:

By Michael Sergel and Finian Scott, two AUT University student journalists on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course reporting for the Pacific Media Centre and Pacific Scoop

GOVERNMENT and opposition MPs and NGO representatives from 18 countries made a significant commitment to gender equality and sustainable development last weekend, but the forum received limited coverage from New Zealand and international media.

Barred West Papuan leader Benny Wenda with
PMC journalist Henry Yamo.
Image: Del Abcede/PMC

More than 70 delegates from across the Pacific were in Wellington for the Pacific Parliamentary and Political Leaders Forum, including New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister Bill English and other National, Labour, Green and independent MPs.

Delegates agreed on the need for greater action around gender equality, climate change and healthcare - but overwhelmingly rejected a push from the World Bank to free up trade conditions and deregulate economies.

NZAid invested $330,000 in the forum - the first of its kind in New Zealand history - but media coverage was scarce.

'Safety first for journos', says PINA boss in heated exchange over Fiji media

Michael Sergel's live blog from the Pacific politics forum ... insightful news reports
from him and fellow AUT student journalist Finian Scott have featured on Pacific Scoop.

Discussions on media freedom at the just-ended Pacific Parliamentary and Political Leaders Forum in Wellington have highlighted deep divisions in Fiji media, reports Radio NZ International. Pacific Scoop and Pacific Media Centre Online have comprehensively reported the forum with a team of student journalists who have been running a live blog (see below).

By Johnny Blades of Radio NZ International

FIJI'S GOVERNMENT insists it supports media freedom but has cautioned that it won’t tolerate what it calls misreporting or media coverage which fuels racial division.

But in its 2013 global report, Reporters without Borders says that Fiji journalists still operate under a media decree which imposes the threat of heavy fines or imprisonment as in the case of a recently convicted editor of the Fiji Times.

However Tura Lewai of the Young People’s Concerned Network told delegates at the Wellington forum that media in Fiji is gagged by the point of a gun.

'Secrecy for sale' offshore bank leaks draw global responses

By Emily Menkes, Michael Hudson and Kimberley Porteous of the ICIJ

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) investigative series on offshore secrecy – which draws from a cache of 2.5 million leaked secret records – has ignited reactions around the globe, including the Pacific.

Since the initial release of stories by the ICIJ and its media partners across the world, public officials have issued statements, governments have launched investigations, and politicians and journalists have been debating the implications of the records and the reporting.

Among reactions and responses:

• Bayartsogt Sangajav: resigned his post after offshore account revelation: Bayartsogt Sangajav, deputy speaker of the Mongolian Parliament, has reportedly resigned from his post following ICIJ's revelations about his undeclared offshore company and bank account. In a parliamentary session he was asked to explain his actions. Several MPs called for further disciplinary action, including expelling him from Parliament entirely.
• Santosh Kumar Agarwal (Kedia), a member of the board of directors for the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, has resigned from the organisation after his offshore dealings were revealed: “In the interest of the integrity of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre as [an] organisation and the industry as a whole, Kedia has taken the initiative to withdraw from the AWDC's board of directors, awaiting the outcome of a potential investigation,” said a statement released by the company.

Enterprising student journalists scoop the Pacific politics forum

Tiaré le Goff of New Caledonia speaking to a motion on climate change
in the Pacific Forum today. Image: Kennedy Graham/PMC #Pacleaders

ONCE again a major Pacific event on New Zealand shores has received scant media attention. Gender equality, climate change and freedom of expression and media issues all scored points on the first full day of the Pacific Parliamentary and Political Leaders Forum in Wellington this week.

Samoan Justice Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa says achieving gender equality is essential to the achievement of successful social, economic, and political development in countries. Yet there was just a sprinkling of Pacific women from the region actually among the 70 delegates to hear her message.

Ironically, it took a live blog from two AUT University student journalists to provide the only real coverage. Six of the only seven stories to register online in a Google news search 24 hours after the start of the forum were filed by them, or via their blog piggybacked on Pacific Scoop and Pacific Media Centre Online.

Awesome Michael Sergel and Finian Scott! They organising their reporting stint this week, assigning themselves to Wellington from their Auckland campus with none of the resources sported by bigger media organisations, not much more than their mobile phones.

