Solomon Islands – Asia Pacific Report

Peters blasts Solomon Islands cabinet ministers for move against PM Wale

APR editor — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 22:53:19 +0000

By Kaya Selby of RNZ Pacific

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters has blasted Solomon Islands cabinet ministers who moved against their leader on the eve of the Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting in Palau.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale has been forced home to deal with a motion of no confidence from his Home Affairs Minister Manasseh Maelanga.

Three Cabinet ministers, including Maelanga, have resigned from his GREAT coalition government.

More ministers are rumoured to follow suit, including Finance Minister and former Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo, potentially tipping the numbers against Wale’s favour.

Speaking to reporters in Palau ahead of the summit’s opening ceremony, Peters struggled to hide his disdain.

“To think that a motion of no confidence was moved when you’re at a critical Pacific event concerns me about the people who moved the motion,” he said.

“For goodness’ sake, could you possibly have waited until your brothers, sisters and cousins have sorted out the Pacific in the meantime, just for these few days?”

Returned within hours
Wale, who reportedly first learned of the motion after landing in Palau, was on a plane back home within hours.

Peters said that the departure weighed heavy on fellow leaders, considering several heads of government had opted not to go.

“He had to get the next plane, and President [Surangel] Whipps Jr had to take him. That shows how saddened Whipps was by that, we all were, that Wale had to go home. But at least they’re trying.”

The leaders of Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu and New Caledonia are also sitting out the summit. Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka may stay at home, despite earlier plans.

Peters is in Koror for the next two days before swapping out with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. He refused to speculate on why so many Pacific leaders were not present.

However, reasons for their absence could include health, he noted.

Rabuka’s absence would mean a planned bilateral with his New Zealand counterpart on Thursday morning would not go ahead. Luxon said on Monday that he was not deterred.

Wale faces the fire
Barely three months into the job, Wale now faces a challenge strikingly similar to the one he had helped orchestrate against his predecessor, Jeremiah Manele.

It began with a mass resignation: 10 ministers in one fell swoop, complaining that then-Prime Minister Manele made too many decisions without consulting Cabinet.

While Manele refused to call parliament, a group of MPs wore him down, and he gave way on 7 May. In the aftermath, Wale was elected prime minister by 26 MPs in a parliament of 50. It would take that many to oust him.

Maelanga, an early contender against Wale in the PM stakes, has now made a claim nearly identical to Manele’s challengers, saying Wale had made unilateral decisions “on matters of national importance” while neglecting “proper consultation with, or the approval of, Cabinet”.

Solomon Isands journalist Lisa Osifelo told RNZ Pacific Waves that the situation was fluid.

“We might be expecting more resignations from ministers in the next couple of days,” she said

“There were probably a lot of things that have come out in the media… political appointees, the termination and the non-renewal of contracts [in] various ministries, that has probably contributed to what we’re seeing now.”

She said it was unclear how large or influential the rebel group is — but Maelanga is likely a front-man.

Wale ‘will be regrouping’
“I know [PM Wale] will be regrouping a few of the members … maybe get back to the drawing board, renegotiate, and bring their grievances or whatever they have back to the table.”

It is unclear whether Maelanga’s grievances about “unilateral decisions” include the government’s foreign policy platform.

Since Wale took office, he pledged to review the controversial security deal signed with China in 2022, reset the Australian relationship, signed a shiprider agreement with the United States, and deepened ties with Japan and New Zealand through MoUs — promising that the Solomons was a “friend to all”.

Speaking as PIF chair in July, Wale said there was “growing consensus” among Pacific states for a regional security treaty.

At the leaders’ summit this week, Winston Peters speculated that the idea would be discussed, but that Wale’s absence was a “setback.”

The first of PIF’s leaders meetings began last night.

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Solomon Islands ‘dangles over the edge of political instability’ as three ministers quit

APR editor — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:00:26 +0000

RNZ Pacific reporters

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale’s Government for Reform, Empowerment, Accountability and Transformation (GREAT) coalition appears headed for a major test after three of his most senior ministers formally quit on Monday.

This comes after Wale, 57, who was elected to the top job just over 100 days ago, cut short a trip to Palau after East Malaita MP and Home Affairs Minister Manasseh Maelanga launched a surprise leadership challenge.

He was elected prime minister on May 15 by 26 votes to 22 against Peter Shanel Agovaka.

READ MORE: Solomon Islands PM Wale rushes home from Palau after confidence challenge launched

State broadcaster SIBC is reporting the three cabinet ministers who resigned are Justice Minister Clezy Rore, Commerce Minister Harry Kuma and Maelanga.

Solomon Islands Governor-General’s deputy Private Secretary Maxwell Banyo confirmed the resignations to SIBC on Monday.

RNZ Pacific has approached Wale’s office for comment but has not received a response.

Solomon Islands media have described the turn of events as an “internal coalition revolt”, while regional political watchers have called it “deeply unfortunate”.

According to Maelanga, the reason for the no-confidence motion is that Wale “has repeatedly made decisions on matters of national importance without properly consulting Cabinet”.

‘Complicated’ reasons
Solomon Islands academic Dr Tarcisius Kabutaulaka said the reasons for the motion of no confidence against Wale were “complicated”.

“The fundamental questions for Solomon Islands are these: If the motion were to go through, what can a new government do in the remaining period of this Parliament?” Dr Kabutaulaka wrote for In-depth Solomons.

“How would a change of government benefit the Solomon Islands? How would it further erode Solomon Islanders’ already low confidence in Parliament and its members?

“And how would it address the country’s chronic problem of instability?”

“While Solomon Islands’ members of Parliament tussle over who rules, Solomon Islanders watch — many with disappointment and anger.

“The country once again dangles over the edge of political instability.”

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Solomon Islands PM Wale rushes home from Palau after confidence challenge launched

APR editor — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 23:31:39 +0000

RNZ Pacific reporters

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale made an emergency trip back to Honiara on Sunday morning from Palau after a motion of no confidence was filed against him.

Wale was in Palau to attend the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting as its current chair.

He was suppose to hand over the chairmanship to Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr in Palau.

Wale, 57, was elected prime minister of the country on May 15 and has been in office for just over 100 days.

The no-confidence motion against him over the weekend has been filed by East Malaita MP and Minister of Home Affairs Manasseh Maelanga. The Solomon Islands Parliament has confirmed it has received the notice.

Maelanga is accusing Wale of making unilateral decisions without proper consultation and without taking matters through cabinet.

“The motion follows concerns that the Prime Minister has repeatedly made decisions on matters of national importance without properly consulting Cabinet or obtaining its approval,” Maelanga said in the statement.

“I have taken this step with confidence in our democratic institutions and a firm commitment to stable, transparent and accountable government.”

Claims rejected
Maelanga has also rejected claims that the challenge against Wales leadership was intended to derail ongoing investigations.

The motion is the first major political challenge for Wale since coming to power.

He had only just landed in Palau when news of the no-confidence motion back home reached him.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale . . . the first major political challenge for him since coming to power in May. Image: PIF Secretariat

When questioned at the airport by a Solomon Islands journalist on the matter, he said: “When I go, I will tell you more.”

He was gone the next day in the early hours of the morning.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister and Pacific Islands Forum chair Matthew Wale.

Other Solomon Islands officials who travelled with the prime minister to Palau were surprised to hear about the leadership challenge.

Local media have described the no-confidence motion against Wale as an “internal coalition revolt”.

“There appears to be a split within the GREAT Coalition. Few Ministers and MPs within the GREAT Coalition are likely to tender their resignations,” according to a report by Solomon Star.

Pacific security and geopolitics analyst Dr Anna Powles described the timing of the no-confidence motion as “deeply unfortunate”.

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Pacific media figures pay tribute to Solomons legend George Atkin

APR editor — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 01:00:35 +0000

RNZ Pacific reporters

Tributes have flowed in for the renowned Solomon Islands journalist George Atkin, who has died.

As well as being a former correspondent for the then-RNZ International and ABC Pacific, Atkin was a leading figure in journalism in Solomon Islands and in the Pacific Islands region.

He was the first president of the Media Association of Solomon Islands (MASI), serving from 1985 to 1989 and was a respected member of the country’s media fraternity.

READ MORE: Remembering a Pacific media pioneer — George Atkin Aeta’i

The veteran journalist worked for numerous mainstream media outlets such as the Solomon Star newspaper, Island Sun newspaper and the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation.

A prominent Solomon islands media figure, Robert Iroga, said Atkin was an editor, journalist, storyteller and mentor who understood the power of the pen.

“He understood that journalism was not simply about filling pages or broadcasting news. He understood that words could change policies, challenge governments, expose wrongdoing and even force leaders to resign,” Iroga said.

Some of the region’s best known names in the news media sector have also paid tribute to Atkin on social media.

A Pacific legend
Alexander Rheeney, a former editor of both PNG’s Post Courier newspaper and the Samoa Observer, said Atkin “was a legend and well respected by the media fraternity and the public”.

TVNZ’s long-time Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver said Atkin “leaves a legacy that will be remembered”.

RNZ Pacific manager Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor said that Atkin “was a true professional and understood all the complex layers of politics in his country”.

George Atkin died in his home village of Tawatana in Arosi 1, West Makira.

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Solomon Islands PM urges ‘no more secrecy’ over treaties with other countries

APR editor — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 01:47:24 +0000

RNZ Pacific reporters

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale has announced that a review of his country’s security agreement with China has begun.

Wale has said he was only permitted to read the 2022 agreement one day before an official meeting in Canberra in May this year, shortly after he was elected prime minister.

Highlighting the lack of proper disclosure at the time of the agreement, when he was opposition leader, Wale told Parliament this must never happen again.

As such, he has called on the current opposition leader Manasseh Sogavare, who was prime minister at the time of the China agreement, to support the review.

This comes after Sogavare alleged a lack of transparency over a new agreement that Wale’s government has signed with the United States which allows the US Coast Guard to have greater access to the Solomons.

In response, Wale said there would be ‘no more secrecy’ on agreements that bind the nation

“I call on the Leader of the Opposition to support the review, this House must support the principle that no treaty should stand without the informed consent of Parliament.

“If that is the standard, then it must apply to every agreement this country has signed and not just some,” Wale said.

Wale, who has overseen a foreign policy reset that observers note has the Solomon Islands pivoting back to the west, also stressed that China remains an important partner for his country.

He said Solomon Islands remained “friends to all and enemies to none”.

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Pacific Islands Forum fails to reach consensus on anti-missile statement against China

APR editor — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 03:42:55 +0000

By Susana Suisuiki of RNZ Pacific

Disagreement from some China-aligned Pacific Islands countries has prevented regional countries within the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) issuing a joint statement against missile testing in the Pacific.

At their meeting in Suva on Friday, PIF foreign ministers failed to agree on a unified statement against China after it fired a nuclear-capable missile into Pacific waters last month, despite deep concern among most countries about Beijing’s actions.

It is understood there was a majority of countries represented at the meeting who wanted a clear joint regional statement condemning such missile testing in the nuclear-free Pacific.

However, the Forum’s usual Pacific decision-making by consensus could not be met because Kiribati and Nauru were opposed to a strong statement condemning the testing.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters told media some Pacific nations were using the consensus system because they were more concerned with external partners’ wishes than those that belong to the Pacific Islands Forum, something he described as an “unusual view”.

“They didn’t actually lay out any reasons, apart from their disagreement, and not wishing for us to make the clear statement such as ‘we are opposed to missiles being fired into the Pacific’.

“That’s what the statement should have said, and we’re still waiting for that to get laid out.”

Some governments have pointed out that China is not the only country testing nuclear-capable missiles in the Pacific. The US regularly conducts tests into the Marshall Islands.

Peters said that testing in the Marshall Islands was done with the country’s consent.

Security agenda
The PIF Foreign Ministers Meeting was held to set the agenda for the annual Leaders’ Meeting in Palau later this month.

A Solomon Islands proposal for a regional security treaty was one of the discussion points, although it’s clear more consultation is required on the matter.

The Solomon Islands’ Foreign Affairs and External Trade Permanent Secretary George Hoa’au told RNZ Pacific that there was already a range of regional security mechanisms in the Forum fale.

“The missing part is to have a common thatched roof over them,” he said.

“The proposal for this single security treaty by Solomons is to provide an umbrella on top of what is already regional MOUs which are non-binding.”

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Pacific foreign ministers to discuss Solomons’ idea for regional security treaty

APR editor — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 23:54:36 +0000

By Teuila Fuatai of RNZ Pacific

A proposal from the Solomon Islands government for a regional security treaty is being considered by the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) foreign ministers in Suva on Friday, RNZ Pacific understands.

The treaty proposal forms a key agenda item at the day-long annual meeting — the outcomes of which help determine what will be discussed at the Forum leaders’ meeting in Palau at the end of the month.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale, who is also PIF chair, began promoting the concept of a regional security agreement soon after he was elected leader by his country’s Parliament in May.

The idea gained pace in early June after Wale visited his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese in Canberra.

In an address he delivered at the PIF headquarters in Suva last month, Wale highlighted the need for the region to consider “bold ideas that strengthen our collective security and provide greater certainty for future generations”.

He also told ABC there was “a growing consensus” among leaders he had spoken with of “gaps that such an architecture would help plug”.

However, political experts warn a collective security treaty could change regional decision-making processes and norms by introducing mandatory consultation.

Currently, decision making and policy processes on regional security through the Forum are guided by principles enshrined in regional declarations like Biketawa, Boe, and the Ocean of Peace.

This regional cooperation is not underpinned by an international legal agreement, except in certain instances like nuclear issues, which are covered by the Treaty of Rarotonga, and fisheries surveillance under the Niue Treaty.

The PIF, through its 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, describes this type of political cooperation as the “Pacific Way”. It involves “consensus-based decision making, whilst respecting sovereignty and the principle of non-interference in national affairs”.

Converting political commitments into obligations
According to RNZ Pacific sources, those pushing for the Solomons security treaty intend to codify the existing regional security legal and policy framework, including the three declarations mentioned above.

Codification would involve setting rules that govern regional security cooperation.

Massey University Centre for Defence and Security Studies associate professor Anna Powles said the existing Forum architecture and declarations and agreements, like Biketawa, preserve sovereignty and substantial national discretion.

“The proposed treaty would convert political commitments into obligations under international law, which poses a series of questions from what obligations it creates, whether decisions remain consensual, and whether it regulates existing bilateral security partnerships.”

Dr Powles emphasised the need for governments to carefully consider what was being put on the table through the proposed agreement.

This included which decisions governments were agreeing to share, the obligations they were committing to, and whether the proposed treaty could restrict their ability to respond to national circumstances.

“Depending on what the Wale proposal contains and seeks to do, a treaty in the current geopolitical climate could risk narrowing the Pacific concept of security from the Boe Declaration, which recognises climate change as the existential threat.

“There will be concern in parts of the region that the proposed treaty could become another geopolitical instrument through which certain states seek to limit their competitors.”

Wording to be ‘critical’
Regarding shifts in the policy and decision-making processes, Dr Powles said the wording of the treaty would be critical.

“A formal collective security treaty could change regional decision-making and consensus by introducing mandatory consultation,” she said.

“Governments might be legally required to notify and consult other members about an emerging security threat, or a proposed security arrangement with an external power.”

The key question would then be who or what country would be given a formal role in determining whether an issue constituted a regional security concern, she said.

“The treaty would need to establish how collective action is authorised. If consensus is retained, every member would continue to have an effective veto.

“Members could be required to notify or consult the region before entering bilateral security agreements involving foreign police, military personnel [and] bases, or strategic infrastructure.”

Dr Powles also suggested a stronger version of the treaty may be needed to achieve this, which would have the potential to “significantly reduce individual governments’ freedom of action” and “probably be the treaty’s most politically contested feature”.

“The key distinction is between consensus over adopting the treaty and decision-making after it enters into force, or if the treaty simply consolidates existing declarations, preserves consensus and makes participation in regional responses voluntary. Its principal effect would be to give existing commitments a more durable legal form.”

‘Competing priorities’ around regional security
Pacific historian and Auckland University of Technology lecturer Dr Marco de Jong highlighted the potential trade-offs around a regional security treaty.

“There are a range of competing priorities when it comes to the formulation of a treaty.

“On the one hand, it may be to codify long-standing norms and principles, which have guided regional security cooperation thus far.

“Alternatively, it might be to embed, and serve as a chapeau for, the emerging regional security architecture, which is predominantly being driven by Australia,” he said.

“Another option is that it might seek to elevate the types of confidence-building or transparency mechanisms, and strategic-trust mechanisms, which have been in bilateral agreements to the regional level.”

Dr De Jong said those scenarios meant vastly different things for the region.

“All three of those potential purposes are in tension when it comes to genuine, Pacific-led regional security.”

Both Dr De Jong and Dr Powles urged careful consideration and discussion on the treaty proposal.

“For instance, what problem does a treaty solve that existing declarations cannot?” Powles asked.

“Which provisions or obligations would be legally binding? How will the tradition and spirit of consensus be upheld? Who will pay for the operationalisation of the treaty? Where does oversight sit? Will the Pacific Islands Forum have oversight? How will disputes be resolved, and can a state withdraw?”

Following Friday’s meeting, regional leaders are due to gather in Palau for the week-long PIF Leaders’ Meeting beginning August 30.

This is expected to be one of the Forum’s largest leaders’ summits, with dialogue partners set to attend — a departure from last year where then-host Solomon Islands excluded dialogue partners.

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Manasseh Sogavare unleashes on Solomon Islands government over US agreement

APR editor — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 01:36:29 +0000

By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific

The US Shiprider Agreement signed by the new-look Solomon Islands government has been subject to fiery criticism in Parliament.

The opposition leader Manasseh Sogavare continues to attack the agreement which he describes as an affront to the sovereignty of Solomon Islands, but the Prime Minister Matthew Wale insists the country’s rights as a sovereign nation remain protected.

The latest exchanges came during parliamentary debate on the Governor-General’s Speech from the Throne, when the King’s representative lays out the government’s policy programme, effectively on the government’s behalf.

READ MORE: Other Solomon Island reports

The debate included a focus on foreign policy, an area of apparent flux in the country since Wale wasted little time after being elected in May in moving to strengthen ties with Australia and the US.

These relations had been tested after Solomon Islands in 2019 ditched its longstanding diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in order to forge close links with China.

Visiting Canberra recently, Wale discussed the idea of a Pacific regional security treaty with Australia. He also visited the US and Japan where he bolstered ties.

In Washington, Wale forged a Ship Rider Agreement to allow the US Coast Guard into Solomon Islands waters, alongside local police, for joint maritime enforcement and surveillance efforts. That agreement was then signed last week in Honiara.

“Solomon Islands remains a friend to all and an enemy to none,” Wale said during the debate.

“This government has deliberately reset our foreign relations, and the visits made to our friends were necessary to restore our standing as a reliable partner to each of them — they have been rewarding.”

China relations ‘remain important’
Wale said that the proper test of foreign policy was what it delivered for Solomon Islanders, adding that by that measure he felt the reset had begun well.

“In that same vein, our relations with the People’s Republic of China remain important to our development, and this government reaffirms our continued commitment to the One China principle, the foundation on which our bilateral relations are established.

“This is settled policy for the Solomon Islands government, and it will be honoured with the same consistency we bring to all our friendships.”

From Matthew Wale’s calm tones, the debate’s energy ratcheted up several knots with a typically fiery speech by Manasseh Sogavare which lasted around an hour.

The former prime minister, under whom the Solomons made the switch to China, has been highly critical of Wale’s recent pivot to the west.

