Vanuatu – Asia Pacific Report

New Caledonia’s domestic airline AirCal files for bankruptcy

APR editor — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 03:23:36 +0000

By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific Desk

New Caledonia’s domestic airline Air Calédonie filed for bankruptcy on Friday, following almost a month of blockades by customers in the French Pacific territory’s outer islands.

The protest movement had been initiated by groups of angry outer islands customers who intended to oppose the company’s decision to move Air Calédonie’s operations from the Nouméa Magenta airport to New Caledonia’s international La Tontouta base, more than 50 km away from Nouméa city.

The smaller airport of Magenta, until now dedicated to domestic traffic, is located closer to Nouméa.

READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

The beginning of the protest movement, which effectively grounded all Air Calédonie aircraft, dates back to 2 March 2026.

The protesters are gathered under the name of “collective of users” and, on each participating island, are headed by local chiefs who are invoking custom rights.

In terms of law and order, and in defence of the principle of freedom of movement and “territorial continuity”, on the part of French State representatives, there have been no attempts to disrupt the movement by force.

But negotiations have been taking place with leaders in order to find a concerted way out of the blockades.

Economic stakeholders have also alerted authorities of the negative repercussions of the inter-island crisis, especially on tourism and hospitality-related businesses.

On some islands, views expressed range from an outright rejection of any aircraft landing, while others would accept the landing of aircraft from other airlines, but not from Air Calédonie.

Outer islands airports blockaded
Following weeks of blockade that have caused heavy losses for the company — dubbed “AirCal” — its board of directors, at a meeting on Friday in the capital Nouméa, decided to file for bankruptcy.

It said the current situation was no longer sustainable.

The blockade affected all of AirCal’s outer islands destinations, including the Loyalty Islands (Maré, Lifou, Ouvéa and Tiga) and the Isle of Pines (south of the main island of Grande Terre).

One of the options, if approved by a court, could allow a resumption of operations, if the process is deemed sustainable.

The company said under the proposed process, all debts would be frozen and provided it was allowed to resume inter-island flights, Air Calédonie could continue operating.

But if the plan is not approved by the judges, this could also mean an order for the company to go into receivership.

AirCal said the situation currently affected “almost 200 families”.

Vanuatu connection
Air Calédonie, in its embryonic form, started operations in the mid-1950s.

It currently operates a fleet of four turbo-prop ATR-72 aircraft.

Due to previous hardships faced recently (including the covid crisis, which also badly affected inter-islands operations), Air Calédonie had also entered into agreements with Air Vanuatu in October 2025 to lease one of its aircraft for the neighbouring archipelago’s domestic airlinks, including to and from the capital Port Vila and Vanuatu’s other main islands of Espiritu Santo (North) and Tanna (South).

In September 2024, a Nouméa-Port Vila bi-weekly link was also established under a codeshare agreement between Air Calédonie and Air Calédonie international aboard an ATR-72 aircraft.

At the time, the agreement was perceived as one step towards a possible merger of the two entities’ domestic and international operations, in a bid to save costs in the face of recent crises.

The recent crisis situation was also compounded by the riots that broke out in New Caledonia — mainly in the capital Nouméa and its surrounding area — in May 2024.

The unrest caused about 14 dead and material damage of over 2 billion euros (about NZ$ 4 billion) due to arson and looting.

But it also affected the capacity to operate domestic and international flights out of the airports of Nouméa La Tontouta and New Caledonia’s outer islands.

The plan to relocate Air Cal’s operations from Magenta to La Tontouta had been mooted by previous governments of New Caledonia, on the basis that if the move was not effected, then the company would not survive.

‘It looks as if someone wants the death of AirCal — Alcide Ponga
Commenting on the blockade, New Caledonia local government President Alcide Ponga was blunt. He told local media earlier this week: “It looks as if someone wants the death of AirCal.”

However, one of the blockaded small airports, on the Isle of Pines (South of Nouméa), announced earlier this week its intention to re-allow traffic, on the condition that Air Calédonie lands again at the small and nearby airport of Nouméa-Magenta and not at the main La Tontouta base.

The main shareholders of Air Calédonie are the government of New Caledonia and its three provinces (North, South and the Loyalty Islands group).

During heated debates on Thursday at New Caledonia’s Congress, politicians and board members from across the political chessboard called on the company to re-engage in negotiations to attempt an agreement to re-open all of the blockaded outer islands airfields and thus bring in fresh cash.

Another cash-generating option also envisaged by the company would be to persuade the board and stakeholders to set aside a financial package so that the company can go on operating.

