This story discusses graphic details of slavery, sexual abuse and violence

Pacific children as young as six are being adopted overseas and being made to work as house slaves, suffering threats, beatings and rape.

Kris Teikamata — a social worker at a community agency — spoke about the harrowing cases she encountered in her work, from 2019 to 2024, with children who had escaped their abusers in Auckland and Wellington.

“They’re incredibly traumatised because it’s years and years and years of physical abuse, physical labour and and a lot of the time, sexual abuse, either by the siblings or other family members,” she said.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific child abuse reports

“They were definitely threatened, they were definitely coerced and they had no freedom.

“When I met each girl, [by then] 17, 18, 19 years old, it was like meeting a 50-year-old. The light had gone out of their eyes. They were just really withdrawn and shut down.”

In one case a church minister raped his adopted daughter and got her pregnant.

Teikamata and her team helped 10 Samoan teenagers who had managed to escape their homes, and slavery — two boys and eight girls — with health, housing and counselling. She fears they are the tip of the iceberg, and that many remain under lock and key.

“They were brought over as a child or a teenager, sometimes they knew the family in Samoa, sometimes they didn’t — they had promised them a better life over here, an education and citizenship.

“When they arrived they would generally always be put into slavery. They would have to get up at 5, 6 in the morning, start cleaning, start breakfast, do the washing, then go to school and then after school again do cleaning and dinner and the chores — and do that everyday until a certain age, until they were workable.

“Then they were sent out to factories in Auckland or Wellington and their bank account was taken away from them and their Eftpos card. They were given $20 a week.

“From the age of 16 they were put to work. And they were also not allowed to have a phone — most of them had no contact with family back in Samoa.”

‘A thousand kids a year… and it’s still going on’
Nothing stopped the abusive families from being able to adopt again and they did, she said.

A recent briefing to ministers reiterated that New Zealanders with criminal histories or significant child welfare records have used overseas courts to approve adoptions, which were recognised under New Zealand law without further checks.

“When I delved more into it, I just found out that it was a very easy process to adopt from Samoa,” she said.

“There’s no checks, it’s a very easy process. So about a thousand kids [a year] are today being adopted from Samoa. It’s such a high number — whereas other countries have checks or very robust systems. And it’s still going on.”

As children, they could not play with friends and all of their movements were controlled.

Oranga Tamariki uplifted younger children, who were sometimes siblings of older children who had escaped.

“The ones that I met had escaped and found a friend or were homeless or had reached out to the police.”

Loving families
When they were reunited with their birth parents on video calls, it was clear they came from loving families who had been deceived, she said.

While some adoptive parents faced court for assault, only one has been prosecuted for trafficking.

Government, police and Oranga Tamariki were aware and in talks with the Samoan government, she said.

Adoption Action member and researcher Anne Else said several opportunities to overhaul the 70-year-old Adoption Act had been thwarted, and the whole legislation needed ripping up.

“The entire law needs to be redone, it dates back to 1955 for goodness sake,” she said.

“But there’s a big difference between understanding how badly and urgently the law needs changing and actually getting it done.

“Oranga Tamariki are trying, I know, to work with for example Tonga to try and make sure that their law is a bit more conformant with ours, and ensure there are more checks done to avoid these exploitative cases.”

Sold for adoption
Children from other countries had been sold for adoption, she said, and the adoption rules depended on which country they came from. Even the Hague Convention, which is supposed to provide safeguards between countries, was no guarantee.

Immigration minister Erica Stanford said other ministers were looking at what could be done to crack down on trafficking through international adoption.

“If there are non-genuine adoptions and and potential trafficking, we need to get on top of that,” she sad.

“It falls outside of the legislation that I am responsible for, but there are other ministers who have it on their radars because we’re all worried about it. I’ve read a recent report on it and it was pretty horrifying. So it is being looked at.”

A meeting was held between New Zealand and Samoan authorities in March. A summary of discussions said it focused on aligning policies, information sharing, and “culturally grounded frameworks” that uphold the rights, identity, and wellbeing of children, following earlier work in 2018 and 2021.