‘Open to question’
He questioned the constitutional authority and protocol surrounding the signing of the Ship Rider Agreement with the US last week, as he claims it was not signed by the minister responsible for treaties and agreements.

“A treaty signed by a person who, on the face of the standing instruments of the state, does not hold responsibility of the House of the business of government under which the treaty falls, is a treaty whose authenticity is an act of this government is is at least open to question.”

Sogavare is concerned that the Solomons is waiving certain powers to the US as the Ship Rider Agreement relates to the 1991 Status of Forces Agreement with the US, which is still in force and governs the status of American armed forces in Solomon Islands.

Status of Forces
“Under that old agreement, United States forces present under authorised duties are exempt from Solomon Islands passport and visa requirement.

“United States equipment, supplies, and government properties enter the country free of duties, taxes, and charges,” Sogavare said.

“United States military authorities may exercise criminal disciplinary jurisdiction on Solomon Island soil.

“This nation has on the face of the 1991 text, already agreed to waive its primary criminal jurisdiction, except in cases of what he termed particular importance.

“A certificate of a United States commander is sufficient proof that the conduct occurred in the course of official duty, subject only to review inside United States military chain of command.”

The opposition leader said the agreement had been forged without proper transparency or oversight by Parliament.

“The point is that the framework, substantial operational benefits, and substantial legal protection accrued to the United States while Solomon Islands applies supplies the sovereign jurisdiction gateway, bears the diplomatic consequences of any incident in our waters, and remains institutionally exposed on questions of accountability, evidence, custody, and claims.

“That is the framework this House has never debated.”

Wale has denied that the Ship Rider Agreement compromises the country’s sovereignty.

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Tuvalu deploys conservation NGO to arrest Chinese longliner

APR editor — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 03:27:48 +0000

By Kaya Selby of RNZ Pacific

Tuvalu has arrested a Chinese tuna longliner, borrowing a vessel from a wellknown conservation charity to do so.

On the evening of July 9, Tuvalu Police Force maritime trackers picked up something strange about a vessel they were watching. From there, they boarded the Allankay, a vessel owned by Sea Shepherd Global, and went to investigate.

According to Sea Shepherd, police found the crew of the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 13 throwing illegally caught shark fins overboard while stockpiling tuna and keeping essentially no records.

Experts say it is a “quite exceptional” kind of arrangement, where developing countries, particularly in Africa, lean on an NGO for law enforcement. But Sea Shepherd says it is a model that has proven successful, and they hope to bring it to the Pacific.

Sea Shepherd’s chief campaigns officer Captain Peter Hammarstedt told RNZ Pacific that Tuvalu had come to them with a partnership in mind after their lone patrol boat, the Te Mataili II, was destroyed by cyclones Judy and Kevin in 2023.

“When somebody comes into the waters of Tuvalu and fishes illegally, it is a direct assault on the livelihoods of Tuvaluans,” Captain Hammerstedt said.

Chinese longliner Lu Rong Yuan Yu 138 arrested by Tuvalu police ervices on board the Allankay. Image: Youenn Kerdavid/Sea Shepherd

“Tuvalu asked us if we could send our ship there to help fill that law enforcement vacuum.”

Tuvalu’s Transport Minister Simon Kofe has thrown his support behind the group, thanking it for its support in public LinkedIn posts. Captain Hammerstedt said there was more to come in the Pacific.

The Tuvaluan government did not respond to requests for comment.

‘Three-dimensional chess’
Ships worldwide operate on the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which gives their location in real time via transponders, to stop them from crashing into each other.

But here the AIS transmission was quite simply impossible. It transmitted a latitude that put it on the equator — but if the longitude were true, the vessel would no longer be on the planet.

It did not take long for the police to realise that it was a spoof — a scrambled signal to mask the ship’s location so it could travel in the dark.

“It’s used repeatedly by the Chinese distant water fishing fleet,” Captain Hammarstedt explained.

“If you’re sitting at a computer looking at fishing activity, you may notice Chinese fishing vessels smack-dab in the middle of continental Europe… the Mongolian desert… even the Australian outback, and that’s because the information being put out if simply rubbish.”

In this case, it was a giveaway. Authorities made the assumption that the vessel would not expect any law enforcement in the area because they were tracking ships they knew of.

Hopefully, Captain Hammarstedt explained, the dark vessel would think they were in Fiji, not Tuvalu — because they had hidden their location too.

Staggered times
“This is why we stagger our arrival and we stagger the times that we visit our partner countries… it’s like three-dimensional chess.”

By the morning the Allankay had arrived to find a longliner with a small Chinese crew.

“When coming up on the vessel, the police noticed that their nativation lights were completely shut off,” he recalled.

“Once they got on board, they noticed that their fishing authortsation had expired.”

As they searched, they found piles of tuna, and witnessed crew members throwing shark carcasses overboard. Records going back months made no mention of sharks, which are illegal to target and must be logged whenever there is any bycatch. With that, Tuvalu arrested the captain and crew, and detained the boat in Funafuti.

“They’ll make a decision in the next few days whether or not to prosecute the ship and lay charges.”

First arrangement of its kind in the Pacific
Sea Shepherd, once known for tailing Japanese whaling vessels, has moved toward partnerships with law enforcement, particularly in African countries.

They are most famous for using confrontational tactics in the high seas, with illegal fishers and whalers the primary target. A “jolly rodger” style black flag adds to their aura.

A journal article from Chatham House’s International Affairs published in January, which featured interviews from SS workers, discussed this “exceptional” arrangement as a reflection of those countries’ weakness in the face of external pressures.

But for the Pacific, with its Forum Fisheries Agency and the tens of millions in annual funding it receives, one may wonder why the “skull and crossbones” is necessary.

“Sea Shepherd seeks to complement those efforts,” Captain Hammerstedt said.

“It’s another thing to have that intelligence, but also make that intelligence actionable, because there is a vessel in Tuvalu at that very moment that can bring the police to investigate that suspicious target.”

The FFA told RNZ Pacific that they had no involvement in the partnership.

The ship remains in Funafuti, with Tuvaluan authorities to announce whether charges will be laid in the coming days.

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NZ’s Pacific Islands Forum budget could face a $10m squeeze, OIA reveals

APR editor — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 23:48:19 +0000

By Kaya Selby of RNZ Pacific

Cash set aside to host the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in New Zealand next year may fall short of what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) expected it to cost.

RNZ Pacific has received a document from MFAT under the Official Information Act (OIA) that puts potential operating costs at $30 million over two years, as of March.

Budget 2026 set aside $20 million over that time to host PIF.

READ MORE: Other PIF reports

This is noted as a specific fiscal risk in MFAT’s submission, but was not disclosed in Treasury’s Budget Economic and Fiscal Update.

An MFAT spokesperson said that due to “subsequent work to clarify expectations and scope, and to tighten cost estimates”, they now expected the budget to cover it.

When asked specifically how $10m had been “tightened” out, they did not provide a response.

In the submission, MFAT noted that they have been instructed by the Prime Minister to host the forum “in a manner that burnishes our Pacific credentials [and] strengthens our region.”

‘Significant responsibility’
It also called it a “significant responsibility” that comes with “elevated expectations from the Forum membership.”

Next year will be the first time that New Zealand has hosted PIF in 16 years.

The 2026 summit will be hosted by Palau from August 30 to September 4.

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Press freedom: holding the MEAA line on the public’s right to know

Pacific Media Watch — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 00:03:12 +0000

Pacific Media Watch

A “lock out” incident in Honiara last year barring Pacific journalists from an Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese press conference is among several events “undercutting” media freedom that have led to a new campaign by the Australian journalists’ union MEAA.

The incident happened during the Pacific Islands Forum summit in the Solomon Islands in September 2025 and sparked widespread media condemnation.

Albanese’s political team barred local journalists reporting from Pacific outlets from the conference, only allowing Australian journalists access.

“As Prime Minister Albanese entered the room, the door was immediately locked,” reported the Solomon Star newspaper at the time. “Only journalists from Australia were granted access denying regional and local media outlets from participating or asking questions.”

Now this incident and others in Australia “undercutting press freedom and the public’s right to know by restricting access to and targeting journalists who they don’t like” has resulted in a pushback campaign from the MEAA.

The campaign brief with guidelines states:
There is a growing trend of politicians undercutting press freedom and the public’s right to know by restricting access to and targeting journalists who they don’t like.

In 2025, Anthony Albanese gave a press conference in the Solomon Islands. His team barred local journalists reporting from Pacific outlets from the conference, only allowing Australian journalists access.

In early 2026, One Nation candidate in the byelection for the Victorian state seat of Nepean, Darren Hercus, refused to speak to a reporter who works for the ABC due to disagreeing with the broadcaster’s coverage.

During the Farrer byelection in May, One Nation barred another ABC journalist from a press conference.

After threatening to defund the ABC and shut down the SBS, Pauline Hanson verbally abused Guardian Australia journalist Sarah Martin on several occasions including on a live broadcast of her National Press Club address.

Local Councils, Hawkesbury City Council in NSW and Mornington Peninsula Shire Council in Victoria have declared blacklists on journalists working for local papers The Hawkesbury Gazette and Somerville Times & Peninsula Local. This act, which has gone largely unchallenged, has left communities without the local council reporting and scrutiny they deserve and rely on.

It is up to us to hold the line
We talk a lot about the importance of freedom of the press to democracy and to the public’s right to know. We also talk about it as a workplace right for journalists to be able to safely do our jobs.

The truth is, no one will give us these rights or protect them on our behalf. Employers, politicians, and courts will always be susceptible to other interests and influences. It’s the responsibility and power of working journalists alone to protect press freedom and public interest journalism.

When one of us is attacked with impunity, it sets a new standard of behaviour that will have impacted us all. That is why we must work together to draw a line and collectively hold it.

How we can hold the line
When you go to a press conference for someone known to be hostile to press freedom:

Speak to your colleagues from other workplaces in the press pack about what threats might come your way and how you can have each other’s backs. Offer support and ask for it too.

When a colleague following a line of questioning is abused, threatened or stonewalled by someone seeking to avoid valid scrutiny:

Don’t let it slide.

Pick up their question and pursue it until it is answered.

Ask the spokesperson/talent why they are avoiding scrutiny on the topic.

Ask them why they think it is acceptable to abuse a journalist at work.

When colleagues are barred from press conferences:
Call for them to be let in.

Get agreement among the press pack to lower cameras and collectively turn your backs on the talent until they agree to basic press freedom principles.

If the group isn’t ready to do this action due to fear of employer retribution, call the barred journalist and facilitate their line of questioning. Debrief with the group about how we can build up worker strength to withstand employer and politician divide-and-conquer tactics.

After an incident occurs:
Debrief with affected colleagues around you.

Call your union delegate, organiser or MEAA Member Central.

If abuse or harassment has occurred, speak to the host or venue about it. Under Workplace Health and Safety legislation, many of these venues share an obligation to mitigate risks to the health and safety of workers and other people in the venue. In some jurisdictions, unions have a right to prosecute for breaches of these obligations.

Campaign republished from Australia’s Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance website.

‘Stop firing missiles in our ocean’ – Pacific reacts to China test

APR editor — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 23:53:06 +0000

By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific

China’s test firing of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile into the South Pacific on Monday has added to unease in the Pacific over military posturing and strategic alliances.

Regional governments were notified by China shortly before it launched the test, on the same day that Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went to Fiji to sign new treaties related to security and defence.

If the test launch was a clear message from China, the reaction from Australia and New Zealand has been swift.

Both governments accused China of undermining the peace and stability of the region, and of going against the values of Pacific Island countries as enshrined in the Pacific Forum’s Ocean of Peace initiative.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the launch was consistent with international law and customary international practice and was not directed at any specific country or target.

How many missiles has the US fired into the Pacific — did Australia protest those?

Here are the dates that the US test fired nuclear-capable ICBM missiles 7,000kms into the mid-Pacific:

•2026: March 5, June tbc.
•2025: February 19, May 21, November 4.
•2024: June 4,… pic.twitter.com/v6nxkRGA9U

— Peter Cronau (@PeterCronau) July 7, 2026

‘Please refrain’
The response from Pacific Island governments was generally more muted, although the biggest of the Island countries, Papua New Guinea, made an emphatic call against militarisation of the region.

PNG’s Prime Minister James Marape released a statement with an “appeal to our Chinese friends that this be the last such missile test conducted in Pacific waters”.

“This message is not directed only at China. It applies equally to the United States, France, Japan, the United Kingdom and every nation with military capability.

“If you respect the Pacific and its people, then please respect our ocean. We ask all major powers to refrain from using Pacific waters for missile testing, military weapons trials or any activity that contributes to conflict or militarisation,” Marape said.

Restraint urged
The Solomon Islands Prime Minister, Matthew Wale, said China’s actions were not the sort of thing a good friend to the Pacific Islands did, and described the missile test as being not good for the region.

Wale, who today hosted Albanese in Honiara, said that as chair of the Pacific Islands Forum he had registered a strong protest with China’s ambassador, and that Solomon Islands also lodged a protest note.

He said the message against using missiles in the region applied to all other nations too.

Meanwhile, Fiji reaffirmed its commitment to the Treaty of Rarotonga which established the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, the intent of which, New Zealand pointed out, has been breached by China’s test.

The Fiji Foreign Minister Sakiasi Ditoka urged restraint and underlined the need for peace, dialogue, transparency, mutual respect and adherence to international law.

“Fiji therefore encourages all states to exercise restraint, communicate openly, and conduct their activities in a manner that strengthens regional confidence and security rather than contributing to heightened tensions,” he said.

Not just China
However, the Pacific Council of Churches general-secretary, Reverend James Bhagwan, said it was a reminder of how quickly the Pacific’s Ocean of Peace can be turned into a theatre of power.

“At the same time, we are very mindful of the narrative which paints only China as an aggressor,” he told RNZ Pacific.

“It must be noted that the United States of America annually fires four nuclear-capable Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles into our Blue Pacific, targeting Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.”

Reverend Bhagwan said the Pacific region had had the most nuclear detonations of any region, at more than 300, and that Pacific Islanders were firmly opposed to nuclear arms.

“That’s why we were in the Australian Parliament this past week to call on the Labor government to sign the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, noting that Prime Minister Albanese and many others in his party and in government and in Parliament had pledged to do so eight years ago.

“We need Australia to lead the Pacific and secure our region from the threat of nuclear disaster by helping us take nuclear weapons off the table as an option,” Bhagwan said.

But at this time of heightened competition for power in the Pacific, it appears the Australian Labor Party’s promise of support for the ban on nuclear weapons may have been put on ice.

It comes as the new US Ambassador to New Zealand, Samoa, the Cook Islands and Niue last week pressed Wellington to revisit its stance against hosting nuclear ships.

The Pacific’s anti-nuclear resolve is being tested.

This story was first published on

Jeremy Rose: The nuclear-free Pacific and hypersonic hypocrisy

APR editor — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 11:00:33 +0000

COMMENTARY: By Jeremy Rose

On March 5 of this year, the United States launched a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from the Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Travelling at speeds of more than 24,000 km/h, it landed near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, 6700 kilometres away, 24 minutes later.

Minuteman III missiles can deliver up to three separate nuclear warheads, each more than 20 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

On March 3, 2025, the Marshall Islands formally announced its intention to join the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone by signing the Treaty of Rarotonga.

Searches of The New Zealand Herald and Stuff websites for stories about the missile test, and the signing of the treaty come up empty.

And yet, on Tuesday, both The Herald and The Post led with news that China had test-fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile in the Pacific. Neither report made any mention of the at least 15 ballistic missile tests fired into the Pacific by the US since 2021.

How many missiles has the US fired into the Pacific — did Australia protest those?

Here are the dates that the US test fired nuclear-capable ICBM missiles 7,000kms into the mid-Pacific:

•2026: March 5, June tbc.
•2025: February 19, May 21, November 4.
•2024: June 4,… pic.twitter.com/v6nxkRGA9U

— Peter Cronau (@PeterCronau) July 7, 2026

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his Australian counterpart, Penny Wong, were both quoted as saying the Chinese missile test went against the intent of the Treaty of Rarotonga.

“The Pacific Islands Forum leaders have made clear that they want the Pacific to be an ocean of peace. We believe this test is inconsistent with that objective,” Wong said.

Wong isn’t wrong.

Kiribati criticised US test
In 2024 Kiribati publicly criticised an earlier test of a Minuteman III missile that also landed in the Ronald Reagan Space and Missile Test Range located near the Kwajalein Atoll. As the name suggests, the tests are a regular occurrence.

A statement from the President’s Office, reported by RNZ, said Kiribati objected equally to China and the US using the South Pacific for test-firing nuclear-capable missiles.

“Kiribati continues to advocate for the cessation of weapons testing in the Pacific Ocean and urges global cooperation to ensure the peace, security, and stability of our shared environment. We remain committed to protecting the peaceful future of the Pacific and safeguarding the well-being of future generations.”

It is a thought — almost — echoed by Winston Peters in his response to the Chinese test: “This missile was fired into the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone established by the Treaty of Rarotonga. China’s action goes against the object and intent of that Treaty.”

You will search long and hard to find any similar criticism of the US missile tests by Ministers Peters and Wong. That is despite the people of the Marshall Islands themselves and the leaders of neighbouring countries making it clear any testing of ballistic missiles in the Pacific goes against the spirit of the Treaty of Rarotonga.

The Chinese missile test is widely being reported as a response to Australia and Fiji’s signing of the Ocean of Peace Alliance the previous day.

Without confirmation from China, it is impossible to know for certain, but it seems likely that the alliance — which New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has expressed interest in signing up to — is seen as a ratcheting up of military tensions in the South Pacific.

When it comes to the “object and intent” of the Treaty of Rarotonga, mentioned by Peters, few if any of the signatories would have countenanced one of their members purchasing nuclear-powered submarines.

Australian nuclear submarines plan
But in 2023, Australia announced it was doing just that with the planned purchase of three nuclear submarines at an estimated cost of more than A$300 billion (about 15 times the combined GDP of the Forum countries excluding New Zealand and Australia).

Shortly after the announcement, then Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Damukana Sogavare told the UN General Assembly that his nation “would like to keep our region nuclear-free and put the region’s nuclear legacy behind us… We do not support any form of militarisation in our region that could threaten regional and international peace and stability.”

The legacy Sogavare mentions is nowhere felt more keenly than the Marshall Islands, where the US carried out 67 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1946 and 1956, resulting in sky-high rates of thyroid cancer.

The US has paid out just US$150 million in compensation despite the internationally mandated Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal having awarded more than US$2 billion in personal injury and property claims.

A survey by the Asia New Zealand Foundation earlier this year found that just 23 percent of New Zealanders viewed China as a threat, compared to 35 percent who saw the US as one.

The US has more than 5000 nuclear warheads with 1700 actively deployed; China has 620 with 34 deployed.

China has a long-standing policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, while the US refuses to rule it out.

When our leaders claim to be supporting Pacific countries in their commitment to a nuclear-free Pacific by rightly criticising China’s missile tests while steadfastly refusing to criticise the US regular testing of intercontinental nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, they are indulging in hypersonic hypocrisy.

Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by his Substack Towards Democracy.

A timeline of how the fuel crisis impacted on the Pacific

APR editor — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 02:09:43 +0000

ANALYSIS: By Kaya Selby of RNZ Pacific

During the fuel crisis, Pacific Island countries have scrambled to secure their own fuel supply, forcing them to lean on their wealthy neighbours and multilateral donors.

This triggered a region-wide economic slowdown and driven a managed, yet sharp, increase in fuel and electricity costs throughout the Pacific.

