Civilians cannot be sustainably protected while weapons, financing, logistical support and foreign fighters continue to reach forces responsible for attacking them. Humanitarian assistance is essential, but it cannot substitute for addressing the drivers that sustain the violence.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has just survived a coup attempt partially engineered by … himself. Confusion reigns in the capital after Luxon staggered out of the caucus room bloodied but still standing after Defence Minister Chris Penk launched a challenge.  His MPs were ‘unified’ behind him, Luxon said, shortly before sacking Penk.  Other ministers named in the putsch ran for cover this morning denying any involvement despite leaks to the contrary. "Penk was working for himself," MP Chris Bishop, named by some as a co-conspirator, told journalists.

US unilateral sanctions, the kind being imposed on Cuba today, are deadlier for children than war according to a major piece of research published in The Lancet, the world’s leading medical journal. Totally ignored by the mainstream media, the report has bombshell findings that should call into question the use of sanctions to impose punishments on entire populations for the actions of their governments. 

On Wednesday Green Party MP Dr. Lawrence Xu-Nan heckled the foreign minister about his vaccination status during a debate in parliament. The notoriously thin-skinned Peters shouted: "I know you just came here five minutes ago. Go back where you come from, you loud mouth!”

When President Trump said, “Iran must unconditionally surrender”, it suggests he has not read the history of this nation. Surrender is the worst thing for us. It’s the same with calling for zero enrichment, giving up our missiles and our allies – they don’t understand the identity of the Iranian people. We fought against Saddam Hussein for 8 years to ensure we did not lose a centimetre of our land. When you don’t understand things like that, it can cause many mistakes, as we have seen.

This week, on July 24, the 125 member states of the International Criminal Court will vote on whether to fire Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan. This is far more than a vote about the alleged serious misconduct of one powerful man. It represents an unprecedented institutional crisis for both the ICC and the entire system of international justice on which the Palestinian and other suffering people of the Global South still place hope.

China’s recent launch of a nuclear-capable missile into the Pacific was greeted with howls of protest from the US and its allies. "We are living in a region that is proudly nuclear free. We don't want to see increasing militarisation in our region," New Zealand PM Christopher Luxon said. It came on the heels of his Defence minister suggesting a national conversation was needed about nuclear propulsion because Australia is committed to acquiring nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS pact. 

Despite advice from wiser heads, Trump and Hegseth swallowed the bait from Netanyahu and launched a miserably conceived, poorly executed and catastrophic war on Iran earlier this year. Trump is no FDR and Hegseth is no Carl von Clausewitz; it's more like Dumb and Dumber Went to War. These are the same people New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and the Philippines’ leaders are betting the family farms on.  Weep, my beloved country.

“They’re scum … they’re led by sick people and they’re vicious, violent people. There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.” Trump said after bombing Iran yesterday and threatening to tear up the MOU. The pussy-grabbing Leader of the Free World has always had poor impulse control but we are moving into a new phase with F-bombs, real bombs and threats to entire civilizations becoming daily occurrences. 

“RIMPAC is representative of the militarization of our islands. There's always this claim that it is for our benefit, for our protection and for the security of Hawaii and the region, but beginning with the military-backed overthrow of the kingdom, the military has always been there for America's imperial interests.”

As a dress rehearsal for the coming war on China, RIMPAC is a big deal. This year's event is billed as bringing together global naval forces to address ‘the current threat China is posing in the Indo-Pacific region’. Every two years the US Pacific Fleet/Indo-Pacific Command at Pearl Harbor, Hawai’i, hosts the Rim of the Pacific exercise, the world's largest international maritime exercise.  RIMPAC gathers the US and its allies together for a show of force and a building of interoperability, cementing relationships and ensuring countries like Australia and New Zealand are increasingly integrated into weapons procurement and US war plans so they can act as  “force multipliers” for the United States.

We are in an era of American statecraft that is largely based around violence, threats of violence and the deployment of sanctions, other forms of financial strangulation, physical blockades and the intimidation of even the US’s closest allies. It didn’t start with Trump.

In this interview with Russian Federation Ambassador to Wellington Stanislav Krans we discussed the legality/illegality of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the state of Russian-Western diplomacy, and the central role diplomats should play in bringing the war to an end. We also touched on what it is like to be a Russian diplomat in a Western country. 

By impugning the good name of some of our finest citizens Winston Peters betrays his duty to defend New Zealand and puts at risk Kiwis who continue their non-violent campaign to open a humanitarian corridor to the suffering people of Palestine.

In recent weeks swarms of Ukrainian drones have traversed the Baltic states on missions to take the war to Russian cities like St Petersburg. It is the latest in a string of “incremental escalations” that military and geopolitical analysts I follow fear may be some of the opening shots in transitioning the “Russo-Ukrainian War” (with massive Western backing) into an open “Russo-European War”. God help us all.