Nuclear-free and independent Pacific advocates are treating Aucklanders to a lively week-long exhibition dedicated to the struggle for nuclear justice in the region.

It will be opened today by the opposition Labour Party’s spokesperson on disarmament and MP for Te Atatu, Phil Twyford, and will include a range of speakers on Aotearoa New Zealand’s record as a champion of a nuclear-free Pacific and an independent foreign policy.

Speaking at a conference last month, Twyford said the country could act as a force for peace and demilitarisation, working with partners across the Pacific and Asia and basing its defence capabilities on a realistic assessment of threats.

• READ MORE: ‘Storm clouds are gathering’: 40 years on from the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior

The biggest threat to the security of New Zealanders was not China’s rise as a great power but the possibility of war in Asia, Twyford said.

Although there have been previous displays about the New Zealand nuclear-free narrative, this one has a strong focus on the Pacific.

it is called the “Legends of the Pacific: Stories of a Nuclear-free Moana 1975-1995” and will run from tomorrow, July 13 until Friday, July 18.

Veteran nuclear-free Pacific spokespeople who are expected to speak at the conference include Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua; Bharat Jamnadas, an organiser of the original Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) conference in Suva, Fiji, in 1975; businessman and community advocate Nikhil Naidu, previously an activist for the Fiji Anti-Nuclear Group (FANG) and Dr Heather Devere, peace researcher and chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN).

A group of Cook Islands young dancers will also take part.

Knowledge to children
One of the organisers, Nik Naidu, told Asia Pacific Report, it was vital to restore the enthusiasm and passion around the NFIP movement as in the 1980s.

“It’s so important to pass on our knowledge to our children and future generations,” he said.

“And to tell the stories of our ongoing journey and yearning for true independence in a world free of wars and weapons of mass destruction. This is what a Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific is.”

The exhibition is is coordinated by the APMN in partnership with the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, with curator Tharron Bloomfield and coordinator Antony Phillips; Ellen Melville Centre; and the Whānau Communty Centre and Hub.

It is also supported by Pax Christi, Quaker Peace and Service Fund, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

It recalls New Zealand’s peace squadrons, a display of activist tee-shirt “flags”, nuclear-free buttons and badges, posters, and other memorabilia. A video storytelling series about NFIP “legends” is also included.

Timely exhibition
Author Dr David Robie, deputy chair of the APMN, who wrote the book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior just published on Thursday, and dedicated to the NFIP movement, said the the exhibition was timely.

“It is a sort of back to the future situation where the world is waking up again to a nuclear spectre not really seen since the Cold War years,” he said.

“With the horrendous Israeli genocide on Gaza — it is obscene to call it a war, when it is continuous massacres of civilians; the attacks by two nuclear nations on a nuclear weapons-free country, as is the case with Iran; and threats against another nuclear state, China, are all extremely concerning developments.”

• “Legends of the Pacific: Stories of a Nuclear-free Moana 1975-1995”, daily, 10am-4pm, Ellen Melville Centre’s Paddy Walker Room, Freyberg Place, July 13-18.

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

The London museum’s Silk Roads exhibition opened in late September and ran until last Sunday.

The labels were reviewed in January and updated from “Tibet or Xizang Autonomous Region, China” to “Tibet Autonomous Region, China,” a British Museum spokesperson said in an email to Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. The email did not state when the labels were changed.

Tibetan activists who visited the museum in February confirmed that the wording had indeed been changed.

The term “Xizang” was first used in official Chinese government diplomatic documents in 2023 after Chinese government-backed scholars said would help promote China’s legitimate occupation and rule of Tibet.

Use of the term has generated an uproar among Tibetans living outside the country, who see it as another example of Beijing’s attempts to assimilate Tibetans into Chinese culture and erase Tibetan identity.

Activists reject museum’s initial response

Tibetan groups wrote to the British Museum first on Nov. 25 and again on Dec. 18 citing their concerns over the use of “Xizang.”