According to fuel price schedules released by Pacific governments regularly from February to June, Fiji has doubled the maximum price for diesel in urban centres in the main island, Viti Levu, such as Suva and Nadi.

Samoa has lifted its diesel ceiling by more than two thirds during that time, Tonga by more than 60 percent in Tongatapu.

And quite apart from asking for budgetary support, Pacific leaders, whenever they had the chance, appealed for help to build solar panels and other forms of renewable energy, in hopes of sidestepping a future calamity.

February
The war begins.

February 28
Iran begins its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after taking heavy fire from US and Israeli forces. In the coming days, several Pacific-flagged tankers are trapped, abandoned or damaged, and their crews injured or killed. The Palau-flagged Skylight is abandoned with two crew dead on March 1. The Marshalls-flagged MKD Vyom is abandoned with one death on the same day, and the Safesea Vishnu is set ablaze 10 days later, killing another.

March
It doesn’t take long before the public grows nervous over fuel and electricity price hikes. Pacific governments issue certain reassurances, but panic buying occurs in sporadic cases.

For Pacific Island countries, which are far away from the established oil refineries in Singapore and South Korea, it makes better economic sense to buy from bulk, rather than to have constant shipments. This means they have forward orders already secured.

So most retail prices are kept relatively stable as countries burn through their existing stocks. The import prices are going to go up, but the lag means they can bide their time.

Behind the scenes, governments are scrambling to secure supply from new sources — and to keep the public calm. It isn’t a question of if, but when.

March 15
Christopher Luxon touches down in Samoa. They discuss energy, but New Zealand isn’t committing to anything yet. They have their own crisis brewing. He’ll go to Tonga and say mostly the same thing.

March 23
The American Pacific and the free association states don’t have price ceilings, so their consumers are paying the market rate, plus the elevated travel costs. At a Mobil gas station in Saipan, petrol is US$6.619 per gallon, and diesel $8.789. In Tinian, diesel is $10.

April
Pacific Island countries begin to raise their fuel price ceilings. Vanuatu raises diesel by 64 percent, but won’t raise it further for the indefinite future. In PNG, the price is 73 percent higher, in Fiji it’s 35 percent, and in Tonga it’s 43.5 percent.

April 15
Tuvalu’s Energy Minister Simon Kofe appears on RNZ’s Morning Report and reveals that their fuel supply is “not assured” beyond June. Just days earlier, Tuvalu had declared a state of emergency, allowing the government to take extraordinary measures to cut back on power usage. They’re experiencing rolling blackouts. The country spends more than a quarter of their GDP on petroleum imports.

April 17
In the Marshall Islands, government departments are shutting down at 3pm. They’re using their universal basic income to help consumers and adding a subsidy to their state-owned power company.

Marshall Islands Finance Minister David Paul later reveals to RNZ Pacific that their singular supplier, ExxonMobil, is using force majure provisions in their supply contracts to balloon import prices.

May
Samoa and Solomon Islands both lift their diesel caps by 46 percent. Fiji and the Cook Islands climb as well. Fuel at the pump in Port Moresby is slashed by 42 percent after the government uses its windfall revenue from LNG exports, which have spiked dramatically in value, to subsidise consumer prices. Tonga cuts their electricity surcharge and reinvests more into welfare payments for pensioners. Pacific leaders are meeting.

May 6
Fiji’s Finance Minister defies an international travel ban for ministers to go to Uzbekistan for an Asian Development Bank AGM. He walks away with a US$200 million loan in his pocket.

Meanwhile, Australia hands Fiji A$30 million. Foreign Minister Penny Wong calls it a “targeted budget support” to support Fiji’s efforts to be a regional fuel hub.

At this point, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Southeast Asia, trying to get Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea to give them preference if they have to make tough decisions over their own stocks. Foreign Minister Penny Wong says they will keep the Pacific in mind, but they have to put themselves first.

New Zealand chips in NZ$8 million.

May 8
Pacific Islands Forum leaders officially invoke the Biketawa Declaration. It’s a framework for a regional crisis response, where leaders are compelled to come together, share their resources and expertise, and arrange some kind of plan together. It was last used during covid pandemic.

Jeremiah Manele jumps the gun and says they would, before any Pacific leaders, including Australia or New Zealand, could even consider it.

May 29
ADB Pacific Lead Emma Veve tells RNZ Pacific that help requests from Pacific Island governments have begun only recently. She calls this a credit to their resilience.

Help requests at this point have come from Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa and Nauru. Veve says they have freed up hundreds of millions in both loans and grants. Support for each country will range from $10 million to $100 million, depending on their size.

June
Peace appears on the horizon at the end of the month, but there’s no indication of it. By now Viti Levu’s diesel price ceiling has more than doubled since February. PNG’s fuel subsidy helps for a little while, but this month’s increase has exceeded last month’s decrease, and then some. Nauru and Niue, with their singular islands and tiny populations, have had to increase theirs, too.

June 5
Samoa triggers an “amber alert”, which indicates they have less than 30 days of fuel stocks left in country. They deny this is the case, and just call it a “precautionary measure.”

June 12
Fuel price caps rise in the Cook Islands — diesel in Rarotonga hits NZ$3.84 per litre, and LPG hits $5.06 per kilo. In Aitutaki: diesel is $6.24 per litre. In New Zealand, diesel prices only ever briefly passes $4 in some rural areas.

This story was first published on

Vanuatu’s Anna Naupa becomes first woman to lead MSG Secretariat

APR editor — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 06:12:03 +0000

RNZ Pacific

A Pacific politics expert and ni-Vanuatu woman has become the first woman to be appointed to lead the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat.

Anna Naupa, described by the Vanuatu government as “one of the nation’s finest minds”, is the new director-general of the sub-regional bloc, which is headquartered in Port Vila.

The MSG is made up of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) of New Caledonia.

READ MORE: Other MSG reports

In a statement yesterday, Vanuatu’s Office of the Prime Minister said Naupa’s appointment was “a historic moment”.

“Since the MSG was founded in 1986 by the giants of Melanesia — Paias Wingti of Papua New Guinea, Father Walter Lini of Vanuatu, Ezekiel Alebua of Solomon Islands, and our brothers from the FLNKS [Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front] — Vanuatu has waited 40 years to lead this organisation.

“Today, that wait ends,” it said.

It said Naupa’s appointment sends a clear message to every young ni-Vanuatu girl to “aspire for the best, because the highest offices in our region are within your reach”.

Inspiring new generation
Naupa’s leadership will inspire a new generation to dream bigger and serve boldly, it added.

The Vanuatu government said it holds immense confidence in Naupa’s capabilities, leadership, and integrity, and commended the MSG and the selection team for a transparent process “that has delivered the right leader for this moment”.

Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat congratulated Naupa.

“We know the MSG was born from struggle — its heart has always been the political aspirations of the Kanak people and the big issues facing Melanesia,” the Office of the Prime Minister’s statement said.

“Over the years the organisation has grown, expanding its focus to trade, sports, culture, and other areas of common interest that bind our nations. Vanuatu believes the success of the MSG under Dr Naupa’s leadership will depend on never losing sight of that founding spirit — solidarity, justice, and self-determination for our peoples.

“Anna, you carry not just a title, but the hopes of a region. You carry Vanuatu’s pride, Melanesia’s trust, and the spirit of Father Walter Lini’s vision.”

Naupa replaces Papua New Guinea’s Leonard Louma, who was appointed in February 2022 and finished his term in late 2024.

Solomon Islander Ilan Kiloe, who is the political and security affairs programme manager, was acting in the role following Louma’s departure.

The MSG Secretariat has not made any official announcements on Naupa’s appointment.

This story was first published on

New chapter for Hapi Isles – Matthew Wale takes the helm as PM

APR editor — Sat, 16 May 2026 00:36:30 +0000

PROFILE: By Campion Ohasio

The Solomon Islands has entered a new political era. In a historic morning at Parliament House yesterday, Matthew Cooper Wale was elected as the nation’s new Prime Minister.

His victory marks the culmination of a dramatic week in Honiara and signals a potential shift in both the country’s internal management and its place on the global stage.

Wale, the longtime Leader of the Opposition, defeated former Foreign Minister Peter Shanel Agovaka in a secret ballot, winning 26 votes to 22.

The result was greeted with cheers from supporters gathered outside Parliament, Honiara and around the country, as the 57-year-old leader prepared to take the oath of office before Governor-General Sir David Tiva Kapu.

The road to victory
The path to the premiership was anything but simple. Just eight days ago, the previous government led by Jeremiah Manele collapsed after losing a motion of no-confidence.

For years, Matthew Wale has been the most prominent voice of dissent in the Solomon Islands, often coming close to the top job but never quite reaching it. After falling short in the 2019 and 2024 leadership votes, many viewed Wale as the perpetual runner-up.

However, today’s result proves that his persistence and his message of “breaking the shackles” finally resonated with a majority of his fellow Members of Parliament.

In his first address following the announcement, Prime Minister-elect Wale was humble but realistic.

“We take the government at a difficult time,” Wale told the press. “Change is coming. These changes are necessary, and they may be painful. I ask that you join your government in putting your hand to the plough.”

Profile of a leader
Who is Matthew Wale? Born on 13 June 1968, in Ambu Village, Malaita Province, Matthew Cooper Wale is a seasoned veteran of the Pacific political landscape. Before entering the world of policy and Parliament, he was an accountant — a background that many believe informs his disciplined approach to the national budget.

Wale first entered Parliament in 2008 during a byelection for the Aoke/Langalanga constituency. He quickly made a name for himself as a fiery and articulate speaker. Unlike many politicians who stay in the background, Wale has never been afraid of a verbal scrap on the floor of Parliament.

Over the past 18 years, he has served in various roles, but he is best known for leading the Solomon Islands Democratic Party (SIDP) and acting as the primary check on the power of former Prime Ministers Manasseh Sogavare and Jeremiah Manele.

In late 2024, he was even awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for his long service to the public and political life of the country, a testament to his standing both at home and within the Commonwealth.

A vision of ‘economic liberation’
What does a Matthew Wale government look like? Throughout his career, Wale has championed a few core beliefs that he calls his “pillars of change”, “anti-corruption and “elite capture”.

Wale’s most frequent target is what he calls “elite capture” — the idea that a small group of powerful people in Honiara control most of the country’s wealth. He has promised to dismantle these systems to ensure resources reach the rural provinces.

Education and health: A vocal advocate for the “ordinary family”, Wale has consistently pushed for increased funding for hospitals and free, high-quality education. He believes that a nation cannot flourish if its citizens are not healthy and skilled.

Political stability: To end the cycle of “grasshopping” (where MPs switch parties for personal gain), Wale has signaled he will seek to strengthen laws that keep political parties disciplined and accountable.

The ‘China question’ and global relations: Perhaps the most watched aspect of Wale’s new leadership will be his foreign policy. For years, Wale was a staunch critic of the 2022 security pact signed with China, warning that it could “jeopardise” relationships with traditional partners like Australia and the United States.

Tone has evolved
However, as a pragmatist, Wale’s tone has evolved. While he is expected to rebalance the nation’s relationships — likely warming ties with Canberra and Washington — he has acknowledged that Chinese infrastructure is now a reality in the Solomon Islands.

He is unlikely to tear up existing agreements overnight, but observers expect a more “balanced” approach that prioritises Solomon Islands’ sovereignty above all else.

As the sun sets on the nation today, the atmosphere is one of cautious optimism. The challenges facing Prime Minister Wale are immense: a struggling economy, high cost of living, and a deeply divided Parliament.

But for today, the man who spent nearly two decades in the wings finally has the chance to lead. Matthew Wale’s message to the people is clear: the road ahead will be hard, but the destination — a fairer, more transparent Solomon Islands — is worth the effort.

The “Hapi Isles” are watching, and the world is, too.

Campion Ohasio is a Solomon Islands-based self-taught visual artist, graphic designer, and prominent political cartoonist known for capturing South Pacific social issues. He gained early recognition in the 1990s for his work on Uni Tavur at the University of Papua New Guinea and later as a editor for the Solomons Voice. This commentary is republished with the author’s permission.

‘Money problems’ the real threat to Pacific press freedom, says Iroga

Pacific Media Watch — Fri, 08 May 2026 03:13:14 +0000

By Joy Ofasia in Honiara

One of the Pacific’s champions of a free press, Robert Iroga, says the biggest threat to media freedom in the region today is money problems.

Speaking at a World Press Freedom Day event in Honiara last Saturday, he shared his concern about the future of journalism.

Iroga said the theme for this year’s event was about peace, human rights, development, and security — but none of these could exist without a “strong and free media”.

“Media freedom is no longer just about physical attacks on journalists,” said the founder and publisher of Solomon Business Magazine (SBM), a board member of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), and the chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum.

“The real danger now is the declining financial sustainability of media organisations.”

He explained that many media companies were earning less money and finding it hard to continue.

“Revenues are shrinking, and many outlets are struggling to survive,” he said.

Leaving for PR jobs
Because of this, experienced journalists were leaving their jobs for better pay in public relations and other fields. This was creating a serious gap in newsrooms.

Robert Iroga speaking at the World Press Freedom Day event in Honiara. Video: Tavuli News

Iroga said this was now the biggest challenge to media freedom in the Pacific, including Solomon Islands. He warned that financial pressure could make media organisations more open to outside influence.

“This responsibility does not lie with journalists alone,” he said. “All of us must protect, support, and strengthen the systems that allow truth to be told.”

He added that the stories people chose to tell would shape the nation’s future.

“Let that future be one where truth is not feared, but defended,” he said.

Plea for more support
Iroga called on governments and communities to support local media through funding, training, and fair policies.

He said that without strong support, independent journalism might continue to weaken across the region. This would affect democracy and limit people’s access to reliable information.

He urged young journalists to stay committed despite challenges and keep telling important stories.

Pacific Media Watch reports that the 2026 World Press Freedom Index released by the Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) last week did not include Solomon islands in their rankings. However, a recent major RSF research report on the Solomon Islands and growing Chinese media and political influence found:

“By capitalising on the economic fragility of the local media sector, China has stepped up conditional funding, editorial partnerships and influence programmes to disseminate its narratives.”

Solomon Islands PM Jeremiah Manele ousted after just over two years in power

APR editor — Fri, 08 May 2026 00:54:06 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele has been ousted following a no-confidence vote in Honiara.

Manele was voted out by 26 votes to 22 in Parliament yesterday. There were two absentees.

Manele will remain in office and perform his normal duties until he is officially removed by the Governor-General Sir David Tiva Kapu.

READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands reports

Parliament has been adjourned sine die to allow time for Sir David and parliament to organise the election of the new prime minister.

Manele, who previously served as the country’s foreign minister, was elected prime minister on 2 May 2024.

It was the third challenge against Manele’s leadership — he had previously survived a motion of no confidence in April 2025 after six ministers and five government backbenchers walked away.

It brings to an end a series of events that began on 15 March, with mass resignations from one of the key coalition parties in Manele’s Government of National Unity (GNUT).

New opposition group
Those members who defected from the coalition formed a new opposition group of 28 MPs in the 50-seat House. The defectors included 10 Cabinet ministers.

Peoples First Party leader Frederick Kologeto told RNZ Pacific at the time that they had lost “trust within the government”.

Manele had refused to convene Parliament for weeks, stating that he would do so only when the time was right, frustrating the opposition who said they had the numerical superiority to oust him.

However, an Appeal Court ruling last Friday ended the political back-and-forth, handing the prime minister a deadline to call Parliament and face a leadership challenge.

Before moving the no-confidence motion, MP for South Vella La Vella, Frederick Kologeto, called on the Prime Minister to resign immediately, citing the opposition’s numerical strength.

But Manele responded by refusing by calling Kologeto “scared”, declaring he would resign but only after stating the reasons for the no-confidence motion against him.

“I have accepted this responsibility not out of personal ambition, but on behalf of a majority of members who stand united with me today,” Kologeto said.

“Party room negotiations and dialogues … proved to be futile. They were not only unhelpful, they were strategically unproductive.”

Manele concedes
In his final statement responding to fiery arguments made for and against the no-confidence motion, Manele warned the opposition leader to “be very careful of who you are dealing with and sitting next to” — a pointed shot at the defectors.

He also claimed that the Appeal Court order raises serious questions about judicial overreach into that timing and management of parliamentary business.

“[The Court of Appeal] decision, with the greatest respect to the court, risks cementing instability into our constitutional arrangements. It creates a pathway where any group of members who are unhappy with the government of the day can combine a motion of no confidence with court proceedings and then ask the judiciary to intervene in the timing and programme of Parliament.”

Manele also made a last ditch attempt to woo opposition MPs to switch sides, saying his government was “willing to accommodate any political party in forming a new government”.

“We are willing to work with their party leaders, including on the issue, on the matter of leadership,” he said.

“We are willing to make that sacrifice so that the work that we have done over the past two years can continue our people and their needs.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Manele calls parliament for Thursday to face no confidence motion

APR editor — Wed, 06 May 2026 05:34:27 +0000

RNZ Pacific

The Solomon Islands Parliament will convene tomorrow — Thursday, May 7 — to consider a motion of no confidence in Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele.

Parliament House has confirmed to RNZ Pacific that the Clerk to Parliament Jefferson Hallu has issued advisory letters to all MPs that the sitting will begin at 9:30am local time to deal with the motion.

It follows a political saga that culminated in a court ruling that Manele needed to call Parliament to face the motion of no confidence in his leadership.

READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands politics reports

The Court of Appeal dismissed Manele’s appeal against Chief Justice Sir Albert Palmer’s earlier ruling to that effect.

A drawn-out political impasse began in March after a mass resignation of government ministers and MPs.

The opposition and the defectors formed a new coalition and said they had the numbers for a majority of MPs in the 50-seat House, but have not been able to show that in Parliament because Manele refused to call a sitting.

The opposition coalition then took the matter to the High Court to try and force Manele to call Parliament and face their no-confidence motion.

Police call for public calm
Chief Justice Palmer ruled in their favour and ordered Manele to convene Parliament, and at the same time instructed the Governor-General to do so if he did not.

But the government appealed the ruling and the order to call Parliament was stayed — put on hold — until the appeal could be heard, and the appellate court gave their decision on Friday, May 1.

Police have called for public calm while the democratic process runs its course.

Police Commissioner Ian Vaevaso said police do not take sides in political matters but remain independent and committed to serving the people of the nation while upholding law at all times.

“Police will maintain high visibility presence to ensure the safety of all citizens and will respond to any incidents that may arise. Any unlawful activities will be dealt with accordingly.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Pacific political caricatures: Why criticising a leader’s actions isn’t a personal attack

Pacific Media Watch — Mon, 04 May 2026 23:43:31 +0000

POLITICAL CARTOONS: By Campion Ohasio

My name is Campion Ohasio, and I am currently the only political cartoonist in Solomon Islands.

In recent weeks, I have received many questions and comments from people across the country about my cartoons.

Some ask why I draw our national leaders in certain ways. Others wonder whether my caricatures are personal attacks or whether they violate the leaders’ rights.

Solomon Islands artist and cartoonist Campion Ohasio . . . “I remain committed to drawing honest cartoons that reflect the realities facing our people.” Image: Fine Art America

A few have even suggested that I should stop drawing critical cartoons.

I would like to take this opportunity to explain my work clearly and honestly.

As the only political cartoonist in our nation today, my job is simple: I use drawings to comment on the decisions, actions, policies, and laws made by our leaders.

My cartoons are not meant to attack any leader as a person or as a human being. Instead, they highlight issues that affect ordinary Solomon Islanders — issues such as corruption, poor governance, broken promises, and policies that may not serve the public interest.

