Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says New Zealand’s stance on the United States and Israeli bombing of Iran mirrors that of Australia.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government supported the United States acting to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
A statement by Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters yesterday “acknowledges” the strikes.
Asked on RNZ’s Morning Report whether New Zealand supported the attacks, Luxon repeatedly refused to say the word, but said it condemned the Iranian regime as evil and as having claimed countless lives.
“We think Iran has been repressing its own people. We think it’s been arming proxies and terrorist organisations. We think it has been developing its ballistic and nuclear programmes and years of diplomacy hasn’t actually paid any fruits,” he said.
“We understand fully why the Americans and Israelis have undertaken the independent action that they have taken to make sure Iran can’t threaten people.”
Pressed on whether the strikes were legally right, Luxon said it would be up to the US and Israel to explain the legal basis for their attacks.
NZ should back international rules Former Prime Minister Helen Cark has called the government’s stance a “disgrace” and says New Zealand should support a rules-based international order.
Luxon said what was disgraceful was the repressive Iranian regime which had killed thousands of its own people who had taken to the streets calling for freedoms.
“Iran has been a destabilising force. It has supported armed proxies throughout the region. It has seen tens of thousands of people murdered by own government, who were asking for freedom and rights.”
In a statement on Sunday, Luxon and Foreign Affairs Minister and Winston Peters said New Zealand had consistently condemned Iran’s nuclear programme and its “destabilising activities” in the region and “acknowledged” the strikes.
“Iran has, for decades, defied the will and expectations of the international community. The legitimacy of a government rests on the support of its people. The Iranian regime has long since lost that support,” they said.
Former NZ prime minister Helen Clark at opposition Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins’ state of the nation speech last week. Image: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
“In this context, we acknowledge that the actions taken overnight by the US and Israel were designed to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security.”
Luxon and Peters condemned in the “strongest terms Iran’s indiscriminate retaliatory attacks” on neighbouring states.
The statement also said “we call for a resumption of negotiations and adherence to international law.”
Call out illegal strike Clark told Morning Report said the statement was a disgrace.
“What was wrong with it was it didn’t call out the illegal strike against Iran in the middle of diplomatic negotiations “which were going quite well and further talks were scheduled,” she said.
“The whole point of international law is to put rules around when force is legitimate.”
“A strike is justified if there is an imminent threat of attack, which clearly there was not.”
She said the initial strikes by the US and Israel violated international law.
“The New Zealand government seems only interested in the Iranian retaliation and not looking at the reason for the retaliation, which was the attack by the United States and Israel,” she said.
“I think it’s consistent with a steady drift in New Zealand foreign policy to realign strongly with the United States, which at this particular time seems even more questionable as a strategy.”
“We’re not putting a stake in the ground in defence of the international rule of law.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Green party’s dramatic capture of Gorton and Denton, supposedly one of Labour’s safest parliamentary constituencies, offers yet more evidence of the fragmentation of British politics.
The Green candidate, 34-year-old plumber Hannah Spencer, won 40.69% of the vote, a notable 12 points ahead of Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin (28.73%). Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia came third, with 25.44% of the vote.
In terms of size of majority toppled, this was the sixth-worst byelection defeat ever for Labour. Gorton had been Labour for more than 90 years. In what is now Greater Manchester, Labour has had to defend 20 seats at byelections since the second world war, and has been successful in 16 cases.
Although Labour might dismiss a byelection defeat as a mid-term blip, this is a government which has failed to enjoy a honeymoon period, led by a prime minister who has plumbed new depths in popularity ratings. It is also worth noting that turnout on Thursday was identical to that at the general election.
For Keir Starmer, it was a truly awful result. But Labour really lost this byelection over a month ago, when its national executive committee (NEC) blocked the candidature of Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and believed by many to be the one person who might have held the seat for the party.
Starmer spoke against Burnham standing and his view held sway at that NEC meeting by eight votes to one. The one vote in favour of Burnham standing came from a Manchester MP, Lucy Powell, who was elected Labour’s deputy leader last year after being mysteriously sacked from the cabinet by Starmer.
The prime minister had good reasons for his stance. An early exit by Burnham from the mayoralty would trigger a difficult byelection across the region. But the overarching reason for blockage appeared to be Starmer’s personal political security.
Popular among Labour members and perhaps the one rival to Starmer around which the parliamentary party could coalesce, Burnham might have offered a potential leadership challenge. He is also highly popular in Greater Manchester, averaging two-thirds of the vote in the three mayoralty contests he has fought. The newly elected Green MP Spencer trailed Burnham by a huge 375,000 votes in the most recent mayoral election in 2024.
A terrible night for the Labour party, including candidate Angeliki Stogia (C) with deputy leader Lucy Powell (R) and MP Andrew Western (L).Adam Vaughan/EPA-EFE
Clearly, this poor result increases the pressure on the prime minister, but two things remain in his favour. First, Labour MPs may find it difficult to unite behind a clear challenger. Entry barriers are high; 80 MPs need to support the person prepared to raise their head above the parapet. Second, the economy is showing signs of improvement, which might eventually stem the flow to the Greens on the left. On the right, the exodus towards Reform may be slowed by the decline in net migration.
Yet things will get worse before they might get better for Labour. The Scottish parliament, Welsh senedd and English local elections are a mere 69 days away, and offer a bleak vista of large seat losses. Labour’s control of the senedd seems sure to end and the party has to defend the bulk of council seats being contested.
The end of two-party politics?
The Gorton and Denton result confirmed the death of old loyalties in British politics. Given the existence of four-party politics in Scotland and Wales and the electoral significance of the Liberal Democrats in England, the two-party duopoly has long been gone, perhaps never to return. Politics has never been as fragmented across parties.
For the first time in England, Labour finds itself challenged by a significant party of the left, while Reform on the right challenges both Labour and the Conservatives.
That the right vote is splintered offers some succour to Labour. An even split between Reform and the Conservatives could allow Labour to win again at the next general election, with an even more pitifully low percentage share of the vote than the one in 2024 which nonetheless yielded two-thirds of the Westminster seats.
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This fragmentation may widen voter choice, but not all is healthy. This was at times a toxic byelection. The Greens argued it was possible to be jointly concerned with Gaza and Gorton. They were, however, accused of sectarianism, for example by by issuing Urdu-language leaflets and a campaign video showing Starmer greeting the Indian prime minister, Hindu nationalist Modi, to appeal to Muslim voters.
Reform, on the other hand, has been accused of racism in targeting the white vote and showing scant regard for the large Muslim minority within the constituency. Its candidate, former academic Matt Goodwin, was already controversial for his views questioning whether non-white people born in the UK could be classed as British.
Meanwhile, the first-past-the-post voting system struggles to deal with the reality of modern multiparty politics, with abject disproportionality between vote shares and levels of representation. But that fragmentation increasingly seems permanent.
Bad Bunny likes to remind the world where he and his music come from.
In “EoO,” a song from his 2025 album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” he raps, “‘Tás escuchando música de Puerto Rico” (“You’re listening to music from Puerto Rico”). Similarly, in the album’s second track, “VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR,” he announces that both he and reggaeton were born in Puerto Rico: “Aquí nací yo y el reggaetón, pa’ que sepa’.”
In my own research of Latin America, I’ve explored how reggaeton comes from the small Central American nation of Panama, where the sound emerged from a swirl of sonic influences that included Spanish conquistadors, Caribbean immigrants and American colonizers.
English and Spanish collide
Understanding reggaeton requires understanding the intermingling of cultures and languages that Panama experienced over a relatively short period of time.
After Panama gained its independence from Spain in 1821, it became part of Gran Colombia, which, at its peak, included modern-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama.
Throughout the 19th century, Panama experienced population growth and mass industrialization, and waves of Afro Caribbean immigrants arrived in northern Panama in search of economic opportunities. Since they came from former British colonies, many of them spoke English. Meanwhile, the many Afro Panamanians already living in the country, whose descendants had been trafficked as slaves, spoke Spanish.
In 1903, Panama separated from Gran Colombia, becoming the independent nation we know today. The U.S. had supported Panama’s independence for strategic reasons: It wanted to build and control the Panama Canal to secure influence over maritime trade and military movement in the Western Hemisphere. While Gran Colombia had rebuffed earlier U.S. overtures, leaders of the newly independent Panama were more receptive to American interests.
Jim Crow is imported to the Canal Zone
Police brutality, exploitation and intra-racial and interracial tensions also served as scaffolding for reggaeton.
During the canal’s construction, the U.S. operated and controlled the Panama Canal Zone, a 553 square-mile (1,432 square-kilometer) parcel of land encompassing the canal. Up to 60,000 people lived there while the canal was being built, with residents segregated by race into “gold roll” and “silver roll” workers. Gold roll workers were usually white. Silver roll workers were Black, and they were tasked with the most dangerous jobs.
West Indians and Afro Panamanians also experienced police brutality. Black women, in particular, were harassed by white police officers, who often accused them of sex work.
While both West Indians and Afro Panamanians were subjected to segregation and police brutality, the Americans running the Canal Zone tended to treat the English-speaking West Indians better. Meanwhile, children born and raised in the Canal Zone were only taught English in schools, which Afro Panamanians resented.
These tensions led to the rise of “panameñismo,” a movement that sought to preserve and promote Spanish language and culture in Panama. This movement culminated in the passing of restrictive immigration laws targeted at West Indians and stripping second-generation West Indians of their citizenship.