Earlier this month, Air Calédonie was forced to put half of its staff into temporary unemployment mode, because the company’s financial situation (a cash flow estimated at only 3 million euros) did not allow any salary payment beyond April 2026.

Air Calédonie said it remained “mobilised to save a vital company for New Caledonia and design a viable recovery plan”.

A similar plan was already implemented in 2024 in the wake of the post-riots crisis.

A first humanitarian special flight took place on 21 March 2026 to transport about 50 patients between Ouvéa island and the capital Nouméa. Image: New Caledonia govt

Humanitarian special flights for patients
In recent days, New Caledonia’s government introduced the notion of humanitarian “sanitary corridors” in the form of special flights to transport selected patients in dire need of care to and from the outer islands and the capital Nouméa, at an estimated cost of some 13,500 euros (about NZ$27,000) per trip.

In the Loyalty Islands, several tourism and hospitality facilities have also suffered the brunt of the disruption of inter-island traffic.

Some of those have already been forced to either close down or enter into receivership.

No maritime alternative
The situation is further compounded by serious technical problems faced by the alternative means of inter-island transport — the ferry Betico has also been unable to operate, on a regular basis, over the past few months.

The ship is currently undergoing repairs to one of its engines and it announced tentative resumption of operations next week on April 3, the operating company said.

Until then, all trips to and from Nouméa have been cancelled.

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

Former Vanuatu Daily Post media director Dan McGarry leaves legacy

Pacific Media Watch — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 04:05:31 +0000

OBITUARY: Vanuatu Daily Post

The Vanuatu Daily Post is deeply saddened to learn of the sudden passing of Dan McGarry, our former media director. McGarry was a fearless investigative journalist, photographer, and software professional who made a lasting contribution to the development of the Daily Post.

He managed media content across the company’s publications, website, and social media platforms, while also shaping the wider media landscape in Vanuatu.

Before formally joining the organisation in 2015, he wrote regular columns under the pseudonym Graham Crumb.

VANUATU DAILY POST

Prior to joining the Daily Post, McGarry was part of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PiPP), an independent, non-profit, regionally focused think tank based in Port Vila. He also worked with Computer Network Services (CNS) as technical manager during its early years.

Reports indicate that McGarry, 62, fell ill following a trip to Papua New Guinea earlier this month and was evacuated to Brisbane.

He faced complications during recovery and remained in critical care in recent weeks. At the time of his passing, McGarry was serving as Pacific editor for the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

McGarry was a leading voice in Pacific journalism, driven by a strong sense of justice and commitment to the public good.

He is survived by his wife and children. His passing leaves a profound gap in the media community.

The Vanuatu Daily Post extends its heartfelt condolences to his family during this difficult time and stands with them in mourning this loss.

Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post.

‘He will never be replaced’ – tributes flow for ‘fearless’ Vanuatu journalist Dan McGarry

Pacific Media Watch — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 21:39:39 +0000

OBITUARY: RNZ Pacific

Tributes are pouring in from across the region for “fearless” and “formidable” Vanuatu journalist Dan McGarry, who died on Wednesday.

McGarry, 62, fell ill after a trip to Papua New Guinea earlier this month, from where he had to be evacuated to Brisbane to undergo a heart bypass.

But he faced complications during his recovery and had remained in critical care for the past few weeks.

McGarry, who was a former editor of Vanuatu’s only national newspaper, the Vanuatu Daily Post, and Pacific editor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) at the time of his death, has left behind his wife and children.

“It’s with great heartbreak that I have to announce that the legendary Dan McGarry passed away earlier today,” Aubrey Belford, who was a co-editor with McGarry at OCCRP, said in a Facebook post.

“Dan was an absolutely dominating presence in Pacific journalism and in the region more generally.

“Dan was compassionate, sharing, and always motivated by a sense of justice and the common good. He was driven but also understood the importance of patience, friendship, and community.

‘A shell or more of kava’
“When home in Vanuatu he loved nothing more than finishing his day with a shell or more of kava, satisfied in the knowledge he had found his place in the world.”

Belford added McGarry’s loss was devastating not just for his family but for all journalists working in the region.

“He will be missed, and he will never be replaced.”

Another friend and colleague, Andrew Gray, said McGarry was “a good man”.

“After a hard life he finally found happiness in Vanuatu, and he did a lot more for the country than people appreciate. Last time I saw him he was planning his retirement at Lalwori.

“Condolences to Line McGarry Watsivi and their daughters.”