Public figures hold power
In a democracy like ours, national leaders are public figures. They hold power on behalf of the people, and the people have every right to question how that power is used.

Political cartoons are one peaceful and creative way for citizens to express their views and hold leaders accountable.

As response to the many questions I have received. I believe healthy criticism is not an insult; it is an important part of democracy. Through my cartoons, I hope to encourage Solomon Islanders to think critically, ask questions, and stay engaged in the affairs of our country.

I remain committed to drawing honest cartoons that reflect the realities facing our people, always with the hope that our leaders will listen, improve, and serve the public interest better.

Thank you for your interest in my work.

A political caricature (also called a political cartoon) is a funny or exaggerated drawing that comments on a leader’s decisions, policies, or actions. It uses humour, symbols, and exaggeration to make a point about what the leader is doing in his public role.

Many people mistakenly think that a caricature is a personal attack on the leader as a human being. This is not true.

Eight reasons why leaders’ human rights are not violated
Here are eight reasons why cartoons and caricatures are not a violation of the leader’s human rights:

1 What a political caricature actually does: It criticises the actions, decisions, or policies of the leader.

It does not attack the leader’s basic human rights (such as the right to life, dignity, safety, or personal freedom). It focuses on the leader’s public role, not his private life as a father, husband, or ordinary person.

2 Why it isn’t a personal attack on human rights: Leaders are public figures. When someone becomes a president, prime minister, or national leader, they voluntarily step into the public spotlight. Their decisions affect thousands of citizens. Because of this, they must accept public criticism, including through cartoons and satire.

3 Criticism targets power, not the person: A caricature usually mocks a bad policy, a broken promise, corruption, or a harmful decision: not the leader’s race, family, or basic humanity. For example, drawing a leader as a big balloon floating away from reality is criticising his disconnection from people’s problems, not denying his right to exist.

4 Satire and humour are protected forms of free speech: In a democracy, freedom of expression includes the right to use humour and exaggeration to comment on those in power. Political caricatures have a long history of helping people understand and question government actions.

5 It doesn’t take away basic rights: Drawing a funny or critical cartoon does not stop the leader from: Living safely, having a family, practicing his religion, speaking freely, receiving fair treatment in court. These are real human rights. A caricature does not remove any of them.

6 Public accountability requires public criticism: Leaders exercise public power using taxpayers’ money. Citizens have the legitimate right to comment on how that power is used. Caricatures are one peaceful, creative way to do this.

7 Confusion between criticism and hate: Some leaders or supporters claim any negative drawing is “hate speech” or a human rights violation. This is usually an attempt to avoid accountability. Legitimate political satire is very different from threats, violence, or calls for harm.

8 Thin-skinned leaders weaken democracy: If leaders cannot handle a simple drawing or joke about their policies, it shows they may not be ready for the public scrutiny that comes with power. Strong leaders accept criticism; weak ones try to ban it.

For example: If a cartoon shows a leader pouring money into his own pocket while the people are hungry, it is highlighting possible corruption or bad priorities. It is not saying the leader has no right to live or be treated with dignity. It is saying: “Your policy or action is wrong.”

A political caricature is a form of peaceful criticism, not a personal attack. It doesn’t remove or violate any of the leader’s fundamental human rights. Instead, it exercises the public’s right to question those who hold power.

In a true democracy, leaders must learn to live with satire and criticism. Their job is to serve the people: and the people have the right to laugh, question, and point out when the leader is failing in that duty.

Criticising a leader’s actions through a caricature is about holding power accountable, not denying the leader’s humanity or human rights.

Solomon Islands opposition alleges ‘millions’ offered by govt lobbyists to buy back power

APR editor — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 02:15:03 +0000

By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor

A coalition of political parties opposing the Solomon Islands prime minister has accused government lobbyists of trying to woo its MPs with “huge money” bribes to “buy political allegiance”.

It comes amid an ongoing court wrangle over parliamentary moves to oust Jeremiah Manele.

The opposition grouping, which claims to have 28 of the country’s 50 MPs, says it has recorded voice and text messages from lobbyists promising millions of dollars to any five MPs willing to cross the floor to the government.

READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands political crisis reports

“We have text messages and recorded voice messages from government lobbyists offering huge money. The price tag has increased from thousands to millions to any 5 MPs to move across. The latest attempt involved an offer in millions over the weekend,” the group said in a statement.

RNZ Pacific has viewed screenshots of text messages purportedly sent by Manele’s staff to certain MPs in the opposition coalition, offering up to S$300,000 (about NZ$63,000) to jump ship.

The Solomon Islands Prime Minister’s Office has told RNZ Pacific he will not respond to the allegations.

Solomon Islands MPs in the opposition grouping. Image: Office of the Leader of the Opposition/RNZ Pacific

Manele will find out today from the Court of Appeal if he would be forced to call Parliament to face a motion of no confidence.

The opposition group says it is collecting evidence of the alleged cash inducements which it will provide to lawful authorities for investigation.

Manele, who previously served as the country’s foreign minister, was elected prime minister on 2 May 2024.

He survived a motion of no confidence in April 2025 after six ministers and five government backbenchers walked away.

On March 15, mass resignations from People First Party MPs — one of the key parties in Manele’s Government of National Unity and Transformation (GNUT) — rocked the Melanesian nation.

Since then, there has been a series of back-and-forths from both sides, with Manele maintaining he has the right to continue governing while the opposition group challenges his claim, arguing that his decision to hold on to power is unconstitutional.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Pacific Forum responds to current global fuel and energy challenges

APR editor — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 01:01:04 +0000

The Pacific Islands Forum troika Leaders have agreed to activate the Biketawa Declaration, placing the region on a co-ordinated high alert framework to respond to the unfolding global energy security crisis.

The declaration was made by the leaders of the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Palau following discussions in Nadi, Fiji, on Friday in light of the looming energy crisis as a result of the illegal US-Israel war on Iran.

The meeting brought together the incoming Chair, President Surangel Whipps of Palau, and outgoing Chair, the Prime Minister of Tonga, Lord Fakafanua.

READ MORE: Other Biketawa Declaration security reports

On a social media post, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele noted that Solomon Islands continued to experience the impact of global fuel price volatility and highlighted the importance of practical regional solutions to support vulnerable Pacific economies.

Leaders noted that Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands had declared energy emergencies, while Solomon Islands, Fiji, Nauru, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia were implementing national mitigation measures.

Other Forum members remain on a regional watch phase, with ongoing monitoring by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.

New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is aware the Forum Troika has invoked the Biketawa Declaration to respond to the current global fuel and energy challenges.

A spokesperson for MFAT said they are supportive of regional efforts to respond to regional crises, including through the Biketawa Declaration.

They said they are working closely with Pacific Islands Forum partners to understand the fuel supply situation, and potential needs, across the region and how they could assist.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Solomon Islands PM challenges court order to face no-confidence vote within days

APR editor — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 03:33:31 +0000

By Margot Staunton, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

The Solomon Islands’ Attorney-General is challenging a ruling by the Chief Justice in favour of a new coalition of political parties seeking to oust the Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele.

In the High Court on Tuesday, Sir Albert Palmer ordered Manele to call Parliament within three days to face a motion of no confidence in his leadership.

Sir Albert ruled in favour of a new coalition of 28 MPs (in the 50-member house), including government defectors, who filed a judicial review claim in the High Court.

READ MORE: Other Solomon islands reports

Palmer denied attempts by Attorney-General John Muria Jr to have the judicial review struck out.

It is the latest development in a political saga that began last month after a mass defection of government ministers to the opposition.

However, the prime minister said in a statement shortly after that Sir Albert’s order raised “profound issues” regarding the separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary.

Manele added that Muria Jr would appeal the decision “to protect the constitutional integrity of the Office of the Prime Minister for future generations”.

“It is the firm view of the government’s view that certain fundamental legal questions were not adequately dealt with in the judgement,” Manele said.

Remain calm plea
He also urged Solomon Islanders to remain calm as the government sought “absolute legal certainty” over the case in the Court of Appeal.

Muria Jr spoke to local media about an appeal outside the court on Tuesday.

He spoke Solomon Islands pijin, which has been translated: “I think firstly, its appealable, so we will be filing an appeal for that. A lot of the things in the original, all the orders that the claimants were seeking that is not what the Chief Justice has granted.”

The new opposition group has been locked out of Parliament . . . a significant development in constitutional law. Image: Office of the Leader of the Opposition/RNZ Pacific

Meanwhile, Gabriel Suri, the lawyer for new coalition, said the ruling over the political impasse facing the country represented a significant development in constitutional law.

Speaking outside court, Suri told local reporters that it provided clarity in the event of future constitutional crises.

“The order that he is given today is that the prime minister has a constitutional duty [to call parliament and face a no-confidence-motion] but he failed to exercise this. So that is what he clearly states,” Suri said.

“The prime minister failed to exercise his constitutional duty so he ordered the prime minister to perform his constitutional duty. If he does not perform it then the Governor-General can step in and exercise his residual power.”

‘Constitutional duty’
In his ruling, the Chief Justice stated that Manele had a “constitutional duty” to ensure the motion was brought before Parliament expeditiously and failing to do so was “unlawful.”

Despite their numerical superiority, the group has been locked out of parliament by Manele’s refusal to call a sitting and face a leadership challenge.

The mandatory orders go further in stating that, if the prime minister fails to call parliament within three days, the Governor-General can call parliament and the Speaker must ensure the motion of no confidence is prioritised.

The judgement stated that the judicial review raised questions that were “serious, arguable and justiciable.”

“The claim raises questions at the very core of the constitutional order-namely, the scope and limits of the powers of the Governor-General and the Prime Minister in relation to the summoning of Parliament, and the role of the court where those powers are said not to have been exercised in circumstances giving rise to constitutional impasse,” it said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Ten dead in Bougainville amid Cyclone Maila aftermath

APR editor — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 21:41:14 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Cyclone Maila has been downgraded to a tropical low but has caused widespread damage in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Ten people were reported dead in the autonomous Papua New Guinea region of Bougainville, including eight people killed in a landslide.

The incident happened at Asiko Village in Kongara constituency in Central Bougainville.

READ MORE: Cyclone Vaianu: Damaging winds, heavy rain hit NZ’s North Island

Reports received by NBC News said the tragedy struck early Thursday evening, April 9.

A couple, their son and grandchild are among those killed in the landslide.

Their bodies have been recovered.

A government assessment is underway to determine the immediate extent of damage and destruction across the region.

A number of other people, including a pregnant mother, were injured and hospitalised at the local Kakusida Health Centre.

Roads have also been cut off due to flooding, and food gardens reportedly damaged as well.

Bougainville Copper has been delivering food supplies and other items to families of the deceased.

The Australian government has pledged A$2.5 million in aid for those affected by Maila.

Cyclone Vaianu
Cyclone Vaianu caused flooding in Fiji before bringing rain and strong winds to Aotearoa New Zealand.

Vaianu tracked away from mainland New Zealand overnight Sunday, after battering the country’s north-east over the weekend.

The cyclone is expected to affect the Chatham Islands on Monday.

The weather system brought 220mm of rain to Coromandel and wind gusts of 126 km/h were recorded at Māhia.

Evacuated Hawkes Bay residents will find out on Monday if they can return to their homes.

Bay of Plenty evacuees were allowed to return home on Sunday.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Prime Minister Manele holds firm as opposition claims majority in Solomon Islands

APR editor — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 22:30:20 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele has doubled down on his decision not to convene Parliament as he hangs on to power leading a minority government, following mass defections from his Government of National Unity and Transformation (GNUT).

Last week, 19 government MPs — more than half of them cabinet ministers — handed in their resignations, citing trust issues with Manele’s leadership.

Those who have jumped ship have joined the opposition group, which now claims to have 28 MPs on its side. This means Manele has been left with just 22 MPs in his camp.

The Solomon Islands opposition group claims to have 28 MPs on its side. Image: FB/Peter Kenilorea/RNZ

“I will call our Parliament as and when it is appropriate,” Manele told local reporters during a news conference on Sunday.

He said “the assumption” that his government does not have the numbers “is political and not constitutional”.

“Government decisions are not made based on speculation, on pressure, but on lawful processes and the national interest,” he said.

Manele also downplayed the move by the opposition and “those outside Parliament” petitioning the country’s Governor-General to convene Parliament and to consider a motion of no confidence against him.

‘A matter of political choice’
He branded the decision of those MPs who resigned from his coalition as “a matter of personal and political choice”.

“Your government remains in office under the Constitution and continues to discharge its full responsibilities,” he said.

“What we are witnessing is not a constitutional crisis. It is a normal democratic process provided for under our Constitution; leadership may change within certain portfolios, but the machinery of government does not falter.”

Public services continue, national operations remain stable and uninterrupted, he added.

Manele has been in power less than two years and has already faced two leadership challenges.

He said the confidence in a Prime Minister is tested and determined only through a motion of no confidence on the floor of Parliament.

“This means that unless and until Parliament meets and decides on such a motion, the elected prime minister remains duly in office. I reiterate that Parliament will be convened in accordance with the Constitution and the proper process will take its course.”

New ministers appointed
Addressing concerns about MPs resigning from parliamentary standing committees, Manele said “these committees report to Parliament, not to the prime minister or the executive”.

Manele has also swiftly appointed new ministers to his government, including Manasseh Sogavare as his new deputy.

Sogavare was one of four ministers sworn in last Wednesday and has been handed the National Planning and Development portfolios.

Sogavare, who previously served as prime minister four times, was one of 11 ministers who resigned from government last April but failed to topple Manele.

Meanwhile, Peter Kenilorea Jnr, one of the 28 MPs in the opposition group, said Manele downplaying the situation was “truly disheartening”.

“So for me it’s clear, when a situation arises, like the mass resignation of GNUT MPs and those MPs joining those in the opposition and independents with a [numerical] strength of 28 it shows that the PM has lost the support he needs to be PM,” he said in a social media post.

“[Manele] is now in the minority. The honourable thing to do is either resign or test his support/numbers on the floor of Parliament.”

Another key figure in Manele’s coalition, Peter Shanel Agovaka, who was the Foreign Minister, told RNZ Pacific he left GNUT because he could not “work with some of the ministers” who were “trying to push their own agendas”.

He also confirmed that he had been offered the leadership by the opposition group which would see him become the Prime Minister should there be a change in government.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

China’s growing grip on the fragile Solomon Islands media sector

Pacific Media Watch — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 11:20:32 +0000

SPECIAL REPORT: Reporters Without Borders

Since the Solomon Islands established diplomatic relations with China in 2019, the Pacific country has become a strategic arena for Beijing’s influence.

By capitalising on the economic fragility of the local media sector, China has stepped up conditional funding, editorial partnerships and influence programmes to disseminate its narratives.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Solomon Islands’ government to make the viability and independence of the media sector a priority.

READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands media reports

One day in January 2024, Lloyd Loji, publisher of the Island Sun, one of the country’s leading dailies, reportedly received a call from a Chinese diplomat.

According to the investigative outlet In-depth Solomons, the diplomat expressed the embassy’s “concern” about an op-ed published that same day on the election of the new president of Taiwan and its implications for relations between China and Western countries.

At the end of the call, the Chinese diplomat explicitly asked the newspaper to relay articles he had sent, reflecting Beijing’s official position on regional affairs.

The Island Sun op-ed on 15 January 2024 that led to censorship as reported by In-Depth Solomons. Image: Island Sun/In-Depth Solomons

The Chinese diplomat did not stop at interfering in the editorial line of the Island Sun.

In-depth Solomons reports that he also emailed the owners and editors of the country’s main media outlets, urging them to adopt the Chinese narrative on the Taiwanese elections and sharing two articles he asked them to publish.

The Solomon Star, the other major daily of the Solomon Islands, duly published the articles supplied by the Chinese embassy. Both the Solomon Star and Island Sun depend on Chinese funding as the country’s media landscape is facing structural economic difficulties.

Economic precarity as Beijing’s gateway
With fewer than 700,000 inhabitants and a limited advertising market — which is increasingly dominated by social media companies — news organisations in this nation face structural economic hardship.

These vulnerabilities deepened during the covid-19 pandemic and the collapse of traditional press revenues which mostly consist of advertising, making external funding essential to survival, whether from Australia, China or the United States.

Unlike support from other foreign partners, Chinese assistance often comes with editorial conditions.

After 15 years as a journalist in the Solomon Islands, Priestley Habru — now a PhD candidate at the University of Adelaide — told RSF about the demands made by the Chinese embassy to Island Sun after he left the outlet. According to his network, after the diplomatic mission donated computers, the newsroom was instructed to “stop publishing articles on Taiwan’s President.”

An investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an international investigative journalism network, also revealed that in 2022 the Solomon Star sought SI$1.15 million (about US$140,000) from China to modernise its infrastructure, pledging in return to promote Beijing’s image as the islands’ “most generous and trustworthy” partner.

Following revelations about attempts by Chinese diplomats to directly interfere with the Island Sun and the country’s leading media outlets in early 2024, Beijing appears to have adopted a more discreet approach.

Ofani Eremae, president of the Media Association of Solomon Islands (MASI), explained to RSF that several local outlets have signed agreements with Chinese state media to use the state media’s content — which is fully controlled by the Chinese authorities — free of charge.

In early 2026, CCTV+, China’s state-owned international video news service, also offered MASI and In-depth Solomons use of its raw video footage and live broadcast signals free of charge, and invited them to sign cooperation agreements. Both In-depth Solomons and MASI have not yet responded to the proposal.

“The authorities of the Solomon Islands must take immediate, concrete action to safeguard the country’s media landscape from undue influence by China and to ensure the conditions necessary for genuine editorial independence,” said Aleksandra Bielakowska, advocacy manager of RSF Asia-Pacific.

“This includes establishing transparent and sustainable financial support mechanisms that fully respect press freedom — because only a media environment free from political or economic coercion can allow newsrooms to operate with integrity and independence.”

All-expenses-paid trips to China
Since 2019, at least 30 of MASI’s 70 member journalists have been invited to China, sometimes more than once, according to Eremae.

These visits fully funded by Beijing are designed to showcase the country’s economic achievements, the workings of its media system, and, ultimately, to encourage participants to adopt and relay official Chinese discourse.

“The authorities’ aim is to show how advanced China is — a great country that has developed enormously in recent years — and to explain how their media operate,” Ofani Eremae said.

In June 2025, four journalists attended a two-week seminar in Beijing organised by the National Radio and Television Administration, a state body controlled by the Chinese Propaganda Department and responsible for ensuring that programmes align with the regime’s political line.

Eremae says he has received similar invitations, but he turned them down due to work commitments. Chinese influence also extends to institutions: according to Eremae, nearly 90 percent of officials in the government unit responsible for communication and press relations have taken at least one official trip to China since 2019.

A grave decline in press freedom
This rapprochement between China and the Solomon Islands has been accompanied by a marked deterioration in the media climate, particularly during the fourth term of former prime minister Manasseh Sogavare (2019–2024), accused of fostering hostility towards the press.

“The very close relationship Sogavare maintained with China influenced the way he dealt with the media,” Eremae explained.

After signing a controversial security agreement with Beijing in 2022 —which was never made public — journalists faced strict restrictions during an official Chinese visit. Weeks later, the government threatened to bar foreign reporters from entering the country after Australia’s public broadcaster, ABC, aired an investigation on Chinese influence in the country.

Sogavare, who repeatedly praised Chinese governance, also appeared to draw inspiration from its policy of controlling information.