Despite these anti-West Indian policies, many Jamaican, Barbadian and Antillean immigrants who had already built a life in Panama remained in the country even after the canal was completed in 1914.
The lyrics were in English and Jamaican Patois, an English-based creole language. But it didn’t take long for an offshoot of reggae, “reggae en español,” to emerge. By the end of the 1970s, reggae en español had become popular in Panama and had spread throughout Latin America. Similarly, the nascent genre of hip-hop was gaining steam in the U.S. and eventually made its way to Panama, where an American presence had remained since the completion of the canal. It wasn’t until 1979 that the Canal Zone was abolished, and Panama did not have ownership over the canal until 2000.
It was out of this diverse mix of musical and linguistic influences that reggaeton was born, a genre that features the looping drum pattern – called “dembow riddim” – of Jamaican dancehall, the tropical vibe of reggae and a mixture of rapping and singing. Like reggae and hip-hop, reggaeton lyrics often emphasize Black solidarity and speak out against racial oppression and police violence.
The Panamanian artist Renato is credited with releasing the first reggaeton song, titled, “El D.E.N.I.,” in 1985.
The D.E.N.I. – an acronym for the Departamento Nacional de Investigaciones, or National Department of Investigations – was a tool of repression for Panama’s military dictatorship under Omar Torrijos in the 1970s and later under Manuel Noriega in the 1980s. The secret police force became entangled in drug trafficking and political corruption.
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In ‘El D.E.N.I.,’ Renato denounces police brutality and racism.
In the song, Renato assumes the role of a racist police officer, the kind he encountered after relocating from the Canal Zone to Rio Abajo, an impoverished neighborhood in Panama City:
Even though El General primarily produced music, one of his tracks, “No Mas Guerra,” channeled the fighting spirit of original reggaeton, calling for Latin American communities to come together to end violence and wars.
Daddy Yankee’s music spread, in part, thanks to American brands like Kellogg’s and Reebok, whose ads featuring his songs were broadcast to American audiences. Few of his tracks contained the social justice themes that characterized early reggaeton.
Reggaeton was born out of a call for freedom, equality and justice. So I find it fitting that Bad Bunny is creating music that speaks to all types of people from all over the world.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wendy Hargreaves, Academic in the School of Education and Creative Arts, University of Southern Queensland
Whether you whistle or not, you can’t escape whistlers. They’re dog owners, construction workers, day dreamers, concertgoers and annoying sports fans whose shrill makes you wish for earplugs.
And there are tradies – Snow White’s pesky disciples who think whistling while you work makes chores fun. (Disclaimer: It didn’t work for my taxes.)
Admittedly, whistling can be useful for silencing noisy crowds and hailing taxis New York-style, but be mindful of the social rules. You can whistle admiringly at a flashy car, but you’ll be fined up to 750 euros for sexual harassment if you wolf whistle at women publicly in France.
Whistlers in history
Whistling is a common human skill. For centuries, shepherds and goat herders used whistling to summon livestock and direct dogs to steer the herds. The whistling sound can travel ten times further than shouting, which makes it ideal for long distance communication in rural areas.
Long ago, remote communities in Turkey and Mexico developed a whistled version of their spoken languages for communicating across the countryside. As linguist Julien Meyer explains, each syllable of a word translated to a whistled melody, allowing neighbours to talk across vast distances. Whistled languages are still in use today in places like La Gomera in the Canary Islands.
Whistling featured prominently in the development of the recording industry. Historian Tim Brooks recounts how Thomas Edison’s 1877 invention, the phonograph, drew public curiosity but the sound quality of recorded voice was too weak to show off the machine’s potential.
Shrill whistling, however, could be reproduced perfectly, which likely sustained public interest through the phonograph’s early modifications. Brooks traced the transformation of George W. Johnson from a whistling street performer at a ferry terminal to New York recording artist at the birth of the recording industry.
Decades later, whistling continued leaving musical marks in the industry. Notable examples include Roger Whittaker’s intricate The Mexican Whistler, Otis Redding’s layback ending to The Dock of the Bay, Bobby McFerrin’s cheerful Don’t Worry, Be Happy, and Maroon 5’s distinctive opening to Moves Like Jagger.
Whistling is produced when small pockets of air spinning at your lips interact with spaces in your mouth. Puckering your lips and whistling with fingers use the same principles.
Musical sound is produced when something, such as a guitar string, vibrates. Vibrations create pressure in the air which moves outwards in waves. When we whistle, the air itself becomes the vibrator. What happens next makes it audible.
Different spaces affect a sound wave’s energy as it passes through. Some cavities dampen the energy, while others excite it by swirling around making the cavern itself vibrate or resonate. That’s what makes whistling louder.
To experience the power of resonance, try singing in a bathroom with lots of towels, then remove the towels and sing again. The extra ring you’ll hear is the effect of resonance.
Whistling works by fine-tuning the speed of your breath with the size, shape and tension in your lips and tongue so the space rings.
Learning to whistle
Unfortunately, knowing the physics doesn’t make whistling easier. Learning requires coordinating your senses with how you move your body. You create a learning loop where your brain connects your mouth and breath movement with what you hear, feel and see when you whistle.
Simply put, you use trial and error to figure which actions help amplify the sound and which don’t.
Whistlers aren’t born. They’re made. If you find whistling hard, then you’ll need to practice isolating and moving all the parts in an epic Gollum-like quest for the precious ring.
Remember to pucker your lips like Ann Rutherford, Red Skelton, and Diana Lewis in Whistling in Dixie (1942).Wikimedia Commons
Top tips for whistling pucker-style:
find a quiet room
wet your whistle – water on your lips helps
push your lips forward to make a small, firm hole; a mirror can help you see what you’re doing
breathe out with a steady air stream
listen to the sound and experiment with your tongue tip position (forward, backwards, higher, lower), lips shape (tightened, relaxed, wider, pushed forward, pulled sideways), and breath stream (faster, slower) – you should hear subtle changes, even if it just sounds like wind
play around until you find one position where the sound seems louder than others
make micro adjustments in the position to find which movements increase the ring
repeat all steps daily so your brain learns to find your whistle automatically and tune it.
Failing that, take up singing. It’s easier and you won’t look like you’re kissing a ghost.
This lost ecosystem is known today from the famous St Bathans fossil deposits, which preserve one of the world’s richest records of the Miocene and offer a rare window into Aotearoa’s warmer, more subtropical ancient past.
Our newly published research adds another waterfowl species to this remarkable menagerie. It also sheds important new light on the origins of New Zealand’s recently extinct giant, flightless geese of the genus Cnemiornis.
NZ’s long-lost waterfowl
Spanning 5,600 square kilometres, Lake Manuherikia was ten times the size of New Zealand’s Lake Taupo. It was a dynamic habitat that supported a diverse range of waterfowl, including five stiff-tailed ducks, one swan, two shelducks, one dabbling duck and our new goose.
While many of these waterfowl are incredibly common in the fossil deposits around St Bathans, others, including the largest species, are quite rare.
Our team reexamined the remains of all the bones previously identified as belonging to geese. We then compared them with other large waterfowl bones from the deposits and a broad collection of comparative bird skeletons housed in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
We determined that the bones included an undescribed species the size of a small goose.
We named our new bird the St Bathans goose Meterchen luti, as a play on the nursery rhyme “Old Mother Goose”. In our case, an ancient goose rises up out of the mud of the fossil deposit. Meterchen means “mother goose” in ancient Greek, while luti is Latin for “of the mud”.
The ancient lake mud around St Bathans, Otago, is a rich source of fossils that give palaeontologists unique insights into Zealandia’s past biodiversity.Alan Tennyson/Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, CC BY-NC-SA
With ten unique species of waterfowl now described from the fossil deposits, across a range of sizes, Lake Manuherikia was clearly a very productive and dynamic lake system, supporting a large and complex ecosystem.
Not as ancient as first thought
Our St Bathans goose is only based on fragmentary remains but there is enough preserved to show that it is not a close relative of the giant flightless Cnemiornis geese, nor their Australian cousin, the Cape Barren gooseCereopsis novaehollandiae.
An artist’s impression of the St Bathans goose that once lived in New Zealand.Sasha Votyakova/Te Papa Tongarewa, CC BY-NC-SA
Throughout geological history, many birds arrived in Zealandia, the now-mostly submerged continent that includes New Zealand. But the ancestors of some of our large birds only arrived here surprisingly recently – in the past 4-5 million years – including takahē, the Eyles or Forbes’ harrier and the giant Haast’s eagle.
An earlier theory argued that the St Bathans goose represented the direct ancestors of giant flightless Cnemiornis geese, implying this lineage had been present in Zealandia for at least 14 million years.
However, this conflicts with genetic evidence suggesting the ancestors of Cnemiornis arrived from Australia only 7 million years ago, which proponents of the earlier theory discarded.
Our reassessment, based on a much broader set of comparative bird skeletons, rather than single exemplars, does not support the earlier-arrival hypothesis and instead supports the later arrival.
While the ancestors of the St Bathans goose no doubt arrived in Zealandia earlier than 14 million years ago, no descendants survived, with the ancestors of the giant Cnemiornis geese colonising much more recently, only for their descendants to go extinct shortly after human arrival due over-hunting and predation.
The relatively recent evolution of the giant flightless Cnemiornis geese offers another striking example of the rapid morphological change that can occur within a short timespan on islands, where evolution can run rampant. At one metre tall and weighing up to 18kg, these were the largest geese in the world.