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

• Links to where to get help

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

The BBC has removed its documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone from iPlayer after it was revealed that its teenage narrator is the son of a Hamas official.

The broadcaster stated that it was conducting “further due diligence” following mounting scrutiny.

The film, which aired on BBC Two last Monday, follows 13-year-old Abdullah Al-Yazouri as he describes life in Gaza.

• READ MORE: Can we trust the BBC on Israel-Gaza? These media experts don’t think so
• Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone
• ‘No safe place’: the BBC documentary showing Gaza through a child’s eyes
• Other Gaza ceasefire reports

However, it later emerged that his father, Ayman Al-Yazouri, serves as the Hamas Deputy Minister of Agriculture in Gaza.

In a statement yesterday, the BBC defended the documentary’s value but acknowledged concerns.

“There have been continuing questions raised about the programme, and in light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company,” the statement said.

The revelation sparked a backlash from figures including Friday Night Dinner actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, literary agent Neil Blair, and former BBC One boss Danny Cohen, who called it “a shocking failure by the BBC and a major crisis for its reputation”.

On Thursday, the BBC admitted that it had not disclosed the family connection but insisted it followed compliance procedures. It has since added a disclaimer acknowledging Abdullah’s ties to Hamas.

UK’s Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said that she would discuss the issue with the BBC, particularly regarding its vetting process.

However, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians urged the broadcaster to “stand firm against attempts to prevent firsthand accounts of life in Gaza from reaching audiences”.

Others also defended the importance of the documentary made last year before the sheer scale of devastation by the Israeli military forces was exposed — and many months before the ceasefire came into force on January 19.

‘This documentary humanised Palestinian children’
Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), criticised the BBC’s decision.

“It’s very regrettable that this documentary has been pulled following pressure from anti-Palestinian activists who have largely shown no sympathy for persons in Gaza suffering from massive bombardment, starvation, and disease,” Middle East Eye quoted him as saying.

Doyle also praised the film’s impact, saying, “This documentary humanised Palestinian children in Gaza and gave valuable insights into life in this horrific war zone.”

Journalist Richard Sanders, who has produced multiple documentaries on Gaza, called the controversy a “huge test” for the BBC and condemned its response as a “cowardly decision”.

Earlier this week, 45 Jewish journalists and media figures, including former BBC governor Ruth Deech, urged the broadcaster to pull the film, calling Ayman Al-Yazouri a “terrorist leader”.

The controversy underscores wider tensions over media coverage of the Israel-Gaza war, with critics accusing the BBC of a vetting failure, while others argue the documentary sheds crucial light on Palestinian children’s suffering.

Pacific Media Watch comments: The BBC has long been accused of an Israeli-bias in its coverage of Palestinian affairs, especially the 15-month genocidal war on Gaza, and this documentary is one of the rare programmes that has restored some balance.

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

KOROR, Palau — School students in Palau are taking on the United States military with a legal complaint to the United Nations over a “rapid and unprecedented wave of militarization” in their Pacific island nation.

They allege that American military activities are destroying ecosystems, disturbing sacred sites, threatening endangered species, and breaking laws that protect the environment and human rights.

(Ebiil Society)

The American military presence in Palau, an independent state in free association with the U.S., has grown in recent years amid mounting geo-strategic tensions with China over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

The archipelago’s location between the Philippines and Hawaii is part of a critical logistical network that allows the U.S. to move through the western Pacific and project power in East Asia.

But the military buildup in Palau is stoking unease among some in the country of 20,000 people, who worry their culture and pristine environment could be compromised.

Imaim Ngiraboi, 16, said it was a “bit intimidating” standing up to the world’s most powerful military, but it was important to inform people what was going on.

“As youth, we should be able to have a say in this and think about what we want from our future,” she told BenarNews in the city of Koror.

(Harry Pearl/BenarNews)

She is one of the seven teenagers, aged between 15 and 18, leading the pushback against U.S. military activity. Over the past year they travelled the length of the country visiting defense sites, interviewing local communities and documenting environmental impacts.

