A new documentary shows that while the health impacts of the pandemic have - so far - been largely avoided, the effects of isolation on families, communities, and livelihoods has been profound
Faith, family, and a little bit of farming.
The Pacific’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been one of self-reliance and resistance: to turn to its communities and churches, its lands and seas.
Continue reading...Biak island residents say SpaceX launchpad would devastate island’s ecology and displace people from their homes
Papuans whose island has been offered up as a potential launch site for Elon Musk’s SpaceX project have told the billionaire Tesla chief his company is not welcome on their land, and its presence would devastate their island’s ecosystem and drive people from their homes.
Musk was offered use of part of the small island of Biak in Papua by Indonesian president Joko Widodo in December.
Continue reading...PNG’s Grand Chief led the country to independence in 1975 and served four terms as prime minister
The man who led Papua New Guinea to independence, the country’s Grand Chief and longest-serving prime minister, Sir Michael Somare, has died in Port Moresby, aged 84.
Known throughout the country as “Papa blo Kantri” – Father of the Nation – Somare served as prime minister for a total of 17 years, over four terms, and was revered as a pivotal figure in the country’s peaceful transformation from colony to independent nation. He is depicted on PNG’s 50 Kina banknote.
Continue reading...The majority of the Pacific nation’s population won’t be immunised for another two years, government planning documents show
Despite a tourism-dependent economy devastated by coronavirus shutdowns, Vanuatu’s Covid-19 vaccination programme will not inoculate most of its population until the end of 2023.
According to the ministry of health’s national deployment and vaccination plan, the first shots will be administered in April this year, but only the most vulnerable 20% of the population will get a jab in the first phase.
Continue reading...Micronesia had no choice to but to abandon the Pacific Islands Forum after being ‘thoroughly and publicly disregarded’, the President of Palau writes
What becomes of an organisation when it disregards one-third of its membership? What happens when “we” stops being inclusive?
As the eldest of four, I have always felt responsible for the safety, security, and well-being of my siblings. In my family, “I” has always been synonymous with “we”, the collective, being one inclusive family and ensuring no one is left out. This is what I understand to be the Palauan way; this is what I understand to be the Pacific Way.
Continue reading...A sustainable forestry project established to develop some of PNG’s most marginalised communities has become mired in an international corruption scandal
“There is always the stench of corruption around a deal that is too bad to be true or too good to be true,” a full-page advertisement in Papua New Guinea’s Post Courier baldly declared in May 2018.
“Usually, because it’s not true.”
Continue reading...Micronesian sub-grouping walks out over selection of new secretary-general
The Pacific Islands Forum – the Pacific’s most influential regional body – is in disarray after nearly one-third of its member countries quit en masse.
The countries of the Micronesian sub-grouping – Palau, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, and Nauru – have all abandoned the forum over the selection of the new secretary-general for the forum, following the election of Polynesia’s candidate in defiance of a long-standing convention that dictated it was the Micronesia’s turn to provide the forum’s leader.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and Nauru question whether to remain members amid bullying claims
Leaders of Micronesian countries are contemplating abandoning the Pacific Islands Forum altogether, after a fractious vote for a new secretary general sidelined the north Pacific countries, who say they are bullied by larger nations, and left with “crumbs”.
The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) is the Pacific region’s most important political body and a powerful voice for the Pacific on the global stage, but the election of former Cook Islands prime minister Henry Puna as secretary general has exposed a deep fracture between north and south Pacific nations.
Continue reading...Presence of Pal Ahluwalia deemed ‘prejudicial to peace’: a report by the vice-chancellor alleged widespread financial mismanagement at University of the South Pacific
Fiji police have carried out a midnight raid at the home of the vice-chancellor of the prestigious University of the South Pacific and summarily deported him on orders of the prime minister, in a move described by students as a “coup” and likened by staff to “gestapo tactics”.
Up to 15 immigration, police and military officials forced their way into Pal Ahluwalia’s home in Suva on Wednesday night, revoked his work permit and escorted the vice-chancellor and his wife, Sandra Price, to Nadi international airport. He was then forced on to a flight under military guard to Australia on Thursday.
Continue reading...Thierry Santa’s multi-party government collapses a few months after narrow referendum vote to remain within French republic
Even as Tropical Cyclone Lucas bears down on New Caledonia, the French Pacific dependency also faces a political storm, with the collapse of the multi-party government led by President Thierry Santa.
Five members of the government, representing the pro-independence groups UC-FLNKS and the Union nationale pour l’indépendance (UNI) resigned on 2 February. Both groups are members of the Front de libération nationale kanak et socialiste (FLNKS), which campaigns for independence from France.