One of the objects cited by the Tibetan groups –- which are led by the Global Alliance for Tibet and Persecuted Minorities and the Tibetan Community in Britain –- was a silver vase that was gifted by the 7th-century Tibetan Empire to neighboring Tang China.

(Hollie Adams/Reuters)

The museum’s response in December defended its use of the term Xizang, saying that the labels reflected “the contemporary region.”

Tibetan activists rejected that explanation, saying it ignored the political implications of promoting terminology perpetuated by the Chinese Communist Party.

The Silk Roads exhibition explored the history of the ancient trade route during the key period from 500 to 1000. It featured over 300 objects from the museum’s own collection and those loaned from at least 29 other institutions.

The British Museum will consult with experts on Tibetan history and culture in any future Tibet-related exhibitions, the museum spokesperson said in the email to RFA.

“It has not, nor was it the intention, to replace ‘Tibet’ with the Chinese term ‘Xizang,’” the spokesperson said.

Last year, the French museum Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac also faced criticism for using the term “Xizang” in its exhibit. In October, following weeks of protests and petitions from Tibetans, the museum announced that it would reverse the change in its labeling.

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The museum’s change was “a step forward,” but still short of expectations, said Tsering Passang, founder and chairman of the Global Alliance for Tibet and Persecuted Minorities.

“Beijing’s promoted term ‘Xizang’ should never have been there in the first place,” he told RFA. “We will continue to investigate this further.”

He added that Tibetans in the U.K. have reported a trend in which so-called “Tibetan cultural performances” at universities have been labeled as “South West China.”

Tibetan organizations are preparing to submit a formal complaint about the British Museum exhibit to the Information Commissioner’s Office, an independent governmental body in the U.K., Passang said.

The complaint aims to investigate who could be promoting the use of alternate terms for Tibet and whether they have connections to the Chinese government, he said.

Translated by Khando Yangzom. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

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

In the skies, unmanned drones hovered like black, stationary ravens of menace.  But these were not deemed sufficient by Victoria Police.  Helicopters kept them company.  Surveillance cameras also stood prominently to the north end of the bridge.

Before this assortment of marshalled force was an eclectic gathering of individuals from keffiyeh-swaddled pro-Palestinian activists to drummers kitted out in the Palestinian colours, and any number of theatrical types dressed in the shades and costumery of death.  At one point, a chilling Joker figure made an appearance, his outfit and suitcase covered in mock blood.  The share stock of chants was readily deployed: “No justice, no peace, no racist police”; “We, the people, will not be silenced.  Stop the bombing now, now, now”.  Innumerable placards condemning the arms industry and Israel’s war on Gaza also make their appearance.

The purpose of this vast, costly exercise proved elementary and brutal: to defend Land Forces 2024, one of the largest arms fairs in the southern hemisphere, from Disrupt Land Forces, a collective demonised by the Victorian state government as the great unwashed, polluted rebel rousers and anarchists.  Much had been made of the potential size of the gathering, with uncritical journalists consuming gobbets of information from police sources keen to justify an operation deemed the largest since the 2000 World Economic Forum. Police officers from regional centres in the state had been called up, and while Chief Commissioner Shane Patton proved tight-lipped on the exact number, an estimate exceeding 1,000 was not refuted.  The total cost of the effort: somewhere between A$10 to A$15 million.

It all began as a healthy gathering at the dawn of day, with protestors moving to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre to picket entry points for those attending Land Forces.

Over time, there was movement between the various entrances to prevent these modern merchants of death from spruiking their merchandise and touting for offers.  As Green Left Online noted, “The Victorian Police barricaded the entrance of the Melbourne Convention Centre so protestors marched to the back entrance to disrupt Land Forces whilst attendees are going through security checks.”

