The cost of keeping China out of the region is too great, we must build forces that could counter its operations instead
Let’s be honest: Australians have never had much time for our South Pacific neighbours.
The island nations that lie to our north and north-east, stretching from Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands to Vanuatu, Fiji and beyond, may be close to us geographically, but we have not found them especially interesting, important or profitable.
Continue reading...Australia urged to take action to stop cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking from Latin America through Pacific region
Australia and New Zealand have been urged to do more to fight the drug trade across the Pacific and take responsibility for the fact that the demand for drugs in cities such as Sydney and Auckland was having devastating effects on small Pacific nations.
Drug traffickers transport cocaine and methamphetamines through Pacific nations from the US and Latin America to Australia and New Zealand, where drug users pay the highest price per gram (about A$300 or £180) for cocaine and have the highest cocaine use per capita in the world.
Continue reading...Explosion in number of boats carrying cocaine and meth from Latin America to Australia is causing havoc for islands on the way
• Cocaine used as washing powder: police struggle with Pacific drug influx
It is the drug route you’ve never heard of: a multibillion-dollar operation involving cocaine and methamphetamines being packed into the hulls of sailing boats in the US and Latin America and transported to Australia via South Pacific islands more often thought of as holiday destinations than narcotics hubs.
In the past five years there has been an explosion in the number of boats, sometimes carrying more than a tonne of cocaine, making the journey across the Pacific Ocean to feed Australia’s growing and very lucrative drug habit.
Continue reading...Nation suffering disproportionately from climate emergency to phase in ban, believed to be world first, by December
It is but a tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean, but the island state of Vanuatu is leading the global fight against plastic waste. The nation, which has already introduced one of the toughest single-use plastic bans in the world, is believed to be the first to propose a ban on disposable nappies, to be phased in at the end of this year.
At a meeting in London this week, chaired by Patricia Scotland, the secretary general of the Commonwealth, Vanuatu was hailed as a “champion” nation, one of 12 who are forging ahead in tackling ocean and climate emergency challenges.
Continue reading...First-time actor, who starred in Oscar-nominated Australian-Vanuatu film, remembered as a ‘gentle soul’ and ‘deep family man’
Mungau Dain, who starred in the Oscar-nominated Australian-Vanuatu film Tanna – his first acting role – has died in Port Vila following an untreated infection in his leg.
The film’s co-directors, Bentley Dean and Martin Butler, and script editor Janita Suter, spoke to Guardian Australia after conversations with people on the island about Dain’s death.
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