Category Archives: Pacific islands

New Caledonia leader calls for France to grant independence vote to counter China’s ‘omnipresence’ in Pacific

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Pro-independence parties boycotted last year’s referendum on a split from France, arguing Covid made campaigning too difficult

A prominent New Caledonian indigenous party has said that if France wants to have an economic and political stake in the Pacific – as China’s influence in the region rises to “omnipresence” – it needs to grant New Caledonia a fourth referendum on independence and treat the Pacific island as a partner, rather than a colony.

The calls come after a contentious referendum on independence last year which was boycotted by pro-independence parties, after they said holding a referendum during a severe Covid outbreak that disproportionately hit indigenous Kanak and Pasifika populations would not return a fair result.

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Australia anxious to show it didn’t ‘drop the ball’ on Pacific after China and Solomon Islands deal

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Canberra must walk a delicate line when responding to challenges presented by Beijing and Solomons’ security agreement

As China makes progress on a security deal with Solomon Islands, the Australian government is anxious not to be seen to have “dropped the ball” in the Pacific region. That would be a tad embarrassing, given it has spent the past few years sounding the alarm about security threats from China while also trumpeting its own “Pacific Step-Up”.

The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, has been one of the ministers on the defensive after leaked documents revealed the draft agreement between China and the Pacific island nation.

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Telstra buyout of Digicel’s Pacific mobile networks threatened by ‘discriminatory’ new PNG tax

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The $100m tax on companies controlling more than 40% of market is ‘arbitrary’ and ‘perplexing’, says telco Digicel

Digicel Group says it is considering legal options after Papua New Guinea imposed a $100m tax that the telecoms firm said had potential “implications” for the planned AU$2.1bn ($1.57bn) sale of the Pacific’s biggest mobile network to Australia’s Telstra.

Telstra Corp Ltd said last October that it would buy the Pacific operations of Digicel in a deal largely funded by the Australian government, seen by observers as a way to block China’s rising influence in the region. The operations include 2.5m mobile phone subscribers across PNG, Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa and Nauru.

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Seabed regulator accused of deciding deep sea’s future ‘behind closed doors’

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The ISA, obliged to frame industry rules by 2023, drops reporting service and is accused of lacking transparency in plans for mining
• Podcast: The race to mine the deep sea

The UN-affiliated organisation that oversees deep-sea mining, a controversial new industry, has been accused of failings of transparency after an independent body responsible for reporting on negotiations was kicked out.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is meeting this week at its council headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica, to develop regulations for the fledgling industry. But it emerged this week that Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), a division of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), which has covered previous ISA negotiations, had not had its contract renewed.

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Security agreement with China ‘initialled’ by both countries, Solomon Islands says

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Pacific nation has batted away concerns from Australia, New Zealand and the US, saying its policy is ‘friends to all and enemies to none’

Solomon Islands has announced it is pushing ahead with a security agreement with China hours after a senior Australian defence force officer said the deal may force Canberra to change the way it conducts air and sea operations in the Pacific.

The Solomon Islands government said officials from both countries had on Thursday “initialled” elements of the proposed security agreement with China which would be signed at a later date.

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It may be too late to stop China-Solomon Islands treaty, former Australian intelligence chief says

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Coalition urged to refrain from megaphone diplomacy as it tries to persuade Honiara to change course

China’s proposed treaty with Solomon Islands is an “adverse development for Australia’s security” but it may be too late to stop the deal, a former senior Australian intelligence official has warned.

Richard Maude, head of the Office of National Assessments from 2013 to 2016 and an experienced former diplomat, urged the Morrison government not to engage in megaphone diplomacy as it tried to persuade Solomon Islands to change course.

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Solomon Islands prime minister says foreign criticism of China security deal ‘very insulting’

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Manasseh Sogavare says it is ‘utter nonsense’ that China’s presence is a threat to regional stability

Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has dismissed foreign criticism of the country’s security negotiations with China as “insulting” and called those who leaked the draft agreement “lunatics”, in his first comments to parliament on the proposed treaty.

“We find it very insulting, Mr Speaker, to be branded as unfit to manage our sovereign affairs,” Sogavare said on Tuesday.

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Australia’s lost influence in Pacific on display in Solomon Islands-China deal, Anthony Albanese says

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Labor leader says inaction on climate change and cuts to foreign aid have broken trust, forcing Pacific nations to turn elsewhere

Australia has lost influence in the Pacific by failing to act on climate and cutting foreign aid, Anthony Albanese says, amid concerns about China’s proposed security deal with Solomon Islands.

Australia and New Zealand are worried the draft agreement could jeopardise regional stability, with China having the opportunity to base navy warships in the Pacific less than 2,000km off the Australian coast.

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Chinese draft security deal with Solomon Islands didn’t blindside Australia, Morrison says

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Analysts say unratified document which would allow China to base ships in the Pacific is a ‘wish list’ which reveals nation’s intent in ‘black and white’

Scott Morrison says Australia was not blindsided by a draft security deal between China and Solomon Islands, which experts warn has demonstrated a “black and white” intent at expanding influence in the Pacific.

The draft would allow China to base navy warships in the Pacific less than 2,000km off the Australian coast, but some experts, including the Lowy Institute’s Jonathan Pryke, caution it reads more like a “wishlist” from China than a finalised agreement.