In keeping with a variant of Anton Chekhov’s principle, if a loaded gun is placed upon the stage, it is bound to be used.  Otherwise, leave it out of the script.  A large police presence would hardly be worthwhile without a few cracked skulls, flesh wounds or arrests.  Scuffles accordingly broke out with banal predictability.  The mounted personnel were also brought out to add a snap of hostility and intimidation to the protestors as they sought to hamper access to the Convention.  For all of this, it was the police who left complaining, worried about their safety.

Then came the broader push from the officers to create a zone of exclusion around the building, resulting in the closure of Clarendon Street to the south, up to Batman Park. Efforts were made to push the protests from the convention centre across the bridge towards the park.  This was in keeping with the promise by the Chief Commissioner that the MCEC site and its surrounds would be deemed a designated area over the duration of the arms fair from September 11 to 13.

Such designated areas, enabled by the passage of a 2009 law, vests the police with powers to stop and search a person within the zone without a warrant.  Anything perceived to be a weapon can be seized, with officers having powers to request that civilians reveal their identity.

Despite such exercisable powers, the relevant legislation imposes a time limit of 12 hours for such areas, something most conspicuously breached by the Commissioner.  But as Melbourne Activist Legal Support (MALS) group remarks, the broader criteria outlined in the legislative regime are often not met and constitute a “method of protest control” that impairs “the rights to assembly, association, and political expression” protected by the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

The Victorian government had little time for the language of protest.  In a stunningly grotesque twist, the Victorian Premier, Jacinta Allan, defended those at the Land Forces conference as legitimate representatives of business engaging in a peaceful enterprise.  “Any industry deserves the right to have these sorts of events in a peaceful and respectful way.”  If the manufacture, sale and distribution of weapons constitutes a “peaceful and respectful” pursuit, we have disappeared down the rabbit hole with Alice at great speed.

That theme continued with efforts by both Allan and the opposition leader, John Pesutto, to tarnish the efforts by fellow politicians to attend the protest.  Both fumed indignantly at the efforts of Greens MP Gabrielle de Vietri to participate, with the premier calling the measure one designed for “divisive political purposes.”  The Green MP had a pertinent response: “The community has spoken loud and clear, they don’t want weapons and war profiting to come to our doorstep, and the Victorian Labor government is sponsoring this.”

The absurd, morally inverted spectacle was duly affirmed: a taxpayer funded arms exposition, defended by the taxpayer funded police, used to repel the tax paying protestors keen to promote peace in the face of an industry that thrives on death, mutilation and misery.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) in which about 800,000 Indigenous Palestinians (57% of the Indigenous Palestinian population) were expelled from their homes and villages by Zionist colonizers.

From 16 September to 27 October 2023 there is a very moving Nakba 75th Anniversary Exhibition at St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in central Melbourne (diagonally opposite to Flinders Street Railway Station).

Key numbers about the 1948 Nakba: Palestinians expelled (about 800,000 or 57% of the 1,400,000 total Palestinian  population), massacres (over 70), people killed (15,000), villages emptied (over 530), and mosques eventually destroyed (120). A further mass expulsion of 400,000 Arabs occurred in the 1967 Naksa (Setback) in which the colonizers seized all of Palestine plus parts of Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Today’s 14.5 million Indigenous Palestinians: Exiled Palestinians (7 million, a big part of world refugees); Occupied Palestinians (5.5 million and deprived of basic human rights under military occupation including the right to vote for the government ruling them (i.e. subject to egregious Apartheid); 3.3 million in ever-dwindling  West Bank ghettoes and 2.2 million in the blockaded and bombed Gaza Concentration Camp); and Israeli Palestinians (about 2 million; able to vote but subject to 60 race-based, discriminatory laws). Indigenous Palestinian Subjects of Israel total 7.5 million, 51% of total Israeli Subjects (Jewish Israelis 47%).

