'We show up': Pacific leaders apply pressure at oceans summit
Nowhere is humanity's exploitation of the oceans more starkly illustrated than the Pacific Ocean, where small island nations are fighting to outlast a crisis not of their making.
The islands are besieged by rising seas and worsening storms, their coastlines choked in plastic, fishing waters plundered and coral reefs bleached and barren.
But they refuse to be victims, pouring whatever resources they can into protecting the seas that sustain their people -- and calling out those not doing their share.
This week, Pacific leaders have made some of the boldest commitments at the UN Ocean Conference, challenging wealthier nations to up their game.
French Polynesia set the bar high at the outset of the five-day summit in Nice, France, announcing it would create the world's largest marine protected area in the far South Pacific.
Within this enormous expanse of five million square kilometres (1.93 million square miles) will be a fully-protected sanctuary, double the size of Sweden, that totally forbids any human activity.
Samoa announced nine new marine areas protecting 30 percent of its waters, while Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands unveiled plans for a mammoth joint marine park linking neighbouring Pacific nations.
Once completed, they said, this ocean reserve would span six million square kilometres -- an area as vast as the Amazon rainforest.
The Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands joined a global call for a pause on deep-sea mining, while four Pacific nations came forward to ratify a treaty to protect the high seas.
"We show up by doing -- by taking action -- and not just through talkfests," said Sivendra Michael, permanent secretary at Fiji's environment ministry.
- 'Time to act' -
Almost as many Pacific heads of state and government turned up in Nice as European ones, making an impression in colourful traditional dress and through the force of their message.
The elephant in the room is money, said Coral Pasisi, climate director at the Pacific Community, the region's principal scientific and technical development organisation.
Pacific nations receive less than half of one percent of global climate finance, she said, and it can take years for sinking island nations to raise the capital to build a single seawall.
Rich nations pledged last year to commit $300 billion a year to developing countries for climate action by 2035. But small island nations are wary, after similar promises have gone unmet.
"Sometimes we feel alone in the world," Taivini Teai, environment minister of French Polynesia, told AFP.
"But we must pull together and make industrialised countries understand that it is time to act."
On stage and in private meetings in Nice, including with French President Emmanuel Macron, Pacific leaders demanded again and again that rich nations help them with actions, not words.
"We need to adapt to shield our oceans from further harm. And that means -- plain and simple -- money. And money that we can use," said Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr.
"The gap between what we need and what is available is growing dangerously wide. And this is a security issue for the Pacific."
- Listen to us -
The oceans summit did not address a lack of progress on phasing out fossil fuels -- deeply frustrating Pacific countries that have rallied to get the contentious issue back on the global agenda.
"For the smallest of the countries and the most vulnerable, we have been the boldest and the loudest" on fossil fuels, said Michael of Fiji.
Vanuatu's environment minister Ralph Regenvanu said it was "unfortunate" that fossil fuels weren't given sufficient prominence in Nice.
"It's the single greatest cause of the damage to the oceans we're seeing now, and we're not talking about it enough," he said.
Fed up with climate summits and pleading for action, Vanuatu and its Pacific neighbours are testing if international law can compel countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
For low-lying Tuvalu -- which is already making arrangements to shift its citizens permanently elsewhere -- the sense of urgency could not be greater as the tide laps higher.
"I hope they listened to us," said Tuvalu President Feleti Teo, of his appeal in Nice for wealthier governments to come to their aid.
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Newsweek
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- Newsweek
Russia Feigns at Peace. Congress Must Sanction Putin's War Machine
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The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights." A soldier sits under a Caesar self-propelled gun, looking at the sky through camouflage netting, not far from the eastern frontline of Ukraine, in an undisclosed location, on June 9, 2025, amid the Russian invasion... A soldier sits under a Caesar self-propelled gun, looking at the sky through camouflage netting, not far from the eastern frontline of Ukraine, in an undisclosed location, on June 9, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. More FLORENT VERGNES/AFP via Getty Images One way to shift the tide is to squeeze the wallet. This is what Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) proposed with their Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 (S.1241), introduced in April. The bill would impose severe economic penalties on Russia and countries that continue to support its energy exports. Over 80 senators have voiced support for the bill, reflecting a strong bipartisan consensus. 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He expressed Ukraine's readiness to meet "any day" in locations such as Istanbul, Switzerland, or the Vatican. This proposal followed earlier efforts, including a call in May 2025. Russia did not accept the offer. Despite these initiatives, Russia consistently rejects Ukraine's proposals for an unconditional ceasefire, instead offering limited, short-term truces in specific areas. Ukrainians are a resilient and creative people. They stopped Russia's full scale invasion in 2022 and even reclaimed some of the captured territory with a surprise counter offensive in 2023. Ukraine has transformed the landscape of modern warfare in several significant ways, offering lessons not just in military tactics but also in societal resilience, digital innovation, and global alliances. The most recent example of this was Operation Spiderweb. The groundbreaking Ukrainian military operation targeted strategic air bases deep within Russian territory. This was a transformative moment in modern warfare and it will be studied for years to come. The reason that Senators Graham and Blumenthal must get their legislation through Congress is because people will continue to needlessly die unless Russia is stopped. Russia will not stop unless they run out of troops (unlikely), ammunition (also unlikely), or money (the most likely possibility). When everyone in Russia feels the collective cost and pain of this war, there may be enough pressure to topple President Putin or force him to change his approach. In the 2012 movie, The Hobbit, Gandalf, a protagonist wizard declared, "Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love." Few of us have the power to end a war, but God created all of us with the ability to display our love through action. Evil thrives when good people stay passive or silent. The world does not need more spectators: we need advocates, bridge-builders, and truth-tellers. The sanctions legislation proposed by Senators Graham and Blumenthal is not just policy; it's a declaration that the world still values truth over terror, sovereignty over tyranny. Now is the time for ordinary people to take extraordinary action. Write to your senators. Share verified information. Stand with the oppressed. Support your local refugee communities. Because when we refuse to look away—and choose to act—we become the resistance to evil, and the messengers of human dignity. Andrew Moroz, PhD, is a Ukrainian American pastor and the founder of The Renewal Initiative. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
2 international Harvard students lay out their choice: Stay or go?
