Category Archives: Tuvalu

Tuvalu accepts security and climate pact, says Australia’s Pacific minister

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Deal had been thrown into doubt during election campaign in Tuvalu over sovereignty concerns

Australia and Tuvalu will go ahead with a security and climate migration pact, after the latter’s new government agreed not to change the deal, Australia’s Pacific minister, Pat Conroy, has told parliament.

The two countries had announced the deal in November, but it was thrown into doubt during an election campaign in the remote Pacific atoll of 11,000 people that is threatened by rising sea levels.

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Tuvalu prime minister calls on Australia for sovereignty ‘guarantees’ over treaty

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Feleti Teo tells the Guardian Tuvaluans fear last year’s treaty may give Australia too much say over the Pacific nation’s security

Tuvalu’s new prime minister, Feleti Teo, wants “guarantees” from Canberra that a landmark treaty with Australia will not undermine his country’s sovereignty.

Teo, who was appointed leader last month, told the Guardian a controversial security clause in the Falepili Union treaty has led to fears among Tuvaluans that Australia “might encroach on Tuvalu’s sovereignty”.

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Tuvalu to revisit deal that gives Australia control of island nation’s security agreements

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Incoming prime minister Feleti Teo has indicated he will review details of the landmark pact that effectively gives Australia veto power over future agreements with other nations

Tuvalu’s new government has questioned the “absence of transparency” in a security and migration pact the country signed with Australia last November, throwing the landmark deal into doubt.

While the government expressed support for the “broad principles and objectives” of the Tuvalu-Australia Falepili Union in a “statement of priorities” posted to X by member of parliament Simon Kofe, it also acknowledged “the absence of transparency and consultations in socializing and informing the public in Tuvalu of such an important and groundbreaking initiative”.

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Tuvalu names Feleti Teo prime minister after pro-Taiwan leader Kausea Natano ousted

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Taiwan ambassador says ties remain ‘rock solid’ amid rumours island nation could switch allegiance to Beijing

Lawmakers in Tuvalu have selected Feleti Teo as the Pacific island nation’s new prime minister, weeks after an election that put ties with Taiwan in focus.

Former attorney general Teo secured the support of lawmakers who were elected last month, government secretary Tufoua Panapa told Agence France-Presse on Monday.

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Difficult to predict fate of Australia-Tuvalu deal on climate and security, intelligence boss says

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Senior intelligence officer agrees deal is facing risk of unravelling amid ‘political change and turbulence’ in Pacific nation after elections, Senate hears

A senior Australian intelligence chief has acknowledged a landmark climate and security deal with Tuvalu may be at risk in the wake of the Pacific nation’s election.

Andrew Shearer, who leads the government’s Office of National Intelligence (ONI), said his agency was “obviously aware of recent political change and turbulence in Tuvalu”.

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Tuvalu’s pro-Taiwan prime minister Kausea Natano loses seat in partial election results

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The results fuel concern that the micronation could switch diplomatic recognition to Beijing, as votes continue to be counted

The pro-Taiwan leader of the Pacific islands nation of Tuvalu, Kausea Natano, has lost his seat according to partial election results.

The vote is being closely watched by Taiwan, China and the United States, amid speculation the micronation could be poised to switch diplomatic recognition to Beijing.

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Tuvalu goes to the polls in election watched by China and Taiwan

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One candidate has said he wants to review the Pacific country’s relationships with Taiwan and China, just weeks after Nauru switched allegiances to Beijing

Voting has started in the tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, in a national election that could reverberate from China to Australia, amid a tussle for influence in the region.

With just over 11,500 people spread across nine islands, Tuvalu is one of the smallest nations in the world, but the election for the 16-seat parliament was being closely watched. After the vote count, parliamentary negotiations will form a new government and elect the prime minister. Polls opened at 8am and were to close at 4pm.

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Marles will ‘make right decision in Australia’s interest’ over deploying navy vessels to Red Sea, Farrell says – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Up to 49 tonnes of illicit drugs prevented from reaching Australia

Australian federal police and international law enforcement partners have prevented up to 49 tonnes of illicit drugs from reaching Australia throughout the past financial year.

The AFP cannot overstate the amount of harm that 29 tonnes of methamphetamine could have caused to the community if it had not been intercepted by law enforcement.

On average, close to 12,000 Australians are hospitalised from methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin use every 12 months.

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Australia to offer residency to Tuvalu citizens displaced by climate change

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Anthony Albanese announces immigration plan with special visa category for people affected by rising sea levels in the vulnerable Pacific island nation

Australia will offer residency to people affected by climate change in the low-lying Pacific nation of Tuvalu, as part of a sweeping new treaty that also locks the two countries into close security ties.

At a time when many Pacific leaders are pressing Australia to take stronger action against its fossil fuel sector, the treaty explicitly recognises the vulnerability of Tuvalu to rising sea levels.

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‘We could lose our status as a state’: what happens to a people when their land disappears

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Small island countries press for guarantees as rising sea levels risk leaving their citizens stateless

Small island nations would rather fight than flee, but rising sea levels have prompted apocalyptic legal discussions about whether a state is still a state if its land disappears below the waves.

The Pacific Islands Forum, which represents many of the most vulnerable countries, has invited international legal experts to consider this question and begun a diplomatic campaign to ensure that political statehood continues even after a nation’s physical fabric is submerged.

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Could a digital twin of Tuvalu preserve the island nation before it’s lost to the collapsing climate?