Today GDP per capita is a deadly $3,500 (Occupied Palestinians) versus $55,500 (Occupier Israelis). Each year  Israel violently kills about 500 Occupied Palestinians (active killing) and kills a further 4,000 Occupied Palestinians through imposed deprivation (passive killing). In the Occupied Palestinian Territories Israel is the world leader for “journalists killed per million of population” and is among world leaders for “children killed per million of population” (for a very detailed, documented  and alphabetically-ordered compendium of information see 75th Nakba Anniversary.)

Palestine has been known as such (with linguistic variants) for 3 millennia. Palestinians have continually inhabited that land for millennia. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (Al Quds) is the third holiest Muslim shrine, is the first major mosque, and was the progenitor of 1,400 years of brilliant Islamic architecture. However Zionist colonizers actively deny and  seek to erase the very terms “Palestine” and “Palestinian”. So far about 90% of Palestine has been ethnically cleansed by Apartheid Israel.

World anti-Apartheid hero and Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela:

The UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system. But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

I am a genocide-impacted, anti-racist Ashkenazi Jewish Australian scientist and humanitarian from a famous Jewish Hungarian family and with a sole allegiance to Australia. The key messages from the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (and indeed from all genocides and holocausts) are “zero tolerance for lying,” “zero tolerance for racism,” “bear witness,” and “never again to anybody” (including the sorely oppressed Indigenous Palestinians and Indigenous Australians). Please inform everyone you can.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Gideon Polya.

More than three dozen progressive advocacy groups implored East African leaders this week to stop funding fossil fuel projects and instead ramp up investment in renewable energy production and other green economic initiatives.

"The promotion and/or further development of oil, gas, and coal should have no space in African countries," says a new open letter from 41 East African civil society organizations to the region's heads of state. "We need to shift to clean energy projects that are people-centered and would benefit local communities first and foremost. We need to promote approaches that strengthen energy access and land rights for all Africans, while ensuring the protection of nature and our common goods."

The letter came amid the 10th East African Petroleum Conference and Exhibition (EAPCE). The theme of the three-day summit, held from Tuesday through Thursday in Kampala, Uganda, was "East Africa as a hub for investment in exploration and exploitation of petroleum resources for sustainable energy and socioeconomic development."

"Instead of seemingly doubling down on fossil fuels, we urge East African leaders to prioritize the adoption of safe and sustainable renewable energy."

In their letter, published on Wednesday, local climate justice campaigners wrote that "while we appreciate your efforts to promote energy access and socioeconomic development for East Africans, we are worried that your focus on exploiting the region's petroleum resources stands to undermine your goals."

Signatories drew attention to the connections between fossil fuel extraction, on the one hand, and ecological disasters, violent conflicts, and increased impoverishment and unemployment in affected territories, on the other.

"It has been variously demonstrated that oil and gas exploitation is more harmful than useful to local communities," the letter states. "Oil exploitation harms nations' ecological balance through causing forest loss, biodiversity destruction, as well as air, water, and soil pollution. This destruction hurts livelihoods, increases poverty, worsens climate disasters, and increases public as well as household expenditure on health, disaster management, and others."

"This does not translate into socioeconomic development, especially for the oil and gas host communities," wrote the signatories. They also expressed concerns about "the conflicts that arise due to natural resources exploitation by multinationals in Africa."

Furthermore, "the exploitation of oil and gas has economic impacts as it causes land loss with insufficient compensation being given to local communities and Indigenous peoples," the letter continues. "It also accelerates land grabs and negatively impacts economic sectors such as farming, fishing, tourism, and others through the pollution of soils and waters, stopping fisherfolks' access to fishing areas, degradation of national parks, and others. In addition, international oil companies take advantage of the naivety of local communities and rarely respect their commitments to ensure prosperity."

"While oil companies often make big promises about creating jobs for locals, available evidence indicates that the oil, gas, and mining sectors only employ about 1% of Africa's labor force," notes the letter. "Meanwhile, the continued investment in oil and gas stands to result in job losses in the agriculture, fishing, clean energy, tourism, and other sectors."