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President Trump has aggressively sought to punish Harvard after it publicly refused several of his administration's demands, with the White House targeting the school's federal funding and launching a slew of investigations. But none of its moves have had a more dramatic immediate impact than the Department of Homeland Security seeking to block Harvard's ability to enroll foreign-born students — and ordering those currently there to either transfer or lose their visa. 'I'm in such a late stage of my Ph.D., transferring would be quite difficult,' said Saha, who is studying social epidemiology and infectious diseases in the Department of Social and Behavioral Science. While transferring as an undergraduate may entail little more than moving credits, when in a Ph.D. program, a student has to find a new adviser, fulfill new teaching requirements and secure funding for the research. 'I actually have no idea if I would be able to transfer in a way that would allow me to complete my Ph.D.,' Saha said. After Harvard sued over the foreign student ban, school President Alan Garber released a statement to the community, saying the university 'condemn[s] this unlawful and unwarranted action.' The government's actions are due to Harvard's 'refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government's illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty and our student body,' Garber wrote. And safety at another university could be a fleeting dream for would-be transfers as the Trump administration has made it clear other schools could face similar moves. Thousands of students had already lost their status earlier this year after the federal government targeted the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, which maintains information and status of foreign students. 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So, there's a lot of uncertainty for me, and more broadly speaking, for others as well as to what are the different pathways this case could go to, and then how would the university responds in each of those eventualities,' Saha said. Reached for comment, Harvard says it has two websites it has been updating to keep international students in the loop about developments from the Trump administration. The website shows updates regarding the school's actions to keep international students safe but does not answer the hypotheticals keeping students up at night, such as what happens if the Trump administration were to win in court or what could come next. 'There's been some suggestions that the Trump administration would … even though this order has been blocked by the court, they might use other powers to scrutinize international students at Harvard. So, there's fears around that as well,' Saha said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Vox
an hour ago
- Vox
The old 'religious right' is dead. The new one is stranger — and harder to fight.