This was evident in the reform of the status of the publicly owned media group Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) — the only shortwave radio broadcaster across the archipelago’s 900 islands — placing it under the direct authority of the Prime Minister’s Office.

The restructuring was accompanied by disturbing instructions to censor content critical of the government.

China is the world’s biggest jailer of journalists, with 121 currently detained, and ranks 178th out of 180 countries and territories in the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index.

Republished from Reporters Without Borders by Pacific Media Watch.

Solomons PM refuses to convene parliament amid political crisis

APR editor — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 22:45:21 +0000

By Margot Staunton, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

The Solomon Islands Prime Minister is refusing to convene Parliament next week amid a takeover bid by government defectors who have joined forces with the opposition.

Jeremiah Manele is not expected to convene Parliament until May or June and maintains the government is continuing to function despite the political “crisis”.

Manele has been in power less than two years and has already faced two leadership challenges.

READ MORE: Other Solomon islands reports

Now his former Foreign Minister, and fellow party member, Peter Shanel Agovaka, has been recruited by a breakaway group of MPs who want to form a new government.

In a statement, the opposition Leader’s office claimed the defection of 19 government ministers and backbenchers to the opposition and independent ranks has left Manele running a minority government.

Agovoka told RNZ Pacific on Tuesday that a change of government, led by the People’s First Party (PFP) would see him replace Manele.

“I feel it’s time for me, representing central Guadalcanal, to take up the challenge to lead our country,” he said.

New coalition agreement
The statement said 27 MPs signed a new coalition government agreement on Tuesday and have filed a motion of no confidence in Manele and his Ownership, Unity and Responsibility (OUR) Party.

The Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation reports the notice was signed by the former Deputy Prime Minister and Member of Parliament for South Vella La Vella, Frederick Kologeto.

It reports that the notice was received on Monday.

The motion can be moved and debated once a seven-day notice period ends, and when the Prime Minister convenes Parliament.

Government House has confirmed receiving a petition from opposition MPs for the Governor-General to order an extraordinary sitting of Parliament to debate the motion.

The opposition needs at least 26 MPs to vote in favour of the motion for it to pass. If successful an election for a new Prime Minister is then held by secret ballot.

The PFP, joined by the official opposition, have petitioned for an extraordinary sitting of Parliament.

‘Signals serious crisis’
“When such a significant number of sitting members, including ministers, abandon their own coalition, it signals a government in serious crisis,” the statement said.

“These decisions were not made lightly, they reflect deep frustrations over internal divisions, lack of trust, and growing concerns that the government has lost its sense of direction and purpose.”

The statement said the mass exodus raised urgent constitutional and governance questions.

“Can a government that has lost the confidence of 19 of its own members continue to claim legitimacy? Can it effectively govern while grappling with internal collapse?,” the statement said.

“What is unfolding is not just a reshuffling of numbers; it is a rejection of leadership that has failed to unite, failed to listen, and failed to deliver.”

The breakaway group took part in a highly-publicised photo shoot yesterday as a sign of solidarity.

Agovoka said previously that the 12-member PFP had the numbers to form a new government with the opposition and independent MPs, but the situation was “fluid”.

“There is a critical motion that should be dealt with immediately … we’ll just hope that our number, which is 27, holds,” he said.

The 27 MPs, including a dozen government defectors, vying to oust Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele. Image: Office of the Leader of the Opposition/RNZ Pacific

Four new ministers
However a spokesperson for the Prime Minister, Georgina Kekea, said four new MPs would be sworn in as ministers on Wednesday and it was too early to speculate about numbers.

“It’s only through the floor of parliament that we can determine who has the majority, for now its just mere speculation on the numbers,” Kekea said.

Solomon Business Magazine reported that the four new ministers sworn in included former prime minister Manasseh Sogavare who becomes Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for National Planning and Development Coordination.

The prime minister had said he was not keen to convene parliament until progress was made at committee level on various crucial bills, she said.

“The government is continuing to function, word has gone out to all the ministries encouraging them to continue with their work.”

“In this time of crisis where things are uncertain, we are guided by our Constitution and our laws. We don’t want people to panic, it is what it is in terms of politics,” she said.

Kekea said the country was also being affected by the global crisis (the war in Iran), with rising fuel prices and inflation.

Support expected to rise
Current PFP leader Fredrick Kologeto told RNZ Pacific on Monday that he expected their support to rise beyond a simple majority in the Solomons’ 50-seat Parliament.

Kologeto said there was a breakdown in trust between ministers and that he ultimately saw no resolution while the OUR Party was in power.

Several ministers defected from OUR to PFP in the past year, including Finance Minister Harry Kuma and Justice Minister Clezy Rore.

Agovaka, who is now in the process of leaving OUR, called out Manele for sacking two PFP ministers in February and replacing them with OUR members.

“I can’t work with some of the ministers … undermining the integrity of cabinet and trying to push their own agendas,” he said.

He said the PFP have yet to offer portfolios to other ministers, but said that opposition leader Matthew Wale, who leads the Democratic Party, would be invited into a new cabinet.

“There [will be] a coalition between the opposition, independents, and People First … if we come through that, then we can start sitting down and looking at the portfolios,” Agovaka said.

“We look forward to this change of regime.”

Government defector Foreign Minister Peter Shanel Agovaka . . . “I can’t work with some of the ministers … undermining the integrity of cabinet and trying to push their own agendas.” Image: RNZ Pacific/Koroi Hawkins

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Solomon Islands academic warns Pacific economies at risk from US-Israel-Iran conflict

APR editor — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 18:57:53 +0000

RNZ Pacific

A Solomon Islands academic says the US and Israel illegal bombing of Iran is “deeply alarming” and the Pacific region does not need “more global instability”

US President Donald Trump warned yesterday that Operation Epic Fury against Iran — “one of the largest, most complex, most overwhelming military offensives the world has ever seen” — will continue until all of Washington’s objectives are achieved.

The US military says it has sunk a dozen Iranian warships and is “going after the rest” in attacks which Trump said have killed 48 top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Six American service members have also been killed and five seriously injured.

At least three Pacific Island governments have advised their nationals stuck in the Gulf region to remain calm and leave when it is possible to do so.

The joint US-Israeli strikes — and Iranian retaliation — have turned international law on its head, according to some experts.

Reacting to the conflict, Solomon Islands National University’s vice-chancellor Dr Transform Aqorau said the Pacific must remain an “ocean of peace”.

‘Deeply alarming’
“The escalating conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran is deeply alarming,” he wrote in a Facebook post yesterday.

“Missiles are flying. Civilians are dying. Oil tankers have reportedly been hit. The Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most critical oil routes — is now closed.

“Some leaders speak of success. But war never has winners. The real cost is paid by ordinary people.

“And the Pacific will not be immune,” he wrote.

He said if oil supplies from the Gulf were disrupted, global fuel prices would surge.

“For Pacific Island countries — heavily dependent on imported fuel — this means higher electricity costs, more expensive transport, rising food prices, and increased cost of living.

“Our already fragile economies could face another severe external shock.”

Struggling with issues
Dr Aqorau said the region was struggling with a myriad of issues, including climate change, rising sea levels, drug problems, mental health pressures, youth unemployment, diabetes, slow economic growth, and growing populations.

“We do not need more global instability. We need peace,” he said.

“Pacific leaders have declared our region an ‘Ocean of Peace’ — a commitment to unity, sovereignty, dialogue, and non-militarisation. This is not just symbolic. It is strategic.

“Our islands have suffered before from global power rivalries and war. We know the long shadows they cast.”

He added that as the global order shifted, the Pacific must look more to each other for solidarity and cooperation.

‘Strength in regional unity’
“Our strength is in regional unity. Our security must be rooted in development, climate resilience, and human wellbeing — not militarisation.

“War diverts resources from schools to weapons, from hospitals to missiles, from climate action to destruction. Peace creates the space for progress.”

He said the Pacific must stand firm as an ocean of peace.

“In a world drifting toward conflict, let us choose stability. Let us choose cooperation. Let us choose peace.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu issue advisories amid US-Israeli strikes on Iran

APR editor — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 21:54:01 +0000

RNZ Pacific

The governments of Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have issued advisories for their nationals in the Middle East to remain calm and take the necessary precautions due to US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran.

Fiji’s Embassy in Abu Dhabi said Fijian nationals who were not residents of the United Arab Emirates should register with the embassy as soon as possible amid airspace closures in the Gulf Cooperation Council region.

The embassy said registration would allow them to offer necessary consular support and maintain situational awareness of Fijian nationals in-country.

The Solomon Islands Foreign Affairs Ministry has advised all its nationals not to travel to the region until further notice.

“Solomon Islanders residing in the Gulf Region and Israel are urged to take necessary precautions, remain calm, follow host country authorities, and monitor reliable updates,” the ministry said in a statement.

While the Vanuatu government is advising its nationals and passport holders that the situation “is extremely volatile and unpredictable” and those caught in affected areas should “make immediate arrangements to depart if possible”.

“Stay informed about local conditions and register with the Vanuatu Ministry of Foreign Affairs if you’re planning to travel to affected areas,” the Vanuatu Foreign Ministry said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

How Israel won the Pacific – and its backing at the UN

APR editor — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 10:51:04 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

Several small Pacific countries regularly vote in support of Israel at the United Nations in spite of overwhelming opposition for the Zionist state in the Middle East over its genocide in Gaza.

Why?

In this AJ+ video short, senior presenter/producer Dena Takruri sets out to explain the Pacific backing for Tel Aviv, including from Fiji which is understood to be supplying peacekeepers for US President Donald Trump’s International Stabilisation Force (ISF) for Gaza due to be announced this week.

Israel has been building religious and diplomatic connections with the Pacific Islands, as six nations voted with it on the Gaza ceasefire issue.

“Israel is left standing alone with the backing of the US . . . and the South Pacific,” says Takruri.

“As Israeli’s biggest financial and military backer, the US makes sense.

“But why is a region in the Global South, on nearly the complete opposite side of the globe, co-signing genocide and apartheid?

Evangelical identity
“To understand the Pacific Islands countries, you have to understand the region’s identity. And that’s mostly Christian, like 90 percent Christian.

“And that’s because European missionaries in the 19th century focused on proselytising tribal leaders. Once their chiefs were swayed, their tribes would go with them.”

Christians in the Pacific took a very literal reading of the Bible, a feature of evangelicism.

For example, in Fiji, which has just opened an embassy in Jerusalem, one in four people identify as evangelicals – Christian Zionists.

To take advantage of this, Israel has deployed a special identity-based diplomatic “mythmaking” task force presenting Jews in Israel as being “indigenous” people returning to their “homeland”.

This notion clashes with the reality that Zionists settled in Palestine and expelled 750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Nakba – “the catastrophe” – at the founding of the state of Israel.

“It’s the latest example of the Global North using the Global South for its own gain,” concludes Takruri.

Civicus raps 8 Pacific countries for ‘not doing enough’ to protect civic rights, press freedom

Pacific Media Watch — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 02:02:10 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

The global civil society alliance Civicus has called on eight Pacific governments to do more to respect civic freedoms and strengthen institutions to protect these rights.

It is especially concerned over the threats to press freedom, the use of laws to criminalise online expression, and failure to establish national human rights institutions or ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

But it also says that the Pacific status is generally positive.

READ MORE: Civicus reports in the Pacific

The Civicus Pacific civic protections report.

Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Solomon Islands have been singled out for criticism over press freedom concerns, but the brief published by the Civicus Monitor also examines the civic spce in Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga and Vanuatu.

“There have been incidents of harassment, intimidation and dismissal of journalists in retaliation for their work,” the report said.

“Cases of censorship have also been reported, along with denial of access, exclusion of journalists from government events and refusal of visas to foreign journalists.”

The Civicus report focuses on respect for and limitations to the freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly, which are fundamental to the exercise of civic rights.

Freedoms guaranteed
“These freedoms are guaranteed in the national constitutions of all eight countries as well as in the ICCPR.

“In several countries — including Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, PNG and Samoa — the absence of freedom of information laws makes it extremely difficult for journalists and the public to access official information,” the report said.

Countries such as Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, continued to enforce criminal defamation laws, creating a “chilling environment for the media, human rights defenders and anyone seeking to express themselves or criticise governments”.

In recent years, Fiji, PNG and Samoa had also used cybercrime laws to criminalise online expression.

“Governments in the Pacific must do more to protect press freedom and ensure that journalists can work freely and without fear of retribution for expressing critical opinions or covering topics the government may find sensitive,” said Josef Benedict, Civicus Asia Pacific researcher.

“They must also pass freedom of information legislation and remove criminal defamation provisions in law so that they are not used to criminalise expression both off and online.”

Civicus is concerned that at least four countries – Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands and Tonga – have yet to ratify the ICCPR, which imposes obligations on states to respect and protect civic freedoms.

Lacking human rights bodies
Also, four countries — Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu — lack national human rights institutions (NHRI).

Fiji was criticised over restricting the right to peaceful assembly over protests about genocide and human rights violations in Palestine and West Papua.

In May 2024, “a truckload of police officers, including two patrol cars, turned up at a protest at the premises of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre against human rights violations in Gaza and West Papua, in an apparent effort to intimidate protesters”.

Gatherings and vigils had been organised regularly each Thursday.

In PNG and Tonga, the Office of the Ombudsman plays monitor and responds to human rights issues, but calls remain for establishing an independent body in line with the Paris Principles, which set international standards for national human rights institutions.

“It is time all Pacific countries ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and ensure its laws are consistent with it,” said Benedict.

“Governments must also to establish national human rights institutions to ensure effective monitoring and reporting on human rights issues. This will also allow for better accountability for violations of civic freedoms.”

More about Civicus

How Civicus rates Pacific countries. Image: Civicus

Tribute to Bob Howarth: He touched the Pacific in ways words can barely capture

Pacific Media Watch — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 22:57:08 +0000

Bob Howarth
6 November 1944-13 November 2025

OBITUARY: By Robert Luke Iroga, editor and publisher of Solomon Business Magazine

In June 2000, I travelled to Port Moresby for a journalism training course that changed my life in ways I did not expect. The workshop was about new technology—how to send large photo files by email, something that felt revolutionary at the time.

But the real lesson I gained was not about technology. It was about people. It was about meeting Bob Howarth.

Bob, our trainer from News Corp Australia, was a man whose presence filled the room. He was old school in his craft, yet he embraced the future with such excitement that it was impossible not to be inspired.

READ MORE: Bob Howarth: Role of journalism in developing and protecting democracy

He was full of energy, full of stories, full of life. And above all, he was kind. Deeply kind. The sort of kindness that stays with you long after the conversation ends.

He had just returned from East Timor and knew what life was like in the developing world.

In just one week with him, we learned more than we could have imagined. It felt like every day stretched into a month because Bob poured so much of himself into teaching us. It was clear that he cared—not just about journalism, but about us, the young Pacific reporters standing at the start of our careers.

That week was the beginning of his love affair with the Pacific, and I feel proud to have been a small part of that story.

Before we closed the training, Bob called me aside. He gave me his email and said quietly,

“If anything dramatic happens in the Solomons, send me some photos.”

The Timor Post mourns journalist and media mentor Bob Howarth who died on Thursday aged 81. Image: Timor Post

I didn’t know then how soon that moment would come.

I returned home on Sunday, 4 June 2000. The very next morning, June 5th, as I was heading to work at The Solomon Star, Honiara fell into chaos.

The coup was unfolding. The city was under siege. I rushed to the office, helping colleagues capture the moment in words and images. And just as Bob had asked, I sent photos to him. Within hours, those images appeared on front pages across News Corp newspapers.

Bob wrote to me soon after, saying, “You’re truly the star of our course.”

That was Bob—always lifting others up, always encouraging, always giving more credit than he took.

From that week in PNG, we became more than just colleagues. We became friends—real friends. Over the years, whenever I travelled through Port Moresby, I would always reach out to him.

Sometimes we shared a drink, sometimes a long talk, sometimes just a warm hello from his home overlooking the harbour. But every time, it felt like reconnecting with someone who genuinely understood my journey.

Asia Pacific Report publisher David Robie’s tribute to Bob Howarth on Bob’s FB page.

Bob was the person I turned to for advice, for guidance, for perspective. He believed in me at a time when belief was the greatest gift anyone could offer. And he never stopped being that voice in my corner—whether I was working here in the Solomons or abroad.

This morning, I learned of his passing. And my heart sank.

It feels like losing a pillar. Like losing a chapter of my own story. Like losing someone whose kindness shaped the path I walked.

To his wife, his children, and all who loved him, I send my deepest condolences. Your husband, your father, your friend—he touched the Pacific in ways words can barely capture.

And he touched my life in a way I will never forget.

RIEP Bob. Thank you for seeing me when I was still finding my footing.

Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for being my friend.

Robert Luke Iroga is editor and publisher of Solomon Business Magazine and chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum. He wrote this tribute on his FB page and it is republished with permission.

Why Blue Pacific’s infrastructure distress is a cocktail poisoning human development progress

APR editor — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 22:52:55 +0000

Keeping a line of sight to the challenges of both COP30 in Brazil next week and also the subsequent Pacific’s COP31. A Pacific perspective.

COMMENTARY: By Dr Satyendra Prasad

As Pacific’s leaders and civil society prepare for the United Nations Climate Conference in Brazil (COP30) next week, they also need to keep a line of sight to the subsequent Pacific’s COP31.

As they engage at COP30, they will have in their thoughts the painful and lonely journey ahead in Jamaica and across the Caribbean as they rebuild from Hurricane Melissa.

The Blue Pacific needs to build a well-lit pathway to land Pacific’s priorities at COP30 and COP31. The cross winds are heavy and the landing zone could not be hazier.

COP30 BRAZIL 2025

At the recent Pacific Islands Forum Meeting in Honiara, Pacific leaders called for accelerating implementation of programmes to respond to climate change. They said that finance and knowhow remained the binding constraints to this.

The Pacific’s leaders were unanimous that the world was failing the Pacific.

Climate-stressed infrastructure
Pacific leaders spoke about their infrastructure deficit. The region today needs well in excess of $500 million annually to maintain infrastructure in the face of rising seas and fiercer storms.

There are more than 1000 primary and secondary schools, dozens of health centres across coastal areas in Solomon Islands, PNG, Vanuatu and Fiji that need to be repaired rehabilitated or relocated.

The region needs an additional $300-500 million annually over a decade to build and climate proof critical infrastructure — airports, wharves, jetties, water and electricity and telecommunications.

The Blue Pacific’s infrastructure distress is a cocktail that poisons its human development progress. This has lethal consequences for our elderly, for children and the most vulnerable.

As a region has fallen short in convincing the international community that the region’s infrastructure distress is quintessentially a climate distress. This must change.

Fiji’s former ambassador to the UN Dr Satyendra Prasad . . . “the ball may be in the Pacific’s court on how successfully we can harness this rare opening.” Image: Wansolwara News

The constant cycle of catastrophe, recovery and debt are on autoplay repeat across the world’s most climate vulnerable region. The heart-braking images coming out of Jamaica and the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Melissa makes this same point.

The Blue Pacific as a region attracts a woefully insufficient share of existing climate finance. Less than 1.5 percent of the total climate finances reaches the world’s most climate vulnerable region today. This is unacceptable of course.

Is our planet headed for a 3.0C world?
At COP30, the world will see what the new climate commitments (NDCs) add up to. Our best estimates today suggest that the planet is headed for a 3.0C plus temperature rise. Anything above 1.5C will be catastrophic for the Blue Pacific.

Life across our coral reef systems will simply roast at 3.0C temperature increase. The regions food security will be harmed irreparably. This will have massive consequences for tourism dependent economies. Bleached reefs bleach tourism incomes.