By using all the scientific tools in the toolbox, we can reconstruct how the dynamic geological, climatic and human history of Zealandia has shaped the evolution of Aotearoa’s fauna in ever more detail.
Each new discovery is a reminder that the story of New Zealand’s birds – and of Zealandia itself – is very much still being written.
When we hear that Australia’s unemployment rate is low, it sounds like good news. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines an unemployed person as someone who is not working but is actively looking for a job and available to start.
But there is a broader group not fully captured by the statistics, whom we call “hidden workers”. They include people who:
are unemployed but not counted because they are not currently looking
are underemployed, working fewer hours than they want or need
or who have given up looking altogether, known as discouraged workers.
This article focuses on that last group: discouraged workers.
They still want to work and are available — but have stopped searching. We know surprisingly little about who they are or why they give up. My new research aims to answer some of these questions.
Untapped talent matters for the economy
You might wonder: if they are not looking for work, why should we care?
Because they represent unused talent, sitting on the sidelines of the economy. Discouraged workers are part of what economists call labour market slack. That simply means spare capacity: people who could work if the barriers in front of them were removed.
If slack is larger than the official unemployment rate suggests, then the job market is not as strong as it looks.
And that matters.
The Reserve Bank of Australia relies on labour market data when deciding whether to raise or cut interest rates. If there are more people on the sidelines than the headline figures capture, wage growth may be weaker than expected. Inflation pressures may be lower than assumed. Economic strength may be overstated.
In short, when we miscount workers, we misread the economy.
A wide range of profiles
Using national data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey (HILDA), we analysed 1,091 discouraged workers. This is the first in-depth national analysis of discouraged workers in Australia, and the findings are revealing.
Instead of treating discouraged workers as one single group, we used a statistical method called “latent class analysis”. It helps us see hidden subgroups within the broad category.
The six profiles we identified were:
Young, low-educated adults (mostly men) (25.3%)
This is the largest group. They are under 45, rarely married and often left school early. They report more health issues and face limited qualifications and weak attachment to stable work.
Older, low-educated adults with chronic health problems (20.4%)
Almost all are over 45. Many did not complete secondary school. Most have long-term health conditions. Here, low education and poor health combine to reduce job prospects.
Older single adults with health and financial strain (17.0%)
These people are often educated but single, with high rates of chronic illness and financial hardship. Education does not protect them when health and money pressures are severe.
Older, well-educated adults (mostly men) (16.6%)
These are mainly people over 45 who are married and relatively well educated. Many report some health problems. Their discouragement appears linked to age bias in hiring and moderate health limits, rather than low skills.
Mothers with heavy care and financial strains (13.9%)
These are mostly women under 45 with dependent children. Many also provide unpaid care to someone else in the family. Financial stress is high.
Highly educated married women facing structural barriers (6.7%)
This is a smaller but striking group. They are well educated and generally healthy. Many are married and have children. Their discouragement reflects the strain of combining paid work with care.
Caring duties and health issues were some of the barriers facing women.Brooks Rice/Unsplash
The myth of the lazy jobless persists
A common myth is that people stop looking for work because they are unmotivated.
Our findings show something different.
Discouragement often emerges at the point where repeated rejection, health limits, childcare costs, age discrimination or household pressures make further job searches feel pointless. As one interview participant put it,
When you keep receiving rejection letters, it becomes rational to stop applying.
The evidence suggests discouragement is rarely a sudden decision. It is more often the end point of accumulated disadvantage — where multiple barriers build up over time until withdrawal feels like the only realistic option.
We identified clear life-course patterns among women at different career stages.
Younger mothers are pulled out of the job market by childcare demands. Older women encounter age bias and health limits. These women are not “choosing to drop out” from the workforce. They are responding to structural pressures at different stages of life.
We see similar patterns among men, as well.
A significant group of young men face intersecting disadvantages early in adulthood. Weak educational foundations combined with health issues limit their attachment to stable work. Older adults — particularly those with low education and long-term health conditions — face persistent barriers.
Finding policies that work
Activation policies are employment policies designed to “activate” people who are out of work by pushing or encouraging them to search for jobs more actively. The underlying idea is that the problem sits with the individual: search harder. Try more. Be more motivated.
Our findings suggest the barriers often sit elsewhere.
Older workers need health support and age-inclusive hiring. Care-burdened mothers need affordable childcare and genuine flexibility.
Young men with low education need strong training and stable entry pathways. Highly educated, married women need workplaces that offer flexibility and don’t penalise career breaks.
Discouraged workers are not a single silent mass. They represent many different stories of stalled potential.
If we want a stronger, fairer labour market, we need to see them clearly – and design policies that respond to the real reasons they stopped searching in the first place.
University can be a time of great opportunities, but it can also be very stressful. Many students need to support themselves financially and may be living away from home. Students are also under constant deadlines and, if in their final years, need to prepare for life and work after uni.
My colleagues and I research how students can succeed and thrive in their studies.
So, as classes begin for semester one, how can you be proactive about your wellbeing and find a healthy balance between work, study and friends?
Academic wellbeing is about your learning and achievement, and how motivated and engaged you are with your studies. Personal wellbeing is about your mental health, self-esteem, life satisfaction and sense of meaning and purpose.
This is where “buoyancy” – sometimes called everyday resilience – comes in. Buoyancy is students’ ability to bounce back from challenges, difficulties and setbacks. It helps them navigate the ups and downs of university life, from competing deadlines, to exam stress and the demands of paid work.
In our research, we have identified psychological and interpersonal ways to help students maintain their academic and personal wellbeing. We call them “the 6 Cs of buoyancy”.
1. Confidence
We have found students who believe in themselves to do what they set out to do tend to respond well to difficulty. Boosting self-belief, or confidence, involves two important things.
Focus on the positives: recognise what knowledge and skills you already have. Avoid negative thinking traps. For example, give yourself credit for positive results instead of thinking the “lecturer went easy on me”.
Develop a broader view of success: view success not just in terms of marks, but also in terms of learning new things and personal improvement. This helps you recognise more of the things you do well, so you receive confidence-boosters more often.
2. Control
Our research shows students who feel as though they are “in the driver’s seat” are not as easily affected by adversity. There are two helpful ways you can feel in control.
Focus on the three things in your control: these are effort (how hard you try), strategy (the way you try) and attitude (what you think of yourself and the challenge).
Seek out feedback: this is information or ideas about how to navigate a challenge or improve next time. You can get this from teachers, a student advisor or trusted peers.
3. Commitment
Staying focused on your goals can help you persist through tough times. There are two ways to support this.
Set clear goals and a plan for meeting them: so you know what you’re doing, why, and how to do it.
Seek support: remember there are people who can help you if you are unsure about something, such as academic staff and student support services.
4. Coordination
Having a clear plan also helps you to navigate your way through challenges. There are two ways to do this:
Look ahead: what challenges are on the horizon? Are there assignment deadlines on the same day? Be proactive and get onto them early so you finish them by the due date.
Have a timetable: make a realistic and achievable weekly timetable so you can balance the different things you need and want to do.
5. Composure
Academic anxiety typically involves worrying excessively about poor results, performance in an upcoming test or presentation, meeting deadlines and getting on top of difficult coursework. Managing your academic anxiety is an important part of maintaining academic and personal wellbeing.
Have stress management and relaxation strategies: find strategies that work for you. This may be meditation, exercise, reading or connecting with nature.
Make lifestyle adjustments: create healthy habits, such as an improved diet, less alcohol, more sleep or staying off social media channels that “wind you up”.
6. Connection
A sense of belonging is a buffer against stress. Good relationships are also a protective factor in tough times.
Get more involved: participate in classes, labs and tutorials. Say “yes” to social opportunities such as a coffee after a lecture. Look for a university club or society you can join. Go into uni a little more than being online.
Keep in touch: socialise with good friends from school or other parts of life outside of uni.
What if I am struggling?
The 6 Cs are helpful for navigating day-to-day challenges at university. But it is important to reach out to a mental health professional on or off campus if you need more support.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
For many of us, food is something we buy at a supermarket or order at a cafe. We usually give little thought to the complex systems required to produce and deliver it – until they stop working.
It’s not common to think of Australia as a place at risk of food insecurity. It has vast tracts of fertile land and the capacity to feed its population many times over. Around 70% is exported.
But the searing southeast heat and widespread northern flooding this summer demonstrate the very real risks to food production. Temperature extremes, heatwaves, droughts, floods and shifting seasonal patterns are worsening as the climate changes.
People can seek refuge indoors. But the plants and animals we rely on for food have no such protection. In response, some orchardists and farmers are taking up an approach known as protected cropping, where crops are shielded from threats. As South Australian persimmon and avocado grower Craig Burne told the ABC:
without misting and netting in place, I don’t think we’d successfully grow either of these crops in this climate any more
As climate change intensifies, protected cropping could better safeguard some crops. Overseas, nations such as the Netherlands have taken up protected cropping to drastically boost fruit and vegetable exports. But it’s early days in Australia. To grow, the sector will have to overcome barriers to growth.
Protected cropping methods such as this polytunnel at Stepping Stone Farm in NSW can extend growing seasons and shield crops from some threats.Mick Tsikas/AAP
What defines protected cropping?
Protection is broadly defined. It can range from low-tech solutions such as shade houses and netting to medium-technology polytunnels (hoop-shaped plastic covers) through to highly sophisticated automated glasshouses.
Countries facing land constraints such as the Netherlands have been the most enthusiastic in taking up this approach. Guided by the principle of “twice the food using half the resources”, Netherlands farmers have turned to high-tech glasshouses.