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With rising seas expected to submerge the nation by 2100, official says ‘we should always be able to remember Tuvalu as it is, before it disappears’

When Tuvalu vanishes beneath rising seas, its diaspora still want somewhere to call home – and that could be a virtual version of the tiny Pacific nation.

Global heating is threatening to submerge Tuvalu by the end of the century, and its 12,000 inhabitants are considering the future.

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Smiles and unity at the Pacific Islands Forum mask tough questions shelved for another day

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While leaders presented a picture of harmony, more vexing topics like Australia’s fossil fuel ambitions and China were kicked down the road

At the close of the Pacific Islands Forum the leaders emerged from their retreat smiling, cut a giant cake with a sword and then, in an impromptu moment of diplomatic bonhomie, posed for a selfie after Anthony Albanese whipped out his phone, Ellen DeGeneres style.

It was, quite literally, a picture of harmony.

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Serious defects discovered in patrol boats Australia supplied to Pacific Islands

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Potentially serious faults in Guardian-class patrol boats may force some countries to pause use of vessels

Pacific island countries may halt the use of Australian-provided patrol boats after potentially serious defects were discovered, in a blow to a $2.1bn maritime security program.

The Australian government is now considering how to work with Pacific nations to close any gap in their maritime surveillance activities while the issues – including carbon monoxide entering part of the boat – are resolved.

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‘We are sinking’: Tuvalu minister gives Cop26 speech standing knee deep in seawater – video

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Tuvalu's foreign minister has given a speech to the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow standing knee-deep in seawater to show how his low-lying Pacific island nation is on the frontline of the climate crisis. The video of Simon Kofe standing in a suit and tie at a lectern set up in the sea delivering his speech draws attention to Tuvalu's struggle against rising sea levels. 

'We will not stand idly by as the water rises around us. We are not just talking in Tuvalu, we are mobilising collective action at home, in our region, and on the international stage to secure our future,'  Kofe said

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In Samoa we are born into land, climate change threatens to take it away from us

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Everyone in the Pacific has stories of times the climate crisis hit our lives. For me, it is the birth of my daughter between cyclones

My daughter was born between cyclones.

It was January 2013, and as we drove to the hospital, we passed the wreckage left by Cyclone Evan which had devastated my home island weeks earlier. Evan had been the worst tropical cyclone to hit Samoa in over two decades. There were huge holes in the road. Debris where homes once stood.

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Forget GDP, ‘vulnerability index best gauges aid’ to small islands

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Commonwealth research says UVI is better measure of small island states’ aid needs, especially on climate

Small island nations on the climate crisis frontlines have been overlooked in overseas aid, according to a new index.

Urging a move away from the current benchmark of using gross domestic product (GDP) to measure aid allocation, researchers from the Commonwealth secretariat and the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (Ferdi), a French thinktank, have developed the universal vulnerability index (UVI) as an alternative. GDP, they claim, fails to reflect the realities nations face, particularly on climate.

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Pacific nations need much more than Scott Morrison’s thanks to survive

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Governments from across the Pacific have offered support for bushfire relief but are in a tight spot with Australia over the climate crisis

When Scott Morrison thanked governments of the world for their assistance with Australia’s bushfire crisis, he particularly singled out “the loving response from our Pacific family”.

Across the Pacific region – a collection of developing and least developed nations that are themselves almost uniquely at risk from climate-induced catastrophes – the response to the Australian bushfires has been immediate and generous, but it also reveals something of the problematic fraternity that Australia has with the rest of the region.

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Former Tuvalu PM says he was ‘stunned’ by Scott Morrison’s behaviour at Pacific Islands Forum

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Enele Sopoaga says he was also ‘insulted and deeply angry’ at comments made by Australian deputy prime minister Michael McCormack

The former prime minister of Tuvalu has said he was “stunned” by Scott Morrison’s behaviour at the recent Pacific Islands Forum, which he though communicated the view that Pacific leaders should “take the money … then shut up about climate change”.

Enele Sopoaga, speaking at the national conference of the Australian Council for International Development (Acfid) in Sydney on Wednesday, said Morrison’s behaviour at the forum, which Tuvalu hosted in August, was “dismissive” of the concerns of the Pacific regarding the climate crisis.

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‘Save us, save the world’: Pacific climate warriors taking the fight to the UN

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Frank Bainimarama, Enele Sopoaga and Hilda Heine hope their urgent demands for action will save their island nations from the rising waves

It is the final night of the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu and the Fijian prime minister is explaining how to drink kava.

“You clap first,” says Frank Bainimarama, as the smooth wooden bowl is passed around the circle. “Then you have to gulp in one go; then you clap again – one, two, three.”

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Vanuatu will host the next Pacific Islands Forum. We want to know if Australia really wants a seat at the table | Ralph Regenvanu

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Scott Morrison should bring strong climate commitments to next year’s forum to avoid a repeat of this year’s summit

Last week at the close of the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu I described the leaders’ discussions as frank and fierce. It is now well-known that the leaders debated the text of the Kainaki II Declaration for Urgent Climate Change Action Now for many hours. I do not want to comment on the tone of the debate, as many others have done that already.

Instead, as incoming Pacific Islands Forum chair, Vanuatu has a message for Australia: we ask that Australia prepares well ahead of the next forum meeting in 2020 and comes to the table ready to make real, tangible commitments on climate change.

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