Category Archives: Pacific islands

Tonga’s drug crisis: Why a tiny Pacific island is struggling with a meth epidemic

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Spike in drug use has caused problems across Tongan society, with arrests doubling in two years and children severely affected

After more than four decades spent living in New Zealand, Ned Cook knew it was time to return to his home country of Tonga.

His country was in the grip of a methamphetamine epidemic that was ripping families apart and overrunning the country’s hospitals and jails. Cook, a trained drug and alcohol abuse counsellor, with a history of drug abuse himself, had been preparing for years to return to Tonga to combat it.

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Solomon Islands unrest: three bodies found in burnt-out building

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The badly burnt victims were discovered in a building in Chinatown in Honiara after days of rioting

The bodies of three people have been discovered in a burnt-out building in the Solomon Islands capital of Honiara, the first reported deaths after days of rioting.

The charred bodies were discovered in a store in the Chinatown district of Honiara, police said on Saturday.

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Solomon Islands leader blames violent anti-government protests on foreign interference

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Comments come as Australian police and defence force personnel arrive in Honiara to help restore order

Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has blamed foreign interference over his government’s decision to switch alliances from Taiwan to Beijing for anti-government protests, arson and looting that have ravaged the capital Honiara in recent days.

However, critics have also blamed the unrest on complaints of a lack of government services and accountability, corruption and foreign workers taking local jobs. In 2019, Sogavare also angered many, particularly leaders of Solomon Islands’ most populous province, Malaita, when he cut the country’s diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

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One-third of people in Pacific paid a bribe in the last year, says corruption report

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Survey of more than 6,000 people by Transparency International is the most comprehensive look at corruption in the region to date

One in three people across the Pacific Islands region have paid a bribe when using a public service in the last year, while a quarter of people have been offered a bribe for their vote in the last five years, according to a report by Transparency International.

The findings for the watchdog group are based on a survey of more than 6,000 people in 10 countries and territories, and is the most comprehensive look at corruption ever carried out in the region.

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‘We are not in the mood for campaigning’: Covid threatens to derail independence vote in New Caledonia

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Kanak leaders have urged a postponement of the vote, saying that the priority for indigenous people once lockdown lifts will be mourning customs, not campaigning

The credibility of New Caledonia’s third and final independence referendum has been questioned after indigenous leaders warned that participation could be adversely affected by the Covid pandemic.

The French government has announced that the referendum will proceed as planned in December after the coronavirus crisis eased.

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Kiribati to open one of world’s largest marine protected areas to commercial fishing

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The Phoenix Islands Protected Area is about the size of California and has been fully closed to commercial fishing since 2015

The Kiribati government has announced it will open up one of the world’s largest marine protected areas to commercial fishing, citing economic benefits to its people.

The Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) spans 408,250 sq km (157,626 sq miles) – an area about the size of California – and was created in 2006 with the entire area declared a “no-take” zone in 2015, meaning that commercial fishing is forbidden.

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PNG residents evicted a decade ago for casino development face violence and poverty: report

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Former residents of the Paga Hill settlement in Port Moresby say their displacement has led to a range of problems

Many former residents of a settlement in Papua New Guinea who claim they were forcibly evicted nearly a decade ago say they are living without access to sanitation, electricity and water and some have faced homelessness, violence and community tension as a result of the move, according to a new report.

In 2012 the Paga Hill Development Company (PHDC), a PNG registered company with significant ties to Australia, announced its plan to create the Paga Hill Estate, which would include a resort, casino, and an aquarium. In 2012 police, backed by bulldozers, began moving into the settlement of Paga Hill in Port Moresby, to clear the area.

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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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Australia’s commitment to coal is directly responsible for climate crisis in the Pacific | Anote Tong

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Constant change in the climate policies of Australia and New Zealand has been a huge disappointment to Pacific island nations

When I came into office as president of Kiribati in 2003, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had released its third assessment report and, like my predecessors, I believed the report’s projected rise in sea levels posed a real threat to the survival for those of us on the frontline. Accordingly, in my first address at the UN General Assembly in 2004 I drew attention to the dangers posed by climate change, especially to small island nations like Kiribati and other Pacific island countries.

The fact that no other leader made any reference to it in their statement worried me and I wondered whether I might be making a fool of myself, especially when the focus of international attention at the time was on more real and present threats like terrorism. Thankfully by the next assembly, in 2005, other Pacific island leaders had joined the call for action. This has gathered great momentum in the years since.

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Cost of Australia holding each refugee on Nauru balloons to $4.3m a year

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Exclusive: Taxpayer cost of offshore processing regime revealed as government remains silent on where $400m went

The cost to Australian taxpayers to hold a single refugee on Nauru has escalated tenfold to more than $350,000 every month – or $4.3m a year – as the government refuses to reveal where nearly $400m spent on offshore processing on the island has gone.