The result has been remarkable: a country with extremely limited agricultural land has become a top exporter of fruit and vegetables.
Emerging in Australia
In Australia, protected cropping is gaining popularity off a small base. In 2023, around 14,000 hectares of fruit and vegetable crops were growing under some form of protection. That’s around 17% of the total area.
Most of this area relies on low-tech systems, however. Just over two-thirds (68%) of all protected cropping areas relies on low-tech shade houses or netting, mainly in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales.
Medium-tech systems such as polytunnels and polyhouses account for about 30% of the total. These systems are found mainly in Tasmania, northern Queensland and Western Australia.
High-tech glasshouses account for only 2% of the total. These are primarily found near bigger cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
To date, farmers have relied on protected cropping for high-value crops such as tomatoes, capsicums, cucumbers, berries, leafy greens and more expensive tree crops.
In 2022, Australia’s protected cropping industry was worth an estimated A$100 million to farmers. Demand for workers in the sector is growing at 5% a year, and around 10,000 people worked in the industry as of 2022.
Protected cropping has been used on import-reliant Christmas Island to boost self-sufficiency.Bianca De Marchi
Real benefits – at a cost
For farmers, protected cropping offers clear advantages across low-, medium- and high-tech approaches.
These methods can create an environment favourable to year-round plant growth, improving the consistency and quality of yields. By controlling factors such as temperature, plant nutrition, humidity, light and pests, protected cropping reduces production risks and increases crop yield and quality.
For farmers, being able to control their environment in a predictable way is particularly valuable in an uncertain climate. Protecting crops means less (but not zero) risk from extreme weather. Other benefits include more efficient use of land, water, fertiliser and energy.
Crops can also be cultivated closer to markets. This improves food freshness, lowers transport emissions and strengthens domestic food security.
For exporters, produce grown in protected systems is more likely to meet stringent biosecurity and quality standards of overseas buyers.
Innovation is essential to unlock these benefits at scale. Advances in plant breeding, sensors, automation, data analytics, controlled supply of nutrients, lighting systems and biological controls for pests and plant diseases can significantly boost farm production, profits and sustainability.
A high-tech greenhouse using LED lighting, hydroponics and automated sensors to optimise crop growth. Red and blue LED lights reduce energy use while maintaining high yields and crop quality.Anthony D’Agatha/La Trobe University, CC BY-NC-ND
What’s stopping protected cropping?
Australia’s farmers are highly exposed to extreme weather events and the changing water cycle. Protected cropping would seem to be a logical way to control some of these risks.
To date, protected cropping hasn’t achieved scale in Australia. That’s because the horticulture industry is dominated by small businesses with limited capacity to invest in new systems.
High-tech protected cropping systems offer the best results, but the cost is enough to put off many farmers. Finding and keeping skilled workers is another challenge.
Scaling up won’t just happen
Protected cropping is an excellent solution. But it’s out of reach for many farmers who would benefit.
Australia’s federal and state governments could accelerate uptake by setting targets to expand protected cropping areas, encourage adoption through policy levers, investing in joint infrastructure and incentives to cut installation costs.
A good start could be to focus on areas where high-value crops are grown in unprotected environments and work to create regional clusters of expertise, shared infrastructure and skilled jobs.
Governments can’t do it without buy in from industry bodies, researchers and farmers. Translating innovation from laboratory to field is never easy. But it can – and arguably must – be done, as Australia’s farmers face a very uncertain climate.
Protected cropping is not a silver bullet. Polytunnels can’t protect against floods, for instance. But other countries have successfully used these methods to boost yields, safeguard local food production and create new higher wage jobs. It could do the same here.
New Zealand’s weak response to the unprovoked and illegal United States and Israel attacks on Iran at the weekend has stirred strong criticism from many quarters.
A former New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark, who also held a top United Nations position for eight years, labelled the government’s response “a disgrace”.
“In the absence of an imminent threat to the security of the United States and Israel, their armed attacks on Iran are illegal under international law,” she said. “They have no legitimate claim to invoking a right of self-defence.”
Clark was a Labour prime minister in New Zealand from 1999 to 2008 and administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) from 2009 to 2017.
Other critics of New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ joint statement today condemning Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel and on US assets in the Gulf States included the opposition Green Party, a geopolitical strategic analyst, and a Palestine justice advocate, warning that Washington and Tel Aviv were risking a risky power vacuum in Iran and chaos across the Middle East with democracy unlikely to succeed.
Luxon and Peters singled out Iran for criticism in their statement while virtually ignoring the fact that Israel and the US had initiated hostilities with their sudden attack, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior regime figures, while Washington was still engaged with Tehran in negotiations about a possible nuclear agreement.
“We condemn in the strongest terms Iran’s indiscriminate retaliatory attacks on Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan,” they said. “We cannot risk further regional escalation, and civilian life must be protected.”
In Clark’s response, she also shared on social media a statement from The Elders, an independent advocacy group linking senior public figures including herself, which condemned the military strikes by the US and Israel as a “threat to regional and global security”.
“History shows that wars to force regime change deliver neither democracy nor stability,” said The Elders chair Juan Manuel Santos.
In absence of an imminent threat to security of US & Israel, the armed attacks on Iran are illegal under international law. The Iranian regime is a vicious theocracy which has caused huge trauma to its people. But that isn’t a reason for a breach of Iran’s sovereignty. @TheElderspic.twitter.com/zBeJn9jQ1m
“Trump and Netanyahu’s unilateral attack on Iran must be condemned as an illegal and unprovoked act against the people of the region and any genuine pathway to peace,” opposition Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said.
“This latest escalation in aggression is part of a decades-long pattern of behaviour of the US dragging the region into more wars, violence, and bloodshed.”
“First the US kidnaps the president of a sovereign state after killing more than a score of civilians on the open seas without warrant or evidence of wrongdoing,” said 36th Parallel Assessments director Dr Paul G Buchanan. “Now it kills the head of state and supreme religious leader of another sovereign state, teaming up with a regime credibly accused of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank in order to do so.”
He said the “selective unilateral application of force” without imminent threat from either country “demonstrates two things: 1) the US and Israel have gone rogue; and 2) in doing so they have set a dangerous precedent for others to follow suit (think China with regard to Taiwan)”.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-leader John Minto compared the current crisis with 1951 when Iran held its first democratic elections and elected its first democratic government led by Mohammad Mosaddegh as prime minister.
“Two years later the US and UK put in place Operation Ajax which overthrew this democratically elected government because the Iranians had nationalised the extraction and export of Iranian oil.
“This first democratic government in Iran was replaced by the autocratic rule of the US-friendly Shah.
“Today the US and Israel have attacked Iran yet again because Iran supports the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom from Israel’s genocidal occupation of Palestine and its ethnic cleansing and theft of Palestinian land.
“The US and Israel have never been interested in the democratic freedoms of Iranians. They want Iranians to live under the dictatorship of a US-bought leadership — just as the people of Arab countries across the Middle East suffer today.”
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Australian National University; The University of Western Australia; Victoria University
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said their aim is to bring about a favourable regime change in Iran. The implications of this for Iran, the region and beyond should not be underestimated.
Although Khamenei’s killing is a significant blow to the Islamic regime, it is not insurmountable. Many Iranian leaders have been killed in the past, including Qassem Soleimani, Tehran’s regional security architect, who was assassinated by the US in January 2020.
Khamenei’s departure is unlikely to mean the end of the Islamic regime in the short run. He anticipated this eventuality, and reportedly last week arranged a line of succession for his leadership and that of senior military, security and political leaders if they were “martyred”.
However, Khamenei was both a political and spiritual leader. He has commanded followers not only among devout Shias in Iran, but also many Muslims across the wider region. His assassination will spur some of them to seek revenge, potentially sparking a wave of extremist violent actions in the region and beyond.
A regime built for survival
Under a constitutional provision of the Islamic Republic, the Assembly of Experts – the body responsible for appointing and dismissing a supreme leader – will now meet and appoint an interim or long-term leader, either from among their own ranks or outside.
Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the head of the judiciary
Ali Asghar Hejazi, Khamenei’s chief-of-staff
Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Rohullah Khomeini.
The regime has every incentive to do what it must to ensure its survival. There are many regime enforcers and defenders, led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its subordinate paramilitary Basij group, across the country to suppress any domestic uprisings and fight for the endurance of the regime.
Their fortunes are intimately tied to the regime. So are a range of administrators and bureaucrats in the Iranian government, as well as regime sympathisers among ordinary Iranians. They are motivated by a blend of Shi’ism and fierce nationalism to remain loyal to the regime.
Mourners react following the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at Enqelab Square in Tehran, Iran.Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA
Many are deeply aggrieved by the regime’s theocratic impositions and dire economic situation and took to the streets in protests in late 2025 and early 2026. The regime cracked down harshly then, killing thousands.
Could a public uprising happen now? So far, the coercive and administrative state apparatus seems to be solidly backing the regime. Without serious cracks appearing among these figures – particularly the IRGC – the regime can be expected to survive this crisis.
Smoke rises in central Tehran after the US-Israel attack.Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA
Global economic pain
The regime has also been able to respond very quickly to outside aggression. It has already hit back at Israel and US military bases across the Persian Gulf, using short-range and long-range advanced ballistic missiles and drones.
While many of the projectiles have been repelled, some have hit their targets, causing serious damage.
