Category Archives: Pacific islands

Vanuatu working toward UN vote aimed at fighting fossil-fuel industry influence

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Ralph Regenvanu, minister of climate change for the Pacific island nation, says step taken on ‘behalf of everybody’

Vanuatu is working on securing a UN vote to turn a landmark ruling on the climate crisis by the international court of justice (ICJ) into concrete political action that will fight the influence of the fossil-fuel industry and protect the globe from environmental catastrophe.

In an effort spearheaded by the tiny Pacific island nation, the ICJ issued a rare unanimous advisory opinion in July, which clarified that all states are required under international law to protect the climate, prevent further harms and have a duty to cooperate.

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Fiji ant study provides new evidence of insects’ decline on remote islands

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DNA analysis of endemic specimens in museums finds 79% of ant populations in Pacific archipelago are shrinking

Island-dwelling insects have not been spared the ravages of humanity that have pushed so many of their invertebrate kin into freefall around the world, new research on Fijian ant populations has found.

Hundreds of thousands of insect species have been lost over the past 150 years and it is believed the world is now losing between 1% and 2.5% a year of its remaining insect biomass – a decline so steep that many entomologists say we are living through an “insect apocalypse”. Yet long-term data for individual insect populations is sparse and patchy.

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Junk food leads to more children being obese than underweight for first time

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Cheap ultra-processed food behind rise in overweight children, with one in 10 now obese globally, says Unicef

More children around the world are obese than underweight for the first time, according to a UN report that warns ultra-processed junk food is overwhelming childhood diets.

There are 188 million teenagers and school-age children with obesity – one in 10 – Unicef said, affecting health and development and bringing a risk of life-threatening diseases.

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Samoa’s first female PM fails to win re-election after months of political infighting

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Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, known as the ‘Iron Lady of the Pacific’, likely to be replaced by leader of opposition Fast party

Samoa’s first female leader, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, has failed to win a majority in the Pacific nation’s elections this week, capping months of political infighting.

Official results published by the electoral commission on Friday showed the opposition Fast party won 30 out of the 50 contested seats in parliament.

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Tuvalu considers pulling out of Pacific leaders’ summit amid China-linked power struggle

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Exclusive: Prime minister Feletei Teo says Tuvalu may withdraw from crucial meeting after key countries such as Taiwan were barred from attending

Tuvalu’s prime minister Feletei Teo said his country may pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners – including China, US and Taiwan – from attending.

The Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting will be held in Honiara in September. On 7 August, Solomon Islands prime minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering.

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Rise in dengue fever outbreaks across the Pacific driven by the climate crisis, experts say

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Samoa, Fiji and Tonga among the worst affected amid warning the disease and others will become ‘more common and more serious’ as the planet warms

The climate crisis is driving a sharp rise in dengue fever cases across the Pacific islands, experts say, as infections hit their highest level in a decade and several countries declare emergencies.

Pacific Island countries and territories have reported 16,502 confirmed cases and 17 deaths since the start of 2025, according to the Pacific Syndromic Surveillance System (PSSS), which collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other agencies. Infections across the region are at the highest level since 2016, the WHO said. Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are among the worst affected.

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Thursday briefing: How ​global ​preparedness ​prevented a ​tsunami ​tragedy

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In today’s newsletter: Years of preparation and global coordination ensured communities from Japan to Hawaii were not caught off guard

Good morning. Yesterday one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded hit a sparsely populated region in far east Russia.

It triggered a tsunami that started crossing the ocean at hundreds of miles an hour. What followed was a race against time – early warning systems went into alert mode as waves fanned out towards the coastlines of Japan, Hawaii and the US west coast.

Travel | The head of the UK’s air traffic control company is facing calls to resign after hundreds of flights were delayed when the system went down for about 20 minutes on Wednesday.

Israel-Gaza war | A British-Israeli woman who was held hostage by Hamas for more than 15 months has accused Keir Starmer of “moral failure” after he set the UK on course to recognise a Palestinian state. Emily Damari, 29, who was released in January, said the prime minister was “not standing on the right side of history” and should be ashamed.

UK news | The co-founder of Palestine Action can bring a legal challenge to the home secretary’s decision to ban the direct action group under anti-terrorism laws, a high court judge has ruled.

Environment | Ethnic minorities and people living in the most deprived areas of England are at increased risk of dying due to excess heat, according to new research.

Technology | Five million extra online age checks a day are being carried out in the UK since the Online Safety Act introduced age-gating for pornography sites, according to new data from the Age Verification Providers Association.

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New Caledonia to be declared a state in ‘historic’ agreement – but will remain French

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Emmanuel Macron hails ‘new chapter’ for New Caledonia as politicians agree on statehood after 10 days of talks

France has announced a “historic” accord with New Caledonia in which the overseas territory, rocked by deadly separatist violence last year, would remain French but be declared a new state.

“A State of New Caledonia within the Republic: it’s a bet on trust,” the French president, Emmanuel Macron, posted on X on Saturday, hailing a “historic” agreement.

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‘It’s not Chinese assistance’: Australia accuses China of taking undue credit for aid projects in the Pacific

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Minister Pat Conroy says Chinese ‘branding’ of multilateral development projects to bolster its influence in the region is a consistent frustration

China is bolstering its geopolitical influence in the Pacific by “branding” Asian Development Bank projects – funded in significant part by Australian taxpayer dollars – as Chinese projects, the Australian government says.

On the island of Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea to Australia’s north, the state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation has begun work to strengthen the runway at Kieta-Aropa, on the outskirts of the largest city.