Last month the students filed a submission to the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights to a healthy environment and the special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples. Together with the Ebiil Society, a local nonprofit, and human rights lawyers in Guam, they alleged American military violations of environmental laws and indigenous rights in Palau.

The group is among a young generation of Pacific activists using international legal mechanisms to fight for their rights, such as law students from Vanuatu who asked the International Court of Justice to give an opinion on states’ obligations to combat climate change.

‘Bulldozing’ through Palau

Palau is one of three Pacific island countries including the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia that give the U.S. exclusive military authority in their territories in exchange for economic assistance under compacts of free association.

The U.S. is now using the “compact provisions, which have never before been invoked, to justify a rapid and unprecedented wave of militarization throughout Palau,” according to the U.N. submission.

The Palauan students’ complaint is focused on six U.S. military sites spread between Palau’s northernmost tip and its southernmost edge, including an over-the-horizon radar facility and a WWII-era airstrip being upgraded by U.S. Marines on the island of Peleliu.

(Harry Pearl/BenarNews)

In many cases, the U.S. military had not undertaken adequate community consultation or obtained informed consent, said the teenagers, who conducted their research as a part of a social science class organized by the Ebiil Society.

“Most of the people we interviewed didn’t know about what was going on in their communities,” said 16-year-old Kimie-Maki Kelau Singeo.

“They didn’t tell the community. They were asking us questions.”

Ann Singeo, the Ebiil Society’s executive director, said environmental and cultural protection laws were being “violated left and right” across Palau.

“It’s almost like they are bulldozing their way through the islands,” the veteran environmental advocate told BenarNews.

(Harry Pearl/BenarNews)

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which oversees American forces in the region, did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

But Palau President Surangel Whipps rejected any accusations that environmental laws had been broken or that local communities had not been adequately informed about military projects.

Whipps acknowledged there were concerns about militarization in the community, but argued that for a small nation like Palau, which has been subject to “unfriendly behavior” by China, having the protection of the U.S. was a good thing.

“We’ve always been a target because of our location, whether we like it or not,” he told BenarNews in an interview. “During World War II, we were a target and that’s why Japan built all the infrastructure here and used Palau because of our location.

“If you’re going to be a target, you need to make sure that you’re protected. Our forefathers decided that the best relationship that we could have with the United States is in free association … but as partners, we have some obligations.”

(Rivers Reklai/BenarNews)

The U.N. submission is not the only complaint concerning U.S. military activity in Palau.

Angaur, the southernmost of Palau’s 16 states, is suing the U.S. and Palau governments and American military contractors for alleged violations of environmental laws and the compact of free association for work on the receiver of a “Tactical Mobile Over-the-Horizon Radar,” or TACMOR.

The TACMOR’s accompanying transmitter facility is being built in the northern state of Ngaraard, which has also accused the Palau government of deficiencies in the environmental permit process and requested approval to be rescinded, local media have reported.

Nest Mechaet, a state legislator for Elab hamlet where the transmitter facility is located, said the community of about 23 households was still largely in the dark about the potential environmental impacts.

(Harry Pearl/BenarNews)

She said there were fears that earthmoving might damage historical sites and affect sediment flows into the marine environment nearby, which is home to endangered dugongs, turtles and saltwater crocodiles.

“Some old people say there are ancient stone platforms here,” she told BenarNews, looking out over the bay below where the radar will be positioned.

“There are mangrove clams, sea cucumbers, fish – you name it. People are out there for food.”

It’s unclear what impact the Angaur lawsuit or calls for a review of the permit in Ngaraard will have on the radar, which the U.S. had originally aimed to complete by 2026.

The U.S. radar system, which will add to American early-warning capabilities for the western Pacific, is expected to bring economic benefits to the island including higher paying jobs and rental incomes.

(Harry Pearl/BenarNews)

On the island of Peleliu, where U.S. Marines are revamping the Japanese wartime airfield, some local chiefs and former legislators are seeking an injunction against a proposed constitutional amendment concerning military activity in the state.

Peleliu’s constitution currently requires the approval by 75% of residents in a referendum for any permanent military facilities to be built on the island or training to take place – a provision adopted after WWII.