is a research associate at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in the United Kingdom and the author of Holy Russia? Holy War?: Why the Russian Church Is Backing Putin Against Ukraine. President Donald Trump hands out pens to faith leaders after signing an executive order on the establishment of the Religious Liberty Commission during a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 1, 2025. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images For over six decades, the 'religious right' in America was boomer 'Christian nationalism,' straight out of The Handmaid's Tale. It was about 'keeping God in the schools' and the National Prayer Breakfast. It was traditionalist, mindful of theology, and, well, theocratic, which is to say it wanted to take the standards of a religious tradition and apply them to the secular law. They wanted the books of Scripture to replace the statute books. But President Donald Trump is trying to create a new religious right, one that is not just illiberal but fundamentally different and opposed to traditional religion as we've known it. The faith of the MAGA movement is not one in which the state conforms to the church, but one in which the church is bent to the will of the strange beast that is American nationalism — the belief that the American project is an exercise in freedom and prosperity like the world has never known, but also the sole possession of those who are white, heterosexual, and unquestioningly loyal to the nation. It's a model of church-state relations that has less in common with post-revolutionary Iran, where an Islamic cleric known as the supreme leader and his council of religious jurists preside over government, and more in common with Soviet (and arguably contemporary) Russia, where the Russian Orthodox Church is subject to the whims of the Kremlin, acting as everything from propaganda tool to spy center. This is the displacement of the trappings of religion with America First alternatives. It's not coherent in a religious sense. It's coherent in a political sense. This is evident from the members and mission of Trump's new Religious Liberty Commission, as well as its three advisory bodies of religious leaders, legal experts, and lay leaders. The commission is tasked with preparing a report on the history and current state of religious liberty in America. By contrast, Trump's three immediate predecessors maintained an Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to advise on how faith-based organizations and the government could collaborate on issues like human trafficking, climate change, or global poverty. Called 'Community Initiatives' under Bush, this model reflected the church coming to the aid of the state to address issues arising from the collective moral failings of secular society. Trump abolished this office at the beginning of his second term. His new plan — the commission charged with producing an 'official account' of American religious liberty past and present — is not only unprecedented in American history; it is the product of a very different view of the church-state relationship. In this formulation, faith is not a balm for the moral ills of a nation. Here, the United States, its history and institutions, is the means by which religion can sustain itself. And therefore religious institutions prosper or fail in proportion not to their own morality or faithfulness but to the extent to which America is 'American' enough. This strategy was one of the founding tactics of the old religious right, a tactic it shares with this new religious movement. But the MAGA religious right has taken this strategy to a new level. And this new movement is far more complex. If we believe that these ideological architects are simply 'conservative Christians' or even 'Christian nationalists' in the old vein, we are fundamentally misreading both the religious character of the MAGA movement and its broader ideological and practical aims. If, however, we perceive and understand the difference, we are much better situated to combat the radical remaking not just of American religion but of America itself. The strange makeup of the Religious Liberty Commission Nothing makes this new religious movement more clear than a quick survey of whom Trump has appointed to serve. Of the 39 appointments made to the Religious Liberty Commission and its related advisory boards, not a single mainline Protestant is among them. Instead, the board is dominated by evangelicals. Evangelicals' emphasis on personal salvation, biblical literalism, and emotive worship made them much more popular among America's least wealthy and least educated, in contrast to the more theologically flexible mainline Protestants who once dominated the country's political and cultural elite. These differences also made the evangelicals naturally more politically conservative than their mainline counterparts. The evangelicals on the commission are joined by conservative Catholics, Orthodox Jews, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of America, and Dr. Ben Carson, who is a Seventh-Day Adventist. Significantly, two of the three Muslims appointed by Trump, are white, American converts to the faith. These are both inclusions and omissions that would have been unthinkable a generation ago, when American civic religion — that is, the collective and largely unspoken religious values of a nation — was dominated by the mainline denominations while Catholics, Jews and Muslims remained on the periphery. That's not to say that this exclusion was a good thing. But who is invited to the table does tend to reveal the values of the people and nation doing the inviting. The reign of mainline Protestants and WASPs reflected a certain set of principles about both religion and politics: moderation in religion and a separation of church and state in politics that not only maintained the neutrality of the government but also the independence of the churches. Not surprisingly then, as the old religious right rose to power, their enemies included not only secular liberals but also the mainline churches by whom they had long felt belittled. The simple explanation for the omission of mainline Protestants now is that these denominations and their members have become more progressive and are simply too liberal for Trump. They are 'victims' of the sensibility, good education, and pragmatism that defined them for generations and then lured them leftward. But this is only part of the truth. High-profile splits among Episcopalians and Methodists, as well as the existence of deeply conservative mainline churches like the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, demonstrate that there are still plenty of socially and politically conservative mainline Protestants in America, even if they are now a minority within their own tradition (which might also be said of politically conservative Jewish Americans). These religious and political conservatives would seem like natural allies to include in a coalition interested in traditional religion and traditional society. Moreover, the evangelical leaders of this new coalition might, in theory, be far more comfortable with a fellow Protestant Christian than with a Muslim, a Jew, or even a Catholic. And yet, they have been excluded. The old American civic religion is dead. Instead, we are confronted with a cross-faith coalition united not by theology, but by a shared sense of cultural siege. This coalition has manifested not only in the Religious Liberty Commission, but on podcasts, in rallies, and in a growing number of organizations. Trump even touted the alliance in his now-infamous Madison