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Secret shipment of replica guns to Solomon Islands police by China triggers concern

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Police had been criticised after reports that a ‘shipment of arms’ arrived in the country on a logging vessel from an unknown source

A shipment of replica firearms by China to Solomon Islands police has caused concern as the Pacific nation grapples with security concerns sparked by its increasingly close relationship with Beijing.

The police force had been criticised over the secrecy surrounding delivery of what a local media report called a “large shipment of arms” that arrived in the country on a logging vessel earlier this month from an unknown source.

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‘Really concerning’: China finalising security deal with Solomon Islands to base warships in the Pacific

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Draft agreement circulating on social media suggests China could establish military base less than 2,000km from Australia

Australian officials are alarmed at Solomon Islands’ planned security deal with China with the defence minister, Peter Dutton, stating “we would be concerned clearly about any military base being established” less than 2,000km off the coast.

Solomon Islands has signed a policing deal with China and will send a proposal for a broader security agreement covering the military to its cabinet for consideration.

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‘A blatant lie’: China and Taiwan fight for credit over rescue of sailors lost at sea for 29 days

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Both governments are claiming responsibility for rescue of nine Papua New Guinean nationals last month

Tensions between China and Taiwan have found an unlikely battleground – a fight over who rescued nine Papua New Guinean sailors who were lost at sea for nearly a month.

The dispute came after the rescue of the Papua New Guinean nationals in Solomon Island waters after 29 days lost at sea, late in February.

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Papua New Guinean MP charged with murder over shooting death in restaurant

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First-term government MP Lohia Boe Samuel has been charged with murder over the death of Robert Jerry last week

A Papua New Guinean MP has been charged with murder, after the shooting death of a man at a restaurant in the capital of Port Moresby last week.

Police will allege that Lohia Boe Samuel, the MP for Moresby North-West, was having dinner with Robert Jerry and another man at Fushion 2 restaurant on Friday 11 March when a firearm was discharged, killing Jerry.

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Niue becomes second Pacific island in a week to lose Covid-free status

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World Health Organization says there are now just eight other countries that have not reported any cases of the virus

Niue has reported its first case of Covid-19, becoming the second island in the Pacific to lose its Covid-zero status within a week.

The Niuean government says the case arrived on a flight from New Zealand, with 26 other passengers on Monday. The travellers tested negative for the virus prior to departing.

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Chatham Islands, one of world’s most remote places, records first Covid cases

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The islands, 800km east of New Zealand, had been among several other isolated nations and territories that had so far evaded the virus

After nearly two years of dodging Covid-19, one of the most remote inhabited places in the world has recorded its first ever cases of the virus.

Rēkohu, or the Chatham Islands, are just over 800km east of New Zealand’s mainland and are home to roughly 600 permanent residents.

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‘Trojan horse’: Palau’s bid to become global crypto hub could turn it into scammers paradise, critics warn

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Experts say Palau should be wary of entering into a programme that could leave it open to exploitation and harm its image

Palau’s new digital residency programme could leave it open to cryptoscammers and corruption, critics have warned, arguing that not enough due diligence has been done on the scheme.

The programme allows foreigners to buy an e-residency card which in turn allows them to start companies and sign documents, among other things. Most importantly, when the relevant legislation is passed, it will allow them to trade in cryptocurrencies, useful for residents whose countries, like China, do not allow it.

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‘We just keep going’: the Tongan resort destroyed by nature’s fury – for the third time

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Despite a narrow escape from last month’s tsunami and the arrival of Covid in Tonga, Ha’atafu owner Moana Paea is determined to rebuild her resort once again

When the Ha’atafu beach resort was levelled by the tsunami that hit Tonga last month, it was the third time that the family-run business had been completely destroyed by a natural disaster.

In 1982, the resort was wiped out by Cyclone Isaac and a year later by Cyclone Kina.

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‘People are dying on the floor’: healthcare workers tell of Covid devastation in Solomon Islands

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The Pacific country was coronavirus-free until last month but an outbreak of thousands of cases is overwhelming the health system

Frontline health workers in Solomon Islands have warned that its health system is on the brink of collapse as the country struggles to deal with a devastating outbreak of Covid-19.

A senior doctor and two nurses at the National Referral Hospital (NRH) in the capital of Honiara have told of how there are no beds for Covid patients – leading to people dying on the floor of the wards – as well as a lack of facilities and staff shortages that have led to Covid-positive nurses being recalled to work and probationary nurses tending to critically ill patients solo, when they should be supervised by a more senior nurse.

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Cook Islands reports first Covid case amid fears of ‘silent transmission’

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Hundreds turn out for testing across the Pacific country after a traveller from New Zealand tested positive for the virus

One of the last remaining countries without Covid-19 - the small Pacific nation of Cook Islands - has reported its first case of the virus.

Prime minister Mark Brown said the first case arrived on an international flight from New Zealand on 10 February.

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If Blinken’s visit to Fiji is aimed at curtailing Chinese influence, he has his work cut out for him | Shailendra Singh

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As the US downsized its Pacific presence, China stepped into the vacuum; a rare visit from the secretary of state won’t convince Fiji to turn on its ally

The US secretary of state’s lightning visit to Fiji may be sudden, but not surprising. That Antony Blinken is the first US secretary of state to visit Fiji in 37 years reflects just how much has changed geopolitically.

It is also an indication of Fiji’s influential role in this part of the world, being a strong, if not the strongest, Pacific ally of China, the arch-rival of the US in the Pacific.

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