Continue reading...Pacific diplomacy hinges on in-person discussion but web-only meetings have fed a growing dispute over the forum’s leadership and purpose
In the Pacific, it is all about the talanoa: the conversation and the consensus.
For the 50 years of the Pacific Islands Forum (beginning life as the South Pacific Forum), meetings have always happened in person, and it is the power of the leaders being together that has given the forum its rare ability to find common ground.
Continue reading...The New Zealand foreign minister’s moko has become international news, but beyond an identifier, our tatau are a link to ancestors, a vessel for our cultures’ stories, and a tribute to those who have gone before
Shortly before my interview with six Europeans at a roundtable in Germany, I gently covered my hand tattoo with a skin-toned foundation.
I knew that without the proper context, they would stereotype me in the western sense and presume me either a criminal or at least uneducated or unprofessional. A perception of tattooing common on that side of the world.
Continue reading...Crew on two vessels face further investigation in Pacific nation, a month after similar incident in Palau
Two Chinese fishing vessels have been detained by Vanuatu authorities amid allegations they were fishing illegally in the Pacific nation’s territorial waters.
This is the first time that Chinese vessels have been accused of illegal fishing activities in Vanuatu’s territory, but their confinement comes just a month after Palau detained a Chinese-flagged vessel reportedly illegally harvesting sea cucumber, or beche-de-mer, in the western Pacific state’s territorial waters.
Continue reading...A global treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons becomes international law today. But the fight to rid the world of these dismal weapons continues.
In 1995, thousands of people marched peacefully hand-in-hand through the Tahitian capital of Pape’ete. The palm-lined streets were awash with songs of protest.
On a nearby shorefront, Cook Islanders had just arrived by traditional voyaging canoe: a vaka. They were there to deliver a message of solidarity with their island neighbours, en route to the nuclear test site of Moruroa.
Continue reading...Fiji won a fierce contest to head the global rights group, but coalition of NGOs says repression and abuses domestically must be addressed
Fiji has won an intense and secretive geo-political battle to become the first Pacific island nation to win presidency of the United Nations Human Rights Council, but its ascension has come with demands from critics for it to address systemic rights abuses at home.
Overcoming last-minute challenges from Bahrain and Uzbekistan, both backed by China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, Fiji decisively won 29 out of 47 votes to take control of the powerful and influential global body.
Continue reading...Former senator Surangel Whipps Jr promises to stand by allies US and Taiwan when he takes office on Thursday
Palau’s president-elect has vowed to stand up to Chinese “bullying” in the Pacific, and said the small archipelago nation will stand by its alliances with “true friends”, the United States and Taiwan.
Fifty-two-year-old Surangel Whipps Jr, a supermarket owner and two-time senator from a prominent Palauan family, will be sworn in as the new president on 21 January, succeeding his brother-in-law Tommy Remengesau Jr.
Continue reading...Conservationist on a remote Papua New Guinean island finds message from American girl thrown overboard more than 2,500km away
This bottle was different. Glass, with its lid sealed tight, it contained a handful of rice grains and a few seashells. And a note.
In November, on the remote Conflict Islands of Papua New Guinea, conservation ranger Steven Amos was cleaning the beachfront on Panasesa island when he stumbled across something that was not thoughtlessly thrown away, but consciously sent as a message to an unknown recipient, somewhere in the world.
Continue reading...Dozens of women from the Pacific island victims of brazen trafficking ring that operated for years
Rolson Price still scans Facebook for her picture. He’s seen her occasionally, at the periphery of someone else’s photo, instantly recognisable.
But he’s never met her, and concedes he never will.
Continue reading...A handful of countries – most of them islands, most of them remote – remain coronavirus-free, but life has not remained wholly unchanged
For all of its virulence, for all the breathtaking speed with which it spread seemingly everywhere around the globe, there are places still where Covid-19 has not reached, and might never.
Places without face masks or elbow-bumps, without QR codes or capacity limits, without lockdowns or social distancing. There are a handful of countries across the globe – many of them islands, most of them remote – that have managed to escape the pandemic. But while the virus hasn’t hit, the global shockwaves it has sent rippling around the world certainly have.
Continue reading...Country’s expected ascension to human rights council presidency is being challenged by a China-backed bid by Bahrain
For a small country in the South Pacific that joined the UN’s powerful human rights council for the first time in 2019, Fiji has made giant strides within the organisation: right to the very top ... almost.
By consensus, Fiji’s chief diplomat in Geneva, ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan, was set to assume the presidency of the council for 2021, a historic first not only for Fiji, but for a Pacific region consistently under-represented on the global stage.
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