Square Garden rally on the eve of the 2024 election. This is not to say that the traditions included are themselves devoid of theological content or that every member of these traditions is part of the new coalition. That is clearly not true. But the individuals and institutions entering this coalition are willing to put aside theological concerns, even subsume them completely, in the interest of the coalition's nation-building project. This project, born from that shared sense of threat (largely around issues of gender, sexuality, and race), is not, as they would have you believe, a concerted effort to return society to some earlier state. Trump 2.0 has made clear that it is seeking to reshape America in unprecedented ways. That's the opposite of being traditional and conservative. The goal of the new movement is to radically transform American life and society. Related The movement desperately trying to get people to have more babies How the new American religion works While the religious right of the 1980s and 1990s was political because of their theology, this is a group doing the opposite: constructing a theology that fits their politics. Take, for example, the defense by evangelical leaders of Trump's sexual transgressions. Trump's sins are excusable because he is a messianic figure, they say, sent not to save our souls but America. It's not coherent in a religious sense. It's coherent in a political sense. You can't counter this kind of movement the same way you would more traditional 'believers.' He also penned a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post titled 'Muslims Like Me Don't Have Theological Beef with Evangelicals. It's the Prejudice Against Us That's the Problem' in which he recounts how 'at home' he and his wife felt at the anti-abortion Washington March for Life among 'fellow believers.' He also bemoans the greater welcome Muslims have received on the American left, arguing it has caused American Muslims to abandon hardline positions on issues like sexuality. Of course, Royer ignores that, as a white man, he is in the minority (in a way that matters) among American Muslims. But he is also making a fairly innovative argument: In claiming he wants to restore Christian principles and complaining against Muslims being welcomed by the left, he says theology doesn't matter; only politics does. Because in the end, America (not God) — and specifically America as it is imagined by the MAGA movement and Trump — is the source of liberty and human flourishing. With respect to the things that matter most to him, Royer does have more in common with the evangelicals at the March for Life than he does with those Muslims whom he mourns being 'secularized' by the tolerance of the left. It appears that Royer shares a political vision of America with those evangelicals and does not care about sharing a theological vision with Muslims. Royer might become fast friends with fellow commission member Eric Metaxas. Raised Greek Orthodox, Metaxas has existed in a sort of denominational gray area for the whole of his adult life. He attended an Episcopal Church in Manhattan (where he served in the vestry) and has written bestselling biographies of the two most famous Lutherans ever: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther himself. But he is now comfortably described as an 'evangelical intellectual.' All suffice to say, Metaxas probably doesn't care all that much about the deep theological issues that have divided Christendom. What he cares about is politics. This movement seeks power not to preserve a spiritual order or influence their own or anybody else's afterlife but to reshape society in the here and now. This is the only world they really care about. In fact, one of the most shocking differences between the old religious right and the MAGA religious right is how little the afterlife comes up. Where Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Pat Buchanan never ceased talking about the threat of eternal punishment, both for individuals and the nation, these new guys never bring it up. They are, for all intents and purposes, metaphysical atheists, occasionally invoking vague theological language only because it still holds cultural sway. Finally, there's the seemingly endless celebrations of the state and its power. In the brief time since he returned to office, Trump has planned a military parade and established two new holidays. Now, with the commission, he has ordered a hagiographic recounting of the nation's history, placing the story of the country within a sacred narrative by official channels. That is big imperial cult energy (and if you don't believe me, read the 'Aeneid'). This is the displacement of the trappings of religion with America First alternatives. Related The movement desperately trying to get people to have more babies The old methods of resistance won't work All this should matter to anyone who wants to stop them. First, you can't counter this kind of movement the same way you would more traditional 'believers.' Combating the religious right in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s was in many ways as simple as pointing out hypocrisy and holding leaders to the same standards they held others. And it worked. Many of the figures of the old religious right have simply been shamed from public life, making way for their new, more pernicious, replacements. But MAGA is pretty impervious to shame. You can't just appeal to theological humility or scriptural counterpoints. And you can't rely on their own sense of conscience. What animates them is political utility. If we understand how the MAGA religious movement is different from the old Christian nationalists, those who wish to combat Trump and his ilk might find some new allies. All of those traditionalist conservative believers — the Latter-day Saints, the conservative mainline Protestants, Catholic bishops without Instagram — might be the key to taking down the Church of MAGA. This doesn't mean that progressives have to agree on everything or anything or even like them. But it does mean recognizing that the enemy of your enemy might be your political frenemy, especially when they are alarmed for different but equally serious reasons. Many traditional conservative believers remain committed to some basic moral architecture, to rules that bind even their leaders, and to a God who ultimately cannot be manipulated. The administration's draconian immigration policy is now disquieting some evangelicals, concerned about co-religionists who have sought refuge in America from real religious persecution. And the Trump administration's pronatalist advocacy for IVF has many conservative Christians, including conservative Catholics, on edge. These groups may not like the world as it is, but they don't like the world MAGA's new civic cult seeks to build either. And in this light, they may wish to fight it out on the old terms. If progressives can make the idea of the last war appealing, there is hope for a viable coalition. Trump and MAGA have declared a religious war, not just against secularism or progressive forms of religion, but also against traditional religion that refuses to serve their radical vision for the world. This is not a theocracy in the making. This is not The Handmaid's Tale. It's something newer, stranger, and much more difficult to fight: religion of nation and identity disguised in the trappings of familiar faiths. We won't defeat it with scripture or appeals to conscience. We'll need to name it, unmask it, and forge unexpected alliances with those who (whatever their doctrine) still believe in a higher power than Donald Trump.