#pacleaders

Rebuilding the foundations of independent public interest journalism

Scoop editor and general manager Alastair Thompson (left)
and Pacific Media Centre’s director Professor David Robie
at the Scoop Foundation launch. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

An address by Scoop editor and general manager Alastair Thompson for the launch of the Scoop Foundation project and Pacific Scoop Internship at AUT's Pacific Media Centre.

By Alastair Thompson

In a push to offer new support and momentum for public interest journalism, New Zealand's leading independent news provider, Scoop Media, is lending its weight to two initiatives being announced for the first time.

The first initiative, the Scoop Foundation Project, brings Scoop.co.nz together with a group of New Zealand’s leading practitioners of public interest journalism to create a charitable trust to fund investigative journalistic work.

This coincides with the launch by Scoop of a $5000 Pacific Scoop internship being awarded in conjunction with AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre (PMC). The first recipient, Danish radio journalist Daniel Drageset, was named at the School of Communication Studies Awards event held at the newly opened Sir Paul Reeves Building at AUT last week.

The name for Scoop's "Scoop Foundation Project" plays on the associated ideas of "foundation" and "construction". It is clear that we now need to build a new journalism.

The one that we have has been struggling for some time, and a key component of it - print - is now on life support.

And to build a new journalism we need to start by (re)constructing some foundations. And that is what the Scoop Foundation project will do.

The first important thing to understand about the Scoop Foundation Project is that it is a completely separate entity from Scoop Media Limited, publisher of the Scoop.co.nz.

‘Free-riding defence’ Kiwis slammed by rightist Danish MP over cultural heritage

A graphic from the Danish tabloid BT featuring Marie Krarup. The headline reads:
"'Doubts cast on Māori-Marie's penis story", referring to the MP's
comments about carvings in a visit to the Navy's marae. Source: PMW

THE RIGHTWING Danish MP who stirred an upheaval Down Under with her attack on taha Māori – traditional rituals and protocols that are basic to everyday life in Aotearoa/New Zealand – barely seems to have any understanding of the country she visited last month.

But underneath all the defensive bleatings from the PC brigade this week in response to Marie Krarup’s misguided criticisms of a “grotesque” powhiri with “half-naked” men poking out their tongues published in the tabloid BT, her arguably more damaging condemnation of New Zealand’s "humanitarian" military seems to have largely gone unnoticed by mainstream media.

Only Pacific Media Watch’s Daniel Drageset, a Norwegian radio journalist who is a postgraduate student at AUT University and who has a fluent command of Danish, seems to have got the point. He took the trouble to translate Krarup’s original commentary on her blog and his story Danish MP apologises after calling Maori powhiri ‘grotesque’, mocking ‘free-ride’ defence was run in full on Pacific Media Centre Online and Pacific Scoop.

Clearly Krarup had no idea that she was being given a great honour with a cultural welcome that has a history going back centuries. And several "embarrassed" Danes have written to PMC and Pacific Scoop criticising Krarup over her views.

Although Krarup might seem a minor political player, being the defence spokesperson for the third-ranked party Danish People’s Party ( a mere 12.3 percent of the votes in the 2011 election), which has extremist views against migrants (especially Muslim), she was in fact a member of the six-strong Danish Committee on Defence visiting parliamentary group.

Dutch journalist releases second Bali undercover extortion video in scam exposé

One of the  Bali police bribery segments in the 'Fraudsters Abroad' programme.


By Made Arya Kencana in Denpasar

INDONESIAN authorities have been dealt another embarrassing blow when a second video shot by Dutch stunt journalist Kees Van der Spek hit YouTube this week.

Van der Spek, a journalist for the Dutch TV station SBS6, secretly recorded a customs officer at Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport demanding a $200 bribe. The video was posted days after another undercover shoot showing extortion by Bali police made headlines in Indonesia.

Both segments are part of a new Dutch show titled Oplichters in het Buitenland ("Fraudsters Abroad"). In the 42-minute show, Van der Spek and his crew travel the world, breaking the law to expose scams and extortion attempts by local authorities.

In the latest video, the undercover journalist's team is held up by customs officials at Ngurah Rai Airport. The crew was attempting to arrive in Indonesia without necessary filming permits from the Indonesian Embassy.