The IRGC has also set out to choke the Strait of Hormuz – the narrow strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean. Some 20% of the world’s oil and 25% of its liquefied gas flows through the strait every day.
The IRGC conducting a military drill in the Strait of Hormuz on February 16, nearly two weeks before the US-Israel attacks.Sepah News handout/EPA
The United States has vowed to keep the strait remain open, but the IRGC is potentially well-placed to block traffic from going through. There could be serious implications for the global energy supply and broader economy.
Both sides in this conflict have trespassed all of the previous red lines. They are now in open warfare, which is engulfing the entire region.
A prolonged war looks likely
If there was any pretence on the part of Washington and Jerusalem that their attacks would not lead to a regional war, they were wrong. This is already happening.
Many countries that have close cooperation agreements with Iran, including China and Russia, have condemned the US-Israeli actions. The United Nations secretary-general António Guterres has also urgently called for de-escalation and a return to diplomatic negotiations, as have many others.
But the chances for this look very slim. The US and Iran were in the middle of a second round of talks over Tehran’s nuclear program when the attacks happened. The Omani foreign minister, who mediated between the two sides, publicly said just days ago that “peace was within reach”.
But this was not enough to convince Trump and Netanyahu to let the negotiations continue. They sensed now was the best time to strike the Islamic Republic to destroy not just its nuclear program but also its military capability after Israel degraded some of Tehran’s regional affiliates, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and expanded its footprint in Lebanon and Syria over the last two and a half years.
While it is difficult to be definitive about where the war is likely to lead, the scene is set for a long conflict. It may not last days, but rather weeks. The US and Israel do not want anything short of regime change, and the regime is determined to survive.
With this war, the Trump leadership is also signalling to its adversaries – China, in particular – that the US remains the preeminent global power, while Netanyahu is seeking to cement Israel’s position as the dominant regional actor.
Pity the Iranian people, the region and the world that have to endure the consequences of another war of choice in the Middle East for geopolitical gains in an already deeply troubled world.
The Albanese government has backed the American strike on Iran, while confirming Australia was not given prior warning.
Federal cabinet’s national security committee met early Sunday. Although supporting what has been done, the government is emphasising Australia is not a central player in Middle East issues.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said after the death of Ayatollah Khamenei was confirmed that “his passing will not be mourned.”
In a joint statement, Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong said: “It has long been recognised that Iran’s nuclear program is a threat to global peace and security.
“The international community has been clear that the Iranian regime can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.
“We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security.”
Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson told the ABC: “A coordinated attack to address what has been an ongoing build-up of their nuclear programme is something that’s very good for international peace and security. Of course, we hope the situation is contained.”
Shadow foreign minister Ted O’Brien said: “Our position is clear: Israel has the right to defend itself and Iranians have the right to live free of oppression.”
But Greens leader, Larissa Waters, said: “The Greens condemn these illegal, abhorrent and unilateral attacks. Australians do not want to be dragged into another US-Israeli war.
“Australia’s support of Trump and Netanyahu’s illegal attack last night was disgraceful. We cannot bomb our way to peace.”
A sceptical note from within the Coalition came from Nationals senator Matt Canavan. He told The Conversation “not a single regime change war has left the world a better place in my lifetime – not sure why this would be any different”.
Canavan said it was great to see the Ayatollah gone. “But it was great to see Saddam and Gaddafi gone too. Now things are much worse for those countries and the region. Add the Taliban to that list too.”
Shadow industry minister Andrew Hastie, an Afghanistan veteran, said: “As a veteran of the so-called forever wars, I’m very suspicious about regime change by force. But Iran has a terrible regime – they’re a proxy, they’re underwritten by Chinese and Russian tech,” he told Sky News.
The Iranians orchestrated two attacks in Australia in 2024, one of them the firebombing of the Adass Synagogue in Melbourne. Iran’s ambassador was later expelled.
Asked whether the weekend attack was legal and whether he was concerned this might erode further the international rules-based order, Albanese said those judgements were for the US and those involved directly.
He said he hoped the actions taken would lead to a “swift resolution”.
Wong said Australia did not want to see the situation escalate into a wider regional war. “We seek the resumption of dialogue and diplomacy”, she said. “We join our partners in calling on all parties to adhere to international humanitarian law.”
On whether Australia had any prior warning, Wong said: “We weren’t told in advance. You wouldn’t expect us to be.
“We are not at the centre of the issues in the Middle East but we obviously play a role in the international community.”
Quizzed on whether Australia supported regime change, Wong said, “We stand with the people of Iran in fighting against an oppressive regime. Ultimately, Iran’s future must be determined by the people of Iran.”
Australians in Iran continue to be advised to leave if it is safe to do so, which is difficult given the air space is closed.
The government said its ability to provide consular assistance in Iran was “extremely limited”. The Australian embassy is closed.
As well as being advised not to travel to Iran Australians are also advised not to travel to Israel, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, among other countries in the region.
Australians requiring urgent consular assistance can contact the Consular Emergency Centre 24/7 on 1300 555 135 in Australia or +61 2 6261 3305 from outside Australia.
The local Iranian community in Australia numbers some 50,000, with many anxiously trying to contact family and friends in Iran.
Yasinta Moiwend was startled when, on a quiet morning, a massive ship docked at her village pier in West Papua.
The vessel carried hundreds of excavators and was escorted by military forces. It was the first convoy of 2000 heavy machines to arrive in Papua under a National Strategic Project for food production, palm-based biodiesel, and sugarcane bioethanol.
Yasinta, a Marind Anim woman in Merauke, never realised that her village had been chosen as the ground zero for what would become the largest forest conversion project in modern history — turning 2.5 million ha of tropical forest into industrial plantations under the guise of “food security” and the “energy transition”.
Vincen Kwipalo, from the Yei community, was also shocked when his clan’s land was suddenly marked with a sign reading: “Property of the Indonesian Army.”
Only later did he learn that the land had been seized for the construction of a military battalion headquarters, at the very moment when sugarcane, a plantation company, was also encroaching on his ancestral forest.
Threatened by the same project, Franky Woro and the Awyu community in Boven Digoel erected giant crosses and indigenous ritual markers on their land. Known as the Red Cross Movement, this form of resistance has spread among Indigenous groups across South Papua.
More than 1800 red crosses have been planted to confront corporations and the military—both physically and spiritually. Though a Christian symbol is central to the movement, local Church prelates condemned it as not part of the church.
[embedded content] The Pesta Babi trailer. Video: Jubi Media at Café Pacific
Pesta Babi (“Pig Feast”) combines detailed field recordings with in-depth research to examine the power structures behind the operation.
It exposes how government and corporate entities — collaborating with military and religious groups — advance international and national goals of “food security” and “energy transition” at the expense of Indigenous communities and landscapes.
The documentary illustrates the networks of Indonesian elites, oligarchs, and multinational corporations that benefit from the project, providing a vivid depiction of the political ecology of Indonesian governance in Papua.
Pig Feast serves as a record of colonialism that remains intact today.
This film is co-produced by Jubi, Ekspedisi Indonesia Baru, Greenpeace, Yayasan Pusaka, and Watchdoc Documentary. It is being screened as part of a weekend of West Papua Solidarity Forum events organised by West Papua Action Tāmaki Makaurau.
“Pesta Babi” (The Pig Party) . . . the West Papuan documentary film being world premiered in New Zealand next month. Image: Jubi Media
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for 36 years, has been killed in the strikes, Iranian state media reported.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council says he was killed early Saturday morning at his office. Satellite imagery shows significant damage to parts of the Leadership House compound, which is Khamenei’s office in Tehran.
Iranian school struck
More than 100 children have reportedly been killed by US and Israeli air strikes on a school, according to Iranian authorities. They say the strikes hit a girls’ elementary school in the city of Minab in the country’s south.
Video has emerged of crowds of people searching through the rubble.
“Hundreds of civilians have been killed and injured as a result of the aggression and atrocious crime of the United States regime and the Israeli regime, and the deliberate … targeting of civilian infrastructure,” Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shannon Brincat, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of the Sunshine Coast
The joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran represent a further erosion of the international legal order. Under international law, these attacks are neither preemptive nor lawful.
Israel and the United States launched Operation Shield of Judah and Operation Epic Fury while diplomatic negotiations between Washington and Tehran were actively underway on Iran’s nuclear program.
Israel said the strikes were “preventive”, meaning they were to prevent Iran from developing a capacity to be a threat. But preventive war has no legal basis under international law. The UN Security Council did not authorise any military action, meaning the sole lawful pathway for the use of force for self-defence was never pursued.
[embedded content]
Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Preemptive self-defence, as we have argued previously, has extremely narrow prescriptions under the Caroline doctrine. It requires a threat to be “instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means”. No such conditions existed with Iran on February 28.
US intelligence also reportedly indicated it would take three years for Iran to build a nuclear weapon. Moreover, US and Israeli strikes on Iran last year had put the program back by months. Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear program had been obliterated.
Forcible regime change violates the foundational principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention under the UN Charter.
The strikes targeted Iran’s supreme leader, president, and military chief of staff, as well as military infrastructure. Deliberately targeting heads of state also crosses a threshold that distinguishes military operations from acts of aggression.
Attacking heads of state is illegal under New York Convention, for obvious reasons of stability. With the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the power vacuum will only increase the hardship on the ground for Iranians.
In addition, promises to return the shah – Iran’s previous monarch – have not considered the authoritarian implications of such rule.