Under the amendment, which was put on the ballot of a Dec. 3 state election, the article would be repealed and authority on military matters transferred exclusively to the governor and legislature, according to court documents reviewed by BenarNews. It also proposes reducing the size of the state government from 15 members to 11 and removing five seats reserved for traditional chiefs.

Whipps described a lot of the criticism about U.S. military projects in Palau as “misinformation” and suggested it was possibly “another Chinese attempt to convince people that things are really worse than they really are.”

But Singeo, from the Ebiil Society, said it was important to mobilize young people to fight for the “survival of a culture and nation.”

“No matter how strong they are, how big they are, this is not their home,” she said.

“For me as an adult, to not support the kids to do this is the same as condemning them to a future of chaos, conflict and keeping their head down not saying anything.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Harry Pearl for BenarNews.

An Australian-based West Papua advocacy group has condemned the arrest and “humiliation” of two teenagers by Indonesian security forces last week.

The head of Cartenz 2024 Peace Operations, Kombes Faizal Ramadhani, said in a statement on Friday that the 15-year-olds had been arrested after a clash with the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) in Kali Brasa on Thursday, February 22.

During the shootout, a TPNPB member named as Otniel Giban (alias Bolong Giban) had been killed.

• READ MORE: A BBC report on the arrest in Bahasa Indonesian
• A Jubi news report on the incident in West Papua

The Sydney-based Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) today condemned the arrest of the teenagers, only identified by the Indonesian authorities by their initials MH and BGE and who were initially seized as “suspects” but later described as “witnesses”.

Faizal said that the teenagers had been arrested because they were suspected of being members of the TPNPB group and that they were currently being detained at the Damai Cartenz military post.

However, the TPNPB declared that the two teenagers were not members of the TPNPB and were ordinary civilians.

The teenagers were arrested when they were crossing the Brasa River in the Yahukimo Regency.

Aircraft shot at
The clash between security forces and the TNPB occurred while the Cartenz Peacekeeping Operation-2024 searched for those responsible for shooting at an aircraft in Yahukimo in which a military member had been wounded.

Meanwhile, also in Jakarta last Friday the Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, Richard Marles, met with Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto — who is poised to win this month’s Indonesian presidential election.

Marles stressed at a media conference at the Defence Ministry that Australia did not support the Free Papua Movement, saying the country “fully recognise[d] Indonesia’s territorial sovereignty”.

“We do not endorse any independence movement,” he told a media conference.

However, in Sydney AWPA’s Joe Collins said in a statement: “I was at first surprised that West Papua even got a mention at the meeting as usually Australia tries to ignore the issue but even our Defence Minister can hardly ignore a media question on it.”

‘No support for any independence movements’
An extract from the media conference says:

Subianto: “Thank you very much. I don’t think there is any need for questions. Questions?”

Journalist: “Thank you very much Mr Deputy Prime Minister. Regarding the huge amount of [the] Australian defence budget, how should the Indonesian people see it? Is it going to be a trap or an opportunity for our national interest?

“And my second question is what is Australia’s standpoint regarding the separatist [pro-independence] movement in Papua because there are some voices from Australia concern[ed] about human rights violations?”

Marles: “Thank you for the question. Let me do the second issue first. We, Australia utterly recognise the territorial sovereignty of Indonesia, full stop. And there is no support for any independence movements.

“We support the territorial sovereignty of Indonesia. And that includes those provinces being part of Indonesia. No ifs, no buts. And I want to be very clear about that.”

Collins said there was no shortage of comments during the delegation’s visit to Indonesian around how important the relationship was.

“West Papua will remain the elephant in the room in the Australia-Indonesian relationship,” Collins said. “We can expect many hiccups in the relationship over West Papua in the coming years “.

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

Relatives told Radio Free Asia they were worried that the girls were about to be taken to a notorious area in northern Laos that borders Myanmar and China where young victims are often forced to work as scammers at call centers.

The girls, all either 13 or 14 years old, got into the taxi in front of a Buddhist temple on Monday and wrote letters to their parents saying they were going to work for two to three years, the aunt of one of the girls said.