InsidePNG described McGarry as “more than just a colleague, a titan of regional journalism and a tireless advocate for the truth”.

‘Wealth of experience’
“As the former editor of the Vanuatu Daily Post, he brought a wealth of experience and a fearless spirit to every project he touched. Dan was absolutely instrumental in the birth of our investigative centre in Port Moresby.

“He didn’t just help set the foundation, he guided and mentored InsidePNG through our most critical work, building a lasting connection with our team that went far beyond professional duty,” the news outlet said in a social media post.

Kiribati journalist Rimon Rimon, who worked with McGarry, described him as “one of the brilliant minds I had the privilege of working closely with in our OCCRP investigations!”

The University of the South Pacific’s head of journalism associate professor Dr Shailendra Singh said McGarry’s passing is “profoundly felt across the Pacific media community, where his contributions as journalist, trainer and mentor have made a lasting impact”.

“He will be greatly missed. My thoughts are with his loved ones during this difficult time.”

RNZ Pacific manager Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor said McGarry’s presence would be missed.

“Dan McGarry was one of the best – a champion of the truth.”

Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie said: “Vale Dan McGarry. A stunning loss to investigative journalism and media courage and integrity in Vanuatu and the Pacific. A friend and mentor to all.

“Farewell Dan and many thanks for your inspiration and mentoring. Deepest condolences to whānau. RIP.”

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

Pacific governments warn against panic buying as war on Iran threatens fuel supply

APR editor — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 01:01:01 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Pacific Island governments are urging their citizens not to panic about the supply of fuels amid the conflict in the Middle East between Israel, the United States and Iran.

The conflict has resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route that carries around 20 percent of the world’s oil (20 million barrels a day), by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The IRGC has warned that any ship passing through the strait would be attacked, triggering a near-total halt in vessels attempting to pass through the waterway, causing a surge in oil prices.

However, according to Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the Strait of Hormuz is closed only to Iran’s “enemies and their allies”, the IRGC-aligned Tasnim News Agency reported.

US President Donald Trump has demanded that allies send naval vessels to the Middle East to help escort ships through the strait.

Pacific Islands nations get nearly all of their refined fuel from refineries in Singapore, South Korea and Japan. But roughly 80 percent of the crude oil used by these Asian refineries passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Fiji government said on Monday that fuel supplies in the country were sufficient to meet energy needs for the next few months.

“There is no need to indulge in ‘panic buying’ at the service station,” it said in a statement.

Leading shipping companies have suspended operations through the Strait of Hormuz amid escalating Middle East crisis. Map: OFI Magazine

Closely monitoring the war
It added that the government was closely monitoring the US-Israel war on Iran, and meeting with local suppliers who had already secured fuel supplies.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and his cabinet were meeting today “to firm-up on the plan of action for the long-term, if there is no resolution to the conflict in the near future”.

Tonga’s government has also called on Tongans not to queue at petrol stations.

“There is no immediate need for concern or panic buying of fuel,” the Tonga Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

“We are assured by the energy sector that there is sufficient fuel available for now.”

Samoa’s Prime Minister Laaulialemalietoa Leuatea Polataivao Schmidt said his government’s immediate priority was to ensure that the country had enough fuel supply to meet its needs.

“What is happening . . . we can’t control, but we are working to ensure we have enough fuel for the next one or two years because we do not know what’s going to happen next,” La’auli said during a joint press conference with New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon yesterday.

Current stocks sufficient
Vanuatu’s government said it has engaged with Pacific Energy, Vanuatu’s primary fuel importer and supplier, to assess potential impacts on national fuel supply.

“Pacific Energy reports current stocks are sufficient to cover usual consumption, the company’s supply programme, based on a three-month rolling forecast, is secured, and no shortages are anticipated in the foreseeable future,” the Ministry of the Prime Minister in Vanuatu said in a statement.

In the Solomon Islands, the country’s central bank said that while the fuel prices at the petrol stations were currently stable, “the impact of the oil price shock is expected to be felt from April 2026 onwards”.

“Preliminary assessment indicates that sustained increases in global oil prices are likely to push up domestic fuel costs, thereby feeding into higher imported inflation and overall headline inflation,” the Central Bank of Solomon Islands said in a statement.

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

Vanuatu newspaper faces football coverage ban after ‘lesbianism’ headline

Pacific Media Watch — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 23:48:45 +0000

By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist

Vanuatu’s only daily newspaper, the Vanuatu Daily Post, is facing a ban on covering future football league matches after publishing an article with the headline: “Former women’s coach says lesbianism is a reason Vanuatu women’s squad keeps losing”.