Australia currently pays about $40m a month to run its offshore processing regime on Nauru, an amount almost identical to 2016 when there were nearly 10 times as many people held on the island.

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‘One of the greatest injustices’: Pacific islands on the frontline of the climate crisis – video

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Pacific countries are among those most at risk amid the climate crisis. Islands are becoming more difficult to inhabit and people across the region face an impossible decision: to stay in a dangerous place, or leave their homes and culture behind. Samoan journalist Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson talks about the cost of global heating and what Pacific leaders are asking for at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.

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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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‘We’re ready’: Fiji prepares to welcome tourists almost two years after closing borders

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Fully vaccinated travellers from select countries including New Zealand and Australia will be able to visit from November

Fiji says it is already experiencing a boom in demand after announcing this week that it would open up quarantine-free travel to visitors from select countries, almost two years after closing its borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Our website data is well up – we are seeing a real lift in interest. It is exciting, and we want to encourage people to come and spend Christmas and new year in Fiji,” Tourism Fiji chief executive Brent Hill said.

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‘It was a nice break from everything’: two men rescued after 29 days lost at sea

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Surviving on oranges they’d packed, coconuts from the sea and rainwater they collected, they floated about 400km in the Solomon Sea before being rescued

Two men from Solomon Islands who spent 29 days lost at sea after their GPS tracker stopped working have been rescued off the coast of Papua New Guinea – 400 kilometres away from where their journey began.

Livae Nanjikana and Junior Qoloni set out from Mono Island, in Western province, Solomon Islands, on the morning of the 3 September in a small, single 60 horsepower motorboat.

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‘Crisis unfolding’ as Papua New Guinea hospitals hit by worst Covid wave yet

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Health authorities have been forced to turn a stadium into a makeshift hospital while elsewhere essential services are closing

Hospitals in Papua New Guinea are being pushed to the brink and morgues are overflowing, as the country suffers what health authorities say is the worst surge in Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began.

The country’s health care system has long been plagued by shortages of drugs, funding, an ailing infrastructure and a severe lack of health workers.

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PNG must act now to stop the epidemic of violence against women and girls | Stephanie McLennan

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Last year 15,444 cases of domestic violence were reported but only 250 people were prosecuted and 100 convicted. Victims deserve better

A woman is beaten every 30 seconds in Papua New Guinea, and more than 1.5 million people experience gender-based violence in the country each year.

On 3 September in Mt Hagen, one of the country’s largest cities, three men were released from prison after being accused of murdering a 31-year-old woman, Imelda Tupi Tiamanda. One of the men was her husband.

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‘The sharks are hiding’: locals claim deep-sea mining off Papua New Guinea has stirred up trouble

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‘Shark calling’, an ancient custom of hunters singing to sharks then catching them by hand, is under threat and locals blame deep-sea disturbances

More in this series
• Race to the bottom: the disastrous, blindfolded rush to mine the deep sea
• ‘False choice’ – is deep sea mining required for an electric vehicle revolution?
• Covid tests and superbug killers: how the deep sea is key to fighting pandemics

To catch a shark in the waters off Papua New Guinea, first the men sing.

They sing the names of their ancestors and their respects to the shark. They shake a coconut rattle into the sea, luring the animals from the deep, and then catch them by hand.

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How are Australia’s neighbours faring in the Covid pandemic?

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Vaccination rates are rising in much of south-east Asia and the Pacific after recent outbreaks, but some of the largest countries are falling behind

While Australians have focused on the Covid waves in Sydney and Melbourne, many of Australia’s neighbours have recently experienced their largest outbreaks so far. This includes Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, Timor-Leste, Vanuatu and even Singapore.

Singapore surpassed Australia’s vaccination target weeks ago, but was now seeing more than a thousand cases a day. Fiji recently had one of the highest rates of Covid cases per capita – peaking at 1,850 cases in the middle of July. But the nation of 889,000 was now regularly administering more than 10,000 new vaccinations a day.

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Guam’s vaccination success story turns grim with Covid surge

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Once the great vaccination success story, the island is under strain amid a new wave of infections, but experts say cases would be far higher without vaccine coverage

Outside Guam Memorial hospital, blue medical tents have sprung up to accomodate an overflow of Covid patients.

The sight is bewildering for Guam residents. The island ran an incredibly successful vaccination campaign, with almost 90% of eligible people having received two doses, and even began offering jabs to tourists in an “Air VnV” – vacation and vaccination – scheme.

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Pacific nations face ‘lost decade’ due to economic cost of Covid

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Pacific Islands face greatest economic contraction in four decades, according to a new report from the Lowy Institute

Countries in the Pacific risk a “lost decade” following the Covid pandemic, with the region facing its greatest economic contraction in four decades, according to a new report into foreign aid.

The latest Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map, which sets out aid spending and donations to the Pacific Islands region, shows US$2.44bn in foreign aid reached the Pacific in 2019, which is about 8% of the region’s GDP.

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