“The letters were written with the same content. I think [the suspected human traffickers] may have written the letters, not the girls,” said the aunt, who like all other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons.

The mother of one of the girls said she believes the woman and female taxi driver befriended the girls at several different events and festivals and promised to find them well-paying jobs at a beauty salon.

The mother said family members posted messages on Facebook on Monday and searched through the city Monday night and early Tuesday to find them. They also went to police, who found the surveillance video that helped them identify the taxi.

‘So many girls have disappeared recently’

The female taxi driver and the woman who is suspected of persuading the girls to get into the car were arrested on Tuesday morning, according to family members and one local official.

A government official from Vientiane’s Xaythany district told RFA that police made the arrest while the two women tried to take another girl.

“Police are investigating this incident and interrogating the suspects,” the official said. “Up to now, it’s still not known whether the cases are involved with a human trafficking network.”

No other information on the suspects was available. RFA was unable to reach anyone at the Xaythany district police office to ask for further details.

“We gave all the information and clues to the police,” the mother said. “I never thought that I would get my girl back because so many girls have disappeared recently.” 

A father in Vientiane said on Wednesday that his 24-year-old daughter left home three days ago. She’s responded to text messages but won’t reveal her location, he said.

“Girls and women disappear not only in our village, they go missing in many other villages too,” he said.

Nationwide, the Lao government identified 75 trafficking victims in 2022, including 67 sex trafficking victims and eight victims of forced labor. In 2021, the government identified 110 trafficking victims, according to the 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report published by the U.S. State Department.

Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Matt Reed.

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

It was a theme the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner hit repeatedly throughout his remarks at Drake Enterprises, a truck parts manufacturer that offered to host Trump's rally: The electric vehicle transition and the Biden administration's efforts to accelerate it are going to send jobs overseas and leave the U.S. automobile industry in ruins.

"It doesn't make a damn bit of difference what you get because in two years you're all going to be out of business, you're not getting anything," Trump said. "I mean, I watch you out there with the pickets, but I don't think you're picketing for the right thing."

The former president repeatedly and falsely accused the Biden administration of attempting to bring about a "transition to hell" and impose "electric vehicle mandates that will spell the death of the American auto industry," a narrative that was also prominent during the Republican primary debate that Trump skipped.

Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden's 2024 reelection campaign, said in response that Trump is "lying about President Biden's agenda to distract from his failed track record of trickle-down tax cuts, closed factories, and jobs outsourced to China." During Trump's four years in office, the offshoring of U.S. jobs increased.

"There is no 'EV mandate.' Simply put: Trump had the United States losing the EV race to China and if he had his way, the jobs of the future would be going to China," said Munoz. "President Biden is delivering where Donald Trump failed by bringing manufacturing back home, and with it, good-paying jobs for the American people."

As HuffPost's Jonathan Cohn reported late Wednesday, "Since Biden took office in January 2021, total auto industry employment in the U.S. has risen from about 948,000 to 1,073,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a monthly rate of about 4,000 new auto jobs a month."

Challenging the notion that the Biden administration's EV policies are imperiling the U.S. auto industry, Cohn noted that electric vehicle subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act "will close the cost gap so that companies manufacturing electric vehicles and their parts can compete."

"And there are lots of signs that the effort is working," Cohn wrote. "Auto companies have announced plans to build literally dozens of new factories in the U.S., many in what's coming to be known as the 'battery belt,' stretching from Georgia in the South to Michigan in the North. They are expected to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs directly, plus many more (along with economic growth) indirectly."

The UAW leadership has made clear that, unlike Trump, it doesn't oppose the transition to electric vehicles.

Rather, the union wants policymakers to ensure that EV manufacturing jobs are unionized. UAW president Shawn Fain has criticized Biden—who joined union members on the picket line earlier this week—for not doing enough to prevent a "race to the bottom" in the EV transition as automakers increasingly invest in the nonunion U.S. South.

Fain has also not been shy about his feelings toward the former president.

"I don't think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for," Fain said in a CNN appearance on Tuesday. "He serves the billionaire class, and that's what's wrong with this country."