The health consequences arising from climate change are set to worsen rapidly. As will the toll on children who will fall further behind in their learning as schools remain inaccessible for longer periods; or children spend long hours in hotter classrooms.

For Pacific’s women, the toll of runaway temperature increase will be heavy — on their health, on their livelihoods and on their security. It will be too heavy.

A deal for the Pacific at COP30
The world of climate change is becoming transactional. Short termism and deal making have become its norm.

As Pacific leaders, its civil society, its science community and its young engage at COP30 in Brazil, they are reminded that the Blue Pacific needs more than anything else, a settled outlook climate finance that will be available to the region. Finance must be foremostly predictable.

The region should not feel like it is playing a lottery — as is the case today. Tonga must know broadly how much climate finance will be available to it over the next five years and so must Papua New Guinea.

At Bele’m, the world will need to agree to a road map for how the climate financing short fall will be met. This is a must to restore trust in the global process.

The weight on the shoulders of host Brazil is extraordinarily heavy. Brazil is the home of the famous Rio Conference in 1992 where the small island states first succeeded in placing climate change, biodiversity loss on the global agenda.

The Small Islands States grouping is chaired by Palau. President Whipps Jnr will lead the islands to Brazil. He will no doubt remind the host that the world has failed the small states persistently since that moment of great hope at the Rio Conference in 1992.

Belém hosts the UN Climate Summit, an international meeting that will bring together heads of state and government, ministers, and leaders of international organisations on 10-21 November 2025. Image: Sergio Moraes/COP30/Wansolwara News

Pace of climate finance
There are three principal reasons why climate finance must flow to the Pacific at speed.

First, is that most countries in our region have less than a decade to adapt. Farms and family gardens, small businesses, tourist resorts, villages and livelihoods need to adapt now to meet a climate changed world.

Second, if adaptation is pushed into the future because of woefully insufficient finances — the window to adapt will close.

As more sectors of our economy fall beyond rehabilitation, the costs of loss and damage will rise. Time is of the essence. And on top of that loss and damage remain poorly funded. This too must change.

The Pacific needs to do many things concurrently to build its resilience. Everything for the Blue Pacific rests on a decent outcome on financing.

The region needs to make its clearest argument that its share of climate finance must be ring-fenced. That its share of climate finance will remain available to the region even if demand is slow to take shape.

The Pacific’s rightful share of climate finance over the next decade is between 3-5 per cent of the total across all financing windows. This is fundamentally because based the adaptation window is so short in such a uniquely specific way.

This should mean that the Blue Pacific has access to a floor of US$1.5 billion annually through to 2035. This is very doable even if global currents are choppy.

TFFF and Brazil’s leadership
Brazil has already demonstrated that it can forge large financing arrangements through its leadership and creativity. It will launch the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) at COP. PNG’s Prime Minister has played an important role on this. We hope that forested Pacific states will be able to access this new facility to expand their conservation efforts with much higher returns to landowners.

Beyond Bele’m
COP30 in Brazil is an opportunity for the Pacific to begin to frame a larger consensus — well in time for COP31. It is my hope that Australia and Pacific’s leaders will have done enough to secure the hosting rights for COP31.

A ‘circuit-breaker’ COP31
Fiji’s former Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad and Australia’s Climate Minister Chris Bowen recently said that COP31 must be “a circuit breaker moment” for the Blue Pacific.

The reversals in our development story arising from the climate chaos have become too burdensome. Repeated recoveries means that every next recovery becomes that much harder.

Ask anyone in Jamaica and Caribbean today and you will hear this same message. Their finance ministers know too well that in no time they will be back at the mercy of international financial institutions to rebuild roads and bridges that have been washed away and water systems that have been destroyed by Hurricane Melissa.

Climate finance by its very nature therefore must involve deep changes to the architecture of international development and finance. The rich world is not yet ready to let go of privilege and power that it wields through an archaic financial international system.

But fundamental reform is a must. Fundamental reform is necessary if small states are to reclaim agency and begin to drive own destinies.

Future proofing our societies
The risks arising from climate change are so multi-faceted that economic, social and political stability cannot no longer be taken for granted.

Conflicts over land lost to rising seas, the strain on education, health and water infrastructure, deepening debt stress take their toll on institutions through which stability is maintained in our societies.

The Blue Pacific needs to work with this elevated risk of fragility and state failure. This reality must shape the Blue Pacific expectations from a Pacific COP.

Building on the excellent work underway in climate ministries in Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, PNG and across the region through the SPC, SPREP, OPOC, I have outlined what the Pacific’s expectations could be from a Pacific COP31.

COP31 must be about transformation and impact. The Blue Pacific’s leaders should seek a consensus that includes both the rich industrial World and large developing countries such as China and India in support of a Pacific Package at COP31.

A Pacific COP 31 package
The core elements of a Pacific package at COP31 are:

Ensuring that the Loss and Damage Fund has become fully operational with a pipeline of investment ready projects from across the Blue Pacific.
Securing the Pacific Regional Infrastructure Facility (PRIF) as a fully funded and disbursement ready financing facility with a pipeline of investment ready projects.
Securing ring-fenced climate finance allocations for the Blue Pacific at the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and across international financial institutions.
Securing support for Blue Pacific’s “lighthouse” multi-country (region wide) transformative programs to advance marine and terrestrial biodiversity protection and promote sustainability across the Blue Pacific Ocean.
A COP decision that is unambiguous on quality and speed of climate and ocean finance that will be available to small states for the remainder of the decade.
Securing sufficient resources that can flow directly to communities and families to rapidly rebuild their resilience following disasters and catastrophes including through insurance and social protection vehicles.
Ensuring that knowhow, resources and mechanisms for disaster risk reduction are in place, are fully operational and are sustainable.

An Ocean of Peace for a climate changed world
Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has championed the Blue Pacific as an Ocean of Peace. Its acceptance by Pacific leaders opens up opportunities for the region’s climate diplomacy.

The Pacific’s leaders accept that the Ocean of Peace anchors its stewardship of our marine environment to the highest principles of protection and conservation. An Ocean of Peace super-charges the Pacific’s efforts to take forward transboundary marine research and conservation, end plastic and harmful waste disposal, end harmful fisheries subsidies and decarbonise shipping.

It boosts the Pacific’s efforts to main-frame the ocean-climate nexus into the international climate change frameworks by the time a Pacific COP31 is convened.

A window of hope
Between COP30 and COP31 lies a rare window of hope. The Blue Pacific must leverage this.

Both a Brazilian and an Australian Presidency offer supportive back-to-back opportunities and spaces to take forward the regions desire to project a solid foundation of programs that are necessary to secure its future.

Uniquely the ball may be in the Pacific’s court on how successfully we can harness this rare opening in the international environment.

Dr Satyendra Prasad is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Fiji’s former ambassador to the UN. He is the Climate Lead for About Global. This article was first published by Wansolwara Online and is republished by Asia Pacific Report in partnership with USP Journalism.

USP student journalists win Vision Pasifika media award for plastic pollution reports

Pacific Media Watch — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 03:29:50 +0000

Pacific Media Watch

A feature story authored by a student journalist highlighting the harm plastic pollution poses to human health in Fiji — with risks expected to rise significantly if robust action is not taken soon — has won the Online category of the 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Awards — Cleaner Pacific.

Riya Bhagwan, a Fiji national studying journalism at The University of the South Pacific (USP), won the prize with her Wansolwara story, titled Behind the stalled progress in Fiji’s plastic pollution battle, reports the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

USP student journalists won two out of four categories in the awards.

READ MORE: The 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Award winners

Launched during the 7th Pacific Media Summit by Niue’s Prime Minister, Dalton Tagelagi, the awards celebrate excellence in environmental news reporting across the Pacific Island region.

The theme, Cleaner Pacific, spotlights the urgent need to tackle plastic pollution, one of the triple planetary crises threatening the planet, alongside climate change and biodiversity loss.

A story titled Managing Solid Waste in Gizo, a tough task, by award-winning Solomon Islands journalist, Moffat Mamu, of the Solomon Star, and also a USP graduate, won the Print category.

Coverage of the Vatuwaqa Rugby Club’s efforts to keep their community clean, by Fijian journalist Joeli Tikomaimaleya of Fiji TV, picked up the Television category.

Student award winner
The Student Journalism Award was won by Niko Ratumaimuri, of USP, for his story in Wansolwara highlighting a call by young Fijians to keep the country plastic free.

Wansolwara’s Niko Ratumaimuri . . . winner of the Student category of the Vision Pasifika Media Awards.

The 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Awards is a partnership facilitated by SPREP with the Australian government through support for Pacific engagement in the INC on plastic pollution and the Pacific Ocean Litter Project (POLP), Office of the Pacific Ocean Commissioner (OPOC) and the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA).

SPREP Director-General Sefanaia Nawadra said: “We are drowning under a sea of waste! The Pacific media is critical in ensuring we in the Pacific understand the challenges of waste and pollution and share ways we can work towards its effective management.

“Many of our waste issues originate from outside our region and our Pacific media must help our countries advocate for global action on waste especially plastic.”

‘Not an attempt to militarise our nation’ – Solomon Islands considers own military

APR editor — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 22:54:27 +0000

By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor

The Solomon Islands government is looking into establishing a defence force which would make it the fourth Pacific nation to have a military.

Some parliamentarians support the idea, while others are pointing to the country’s history of violent unrest.

National Security Minister Jimson Tanagada said the government was in the early stages of exploring whether to form a defence force.

READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands security reports

“Sir, let me emphasise that this is not an attempt to militarise our nation, but the other a long term nation-building effort aimed at enhancing Solomon Islands, resilience, sovereignty and self-reliance,” Jimson Tanagada said in Parliament last week.

He said the government was taking a prudent approach but also told Parliament the country must not ignore escalating geopolitical tension in the region.

“There’s no fixed time frame but the urgency is there given the evolving security challenges,” Tanagada said.

The country’s police force used to have a paramilitary unit but after a civil conflict at the turn of the century, during which guns from the police armoury were used on civilians, there was a complete ban on firearms.

Restoring public trust
And it took over a decade to restore enough public trust to start rearming the police.

Helpem Fren – Rebuilding a Pacific Nation. Video produced in 2013.

Leader of Opposition Matthew Wale respects the process so far, but says the government should heed lessons from the past.

“We must learn from our own civil conflict,” Wale said.

“And you know, in Fiji, of course, there’s been a number of coups where the military was directly involved in.

“And in [Papua] New Guinea when they did not pay them [soldiers] their allowance they took their guns and went to the Parliament.

“So all these things, the police must address. How do we make sure this would never happen?”

Wale said one way to ensure control of the military was for parliamentarians from across the political divide to be involved

“This issue is so critical that us as representatives must help to together, inform it, influence it, mould it, shape it. Right from the word go,” he said.

Melanesia focused
Former Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said the formation of a Solomon Islands military must be Melanesia focused.

“I heard Papua New Guinea is brokering, of course, the peace [sic] treaty with America already.

“And the treaty is so wide, Mr Speaker, that it’s allowing military assets of America to land at anytime without any permission,” Manasseh Sogavare said.

“And those are serious matters that we need to discuss about the security of the region,” he said.

Police Response Team . . . government control of any armed force is “of the utmost importance”, says former PM Manasseh Sogavare. Image: RNZ

It was Sogavare who first suggested the country form a defence force after a trip to China in 2023 while prime minister.

He agreed government control of any armed force was of the utmost importance.

“We can understand the cautious approach that we take on that matter before we go seriously into establishing a defence force that the sovereign government wont have control over it,” Sogavare said.

Control issue important
“I think the control issue will be very important here. That the government must have control over the military force.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele said a Solomon Islands military could also assist in subregional crises.

He also says it would be beneficial if a Melanesian Military Force was ever created — a concept still being discussed among members of the sub-regional bloc.

“Papua, New Guinea and Fiji, of course, they have defence forces.

“Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu does not (sic) So that is also the gap in terms of the discussions,” Manele said.

Any resources for a military must not take away from the needs of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force which is currently in charge of national defence and security, says Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele. Image: RNZ/Koroi Hawkins

But cost is a major prohibitor and Manele said any resources for a military must not take away from the needs of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force which is currently in charge of national defence and security.

“I think that cautious approach is important. It’s not only about the numbers but also the cost in terms of sustaining these arrangements,” Manele said.

Overall, MPs supporting the establishment of a Solomon Islands military said it would benefit the country and wider region.

However, it remains to be seen whether their constituents agree.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Palau president calls exclusion of PIF partners a ‘missed opportunity’

APR editor — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 06:57:26 +0000

By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist

Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr says it is “a missed opportunity” not to include partners at next mont’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ summit.

However, Whipps said he respects the position of the Solomon Islands, as hosts, to exclude more than 20 countries that are not members the regional organisation.

The Solomon Islands is blocking all external partners from attending the PIF leaders’ week in Honiara from September 8-12.

READ MORE: Other China-Taiwan relationship reports

The decision means that nations such as the United States and China (dialogue partners), and Taiwan (a development partner), will be shut out of the regional gathering.

Whipps Jr told RNZ Pacific that although he has accepted the decision, he was not happy about it.

“These are Forum events; they need to be treated as Forum events. They are not Solomon Islands events, [nor] are Palau events,” Whipps said.

“It is so important for any Pacific [Islands] Forum meeting that we have all our partners there. It is a missed opportunity not to have our partners attending the meeting in the Solomon Islands, but they are the host.”

‘Space’ for leaders
Last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele said the decision gave leaders space to focus on a review of how the PIF engaged with diplomatic partners, through reforms under PIF’s Partnership and Engagement Mechanism.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele with PIF Secretary-General Baron Waqa (left) at the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, last year. Image: Lydia Lewis/RNZ Pacific

Solomon Islands opposition MP Peter Kenilorea Jr said that the move was about disguising the fact that the Manele administration was planning on blocking Taiwan from entering the country.

“The way I see it is definitely, 100 percent, to do with China and Taiwan,” he said.

Kenilorea said he was concerned there would still be bilateral meetings on the margins, which would be easy for countries with diplomatic missions in Solomon Islands, like China and the US, but not for Taiwan.

“There might be delegations coming through that might have bilaterials that make a big deal out of it, the optics and the narratives that will be coming out of those, if they do happen [they] are out of the control of the Pacific Islands Forum architecture, which is another hit to regionalism.”

Palau, Tuvalu and Marshall Islands are the remaining Pacific countries that have ties with Taiwan.

The Guardian reported that Tuvalu was now considering not attending the leaders’ summit.

Tuvalu disappointed
Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo said he would wait to see how other Pacific leaders responded before deciding whether to attend. He was disappointed at the exclusion.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he was concerned.

“We have advocated very strongly for the status quo. That actually the Pacific Islands Forum family countries come together, and then the dialogue partners, who are from all over the world can be present as well.”

President Whipps said all would be welcome, including China, at the Pacific Islands Forum next year hosted in Palau.

He said it was important for Pacific nations to work together despite differences.

“Everybody has their own sovereignty, they have their own partners and they have their reasons for what they do. We respect that,” he said.

“What’s most important is we find ways to come together.”

Know the reason
Kenilorea said other Solomon Islands MPs knew the deferral was about China and Taiwan but he was the only one willing to mention it.

Solomon Islands switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China in 2019. In 2022 the island nation signed a security pact with China.

“If [the deferral] had happened earlier in our [China and Solomon Islands] relationship, I would have thought you would have heard more leaders saying how it is.

“But we are now six years down the track of our switch and leaders are not as vocal as they used to be anymore.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Marshall Islands president warns of threat to Pacific Islands Forum unity

APR editor — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 06:18:54 +0000

By Giff Johnson, Marshall Islands Journal editor/RNZ Pacific correspondent

Leaders of the three Pacific nations with diplomatic ties to Taiwan are united in a message to the Pacific Islands Forum that the premier regional body must not allow non-member countries to dictate Forum policies — a reference to the China-Taiwan geopolitical debate.

Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, in remarks to the opening of Parliament in Majuro yesterday, joined leaders from Tuvalu and Palau in strongly worded comments putting the region on notice that the future unity and stability of the Forum hangs in the balance of decisions that are made for next month’s Forum leaders’ meeting in the Solomon Islands.

This is just three years since the organisation pulled back from the brink of splintering.

READ MORE: Other Pacific Islands Forum unity articles

Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu are among the 12 countries globally that maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

At issue is next month’s annual meeting of leaders being hosted by Solomon Islands, which is closely allied to China, and the concern that the Solomon Islands will choose to limit or prevent Taiwan’s engagement in the Forum, despite it being a major donor partner to the three island nations as well as a donor to the Forum Secretariat.

President Surangel Whipps Jr . . . diplomatic ties to Taiwan. Image: Richard Brooks/RNZ Pacific

China worked to marginalise Taiwan and its international relationships including getting the Forum to eliminate a reference to Taiwan in last year’s Forum leaders’ communique after leaders had agreed on the text.

“I believe firmly that the Forum belongs to its members, not countries that are non-members,” said President Heine yesterday in Parliament’s opening ceremony. “And non-members should not be allowed to dictate how our premier regional organisation conducts its business.”

Heine continued: “We witnessed at the Forum in Tonga how China, a world superpower, interfered to change the language of the Forum Communique, the communiqué of our Pacific Leaders . . . If the practice of interference in the affairs of the Forum becomes the norm, then I question our nation’s membership in the organisation.”

She cited the position of the three Taiwan allies in the Pacific in support of Taiwan participation at next month’s Forum.

Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Feleti Teo . . . also has diplomatic ties to Taiwan. Image: Ludovic Marin/RNZ Pacific:

“There should not be any debate on the issue since Taiwan has been a Forum development partner since 1993,” Heine said.

Heine also mentioned that there was an “ongoing review of the regional architecture of the Forum” and its many agencies “to ensure that their deliverables are on target, and inter-agency conflicts are minimised.”

The President said during this review of the Forum and its agencies, “it is critical that the question of Taiwan’s participation in Forum meetings is settled once and for all to safeguard equity and sovereignty of member governments.”

Fiji human rights coalition challenges Rabuka over decolonisation ‘unfinished business’

APR editor — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 11:30:43 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

The NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji (NGOCHR) has called on Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka as the new chair of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) to “uphold justice, stability and security” for Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua.

In a statement today after last week’s MSG leaders’ summit in Suva, the coalition also warned over Indonesia’s “chequebook diplomacy” as an obstacle for the self-determination aspirations of Melanesian peoples not yet independent.

Indonesia is a controversial associate member of the MSG in what is widely seen in the region as a “complication” for the regional Melanesian body.

The statement said that with Rabuka’s “extensive experience as a seasoned statesman in the Pacific, we hope that this second chapter will chart a different course, one rooted in genuine commitment to uphold justice, stability and security for all our Melanesian brothers and sisters in Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua”.

The coalition said the summit’s theme, “A peaceful and prosperous Melanesia”, served as a reminder that even after several decades of regional bilaterals, “our Melanesian leaders have made little to no progress in fulfilling its purpose in the region — to support the independence and sovereignty of all Melanesians”.

“Fiji, as incoming chair, inherits the unfinished work of the MSG. As rightly stated by the late great Father Walter Lini, ‘We will not be free until all of Melanesia is free”, the statement said.

“The challenges for Fiji’s chair to meet the goals of the MSG are complex and made more complicated by the inclusion of Indonesia as an associate member in 2015.

‘Indonesia active repression’
“Indonesia plays an active role in the ongoing repression of West Papuans in their desire for independence. Their associate member status provides a particular obstacle for Fiji as chair in furthering the self-determination goals of the MSG.”