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Albanese will need to resolve the standoff with Turkey if Australia is to host Cop31

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Hosting the climate summit is a major political and logistical exercise. The prime minister is being urged to turbocharge the diplomatic effort

The Australian government’s bid to host a major global climate conference in Adelaide next year wasn’t supposed to go like this.

A two-week meeting of diplomats at the UN climate headquarters in Bonn, Germany, failed to resolve what has become a long-running issue: whether the summit known as Cop31 would be held in Australia or Turkey, the only other nation vying for the rights.

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Nearly a third of Tuvalu citizens enter ballot for climate-linked visa to relocate to Australia

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Thousands from Pacific island nation under threat from rising seas enter ballot that awards visas to 280 citizens a year world-first deal

Almost a third of citizens in the Pacific nation of Tuvalu are seeking a landmark visa in the context of climate change to live in Australia as rising seas threaten their palm-fringed shores, official figures show.

Australia is offering visas to 280 Tuvalu citizens each year under a climate migration deal Canberra has billed as “the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world”.

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New Zealand halts millions of dollars in aid to Cook Islands over deals struck with China

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Wellington says it has paused payment of some funding until Pacific island nation takes steps to ‘repair the relationship and restore trust’

New Zealand has halted millions of dollars in funding to the Cook Islands over the “breadth and content” of agreements the smaller Pacific nation made with China, officials from the New Zealand foreign minister’s office has said.

New Zealand, which is the Cook Islands biggest funder, won’t consider any new money for the nation until the relationship improves, a spokesperson for foreign minister Winston Peters told the Associated Press on Thursday.

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Pacific faces ‘critical moment’ in fight for press freedom, media watchdog warns

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Some reporters in the region face jail for alleged defamation in countries where news outlets often lack resources to defend lawsuits

The Pacific is facing a “critical moment” for press freedom, the region’s media watchdog has warned, as a number of senior journalists in a range of Pacific countries are facing costly lawsuits and criminal prosecution for alleged defamation.

“We have seen a few cases coming up … challenging the fundamentals of press freedom in the region,” said Robert Iroga, the chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum.

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French court releases New Caledonia independence leader detained over deadly riots

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Christian Tein, who denies accusations of instigating violence in the French territory in 2024, will remain under judicial supervision

A French court freed an independence leader from the overseas territory of New Caledonia who had been detained for a year over deadly riots in 2024.

Christian Tein, who is indigenous Kanak , was charged and incarcerated over the rioting on the Pacific archipelago in May last year that left more than a dozen dead.

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Vanuatu not planning to revoke Andrew Tate’s citizenship, government spokesperson says

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Exclusive: Government review into how the influencer obtained citizenship found no fault with his documents and Tate will remain a citizen

Vanuatu is not planning to revoke the citizenship of Andrew Tate, with a government spokesperson confirming that the influencer remains a Vanuatu citizen, and the government is not taking any steps to reverse that.

This week investigative outlet, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) revealed that Tate obtained Vanuatu citizenship around the time of his 2022 arrest by Romanian authorities on charges including rape and human trafficking.

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Vanuatu criticises Australia for extending gas project while making Cop31 bid

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Climate minister says greenlighting North West Shelf project until 2070 is not the leadership Pacific countries expect as Australia seeks to host summit

Vanuatu’s climate minister has expressed disappointment over Australia’s decision to extend one of the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas projects and said it raises questions over its bid to co-host the Cop31 summit with Pacific nations.

The UN is expected to announce which country will host the major climate summit in the coming weeks, with Australia pushing for the event to be held in Adelaide as part of a “Pacific Cop”.

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Andrew Tate allegedly secured Vanuatu ‘golden passport’ in month of Romania arrest

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Influencer accused of rape and human trafficking alleged to have gained citizenship via £96,000 investment scheme

Andrew Tate allegedly secured a “golden passport” from the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu the month he was arrested in Romania on charges including rape and human trafficking, it has been reported.

The 38-year-old influencer allegedly received the passport through a citizenship-by-investment programme that allows foreign nationals to buy citizenship for $130,000 (£96,000), according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Intelligence Online.

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France spent €90,000 countering research into impact of Pacific nuclear tests

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Documents suggest campaign to discredit revelation that tests contaminated many more people than acknowledged

France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) has spent tens of thousands of euros in an effort to counter research revealing that Paris has consistently underestimated the devastating impact of its nuclear tests in French Polynesia in the 1960s and 1970s.

Days before a parliamentary inquiry presents its report on the tests, documents obtained by the investigative outlet Disclose, and seen by Le Monde and the Guardian, suggest the CEA ran a concerted campaign to discredit the revelations.

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Pacific must not become a ‘military zone’ amid rise of China, New Zealand’s deputy PM warns

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In an interview with the Guardian, Winston Peters says the world faces the ‘most uncertain time’ in 80 years ahead of talks with Australia's foreign minister

The Pacific must be protected from becoming a military zone amid China’s growing push for influence in the region, New Zealand’s top diplomat Winston Peters has warned ahead of a meeting with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong.

Peters, who is New Zealand’s deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister, told the Guardian that his country has a good relationship with China.

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Diplomat makes history as first refugee to become a UK high commissioner

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Kanbar Hossein-Bor, who says his mother once feared he ‘might not be British enough’, lands Fiji post

“In her mind this was a bastion of the establishment, she was a little worried of rejection,” Kanbar Hossein-Bor said of his mother’s reaction, two decades ago, to the news he was applying to work in the UK Foreign Office.

This week, the fear that “he might not be British enough” was proved wrong, when Hossein-Bor was appointed as the UK’s high commissioner to Fiji – the first refugee to achieve the rank.

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