"People are trying to push that this is organic, but it's not. Trump is curating a crowd, and it pisses me off."

Trump—who has repeatedly called on the UAW to endorse his presidential run—didn't respond Wednesday when asked by a reporter whether he supports the union's push for a nearly 40% wage increase for autoworkers, who have seen their hourly pay decline sharply over the past two decades.

During his speech, Trump "didn't specifically address demands made by autoworkers, other than to say he would protect jobs in a way that would lead to higher wages," the Detroit Free Pressreported.

"But he left it unclear how he would do so," the newspaper added, "given that he didn't demand specific wage increases as president."

It's not clear how many union members were in the audience at Trump's speech, though some were waving "Auto Workers for Trump" and "Union Members for Trump" signs. One individual who held a "Union Members for Trump" sign during the rally admitted to a reporter for The Detroit News that she's not a union member.

"Another person with a sign that read 'Auto Workers for Trump' said he wasn't an auto worker when asked for an interview. Both people didn't provide their names," the outlet reported.

Chris Marchione, political director of the International Union of Painters and Allied TradesDistrict Council 1M in Michigan, toldJacobin's Alex Press that at least one local "right-to-work" activist assisted the Trump campaign in organizing Wednesday's rally.

"People are trying to push that this is organic, but it's not," Marchione said. "Trump is curating a crowd, and it pisses me off. If he wants to support union workers, pay the fucking glaziers who got screwed when they put the windows on Trump Tower."

Ahead of Trump's Michigan visit, the AFL-CIO said in a statement that Trump's presidency was "catastrophic for workers," pointing to his anti-union appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, defense of so-called "right-to-work" laws, repeal of Labor Department rules aimed at protecting worker pay, and failure to protect manufacturing jobs.

"The idea that Donald Trump has ever, or will ever, care about working people is demonstrably false," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler. "For his entire time as president, he actively sought to roll back worker protections, wages, and the right to join a union at every level."

"UAW members are on the picket line fighting for fair wages and against the very corporate greed that Donald Trump represents," Shuler added. "Working people see through his transparent efforts to reinvent history. We are not buying the lies that Donald Trump is selling. We will continue to support and organize for the causes and candidates that represent our values."

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

The alleged crimes committed by the teens, estimated to be 16 or 17, were equally evil, authorities told terrified residents, who were forced to watch, the sources said.

“They said, ‘Those who watch or distribute South Korean movies and dramas, and those who disrupt social order by murdering other people, will not be forgiven and will be sentenced to the maximum penalty–death,’” a resident of the city of Hyesan, on the border with China, where the execution took place, told RFA’s Korean service.

The execution took place in October at an airfield in the city, the resident said.

“Hyesan residents gathered in groups at the runway,” she said. “The authorities put the teen-aged students in front of the public, sentenced them to death, and immediately shot them.”

Such executions are rare in North Korea, but not unheard-of. Authorities will typically use executions to terrify people into behaving in the way they want them to.

The executions occurred about a week after authorities held public meetings to tell the public that they were going to get tough on crimes involving foreign media, especially from more prosperous and democratic South Korea. 

Smuggled in on flash drives 

In recent years, South Korean and Western movies, as well as music and TV shows, have spread throughout North Korea on easily concealable USB flash drives and SD cards. Smugglers bring the media into the country from China, and then it is distributed from person to person. 

North Korea has become increasingly worried about South Korean culture – viewed as decadent and anti-revolutionary – rubbing off on its youth. 

Several RFA reports over the past few years have documented authorities’ efforts to combat it by randomly seizing smartphones and doling out harsh punishments to violators.

Citizens caught watching a foreign movie are to be sent to a disciplinary labor center according to the Hyesan source. If they are caught again, they will be sent to a correctional labor camp for five years along with their parents, who must take responsibility for improperly educating their children. 

But if they are caught distributing or selling South Korean movies, they can face the death penalty, even if they are minors, she said.

“Caught in a trap”

The two teenagers who were executed were caught trying to sell thumb drives containing the contraband media in their local marketplace. Officials plant spies among the public who would then report the sellers to the police, the source said.