Complicating matters further was the asymmetry in the relationship between Indonesia and the rest of the MSG members, the statement said.

“As a donor government and emerging economic power, Indonesia’s ‘chequebook and cultural diplomacy’ continues to wield significant influence across the region.

“Its status as an associate member of the MSG raises serious concerns about whether it is appropriate, as this pathway risks further marginalising the voices of our West Papuan sisters and brothers.”

This defeated the “whole purpose of the MSG: ‘Excelling together towards a progressive and prosperous Melanesia’.”

The coalition acknowledged Rabuka’s longstanding commitment to the people of Kanaky New Caledonia. A relationship and shared journey that had been forged since 1989.

‘Stark reminder’
The pro-independence riots of May 2024 served as a “stark reminder that much work remains to be done to realise the full aspirations of the Kanak people”.

As the Pacific awaited a “hopeful and favourable outcome” from the Troika Plus mission to Kanaky New Caledonia, the coalition said that it trusted Rabuka to “carry forward the voices, struggles, dreams and enduring aspirations of the people of Kanaky New Caledonia”.

The statement called on Rabuka as the new chair of MSG to:

Ensure the core founding values, and mission of the MSG are upheld;
Re-evaluate Indonesia’s appropriateness as an associate member of the MSG; and
Elevate discussions on West Papua and Kanaky New Caledonia at the MSG level and through discussions at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders.

The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) represents the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (chair), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, femLINKpacific, Social Empowerment and Education Program, and Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality Fiji. Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is an observer.

‘Don’t surrender’ to Indonesian pressure over West Papua, Bomanak warns MSG

APR editor — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 11:03:16 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

A West Papuan independence movement leader has warned the Melanesian Spearhead Group after its 23rd leaders summit in Suva, Fiji, to not give in to a “neocolonial trade in betrayal and abandonment” over West Papua.

While endorsing and acknowledging the “unconditional support” of Melanesian people to the West Papuan cause for decolonisation, OPM chair and commander Jeffrey P Bomanak
spoke against “surrendering” to Indonesia which was carrying out a policy of “bank cheque diplomacy” in a bid to destroy solidarity.

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka took over the chairmanship of the MSG this week from his Vanuatu counterpart Jotham Napat and vowed to build on the hard work and success that had been laid before it.

He said he would not take the responsibility of chairmanship lightly, especially as they were confronted with an increasingly fragmented global landscape that demanded more from them.

PNG Prime Minister James Marape called on MSG member states to put West Papua and Kanaky New Caledonia back on the agenda for full MSG membership.

Marape said that while high-level dialogue with Indonesia over West Papua and France about New Caledonia must continue, it was culturally “un-Melanesian” not to give them a seat at the table.

West Papua currently holds observer status in the MSG, which includes Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji — and Indonesia as an associate member.

PNG ‘subtle shift’
PNG recognises the West Papuan region as five provinces of Indonesia, making Marape’s remarks in Suva a “subtle shift that may unsettle Jakarta”, reports Gorethy Kenneth in the PNG Post-Courier.

West Papuans have waged a long-standing Melanesian struggle for independence from Indonesia since 1969.

The MSG resolved to send separate letters of concern to the French and Indonesian presidents.

The OPM letter warning the MSG. Image: Screenshot APR

In a statement, Bomanak thanked the Melanesians of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) of Kanaky New Caledonia for “unconditionally support[ing] your West Papuan brothers and sisters, subjected to dispossession, enslavement, genocide, ethnocide, infanticide, and ethnic cleansing, [as] the noblest of acts.”

“We will never forget these Melanesian brothers and sisters who remain faithfully loyal to our cultural identity no matter how many decades is our war of liberation and no matter how many bags of gold and silver Indonesia offers for the betrayal of ancestral kinship.

“When the late [Vanuatu Prime Minister] Father Walter Lini declared, ‘Melanesia is not free unless West Papua is free,”’ he was setting the benchmark for leadership and loyalty across the entire group of Melanesian nations.

“Father Lini was not talking about a timeframe of five months, or five years, or five decades.

“Father Lini was talking about an illegal invasion and military occupation of West Papua by a barbaric nation wanting West Papua’s gold and forests and willing to exterminate all of us for this wealth.

‘Noble declaration’
“That this noble declaration of kinship and loyalty now has a commercial value that can be bought and sold like a commodity by those without Father Lini’s courage and leadership, and betrayed for cheap materialism, is an act of historic infamy that will be recorded by Melanesian historians and taught in all our nations’ universities long after West Papua is liberated.”

OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak . . . his letter warns against surrendering to Indonesian control. Image: OPM

Bomanak was condemning the decision of the MSG to regard the “West Papua problem” as an internal issue for Indonesia.

“The illegal occupation of West Papua and the genocide of West Papuans is not an internal issue to be solved by the barbaric occupier.

“Indonesia’s position as an associate member of MSG is a form of colonial corruption of the Melanesian people.

“We will continue to fight without MSG because the struggle for independence and sovereignty is our fundamental right of the Papuan people’s granted by God.

“Every member of MSG can recommend to the United Nations that West Papua deserves the same right of liberation and nation-state sovereignty that was achieved without compromise by Timor-Leste — the other nation illegally invaded by Indonesia and also subjected to genocide.”

Bomanak said the MSG’s remarks stood in stark contrast to Father Lini’s solidarity with West Papua and were “tantamount to sharing in the destruction of West Papua”.

‘Blood money’
It was also collaborating in the “extermination of West Papuans for economic benefit, for Batik Largesse. Blood money!”

The Papua ‘problem’ was not a human rights problem but a problem of the Papuan people’s political right for independence and sovereignty based on international law and the right to self-determination.

It was an international problem that had not been resolved.

“In fact, to say it is simply a ‘problem’ ignores the fate of the genocide of 500,000 victims.”

Bomanak said MSG leaders should make clear recommendations to the Indonesian government to resolve the “Papua problem” at the international level based on UN procedures and involving the demilitarisation of West Papua with all Indonesian defence and security forces “leaving the land they invaded and unlawfully occupied.”

Indonesia’s position as an associate member in the MSG was a systematic new colonialisation by Indonesia in the home of the Melanesian people.

Indonesia well understood the weaknesses of each Melanesian leader and “carries out bank cheque diplomacy accordingly to destroy the solidarity so profoundly declared by the late Father Walter Lini.”

“No surrender!”

MSG leaders in Suva . . . Jeremy Manele (Solomon Islands, from left), James Marape (PNG), Sitiveni Rabuka (Fiji), Jotham Napat (Vanuatu), and Roch Wamytan (FLNKS spokesperson). Image: PNG Post-Courier

Why most Pacific governments stand with Israel in spite of UN votes

APR editor — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 06:24:35 +0000

By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist

Amid uncertainty in the Middle East, one thing remains clear — most Pacific governments continue to align themselves with Israel.

Dr Steven Ratuva, distinguished professor of Pacific Studies at Canterbury University, told RNZ that island leaders are likely to try and keep their distance, but only officially speaking.

“They’d probably feel safer that way, rather than publicly taking sides. But I think quite a few of them would probably be siding with Israel.”

With Iran and Israel waging a 12-day war earlier this month, Dr Ratuva said that was translating into deeper divisions along religious and political lines in Pacific nations.

“People may not want to admit it, but it’s manifesting itself in different ways.”

Pacific support for Israel runs deep

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on 13 June calling for “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in the war in Gaza”, passing with 142 votes, or a 73 percent majority.

Among the 12 nations that voted against the resolution, alongside Israel and the United States, were Fiji, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Tuvalu.

The flags of Iran – a strong supporter of Palestine, along with a 73 percent support for a ceasefire at the United Nations – and Israel, backed by the United States. Image: 123rf/RNZ Pacific

Pacific support for Israel runs deep
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on June 13 calling for “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in the war in Gaza”, passing with 142 votes, or a 73 percent majority.

Among the 12 nations that voted against the resolution, alongside Israel and the United States, were Fiji, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Tuvalu.

Among the regional community, only Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands voted for the resolution, while others abstained or were absent.

Last week, Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, in an interview with The Australian, defended Israel’s actions in Iran as an “act of survival”.

“They cannot survive if there is a big threat capability within range of Israel. Whatever [Israel] are doing now can be seen as preemptive, knocking it out before it’s fired on you.”

In February, Fiji also committed to an embassy in Jerusalem — a recognition of Israel’s claimed right to call the city their capital — mirroring Papua New Guinea in 2023.

Dr Ratuva said that deep, longstanding, religious and political ties with the West are what formed the region’s ties with Israel.

“Most of the Pacific Island states have been aligned with the US since the Cold War and beyond, so the Western sphere of influence is seen as, for many of them, the place to be.”

He noted the rise in Christian evangelism, which is aligned with Zionism and the global push for a Jewish homeland, in pockets throughout the Pacific, particularly in Fiji.

“Small religious organisations which have links with or model selves along the lines of the United States evangelical movement, which has been supportive of Trump, tend to militate towards supporting Israel for religious reasons,” Dr Ratuva said.

“And of course, religion and politics, when you mix them together, become very powerful in terms of one’s positioning [in the world].”

An anti-war protest at Parliament over Israel-Iran conflict. Image: RNZ/Mark Papalii

Politics or religion?
In Fijian society, Dr Ratuva said that the war in Gaza has stoked tensions between the Christian majority and the Muslim minority.

According to the CIA World Factbook, roughly 64.5 percent of Fijians are Christian, compared to a Muslim population of 6.3 percent.

“It’s coming out very clearly, in terms of the way in which those belonging to the fundamentalist political orientation tend to make statements which are against non-Christians” Dr Ratuva said.

“People begin to take sides . . . that in some ways deepens the religious divide, particularly in Fiji which is multiethnic and multireligious, and where the Islamic community is relatively significant.”

A statement from the Melanesian Spearhead Group Secretariat, released on Wednesday, said that the Pacific wished to be an “ocean of peace”.

“Leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to the “Friends to All, Enemy to None” foreign policy to guide the MSG members’ relationship with countries and development partners.”

It bookends a summit that brought together leaders from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and other Melanesian nations, where the Middle East was discussed, according to local media.

But the Pacific region had been used in a deceptive strategy as the US prepared for the strikes on Iran. On this issue, Melanesian leaders did not respond to requests for comment.

The BBC reported on Monday that B-2 planes flew to Guam from Missouri as a decoy to distract from top-secret flights headed over the Atlantic to Iran.

This sparked outrage from civil society leaders throughout the region, including the head of the Pacific Conference of Churches, Reverend James Bhagwan.

“This use of Pacific airspace and territory for military strikes violates the spirit of the Treaty of Rarotonga, our region’s declaration for being a nuclear, free peace committed zone,” he said.

“Our region has a memory of nuclear testing, occupation and trauma . . . we don’t forget that when we talk about these issues.”

Reverend Bhagwan told RNZ that there was no popular support in the Pacific for Israel’s most recent actions.

“This is because we have international law . . . this includes, of course, the US strikes on Iran and perhaps, also, Israel’s actions in Gaza.”

“It is not about religion, it is about people.”

Reverend Bhagwan, whose organisation represents 27 member churches across 17 Pacific nations, refused to say whether he believed there was a link between Christian fundamentalism and Pacific support for Israel.

“We can say that there is a religious contingency within the Pacific that does support Israel . . . it does not necessarily mean it’s the majority view, but it is one that is seriously considered by those in power.

“It depends on how those [politicians] consider that support they get from those particular aspects of the community.”

Pacific Islanders in the region
For some, the religious commitment runs so deep that they venture to Israel in a kind of pilgrimage.

Dr Ratuva told RNZ that there was a significant population of islanders in the region, many of whom may now be trapped before a ceasefire is finalised.

“There was a time when the Gaza situation began to unfold, when a number of people from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa were there for pilgrimage purposes.”

“At that time there were significant numbers, and Fiji was able to fly over there to evauate them. So this time, I’m not sure whether that might happen.”

Reverend Bhagwan said that the religious ties ran deep.

“They go to Jerusalem, to Bethlehem, to the Mount of Olives, to the Golan Heights, where the transfiguration took place. Fiji also is stationed in the Golan Heights as peacekeepers,” he said.

“So there is a correlation, particularly for Pacific or for Fijian communities, on that relationship as peacekeepers in that region.”

Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders discuss Middle East conflict before ceasefire

APR editor — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 23:38:49 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape says the Middle East conflict was one of the discussions of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) in Suva this week — and Pacific leaders “took note of what is happening”.

The Post-Courier reports Marape saying the “12 Day War” between Israel and Iran was based on high technology and using missiles sent from great distances.

“In the context of MSG, the leaders want peace always. And the Pacific remains friends to all, enemies to none,” he said.

He said an effect on PNG would be the inflation in prices of oil and gas.

Yesterday morning, US President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire had been agreed between Israel and Iran, and so far it has been holding in spite of tensions.

Australia had stepped in to help Papua New Guinea diplomats and citizens caught in the Middle East.

Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko confirmed last week that a group was to be evacuated through Jordan.

There had been six diplomats in lockdown at the PNG embassy in Jerusalem awaiting extraction.

Meanwhile, a repatriation flight for Australians stuck in Israel had been cancelled.

ABC News reported that it was the second day repatriation plans were scrapped at the last minute because of rocket fire. A bus meant to take people across the border into Jordan was cancelled the previous day.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Solomon Islanders safe but unable to leave Israel amid war on Iran

APR editor — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 23:37:09 +0000

RNZ Pacific

The Solomon Islands Foreign Ministry says five people who completed agriculture training in Israel are safe but unable to come home amid the ongoing war between Israel and Iran.

The ministry said in a statement that the Solomon Islands Embassy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, was closely monitoring the situation and maintaining regular contact with the students.

Ambassador Cornelius Walegerea said that given the volatile nature of the current situation, the safety of their citizens in Israel — particularly the students — remained their top priority.

“Once the airport reopens and it is deemed safe for them to travel, the students will be able to return home.”

The five Solomon Islands students have undertaken agricultural training at the Arava International Centre for Agriculture in Israel since September 2024.

The students completed their training on June 5 and were scheduled to return home on June 17.

The students have been advised to strictly follow instructions issued by local authorities and to continue observing all precautionary safety measures.

Ministry updates
The ministry will continue to provide updates as the situation develops.

Its travel advisory, issued the day Israel attacked Iran last Friday, said the ministry “wishes to advise all citizens not to travel to Israel and the region”.

Citizens studying in Israel were told they “should now make every effort to leave Israel”.

Meanwhile, a friend of a New Zealander stuck in Iran said the NZ government needed to help provide safe passage, and that the advice so far had been “vague and lacking any substance whatsover”.

The woman told RNZ the advice from MFAT until yesterday had been to “stay put”, before an evacuation notice was issued.

MFAT declined interview
MFAT declined an interview, but told RNZ it had heard from a small number of New Zealanders seeking advice about how to depart from Iran and Israel.

It would not provide any further detail regarding those individuals.

MFAT said the airspace was currently closed over both countries, which would likely continue.

The agency understood departure via land border crossings had been taking place, but that carried risks and New Zealanders “should only do so if they feel it is safe”.

Meanwhile, the NZ government said visitors from war zones in the Middle East could stay in New Zealand until it was safe for them to return home.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Independent Pacific media face reckoning after US aid cuts

Pacific Media Watch — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 00:13:44 +0000

By Ben McKay

America’s retreat from foreign aid is being felt deeply in Pacific media, where pivotal outlets are being shuttered and journalists work unpaid.

The result is fewer investigations into dubiously motivated politicians, glimpses into conflicts otherwise unseen and a less diverse media in a region which desperately needs it.

“It is a huge disappointment … a senseless waste,” Benar News’ Australian former head of Pacific news Stefan Armbruster said after seeing his outlet go under.

Benar News, In-depth Solomons and Inside PNG are three digital outlets which enjoyed US support but have been hit by President Donald Trump’s about-face on aid.

Benar closed its doors in April after an executive order disestablishing Voice of America, which the United States created during World War II to combat Nazi propaganda.

An offshoot of Radio Free Asia (RFA) focused on Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Benar kept a close eye on abuses in West Papua, massacres and gender-based violence in Papua New Guinea and more.

The Pacific arm quickly became indispensable to many, with a team of reporters and freelancers working in 15 countries on a budget under A$A million.

Coverage of decolonisation
“Our coverage of decolonisation in the Pacific received huge interest, as did our coverage of the lack of women’s representation in parliaments, human rights, media freedom, deep sea mining and more,” Armbruster said.

In-depth Solomons, a Honiara-based digital outlet, is another facing an existential threat despite a proud record of investigative and award-winning reporting.

Last week, it was honoured with a peer-nominated award from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan for a year-long probe into former prime minister Manasseh Sogavare’s property holdings.

“We’re just holding on,” editor and co-founder Ofani Eremae said.

A US-centred think tank continues to pay the wage of one journalist, while others have not drawn a salary since January.

“It has had an impact on our operations. We used to travel out to do stories across the provinces. That has not been done since early this year,” Eremae said.

A private donor came forward after learning of the cuts with a one-off grant that was used for rent to secure the office, he said.

USAID budget axed
Its funding shortfall — like Port Moresby-based outlet Inside PNG — is linked to USAID, the world’s biggest single funder of development assistance, until Trump axed its multi-billion dollar budget.

Much of USAID’s funding was spent on humanitarian causes — such as vaccines, clean water supplies and food security — but some was also earmarked for media in developing nations, with the aim of bolstering fragile democracies.

Inside PNG used its support to build an audience of tens of thousands with incisive reports on PNG politics: not just Port Moresby, but in the regions including independence-seeking province Bougainville that has a long history of conflict.

“The current lack of funding has unfortunately had a dual impact, affecting both our dedicated staff, whom we’re currently unable to pay, and our day-to-day operations,” Inside PNG managing director Kila Wani said.

“We’ve had to let off 80 percent of staff from payroll which is a big hit because we’re not a very big team.

“Logistically, it’s become challenging to carry out our work as we normally would.”

Other media entities in the region have suffered hits, but declined to share their stories.

Funding hits damaging
The funding hits are all the more damaging given the challenges faced by the Pacific, as outlined in the Pacific Islands Media Freedom Index and RSF World Press Freedom Index.

The latest PFF report listed a string of challenges, notably weak legal protections for free speech, political interference on editorial independence, and a lack of funding underpinning high-quality media, in the region.

The burning question for these outlets — and their audiences — is do other sources of funding exist to fill the gap?

Inside PNG is refocusing energy on attracting new donors, as is In-depth Solomons, which has also turned to crowdfunding.

The Australian and New Zealand governments have also provided targeted support for the media sector across the region, including ABC International Development (ABCID), which has enjoyed a budget increase from Anthony Albanese’s government.

Inside PNG and In-depth Solomons both receive training and content-focused grants from ABCID, which helps, but this does not fund the underpinning costs for a media business or keep on the lights.

Both Eremae, who edited two major newspapers before founding the investigative outlet, and Armbruster, a long-time SBS correspondent, expressed their dismay at the US pivot away from the Pacific.

‘Huge mistake’ by US
“It’s a huge mistake on the part of the US … the world’s leading democracy. The media is one of the pillars of democracy,” Eremae said.

“It is, I believe, in the interests of the US and other democratic countries to give funding to media in countries like the Solomon Islands where we cannot survive due to lack of advertising (budgets).

As a veteran of Pacific reporting, Armbruster said he had witnessed US disinterest in the region contribute to the wider geopolitical struggle for influence.

