Group left Papua New Guinea in canoe before Christmas and survivors were rescued almost 2,000km away a month later
Four people have been rescued after spending 32 days adrift in the South Pacific, after a tragic voyage that resulted in the deaths of eight of their fellow travellers, including a baby.
The group left Bougainville island, east of the mainland of Papua New Guinea, on 22 December to travel the Carteret Islands 100km away for Christmas celebrations.
Continue reading...A group of women in Noumea who swim and snorkel up to 3km five days a week have uncovered a large population of venomous sea snakes in the Baie des Citrons where scientists once believed they were rare. The citizen scientists, aged in their 60s and 70s, call themselves 'the fantastic grandmothers’. They swim with the 1.5-long lethal greater sea snakes, documenting the local population with cameras to take note of their breeding habits and share them with experts
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...Ballot comes six months after closer-than-expected referendum raised questions over French control of islands
Voters in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia cast ballots for their local Congress on Sunday, with separatists hoping to win a majority.
The ballot comes six months after a closer-than-expected referendum raised questions over France’s control of the strategic islands, which sit on a quarter of the world’s known supplies of nickel, a vital electronics component.
Continue reading...