“The students were caught in a trap this time,” she said.

News of the execution has spread and terrified people, a resident of neighboring North Hamgyong province told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“Despite intensive control and crackdowns to eradicate reactionary thought and culture, young people are still caught secretly watching South Korean movies. … So now the authorities are embarking on a reign of terror through public execution,” the second source said.

Law enforcement agencies have ordered that those accused of possessing or distributing impure recordings and publications … must receive swift justice,” she said.

“The likelihood of future public executions is now higher than ever before.”

 Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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

Thanks to a draconian new law, a pregnant Texan who wants an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy now has no other choice but to leave the state. She could go to Louisiana or Arkansas, but they have tight restrictions and trigger laws in place to outright ban the procedure when Roe v. Wade is overturned. Nearby Oklahoma is not an option either, since the government already effectively outlawed abortions in May.

State laws make it so that a child is more likely to endure a forced pregnancy than an adult.

Related

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Illinois stands out as the only state in the country to enact a repeal of a parental involvement law.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Sara Sirota.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Levon Nurijanyan, Noemi Eliott.

With most of its eligible adult population covered, Fiji’s covid-19 vaccine rollout for teenagers is gaining pace.

The Health Ministry said 28,965 children aged 15 to 17 had received a first vaccine dose — and 3892 teenagers had received a second.

The rollout was recently extended to this age bracket after vaccination rates covered almost all of Fiji’s eligible adult population aged 18 and over — 95.9 percent of them have received their first vaccine dose, and 84.4 percent have had a second.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji covid reports

Daily reports on new cases of covid-19 in Fiji continue to show numbers are well down on the peak from late July.

The Health Ministry on Thursday reported 25 new covid cases, taking the total number of cases to date to almost 52,000.

Health Secretary Dr James Fong said in the past seven days, 285 cases had been reported, around two-thirds of which were in the central division.

But the rolling daily average is in the dozens, well down on the peak of late July when hundreds and sometimes over a thousand cases were reported.

Dr Fong said there had been 663 deaths due to covid, all but two of them in the outbreak that started in April.

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.

Teenager Edward William Kaile captured the mood of a grieving nation when he ran, carrying a Papua New Guinea flag, alongside the cortege of Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare.

On Friday, he was challenged by an aunt to run alongside the casket as it made its way to the Sir Hubert Murray Stadium for the funeral service.

At 5-Mile, the 17-year-old grabbed a PNG flag and ran barefoot alongside the casket until the funeral procession reached the Poreporena Freeway.

On Sunday, Edward, again, ran alongside the cortege making its way to the Jackson Airport for the flight home to Wewak, where Sir Michael was buried at his Kreer Heights property in Wewak after an 18-day national mourning period.

Kreer Heights overlooks Wewak town in East Sepik.

Kaile joined the cortege near the end of the Kumul Flyover at Erima and ran alongside the casket to the Apec Terminal at 7-Mile.

Touched hearts
Pictures of him running and carrying the PNG flag touched the hearts of many.

His parents are from Tufi in Northern and Makerupu in Central.

He told The National from his home at Gordon in Port Moresby that when he took up the aunt’s challenge, he did not realise that people were taking pictures of him.

All he knew was that he was running with Sir Michael, letting him know that he was there to support him on his final journey.

Kaile knew he was representing the country by carrying the PNG flag alongside the “father of the nation”.

“As I ran, I thought about how this was the last time I would run alongside him,” he said.

“I was proud but also sad that I was saying goodbye to him too.

“To me, it wasn’t a challenge.

‘I was doing it for everyone’
“I was doing it to represent everyone around the country.

“When we neared the Apec Terminal gate, I missed a turn and did not finish the run.

“But I was happy I escorted him to the airport. When I returned home, I was told that my picture had gone viral on Facebook.”

Prime Minister James Marape even shared the picture, saying Edward represented the future of Papua New Guineans who would continue the legacy of Sir Michael.

Edward said: “I did it to remember what he did for the country and what I have today is because of him.”

Asia Pacific Report publishes EMTV and The National reports with permission.