John Miller, an icon and a treasure for Aotearoa, Pacific political protest

Pacific Media Watch's Daniel Drageset and Karen MacKenzie interview
photographer John Miller at the AUT seminar. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

JOHN MILLER is an extraordinary icon in New Zealand activist and social justice circles. Not only has he as a photographer captured in striking images many of the most critical social movements in Aotearoa, from the Nga Tamatoa struggles from 1971 and the hikoi to the 1981 anti-apartheid Springbok tour protests that polarised the nation to the 1980-90s Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement, he is also something of a walking encylopaedia who can tell an intriguing story about almost every individual in his pictures. He has a prodigious memory.

Whina Cooper, Eva Rickard and Titiwhai Harawira at Waitangi, February, 1985. Photo: © John Miller:

Café Pacific was fortunate to be at his recent seminar at AUT University about the NFIP through a reflection around his images. Inspiring stuff.

PACMAS media report dodges the aid elephant in the room

Members of an executive meeting of the Media Association of the
Solomon Islands (MASI) discuss issues. Photo: PACMAS

A RECENT PACMAS report is a constructive diagnosis for the ailing state of the region’s media associations, and a prescription for how things can get better. But it manages to dodge the elephant in the room – accountability.

For months, social media outlets and journalists have been asking about the fate of the Media Council of PNG, once one of the strongest in the region and an example to the rest. But it has been dogged in recent years because of allegations of fraud.

AusAID funding and the executive director, Nimo Kama, was suspended pending an inquiry. But the outcome of this has been kept very quiet. AusAID reportedly funded the PNG Media Council to the tune of $500,000 in 2010.

In a Radio Australia Correspondents' Report (the last time a sensible item was published or broadcast about the issue apart from this Pacific Scoop update), Liam Fox said in an interview with Emily Bourke:

[A] recent audit found some of the money "had not been managed in accordance with procurement guidelines" and there was "anecdotal evidence of fraud".

Digital media building a milestone for NZ’s AUT University

The $98 million Sir Paul Reeves building at AUT University ... a digital
media boost for the journalism school. Photo: Del Abcede/PMC

By Nicholas Jones

ONE OF New Zealand's major universities has opened a new digital media age building which has transformed its campus and significantly altered Auckland city's learning quarter.

Auckland University of Technology's new $98 million precinct, the Sir Paul Reeves building, was officially opened by Prime Minister John Key on Friday.

Vice-chancellor Derek McCormack, speaking as he gave the New Zealand Herald a tour of the new building, which was named after a former AUT Chancellor, the late Sir Paul Reeves, said it was a huge moment in the development of the campus.

"AUT has been the fastest growing university in the country. There have been big challenges. And we are only on the way, this is a milestone in a long process."

The $98 million building is the latest in a line of major building projects since AUT gained university status in 2000. Many of those projects, such as the business building, completed in 2005, had suffered from being slightly isolated.

'Melanesia isn't free until West Papua is free'

In the face of state repression and international indifference by Indonesian authorities, West Papuan
activists have been locked in a life or death struggle for independence.

Al Jazeera's People & Power reports on one of the most forgotten conflicts in the world.

Airi Ingram and Jason MacLeod trace the upsurge in regional Pacific support for the free West Papua movement. They conclude that even if politicians have traditionally been slow to respond, "ordinary people in this part of the Pacific are painfully aware that the West Papuan people continue to live under the gun". And the good news is that even politicians are now starting to wake up and support the cause, especially in neighbouring Papua New Guinea.

MELANESIAN support for a free West Papua has always been high. Travel throughout Papua New Guinea and you will often hear people say that West Papua and Papua New Guinea is "wanpela graun" – one land – and that West Papuans on the other side of the border are family and kin.

In the Solomon Islands, Kanaky, Fiji and especially Vanuatu, people will tell you that “Melanesia is not free until West Papua is free”. This was the promise that the late Father Walter Lini, Vanuatu’s first prime minister, made.

Ordinary people in this part of the Pacific are painfully aware that the West Papuan people continue to live under the gun. It is the politicians in Melanesia who have been slow to take up the cause.

But that may be changing.

Papuans Behind Bars - a new support initiative for political prisoners

Buchtar Tabuni (right in the sunglasses) with KNPB's Victor Yeimo.
Photo: Andrew Suripatty/Tempo Politik/Antara

PAPUANS BEHIND BARS is a new project about political prisoners in West Papua. The group aims  to provide accurate and transparent data, published in English and Indonesian, to facilitate direct support for prisoners and promote wider debate and campaigning in support of free expression in West Papua.