Reports that an airstrike on an elementary school in Minab killed at least 100 girls aged between seven and 12 underscore the human cost of unplanned regime change.
In this case, there is no obvious plan to rebuild or stabilise Iran after these strikes. Western allies have expressed concern that Washington lacks a coherent strategy for the aftermath of the attacks, noting the minimal preparation for post-conflict reconstruction and government transition.
Launching strikes during active negotiations violates the principle of good faith in Article 2(2) of the UN Charter. As the Arms Control Association noted, Iranian policymakers had already accused the US of bad faith after the June 2025 strikes disrupted previously scheduled talks.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry denounced the February 28 attacks as striking during negotiations, violating international law.
World leaders’ response
We should be dismayed by the worrying acceptance of increased brazen illegality by Western leaders, including our own prime minister. Anthony Albanese has supported the strikes as “acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”. This places Australia, once again, in open contradiction with basic principles of liberal international order.
Russia and China criticised the US-Israeli actions and urged an immediate end to military operations and a return to diplomatic negotiations.
The international legal order is now in free-fall. When powerful states conduct illegal wars under the guise of prevention, weaponise diplomacy as cover, and openly pursue regime change, the “rules-based order” is literally dead.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on March 1, 2026.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled Iran with defiance and brutality for 36 years. For many Iranians, he will not be revered Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Thomas, Lecturer in Middle East Studies, Deakin University Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for 36 years, has been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on his country, Iranian state media reported. As one of Iran’s longest-serving leaders, Khamenei was almost as ubiquitous in Iranian society
Iran will respond to US-Israeli strikes as existential threats to the regime – because they are Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Javed Ali, Associate Professor of Practice of Public Policy, University of Michigan After U.S. and Israeli missiles struck Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025, Tehran responded with a limited attack on the American airbase in Qatar. Five years before that, a U.S. drone strike against Qasem Soleimani,
Marilyn Garson: Waking up to terror in this new world of impunity COMMENTARY: By Marilyn Garson Look around this morning. America and Israel, nuclear-armed states have attacked Iran. Israel, which has never declared its nuclear stockpiles nor its borders, has spent 2.5 years committing genocide against Gaza, a trapped community with no significant defensive weapons. Israel has bombed six countries which are not at war with it.
NZ rally slams Five Eyes intelligence ties hours before US-Israel attack on Iran Asia Pacific Report Speakers at a pro-Palestine rally in central Auckland Tamaki Makaurau today were highly critical of the erosion of New Zealand’s once proud nuclear-free and independent foreign policy. They also warned against being tied into a United States that is pivoting a hostile policy towards China, New Zealand’s major trading partner. Ironically, just
Iran has been attacked by US and Israel when peace was within reach Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bamo Nouri, Honorary Research Fellow, Department of International Politics, City St George’s, University of London US and Iranian negotiators met in Geneva earlier this week in what mediators described as the most serious and constructive talks in years. Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, spoke publicly of “unprecedented
US-Israeli attack on Iran risks plunging the world into turmoil Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, Inaugural Co-Director of Centre for AI Futures, SOAS, University of London The US and Israel have launched extensive, coordinated attacks on numerous targets across Iran, prompting retaliatory strikes in the region. Donald Trump neither tried to obtain Congressional
Filipino photojournalist Alex Baluyut: An extraordinary sense of truth in an ailing society OBITUARY: By Joel Paredes Having known the Filipino photojournalist Alex Baluyut, who died yesterday aged 69, for nearly half a century, I feel that looking at his photos — how he documented the events that unfurled during his lifetime — reveals his own lifelong search for himself. By documenting the rawest parts of human existence,
Papuan activist leader Wenda accuses Jakarta of ‘lying’ over shot down plane Asia Pacific Report A West Papuan leader has accused the Indonesian government of lying over its operations and “masking” the military role of some civilian aircraft. Disputing an Indonesian government statement about reported that TPNPB fired upon an aircraft in Boven Digoel, killing both the pilot and copilot, United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP)
‘We warned you,’ says Iran’s national security chief after Israel-US attacks Asia Pacific Report “We warned you,” says Iran’s national security commission head after Israel-US missiles attacks on the capital Tehran and other cities. Al Jazeera reports comments from Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the national security commission of the Iranian Parliament. “We warned you!” he wrote on social media. “Now you have started down a
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for 36 years, has been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on his country, Iranian state media reported.
As one of Iran’s longest-serving leaders, Khamenei was almost as ubiquitous in Iranian society as his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.
And despite the fact Khomeini authored the Iranian Revolution, some say Khamenei was actually the most powerful leader modern Iran has had.
In more than three decades as supreme leader, Khamenei amassed unprecedented power over domestic politics and cracked down ever more harshly on internal dissent. In recent years, he prioritised his survival – and that of his regime – above all else. His government brutally put down a popular uprising in December 2025–January 2026 that killed thousands.
Ultimately, though, Khamenei will not be remembered by most Iranians as a strong leader. Nor will he be revered. Instead, his legacy will be the profound weakness his regime brought the Islamic Republic on all fronts.
A man walks past a mural depicting Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (left) and late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (right) during a funeral ceremony for security personnel killed during anti-government protests, in Tehran, Iran, January 14 2026.Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA
Khamenei’s rise through the ranks
Khamenei was born in the city of Marshad in northeastern Iran in 1939. As a boy, he began to form his political and religious world view by studying at Islamic seminaries in Najaf and Qom. At 13, he started to embrace ideas relating to revolutionary Islam. These included the teachings of cleric Navab Safavi, who often called for political violence against the rule of the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Khamenei met Khomeini in 1958 and immediately embraced his philosophy, often referred to as “Khomeinism”.
The concept of velayat-e faqih, also known as guardianship of the jurist, is central to Khomeinism. It dictates that the supreme leader should be endowed with “all the authorities that the Prophet and infallible Imams were entitled”.
Essentially, this means Iran was to be ruled by a single scholar of Shia Islam. This is where Khomeini, and later Khamenei, would draw their sweeping power and control.
From 1962, Khamenei began almost two decades of revolutionary activity against Pahlavi (the shah) on behalf of Khomeini, who was exiled in 1964. Khamenei was arrested by the shah’s secret police in 1971 and tortured, according to his memoirs.
When the shah was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Khomeini returned from exile to become the new supreme leader.
Khamenei was selected to join the Revolutionary Council, which ruled alongside the provisional government. He then became deputy defence minister and assisted in organising the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This military institution – initially created to protect the revolution and supreme leader – would become one of the most powerful political forces in Iran.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (sitting on chair), Ali Khamenei (middle), and Khomeini’s son, Ahmad Khomeini (left), pictured in 1981.Wikimedia Commons
Although subordinate to the supreme leader, Khamenei wielded significant power compared to later presidents, given the revolution was still very young and the Iraq war posed a great threat to the regime. But he remained in lock-step with Khomeini’s wishes. He also managed to build a close relationship with the IRGC that would go far beyond his presidency.
Then-President Ali Khamenei during a state visit to China in May 1989.Forrest Anderson/Getty Images
A surprising choice for supreme leader
Khomeini died in June 1989 after a period of deteriorating health, with no clear successor.
Khomeini had initially supported Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri to be his successor. However, Montazeri had become increasingly critical of the supreme leader’s authority and human rights violations in the country. He resigned in 1988 and was put under house arrest until his death in 2009.
In fact, his appointment sparked a significant amount of controversy and criticism. Some Islamic scholars believed he lacked the clerical rank of grand ayatollah, which was required under the constitution to ascend to the position. These critics believed the Iranian people would not respect the word of “a mere human being” without a proper connection to God.
The constitutional amendments, however, had given Khamenei significantly more power to intervene in political affairs. In fact, he had far more power as supreme leader than Khomeini ever enjoyed.
This included the ability to determine general policies, appoint and dismiss members of the Council of Guardians, and order public referendums. He also had enough power to silence dissent with relative ease.
Consolidating power over the decades
Khamenei worked with his presidents to varying degrees, though he exercised his power to undermine legislation when he disagreed with it.
For example, he largely backed the economic agenda of President Hashemi Rafsanjani (who served from 1989 to 1997), but he often stood in the way of Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005) and Hassan Rouhani (2013–21). Both had attempted to reform Iran’s political system and foster a better relationship with the West.
Khamenei’s most famous intervention in domestic politics occurred after the first term of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–13). After Ahmadinejad claimed victory in the disputed 2009 presidential election, thousands of Iranians took to the streets in one of the largest protest movements since the revolution. Khamenei backed the election result and cracked down harshly on the protesters. Dozens were killed (perhaps more), while thousands were arbitrarily arrested.
An Iranian protestor clenches her fist during an opposition rally in Tehran, Iran, on July 9 2009.AP
Khamenei later clashed with Ahmadinejad and warned him against seeking the presidency again in 2017. Ahmadinejad defied him, but was later barred from running.
After the death of hardline President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in 2024, Khameini continued his manoeuvring behind the scenes. After the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian won the presidency, Khameini immediately blocked him from negotiating with the United States over sanctions relief and used his influence to thwart his economic reform agenda.
Iranian protesters blocking an intersection in Tehran during the anti-government demonstrations in Iran on January 8 2026.AP
A tarnished legacy
Thanks to the powers vested in him in the constitution, Khamenei also had extraordinary control over Iran’s foreign policy.
Like his mentor, Khomeini, he staunchly supported the regime’s resistance to what it considered “Western imperialism”. He was also a key architect of Iran’s regional proxy strategy, funding militant groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and others to carry out Iran’s military objectives.
