Category Archives: Solomon Islands

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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‘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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Solomon Islands PM survives no-confidence vote after weeks of protest

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Manasseh Sogavare defends switching diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China

The prime minister of Solomon Islands has defended his government’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with China, accusing “agents of Taiwan” of attempting to destabilise the government.

Manasseh Sogavare made the comments during a heated day in parliament as the opposition leader, Mathew Wale, attempted to remove the prime minister through a no-confidence motion that was defeated by a significant majority.

Wale blamed Sogavare for the deadly anti-government protests and riots that have shaken the country in recent weeks. Protesters marched on the parliamentary precinct in the east of Honiara on 24 November, where they allegedly set fire to a leaf hut next to Parliament House where MPs and staffers go to smoke and eat lunch. Riots followed lasting hours with buildings being torched in Chinatown, as well as at a police station and a school.

Rioting continued for days. The bodies of three people were found in a burnt-out building in a store in the Chinatown district of Honiara.

Many of the protesters come from Malaita province, the most populous province in the country, where the provincial government has had tense relations with the central government for years. Tensions increased in 2019 when Sogavare announced that Solomon Islands would switch its diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, a decision that the Malaita premier, Daniel Suidani, has strongly criticised.

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Fiji sends 50 peacekeepers to Solomon Islands

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Troops will join Australian-led force that also includes Papua New Guinea

Fiji will contribute 50 troops to an Australian-led peacekeeping force in Solomon Islands after anti-government rioting that razed parts of the capital of Honiara, the Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, has said.

The Fijian contingent will lift the number of peacekeepers to about 200 troops and police officers, mostly Australian with a contribution of at least 34 personnel from Papua New Guinea.

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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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Australia’s early intervention can help Solomon Islands but the roots of the conflict run deep | Mihai Sora

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Honiara has awoken to a calmer scene but tension lingers as quelling the violent protests has not resolved their underlying causes

Unresolved tensions and geopolitical pressures are a volatile mix in Solomon Islands.

What began as a peaceful protest calling for the resignation of prime minister Manasseh Sogavare on Wednesday quickly descended into unrest as the crowd of about 1,000 people, many of whom travelled from the neighbouring Malaita province, grew agitated and set fire to a leaf hut in the capital Honiara’s parliamentary complex.

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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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‘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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How a tiny Pacific community fought off a giant mining company – video

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A proposal to mine 60% of a tiny island of Wagina in the Pacific was met with outrage by locals and became a landmark case in Solomon Islands.

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The little island that won: how a tiny Pacific community fought off a giant mining company

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A proposal to mine 60% of Wagina for bauxite was met with outrage by locals and became a landmark case in Solomon Islands

  • Read more of our Pacific Plunder series here

When a mining company arrived on Wagina nearly a decade ago with a proposal to mine 60% of the island for bauxite, resistance was swift and resolute.

“I was in the group that went and physically stopped the machines that landed on the site behind this island,” says Teuaia Sito, the former president of the Lauru Wagina Council of Women.

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From a forest in Papua New Guinea to a floor in Sydney: how China is getting rich off Pacific timber

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China is the major buyer of wood from Pacific nations like PNG and Solomon Islands, which are implicated in illegal or unsustainable logging

  • Read more of our Pacific Plunder series here

An illegally logged tree, felled in the diminishing forests of Papua New Guinea, may well end up becoming floorboards in a Sydney living room, or a bookcase in a home in Seattle.

Illegal logging contributes between 15% and 30% of the global wood trade, according to Interpol. China is a major buyer of the world’s illegal timber, according to environmental groups, especially from Pacific nations like PNG and Solomon Islands, which are implicated in illegal or unsustainable logging.

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Zoomed to fail? Cracks appear in Pacific Islands Forum as Covid pulls nations apart

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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.

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Life without Covid: the nations that have sidestepped the pandemic so far

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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.

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Australian and British bomb disposal workers killed by blast in Solomon Islands

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NGO workers mapping second world war bomb sites died when ordnance detonated in their home

An Australian man and his British colleague working to map unexploded bombs across Solomon Islands have been killed in an explosion at their home in the capital Honiara.

Australian Trent Lee and Briton Stephen “Luke” Atkinson died when an unexploded ordnance is believed to have detonated shortly after 7.30pm on Sunday.

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Coronavirus in the Pacific: weekly briefing

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Covid-19-related developments throughout the Pacific Islands

The total number of Covid-19 cases across the Pacific stands at 314, with new cases reported this week in New Caledonia, Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.

New Zealand is under increasing pressure, both internally and from across the region, to consider Pacific countries as part of its proposed travel ‘bubble’, alongside, or even in place of, Australia. The foreign minister, Winston Peters, initially rejected including Pacific island nations, but later backtracked.

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Tragedy at sea: eight dead and four rescued after 32 days adrift in South Pacific

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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.

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