"Oil and gas exploitation, and the climate change it is fueling, is a threat to 60-70% of Africa's workforce," the signatories wrote, alluding to the vast majority of people who are employed in agriculture. "We request that you protect these workers by investing in renewable energy instead of oil and gas."

"Africa has significant renewable energy potential, which if developed, can position the continent to lead the global green energy transition."

Continuing to prioritize investment in oil and gas over wind, solar, and other green sectors threatens to leave East Africa riddled with environmentally hazardous stranded assets, the groups warned, citing the International Energy Agency's "projections of declining demand for fossil fuels" in the coming years.

"No African country has addressed energy poverty by investing in coal, oil, and gas," the letter points out. "Nigeria, which is one of Africa's largest oil producers, has the highest number of people in the world without access to power."

Signatories argued that more of the same can be expected if the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to sell huge tracts of land in the Congo Basin rainforest to fossil fuel giants or if the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) is built. Shipping the region's petroleum resources abroad, the letter observes, enriches corporations such as France's TotalEnergies while failing to meet the energy needs of local residents.

The letter also stresses that Africa's "immense renewable energy potential"—including abundant solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal resources—remains largely "untapped," with just 9% of the continent's power generated from those sources in 2020. One reason for this is that "investments in renewable energy in Africa are limited." According to the letter, only 2% of the clean power investments made globally over the past two decades have focused on Africa. "This needs to change," the signatories emphasized.

"To enhance sustainable energy access and promote socioeconomic progress," the groups made the following recommendations:

• Abandon any investments in oil and gas projects such as the EACOP and the auctioning of oil blocks in the DRC. This is very important as East Africans also need to avoid the risk of stranded assets, a threat that is imminent due to the just energy transition plans of some of the countries that are the biggest markets for oil and gas.
• Redirect private and public investments into renewable energy through working with your governments to put in place enabling policies, increasing budget allocations to renewable energy, and lobbying investors to invest in renewable energy.
• Promote green economic alternatives that employ the majority of East Africans such as agriculture, fisheries, and tourism.

"It's concerning that regional leaders should meet to discuss how to build new oil projects when the world is transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy," Dickens Kamugisha, CEO of the Uganda-based Africa Institute for Energy Governance, said Friday in a statement. "In its 2021 World Energy Outlook report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) indicated that oil demand is expected to level off in the mid-2030s and decline in 2050."

"Yet East African countries are borrowing huge amounts of money to invest in oil and gas," said Kamugisha. "How will they recoup the monies that are invested? East Africans are poor and should not be straddled with assets that could become stranded. Governments should avoid investing in coal, oil, and gas."

Despite bearing little historic responsibility for the climate crisis, East Africans are also particularly vulnerable to extreme weather disasters, as Jimmy Ufoy from the Ituri region in the DRC lamented.

"The Congolese Red Cross says that at least 411 died in the Democratic Republic of Congo following the flooding" this week, said Ufoy. "It was, therefore, disturbing to see the DRC speak of bilateral engagement with Uganda to develop hydrocarbons and access to the EACOP to transport crude oil."

Last June, African activists urged officials to reject the IEA's call for nations across the continent to swiftly extract and export their fossil gas reserves before the world scales up its shift to clean energy sources.

Rather than follow the IEA's recommendation—which came just months after the Paris-based agency said that expanding coal, gas, and oil production is incompatible with maintaining a livable planet—African policymakers should focus on "implementing sustainable renewable energy solutions" as quickly as possible, the activsts said.

On Friday, Charity Migwi, regional campaigner at 350Africa.org, reiterated that "Africa has significant renewable energy potential, which if developed, can position the continent to lead the global green energy transition."

"Instead of seemingly doubling down on fossil fuels, we urge East African leaders to prioritize the adoption of safe and sustainable renewable energy," said Migwi.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by May Robson.