During the first Trump administration, however, Khamenei returned to a staunchly anti-Western posture. His government railed against Trump’s scuttling of the 2015 nuclear deal, the reimposed economic sanctions on Iran’s energy sector and the assassination of the head of the IRGC’s Quds force, Qassem Soleimani.
After Trump returned to office in 2025, Iran grew even weaker. And Khamenei’s anti-Western posture began to look increasingly hollow. Iran’s defeat in the 12-day war with Israel in 2025 shredded whatever legitimacy his regime had left.
In the months that followed, Khamenei ruled over a population increasingly resentful of the Iranian political system and its leadership. In the 2025–26 protests, some openly chanted for Khamenei’s death.
When Khomenei died in 1989, his state funeral was attended by millions. Mourners pulled him out of his coffin and scrambled for sacred mementos.
Though Khameini served longer, Iranians will likely not show the same grief for him.
After U.S. and Israeli missiles struck Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025, Tehran responded with a limited attack on the American airbase in Qatar. Five years before that, a U.S. drone strike against Qasem Soleimani, head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, was met with followed by an attack on two American bases in Iraq shortly thereafter.
In the early hours of Feb. 28, 2026, hundreds of missiles struck multiple sites in Iran. Part of “Operation Epic Fury,” as the U.S. Department of Defense has called it, the strikes follow months of U.S. military buildup in the region. But they also come after apparent diplomatic efforts, in the shape of a series of nuclear talks in Oman and Geneva aimed at a peaceful resolution.
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Any such deal is surely now completely off the table. In scale and scope, the U.S. and Israel attack goes far beyond any previous strikes on the Gulf nation.
In response, Iran has said it will use “crushing” force. As an expert on Middle East affairs and a former senior official at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration, I believe the calculus both in Washington and more so in Tehran is very different from earlier confrontations: Iran’s leaders almost certainly see this as an existential threat given President Donald Trump’s statement and the military campaign already underway. And there appears to be no obvious off-ramp to avoid further escalation.
What we should expect now is a response from Tehran that utilizes all of its capabilities – even though they have been significantly degraded. And that should be a worry for all nations in the region and beyond.
The apparent aims of the US operation
It is important to note that we are in the early stages of this conflict – much is unknown.
As of Feb. 28, it is unclear who has been killed among Iran’s leadership and to what extent Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities have been degraded. The fact that ballistic missiles have been launched at regional states that host U.S. military bases suggests that, at a minimum, Iran’s military capabilities have not been entirely wiped out.
Iran fired over 600 missiles against Israel last June during their 12-day war, but media reporting and Iranian statements over the past month suggested that Iran managed to replenish some of its missile inventory, which it is now using.
Clearly Washington is intent on crippling Iran’s ballistic program, as it is that capability that allows Iran to threaten the region most directly. A sticking point in the negotiations in Geneva and Oman was U.S. officials’ insistence that both Iran’s ballistic missiles and its funneling of support to proxy groups in the region be on the table, along with the longstanding condition that Tehran ends all uranium enrichment. Tehran has long resisted attempts to have limits on its ballistic missiles as part of any negotiated nuclear deal given their importance in Iran’s national security doctrine.
This explains why some U.S. and Israeli strikes appear to be aimed at taking out Iran’s ballistic and cruise missile launch sites and production facilities and storage locations for such weapons.
But the Trump administration appears to have expanded its aims beyond removing Iran’s nuclear and non-nuclear military threat. The latest strikes have gone after leadership, too.
Among the locations of the first U.S.-Israeli strikes was a Tehran compound in which the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in known to reside, and Israel’s prime minister has confirmed that the 86-year-old leader was a target of the operation.
While the status of the supreme leader and other key members of Iran’s leadership remains unknown as of this writing, it is clear that the U.S. administration hopes that regime change will follow Operation Epic Fury. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take,” Trump told Iranians via a video message recorded during the early hours of the attack.
Signaling a regime change operation may encourage Iranians unhappy with decades of repressive rule and economic woes to continue where they left off in January – when hundreds of thousands took to the street to protest.
But it carries risks for the U.S. and its interests. Iran’s leaders will no longer feel constrained, as they did after the Soleimani assassination and the June 2025 conflict. On those occasions, Iran responded in a way that was not even proportionate to its losses – limited strikes on American military bases in the region.
Now the gloves are off, and each side will be trying to land a knockout blow. But what does that constitute? The U.S. administration appears to be set on regime change. Iran’s leadership will be looking for something that goes beyond its previous retaliatory strikes – and that likely means American deaths. That eventuality has been anticipated by Trump, who warned that there might be American casualties.
So why is Trump willing to risk that now? It is clear to me that despite talk of progress in the rounds of diplomatic talks, Trump has lost his patience with the process.
On Feb. 26, after the latest round of talks in Geneva, we didn’t hear much from the U.S. side. Trump’s calculus may have been that Iran wasn’t taking the hint – made clear by adding a second carrier strike group to the other warships and hundreds of fighter aircraft sent to the region over the past several weeks – that Tehran had no option other than agreeing to the U.S. demands.
Iranians watch as explosions erupt across Tehran.AP Photo
What happens next
What we don’t know is whether the U.S. strategy is now to pause and see if an initial round of strikes has forced Iran to sue for peace – or whether the initial strikes are just a prelude to more to come.
For now, the diplomatic ship appears to have sailed. Trump seems to have no appetite for a deal now – he just wants Iran’s regime gone.
In order to do that, he has made a number of calculated gambles. First politically and legally: Trump did not go through Congress before ordering Operation Epic Fury. Unlike 23 years ago when President George W. Bush took the U.S. into Iraq, there is no war authorization giving the president cover.
Instead, White House lawyers must have assessed that Trump can carry out this operation under his Article 2 powers to act as commander in chief. Even so, the 1973 War Powers Act will mean the clock is now ticking. If the attacks are not concluded in 60 days, the administration will have to go back to Congress and say the operation is complete, or work with Congress for an authorization to use force or a formal declaration of war.
The second gamble is whether Iranians will heed his call to remove a regime that many have long wanted gone. Given the ferocity of the regime’s response to the protests in January, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iranians, are Iranians willing to face down Iran’s internal security forces and drive what remains of the regime from power?
Third, the U.S. administration has made a bet that the Iranian regime – even confronted with an existential threat – does not have the capability to drag the U.S. into a lengthy conflict to inflict massive casualties.
But it can lean on unconventional capabilities. Terrorism is a real concern – either through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, which coordinates Iran’s unconventional warfare, or through its partnership with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Or actors like the Houthis in Yemen or Shia militias in Iraq may seek to conduct attacks against U.S. interests in solidarity with Iran or directed to do so by the regime.
A mass casualty event may put political pressure on Trump, but I cannot see it leading to U.S. boots on ground in Iran. The American public doesn’t have the appetite for such an eventuality, and that would necessitate Trump gaining Congressional approval, which for now has not yet materialized.
No one has a crystal ball, and it is early in an operation that will likely go on for days, if not longer. But one thing is clear: Iran’s regime is facing an existential threat. Do not expect it to show restraint.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for 36 years, has been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on his country, according to US President Donald Trump. Iran did not immediately confirm his death.
As one of Iran’s longest-serving leaders, Khamenei has been almost as ubiquitous in Iranian society as his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.
And despite the fact Khomeini authored the Iranian Revolution, some say Khamenei was actually the most powerful leader modern Iran has had.
In more than three decades as supreme leader, Khamenei amassed unprecedented power over domestic politics and cracked down ever more harshly on internal dissent. In recent years, he prioritised his survival – and that of his regime – above all else. His government brutally put down a popular uprising in December 2025–January 2026 that killed thousands.
Ultimately, though, Khamenei will not be remembered by most Iranians as a strong leader. Nor will he be revered. Instead, his legacy will be the profound weakness his regime brought the Islamic Republic on all fronts.
A man walks past a mural depicting Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (left) and late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (right) during a funeral ceremony for security personnel killed during anti-government protests, in Tehran, Iran, January 14 2026.Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA
Khamenei’s rise through the ranks
Khamenei was born in the city of Marshad in northeastern Iran in 1939. As a boy, he began to form his political and religious world view by studying at Islamic seminaries in Najaf and Qom. At 13, he started to embrace ideas relating to revolutionary Islam. These included the teachings of cleric Navab Safavi, who often called for political violence against the rule of the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Khamenei met Khomeini in 1958 and immediately embraced his philosophy, often referred to as “Khomeinism”.
The concept of velayat-e faqih, also known as guardianship of the jurist, is central to Khomeinism. It dictates that the supreme leader should be endowed with “all the authorities that the Prophet and infallible Imams were entitled”.
Essentially, this means Iran was to be ruled by a single scholar of Shia Islam. This is where Khomeini, and later Khamenei, would draw their sweeping power and control.
From 1962, Khamenei began almost two decades of revolutionary activity against Pahlavi (the shah) on behalf of Khomeini, who was exiled in 1964. Khamenei was arrested by the shah’s secret police in 1971 and tortured, according to his memoirs.
When the shah was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Khomeini returned from exile to become the new supreme leader.
Khamenei was selected to join the Revolutionary Council, which ruled alongside the provisional government. He then became deputy defence minister and assisted in organising the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This military institution – initially created to protect the revolution and supreme leader – would become one of the most powerful political forces in Iran.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (sitting on chair), Ali Khamenei (middle), and Khomeini’s son, Ahmad Khomeini (left), pictured in 1981.Wikimedia Commons
Although subordinate to the supreme leader, Khamenei wielded significant power compared to later presidents, given the revolution was still very young and the Iraq war posed a great threat to the regime. But he remained in lock-step with Khomeini’s wishes. He also managed to build a close relationship with the IRGC that would go far beyond his presidency.