Papuans Behind Bars is a collective project initiated by Papuan civil society groups working together as the Civil Society Coalition to Uphold Law and Human Rights in Papua.

It is a grassroots initiative and represents a broad collaboration between lawyers, human rights groups, adat groups, activists, journalists and individuals in West Papua, Jakarta-based NGOs and international solidarity groups.

The project holds records of over 200 current and former political prisoners and the website - www.papuansbehindbars.org - will go live sometime later this month.

The group pledges to publish monthly Updates, providing alerts on political arrests and a round-up of latest developments affecting Papuan political prisoners. The recent Update is the first in the series.

Fiji prisoner beating: 'They treated my son like an animal'

A tearful Viriseini Sanawa tells of the trauma she endured while watching the online video.
Picture: Jone Luvenitoga/Fiji Times

By Nanise Loanakadavu of The Fiji Times

"ISA na luvequ! Oilei turaga! Sa mosi dina na yaloqu, na cava beka e leqa (Oh my son! Oh Lord! My heart is in pain, what is the problem)."

These were words of 42-year-old Viriseini Sanawa, the mother of one of the two handcuffed men being brutalised by a group of men - identified as security forces - in an online video that went viral on Monday night. It is now being investigated by Fiji police.

It was after midday on Wednesday when Sanawa's neighbour called her to watch what they believed was her son being brutalised by the group in the tray of a truck. She said the family did not mention anything about the video until she watched it and confirmed it was her son, Iowane Benedito.

"Isa, koya saraga qo na luvequ. Isa, Iowane na luvequ (That's my son ... Iowane, my son).

'Neo-liberalism a lie a thousand times over' - tribute to Chávez

"WE ARE all Chávez" ... those were the chants from his supporters following the death of Venezuela's president. Losing his two-year battle with cancer, Hugo Chávez died on Tuesday at the age of 58 and Venezuela has declared seven days of mourning.

Always a controversial figure, reports Al Jazeera, Chávez rose from the ranks of the military to become the leader of one of Latin America's largest economies. And he divided opinion throughout his presidency.

But loved or loathed, Chávez always made an impression. One of the most colourful figures on the world stage, he styled himself as a leader of global anti-imperialism which was reflected in his international allies.

In 2002, Venezuela was supposed to be the first post-911 CIA coup. It worked - until it didn't.

A documentary film crew from Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ "accidentally" captured the whole story - a story that the US news media conveniently forgets as it reflects on Chávez.

Viral 'horror' torture video prompts Fiji Times editorial

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has called for an independent and transparent investigation into the Fiji assault of two prisoners by apparent plainclothes security forces as a public outcry climbed over brutal torture scenes portrayed in a leaked video.

The global human rights organisation said torture was unacceptable under any circumstances and those responsible for the shocking scenes on the video should be brought to justice.

Police spokesman Inspector Atunaisa Sokomuri said in a press conference in Suva yesterday that the force was disturbed to see the video of what appeared to be the abuse of two men understood to be recaptured prisoners. But added that they were not the fugitives who escaped from Naboro Prison last year.

BRUTAL SCENARIO

Fiji Times EDITORIAL by Fred Wesley
Wednesday, March 6, 2013

AS police investigate the circumstances surrounding a video that shows a group of men brutally assaulting two handcuffed men, a lot of questions will emerge.

From Philippines guerrilla ‘posting’ to hospital life, Vanessa’s journey of courage

Former New People's Army guerrilla Vanessa Delos Reyes talks to the author,
Cameron Walker, in hospital. Image: Cameron Walker/PMC

AT FIRST it was difficult to adapt to life as a guerrilla. Living in the mountains brings its own set of challenges. New recruits must get used to building temporary shelter, known as "postings". Now Vanessa Delos Reyes is grappling with life in support of detainees after a crippling spinal wound.

By Cameron Walker

At the Southern Medical Centre of the Philippines in Davao City, I visited Vanessa Delos Reyes, a 27-year-old former guerrilla of the New People’s Army (NPA).

Vanessa is undergoing physical therapy to restore movement to her lower body after suffering a bullet wound to the spine while carrying an injured colleague to safety during an attack by the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Scout Rangers in 2011.

She had been a member of the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, since 2006.

Before arriving at the hospital, I had been told to expect to be searched by armed guards.  Instead, I was greeted with warm smiles and handshakes by Vanessa’s parents and a Catholic nun who is in charge of the hospital ward.