“The US government was trying to re-establish its presence after vacating the space decades ago. It had promised to re-engage, dedicating funding largely driven by its efforts to counter China, only to now betray those expectations,” he said.

“The US government has senselessly destroyed a highly valued news service in the Pacific. An own goal.”

Ben McKay is an AAP journalist. Republished from National Indigenous Times in Australia.

While Pacific is target of geopolitics, many nations still fight for basic sovereignty

Pacific Media Watch — Sun, 25 May 2025 13:49:54 +0000

Samoan-Kiwi filmmaker Tuki Laumea checks in with indigenous communities in 10 Pacific nations for a new Al Jazeera documentary series, reports RNZ Saturday Morning.

RNZ News

As the Pacific region becomes a battleground for global power-play, many island nations are still fighting for basic sovereignty and autonomy, says Pacific filmmaker Tuki Laumea.

Pacific leaders are smart, well-educated and perfectly capable of making their own decisions, the Fight for the Pacific filmmaker told RNZ Saturday Morning, so they should be allowed to do that.

“Pacific nations all want to be able to say what it is they need without other countries coming in and trying to manipulate them for their resources, their people, and their positioning.”

READ MORE: The West v China: Fight for the Pacific – Episode 1: The Battlefield

Fight for the Pacific: Episode 1 – The Battlefield. Video: Al Jazeera

Laumea knew the Pacific was a “poor place” but filming Fight for the Pacific, he was shocked by the extreme poverty of New Caledonia’s indigenous Kanak population.

While indigenous people generally have what they need in countries like Samoa and Tonga, it is a different story in Kanaky New Caledonia, Laumea says.

Laumea and fellow journalist Cleo Fraser — who produced the series — discovered that the country was home to two divided worlds.

In the prosperous French south, people sip coffee and smoke cigarettes and seem to be “basically swimming in money”.

Pacific filmmaker Tuki Laumea . . .Kanaky New Caledonia home to two divided worlds. Image: RNZ/Nine Island Media

Living in extreme poverty
But just over the hill to the north, the Kanak people — who are 172 years into a fight for independence from French colonisers – live in extreme poverty, he says.

“People don’t have enough, and they don’t have access to the things that they really needed.”

Kanak community leader Jean Baptiste . . . how New Caledonia has been caught up in the geopolitical dynamics between the United States, China and France. Image: AJ screenshot APR

“They’re so close to us, it’s crazy. But because they’re French, no-one really speaks English much.”

The “biggest disconnect” he saw between life there and life in NZ was internet prices.

“Internet was so, so expensive. We paid probably 100 euros [around NZ$190] for 8 to 10 gig of data.

“These guys can’t afford a 50-cent baguette so we’re not going to get lots and lots of videos coming out of Kanaky New Caledonia of what their struggle looks like. We just don’t get to hear what they’ve got to say.”

Over the years, the French government has reneged on promises made to the Kanak people, Laumea says, who just want what all of us want — “a bit of a say”.

Struggling for decades
“They’ve been struggling for decades for independence, for autonomy, and it’s been getting harder. I think it’s really important that we listen now.”

With a higher rate of homelessness than any US state, the majority of dispossessed people on Hawai’i are indigenous. Image: RNZ/Nine Island Media/Grassroot Institute of Hawai’i

With a higher rate of homelessness than any US state, the majority of dispossessed people are indigenous, he says.

“You leave Waikiki — which probably not a lot of people do — and the beaches are just lined with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of homeless people, and they’re all sick, and they’re all not eating well.”

Indigenous Hawai’ians never ceded national sovereignty, Laumea says. During World War II, the land was “just taken” by the American military who still reign supreme.

“The military personnel, they all live on subsidised housing, subsidised petrol, subsidised education. All of the costs are really low for them, but that drives up the price of housing and food for everyone else.

“It’s actually devastating, and we all need to maybe have a little look at that when we’re going to places like that and how we contribute to it.”

Half of the Marshall Islands’ 50,000-strong population live in the capital city of Majuro. Image: Public domain/RNZ

Treated poorly over nuclear tests
Laumea and Fraser also visited the Marshall Islands for Fight for the Pacific, where they spoke to locals about the effects of nuclear testing carried out in the Micronesian nation between 1946 and 1958.

The incredibly resilient indigenous Marshall Islanders have been treated very poorly over the years, and are suffering widespread poverty as well as intergenerational trauma and the genetic effects of radiation, Laumea says.

“They had needles stuck in them full of radiation . . . They were used as human guinea pigs and the US has never, ever, ever apologised.”

Laumea and Fraser — who are also partners in life — found that getting a series made about the Pacific experience wasn’t easy because Al Jazeera’s huge international audience does not have much interest in the region, Laumea says.

“On the global stage, we’re very much voiceless. They don’t really care about us that much. We’re not that important. Even though we know we are, the rest of the world doesn’t think that.”

Journalist Cleo Fraser and filmmaker Tuki Laumea at work. Image: Matt Klitscher/Nine Island Media/RNZ

To ensure Fight for the Pacific (a four-part series) had “story sovereignty”, Laumea ensured the only voices heard are real Pacific residents sharing their own perspectives.

Sovereign storytellers
“We have the skills, we’re smart enough to do it, and the only thing that people should really be acknowledging are sovereign storytellers, because they’re going to get the most authentic representation of it.”

Being Pasifika himself, the enormous responsibility of making a documentary series that traverses the experiences of 10 individual Pacific cultures loomed large for Laumea.

Editing hundreds of hours of footage was often very overwhelming, he says, yet the drive to honour and share the precious stories he had gathered was also his fuel.

“That was the thing that I found the most difficult about making Fight for the Pacific but also probably the most rewarding in the end.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The West v China: Fight for the Pacific – Episode 1: The Battlefield

APR editor — Wed, 21 May 2025 10:46:16 +0000

Al Jazeera

How global power struggles are impacting in local communities, culture and sovereignty in Kanaky, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands and Samoa.

In episode one, The Battlefield, broadcast today, tensions between the United States and China over the Pacific escalate, affecting the lives of Pacific Islanders.

Key figures like former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani and tour guide Maria Loweyo reveal how global power struggles impact on local communities, culture and sovereignty in the Solomon Islands and Samoa.

WATCH: The first episode of this new series

The episode intertwines these personal stories with the broader geopolitical dynamics, setting the stage for a deeper exploration of the Pacific’s role in global diplomacy.

Fight for the Pacific, a four-part series by Tuki Laumea and Cleo Fraser, showcases the Pacific’s critical transformation into a battleground of global power.

This series captures the high-stakes rivalry between the US and China as they vie for dominance in a region pivotal to global stability.

The series frames the Pacific not just as a battleground for superpowers but also as a region with its own unique challenges and aspirations.

Republished from Al Jazeera.

Australia launches ‘landmark’ UN police peacekeeping course for Pacific region

APR editor — Mon, 19 May 2025 01:00:35 +0000

Australia has launched the world’s first UN Police Peacekeeping Training course tailored specifically for the Pacific region.

The five-week programme, hosted by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), is underway at the state-of-the-art Pacific Policing Development and Coordination Hub in Pinkenba, Brisbane.

AFP said “a landmark step” was developed in partnership with the United Nations, and brings together 100 police officers for training.

READ MORE: Other Pacific peacekeeping reports

AFP Deputy Commissioner Lesa Gale said the programme was the result of a long-standing, productive relationship between Australia and the United Nations.

Gale said it was launched in response to growing regional ambitions to contribute more actively to international peacekeeping efforts.

Participating nations are Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

“This course supports your enduring contribution and commitment to UN missions in supporting global peace and security efforts,” AFP Northern Command acting assistant commissioner Caroline Taylor said.

Pacific Command commander Phillippa Connel said the AFP had been in peacekeeping for more than four decades “and it is wonderful to be asked to undertake what is a first for the United Nations”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Pacific Islands Forum leaders advance discussions on regional reforms

APR editor — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 03:32:17 +0000

RNZ Pacific

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) troika leaders have reviewed a list of “eminent persons” with extensive knowledge on Pacific regionalism to lead discussions on regional reforms, the Cook Islands government said yesterday.

The PIF troika is a high-level regional political consultative mechanism made up of the Forum’s immediate past, present, and future chairs.

Solomon Islands is the current chair of PIF, having taken over from Tonga last year. Palau will be the next chair.

READ MORE: Other Pacific regionalism reports

The Cook Islands Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement that Prime Minister Mark Brown had joined the troika leaders on Monday to address pressing regional matters and advance discussions for strengthened regionalism as envisioned in the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.

It said the leaders reviewed the 2024 troika mission report on New Caledonia and reaffirmed the PIF’s commitment to providing constructive support for the self-determination process in New Caledonia.

They “also considered a shortlist of eminent persons with deep expertise in Pacific regionalism to spearhead consultations with leaders, relevant ministers and senior officials in a talanoa setting on regional governance reforms.

“Upon further deliberation, troika leaders will appoint one representative from each Pacific sub-region to form a gender-balanced High-Level Persons Group that will compile their findings from the consultations into a report for further consideration and endorsement by Forum members.”

Regional governance
The statement said the eminent persons initiative will contribute to the ongoing work for the Review of the Regional Architecture (RRA), which aims to ensure regional governance mechanisms are fit-for-purpose, effective, and responsive to the evolving needs of Pacific Island countries.

“Effective regional governance requires strong collective political leadership, and the troika mechanism is central to ensuring the Pacific Islands Forum remains cohesive, forward-looking, and responsive to the region’s evolving needs,” Cook Islands Foreign Secretary Tepaeru Herrmann said.

He said that as an active member of the troika, the Cook Islands remained committed to providing strategic direction that strengthened Pacific unity and reinforced our shared commitment to regional collective action.

“Through close collaboration, we are shaping regional approaches and initiatives that reflect regional priorities, uphold Pacific-led solutions, and foster deeper cooperation across the Blue Pacific,” he added.

In addition, the PIF troika leaders reaffirmed their commitment to sustaining the momentum, with a follow-up meeting scheduled for next month, as they move toward the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Honiara later this year.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Call for fresh Blue Pacific rules-based order: ‘Our home, our rules’

APR editor — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 03:09:52 +0000

COMMENTARY: By Sione Tekiteki and Joel Nilon

Ongoing wars and conflict around the world expose how international law and norms can be co-opted. With the US pulling out again from the Paris Climate Agreement, and other international commitments, this volatility is magnified.

And with the intensifying US-China rivalry in the Pacific posing the real risk of a new “arms race”, the picture becomes unmistakable: the international global order is rapidly shifting and eroding, and the stability of the multilateral system is increasingly at risk.

In this turbulent landscape, the Pacific must move beyond mere narratives such as the “Blue Pacific” and take bold steps toward establishing a set of rules that govern and protect the Blue Pacific Continent against outside forces.

If not, the region risks being submerged by rising geopolitical tides, the existential threat of climate change and external power projections.

For years, the US and its allies have framed the Pacific within the “Indo-Pacific” strategic construct — primarily aimed at maintaining US primacy and containing a rising and more ambitious China. This frame shapes how nations in alignment with the US have chosen to interpret and apply the rules-based order.

On the other side, while China has touted its support for a “rules-based international order”, it has sought to reshape that system to reflect its own interests and its aspirations for a multipolar world, as seen in recent years through international organisations and institutions.

In addition, the Taiwan issue has framed how China sets its rules of engagement with Pacific nations — a diplomatic redline that has created tension among Pacific nations, contradicting their long-held “friends to all, enemies to none” foreign policy preference, as evidenced by recent diplomatic controversies at regional meetings.

Confusing and divisive
For Pacific nations these framings are confusing and divisive — they all sound the same but underneath the surface are contradictory values and foreign policy positions.

For centuries, external powers have framed the Pacific in ways that advance their strategic interests. Today, the Pacific faces similar challenges, as superpowers compete for influence — securitising and militarising the region according to their ambitions through a host of bilateral agreements. This frame does not always prioritise Pacific concerns.

Rather it portrays the Pacific as a theatre for the “great game” — a theatre which subsequently determines how the Pacific is ordered, through particular value-sets, processes, institutions and agreements that are put in place by the key actors in this so-called game.

But the Pacific has its own story to tell, rooted in its “lived realities” and its historical, cultural and oceanic identity. This is reflected in the Blue Pacific narrative — a vision that unites Pacific nations through shared values and long-term goals, encapsulated in the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.

The Pacific has a proud history of crafting rules to protect its interests — whether through the Rarotonga Treaty for a nuclear-free zone, leading the charge for the Paris Climate Agreement or advocating for SDG 14 on oceans. Today, the Pacific continues to pursue “rules-based” climate initiatives (such as the Pacific Resilience Facility), maritime boundaries delimitation, support for the 2021 and 2023 Forum Leaders’ Declarations on the Permanency of Maritime Boundaries and the Continuation of Statehood in the face of sea level rise, climate litigation through the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and a host of other rules-based regional environmental, economic and social initiatives.

However, these efforts often exist in isolation, lacking a cohesive framework to bring them all together, and to maximise their strategic impact and leverage. Now must be the time to build on these successes and create an integrated, long-term, visionary, Pacific-centric “rules-based order”.

This could start by looking to consolidate existing Pacific rules: exploring opportunities to take forward the rules through concepts like the Ocean of Peace currently being developed by the Pacific Islands Forum, and expanding subsequently to include something like a “code of conduct” for how Pacific nations should interact with one another and with outside powers.

Responding as united bloc
This would enable them to respond more effectively and operate as a united bloc, in contrast to the bilateral approach preferred by many partners.

Over time this rules-based approach could be expanded to include other areas — such as the ongoing protection and preservation of the ocean, inclusive of deep-sea mining; the maintenance of regional peace and security, including in relation to the peaceful resolution of conflict and demilitarisation; and movement towards greater economic, labour and trade integration.

Such an order would not only provide stability within the Pacific but also contribute to shaping global norms. It would serve as a counterbalance to external strategic frames that look to define the rules that ought to be applied in the Pacific, while asserting the position of the Pacific nations in global conversations.

This is not about diminishing Pacific sovereignty but about enhancing it — ensuring that the region’s interests are safeguarded amid the geopolitical manoeuvring of external powers, and the growing wariness in and of US foreign policy.

The Pacific’s geopolitical challenges are mounting, driven by climate change, shifting global power dynamics and rising tensions between superpowers. But a collective, rules-based approach offers a pathway forward.

Cohesive set of standards
By building on existing frameworks and creating a cohesive set of standards, the Pacific can assert its autonomy, protect its environment and ensure a stable future in an increasingly uncertain world.

The time to act is now, as Pacific nations are increasingly being courted, and before it is too late. This implies though that Pacific nations have honest discussions with each other, and with Australia and New Zealand, about their differences and about the existing challenges to Pacific regionalism and how it can be strengthened.

By integrating regional arrangements and agreements into a more comprehensive framework, Pacific nations can strengthen their collective bargaining power on the global stage — while in the long-term putting in place rules that would over time become a critical part of customary international law.

Importantly, this rules-based approach must be guided by Pacific values, ensuring that the region’s unique cultural, environmental and strategic interests are preserved for future generations.

Sione Tekiteki is a senior lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology. He previously served at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in three positions over nine years, most recently as director, governance and engagement. Joel Nilon is currently senior Pacific fellow at the Pacific Security College at the Australian National University. He previously served at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat for nine years as policy adviser. The article was written in close consultation with Professor Transform Aqorau, vice-chancellor of Solomon Islands National University. Republished from DevBlog with permission.

Marshall Islands signs treaty banning nuclear weapons in the South Pacific

APR editor — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 07:14:07 +0000

RNZ Pacific

The Marshall Islands has become the 14th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member state to join the South Pacific’s nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament treaty.

The agreement, known as the Treaty of Rarotonga, was signed in Majuro during the observance of Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day on Monday.

The Pacific Islands Forum said the historic signing of the treaty on March 3 — seven decades after the most powerful nuclear weapons tests ever conducted — underscored the Marshall Islands’ enduring commitment to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

“By becoming a signatory to the Treaty of Rarotonga, the Marshall Islands has indicated its intention to be bound with a view to future ratification,” the PIF said.

“This reinforces the region’s collective stand towards a nuclear-free Pacific as envisaged by the Rarotonga Treaty and the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.”

PIF Secretary-General Baron Waqa, who is in Majuro, welcomed the move.

“This step demonstrates the nation’s unwavering commitment to nuclear disarmament,” he said.

‘Marshall Islands bears brunt of nuclear testing’
“Marshall Islands continues to bear the brunt of nuclear testing, and this signing is a testament to Forum nations’ ongoing advocacy for a safe, secure, and nuclear-weapon-free region.”

The Rarotonga Treaty was opened for signature on 6 August 1985 and entered into force on 11 December 1986.

It represents a key regional commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, contributing to global efforts to eliminate the threat of nuclear proliferation.

The decision by the Marshall Islands to sign the Rarotonga Treaty carries profound importance given its history and ongoing advocacy for nuclear justice, the PIF said.

Current member states of the treaty are Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

‘We are committed’, says Heine
“In our commitment to a world free of the dangers of nuclear weapons and for a safe and secure Pacific, today, we take a historic step by signing our accession to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Rarotonga Treaty,” President Hilda Heine said.

“We recognise that the Marshall Islands has yet to sign onto several key nuclear-related treaties, including the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), largely due to our unique historical and geopolitical circumstances.

“However, we are committed to reviewing our positions and where it is in the best interest of the RMI and its people, we will take the necessary steps toward accession.

“In the spirit of unity and collaboration, we look forward to the results of an independent study of nuclear contamination in the Pacific,” she added.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

‘Damage has been done’ – Miss Pacific pageant statement too late, say critics

Pacific Media Watch — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 12:51:18 +0000

By Lagi Keresoma in Apia

The Miss Pacific Islands Pageant (MPIP) Committee has finally issued a statement — 5 days after damaging social media attacks following the 2025 Pageant finals hosted by the Solomon Islands last Saturday.

The statement yesterday simply said the committee recognised and deeply regretted the distress caused by recent disputes concerning the result on the pageant night.

“Unfortunately, these allegations have escalated to the extent of subjecting contestants to degrading treatment and issuing threats against the lives of certain judges, thereby, detrimentally impacting the camaraderie and ethos of the pageant,” it said.

READ MORE: Other Miss Pacific beauty pageant reports

However, the statement did not address the judging controversy despite calls from around the Pacific for a proper investigation and to hold the person responsible for the false allegations of results rigging against the pageant’s head judge, Leiataualesa Jerry Brunt.

A former pageant organiser told Talamua that the statement had come “too late — too little, the damage has been done”.

The organiser said there were policies and regulations that must be followed to ensure the successful progress of the pageant and steps to be taken if such events like the allegations against a judge surfaced.

She told Talamua that the MPIP committee should have issued a statement within 24 hours of the allegations.

Opened the door to conflict
She believes that if MPIP had issued a statement earlier, it would have prevented the harsh attacks on the contestants and the head judge, but the delay had opened the door for the exchange between Samoans and Tongans on social media.

The statement did not offer an apology or reasons why a statement was not issued earlier.

It only gave an explanation on why such a pageant had been established and then acknowledged Miss Samoa Litara Ieremia Allan, the contestants, all involved in the pageant, and the host country.

According to the former pageant organiser, the MPIP seemed to take the stop notices issued on the pageant judges very lightly, which drew an unprecedented involvement of both the Solomon Islands and Samoan governments.

Although the detained judges have returned to their respectful countries, a statement from the Solomon Islands government issued yesterday said investigation was continuing based on the complaint and that formal charges would then be determined.

It should not have gone this far if the MPIP committee had done their part, said a former pageant organiser.

Republished from Talamua Online News.