Then-President Ali Khamenei during a state visit to China in May 1989.Forrest Anderson/Getty Images
A surprising choice for supreme leader
Khomeini died in June 1989 after a period of deteriorating health, with no clear successor.
Khomeini had initially supported Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri to be his successor. However, Montazeri had become increasingly critical of the supreme leader’s authority and human rights violations in the country. He resigned in 1988 and was put under house arrest until his death in 2009.
In fact, his appointment sparked a significant amount of controversy and criticism. Some Islamic scholars believed he lacked the clerical rank of grand ayatollah, which was required under the constitution to ascend to the position. These critics believed the Iranian people would not respect the word of “a mere human being” without a proper connection to God.
The constitutional amendments, however, had given Khamenei significantly more power to intervene in political affairs. In fact, he had far more power as supreme leader than Khomeini ever enjoyed.
This included the ability to determine general policies, appoint and dismiss members of the Council of Guardians, and order public referendums. He also had enough power to silence dissent with relative ease.
Consolidating power over the decades
Khamenei worked with his presidents to varying degrees, though he exercised his power to undermine legislation when he disagreed with it.
For example, he largely backed the economic agenda of President Hashemi Rafsanjani (who served from 1989 to 1997), but he often stood in the way of Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005) and Hassan Rouhani (2013–21). Both had attempted to reform Iran’s political system and foster a better relationship with the West.
Khamenei’s most famous intervention in domestic politics occurred after the first term of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–13). After Ahmadinejad claimed victory in the disputed 2009 presidential election, thousands of Iranians took to the streets in one of the largest protest movements since the revolution. Khamenei backed the election result and cracked down harshly on the protesters. Dozens were killed (perhaps more), while thousands were arbitrarily arrested.
An Iranian protestor clenches her fist during an opposition rally in Tehran, Iran, on July 9 2009.AP
Khamenei later clashed with Ahmadinejad and warned him against seeking the presidency again in 2017. Ahmadinejad defied him, but was later barred from running.
After the death of hardline President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in 2024, Khameini continued his manoeuvring behind the scenes. After the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian won the presidency, Khameini immediately blocked him from negotiating with the United States over sanctions relief and used his influence to thwart his economic reform agenda.
Iranian protesters blocking an intersection in Tehran during the anti-government demonstrations in Iran on January 8 2026.AP
A tarnished legacy
Thanks to the powers vested in him in the constitution, Khamenei also had extraordinary control over Iran’s foreign policy.
Like his mentor, Khomeini, he staunchly supported the regime’s resistance to what it considered “Western imperialism”. He was also a key architect of Iran’s regional proxy strategy, funding militant groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and others to carry out Iran’s military objectives.
During the first Trump administration, however, Khamenei returned to a staunchly anti-Western posture. His government railed against Trump’s scuttling of the 2015 nuclear deal, the reimposed economic sanctions on Iran’s energy sector and the assassination of the head of the IRGC’s Quds force, Qassem Soleimani.
After Trump returned to office in 2025, Iran grew even weaker. And Khamenei’s anti-Western posture began to look increasingly hollow. Iran’s defeat in the 12-day war with Israel in 2025 shredded whatever legitimacy his regime had left.
In the months that followed, Khamenei ruled over a population increasingly resentful of the Iranian political system and its leadership. In the 2025–26 protests, some openly chanted for Khamenei’s death.
When Khomenei died in 1989, his state funeral was attended by millions. Mourners pulled him out of his coffin and scrambled for sacred mementos.
Though Khameini served longer, Iranians will likely not show the same grief for him.
America and Israel, nuclear-armed states have attacked Iran.
Israel, which has never declared its nuclear stockpiles nor its borders, has spent 2.5 years committing genocide against Gaza, a trapped community with no significant defensive weapons.
Israel has bombed six countries which are not at war with it. America funded it and elected Donald Trump to lead the violence from the front.
America and Israel pontificate about other states’ fitness to hold nuclear weapons.
Nuclear-armed Russia has invaded and battered Ukraine for four long years. Nuclear-armed Pakistan has begun to bomb the cities of Afghanistan, a state which lacks even an air force with which to defend its people (not that the Taliban care for the lives of their people).
We awake in the world that wise, caring people worked to avert for over a century; a world of impunity and gleeful slaughter by the already-overarmed.
People tried to minimise the risk and the harm of war with a few basic agreements. They dared to intervene for the protection and survival of civilians, doctors, journalists. They wrote laws to criminalise aggression and genocide.
All this is going up in smoke, and not one of the aggressors/provocateurs/genocidaires has a viable claim of self-defence.
How many people wake up in terror this morning (if they slept at all last night) in this new world?
Marilyn Garson writes about Palestinian and Jewish dissent.
Speakers at a pro-Palestine rally in central Auckland Tamaki Makaurau today were highly critical of the erosion of New Zealand’s once proud nuclear-free and independent foreign policy.
They also warned against being tied into a United States that is pivoting a hostile policy towards China, New Zealand’s major trading partner.
Ironically, just hours after the rally ended news broke of the unprovoked and illegal attack by Israel and the US against Iran barely eight months after a 12-day war last year.
With a theme posing the question “Is New Zealand a peace loving nation or a cog in the US war machine,” the speakers concluded that indeed the Pacific country was a “US war machine cog”.
Physicist Dr Peter Wills, a long-time activist and advocate for peace and a nuclear-free Pacific, focused on New Zealand’s role in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance.
He said the Five Eyes relationship has superseded ANZUS “or anything else”, saying while the pact formalised in 1946 used to be intelligence, now it was the name of a five-nation military grouping.
“That’s the Anglo-Saxon countries,” he said. “Us good English-speaking people, you know, the white imperialists and colonialists of the world – the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and little old New Zealand.
“We’re all a part of it.
Eavesdropping on countries “It used to be an intelligence agreement because they would talk about what they have listened to with other countries by eavesdropping on their radio communications and so on.
“But now everything has become so integrated, they have become the centre of war fighting.”
An Auckland protester with a “fake ceasefire” banner criticising the almost daily villations by Israel in Gaza. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Explaining further, Dr Wills said: “And so they have this thing that they call C-5, which is command control for communications, computers and cyber.”
He said a top priority project was to make up a globally integrated “all domain” command and control system, which was hoped to be in place for next year.
The project had been discussed in Portsmouth, UK, in May 2024. Its purpose was to track friendly and enemy forces and send orders for attack.
“All domains – navy, land, air and space forces,” said Dr Wills, an honorary professor.
Globally integrated intelligence and military actions could be launched and directed anywhere in the world.
Protesters at today’s pro-Palestine rally in Te Komititanga Square. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Countering China It was electronic infrastructure for a superpower confrontation – to “develop a credible and effective combined all-domain command and control capability for operations to counter China”.
For Five Eyes officers overseeing these new digital and AI war-fighting systems at the Portsmouth meeting, a key objective was building the capability for confrontation with China.
“This means NZ following the US into military conflict with China,” Dr Wills said.
“We are involved in GIDE – Global Information Dominance Experiments, a new one is prepared every three months.
“And we will align with whatever is chosen by Five Eyes, either British or American.”
From an American point of view, said Dr Wills, New Zealand was a US ally, eager to play a role, “however small we are, to supporting the US around the globe”.
They also wanted NZ to get rid of its anti-nuclear legislation and return to ANZUS. This was the view of senior military officers and senior foreign affairs and intelligence officials
US ‘instability and bullying’ However, the majority of New Zealanders saw the US as a “source of instability and bullying” of New Zealand over its nuclear stand.
Dr Wills said New Zealand was influenced by the Anglo-American alliance today on many fronts, such as:
NZ Navy ships transiting “provocatively” through the South China Sea;
Being pressured to double military spending,;
Being pressured to join the “anti-China” AUKUS alliance;
The recent opening of a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Wellington; and
New Zealand playing an increasing role in space warfare.
But Dr Wills warned people “don’t give up – they haven’t won, not even with their arguments”.
He also called on people to become better informed, such as reading Nicky Hager’s 2011 book Other People’s Wars.
Polynesian Panther Tigilau Ness and his mokopuna (saxophone) . . . their rendition of “We Are All Palestinians” was dedicated to activist and Kia Ora Gaza co-founder Roger Fowler who died last Saturday. Image: Asia Pacific Report
NZ’s nuclear-free stance Other speakers included nuclear-free New Zealand historian and activist Maire Leadbeater, who outlined the early trajectory of the country’s opposition to French nuclear tests in the Pacific by dispatching a frigate to Moruroa, and the campaign to declare New Zealand nuclear-free.
She said New Zealand had led the way in the 1970s and 1980s and could take a principled independent foreign policy stand again.
The rally also invoked the spirit of Kia Ora Gaza co-founder and campaigner Roger Fowler, who died last Saturday and who was farewelled at a “celebration of life” ceremony at Ngā Tapuwae Community Centre in Mangere East on Wednesday.
Veteran Polynesian Panther Tigilau Ness and his grandson on the saxophone played a rousing rendition of the popular song “We Are All Palestinians”, created by Fowler, and South African-born activist Achmat Esau read out his poem, “Roger, I Did Not Know” in tribute.
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