The outlet ran a story on March 6 featuring an interview with a former women’s team coach, Emmanuel Vatu, that criticised in-team relationships as an occasional distraction.

While Vatu had not been quoted directly, the Vanuatu Daily Post ran the story with a social media caption that blamed “lesbianism” for poor results by the women’s national team, who lost all three group games in the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027 Oceania Qualifiers held in Fiji.

READ MORE: Other Pacific football reports

“Sexual relationships with teammates would lead to distraction during matches,” the newspaper reported.

“He witnessed his players at the time, more focused on their personal relationships off the field, rather than developing their skills on the field.”

In response, Vanuatu Football Federation (VFF) released a statement, saying that the comments were “defamatory” and denigrating to female players.

“They have every right to pursue the necessary means to address these negative and harmful comments,” a statement read.

‘Committed to equality’
“We will not allow such rhetoric to diminish the achievements and contributions of our women’s team. We remain committed to promoting equality and ensuring football is a welcoming environment for all.”

On March 9, the Vanuatu Daily Post reported that VFF president Lambert Matlock, who is also the president of the Oceania Football Confederation, had threatened to ban their journalists from their games via email.

Lead reporter Mavuku Tokona told RNZ Pacific they are unapologetic.

“In his interview [Vatu] actually emphasised the fact on how many women that are involved [in] sexual relations on the field,” Tokona said.

“He said it’s explosive, or something along those lines.”

Tokoma said the term “lesbian” was used as a catch-all term because there is no word for it in Bislama.

“In order to encapsulate all of that, we had to phrase it that way.”

Ban effectively begun
He said the ban has effectively begun, with his reporters missing out on invites as of Wednesday last week.

Tokona said the “lesbian” comments were just an excuse for years of mistreatment by the VFF.

He believes the Vanuatu Daily Post has been given the cold shoulder by sports bodies because they ask tough questions, saying he often relied on his competitors to stay in the loop.

“There was a strategic launch of the National Women’s Team, and they decided not to invite us,” he said.

He said when a “small female” reporter from the newspaper headed along despite not receiving an invitation, she faced “verbal abuse”.

“They usually heckle her while she’s walking in, threaten her, intimidate her . . . I usually force her to go anyway,” Tokona said.

The VFF has been approached for comment.

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

‘A global energy crisis’ – Fuel price hike looms for Pacific amid Iran war

APR editor — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 23:00:01 +0000

By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist

Analysts are warning fuel prices are expected to jump in the Pacific following the Israeli and US attacks on Iran, and the retaliatory response by Iran.

Iran borders the Strait of Hormuz, which carries 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supply, and shipments have been suspended following the attacks.

Crude oil prices could climb as high as US$100 per barrel, leading to widespread concerns the Middle East war could precipitate into “a global energy crisis”.

Pacific Island fuel prices are generally high and volatile due to import dependency and shipping distance.

Saul Kanovic, an energy sector analyst at MST Financial in Sydney, told RNZ Pacific the “threat is severe”.

“If the situation doesn’t de-escalate and the passage through [the Strait of Hormuz] remains significantly disrupted, we’re looking at a global energy crisis that we haven’t seen since the 1970s,” Kanovic said.

“This could be bigger than that.”

Isolated nations suffer
Kanovic said that more isolated nations with less diversified economies would suffer from a greater exposure to these price shocks.

“Cost of transport is going to go up from a fuel cost perspective, but we might also see insurance premiums rising.”

In the Pacific, imported fuel is usually paid for by forward contracts in advance, and in bulk orders that can last months, as a hedge against price shocks.

But the impact could embed itself into freight costs, both for shipping and air, which in the Pacific is already relatively high given the distance.

Glen Craig, Vanuatu’s special envoy for international development, told RNZ Pacific the severity of the impact would depend on whether the duration of the conflict outpaced a Pacific nation’s petroleum reserves.

Not yet ‘panicking’
“No one is panicking now, but there is definitely going to be some fuel price increases at some stage,” Craig said.

“We should be okay, but it depends on how big and how long this conflict is going to go for.”

When it hits, Craig said it would likely be reflected in all imported goods on Pacific shelves, as well as tourism and regional travel.

“It’s a bit like if you’re on a busy motorway, and there’s an accident on the road 30 km ahead; it might take half an hour to trickle down to the end, but it eventually gets to you.”

“I would dare say we’re looking at something in maybe four months’ time.”

Papau New Guinea set to ‘definitely benefit’ – minister
Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko saw some potential upside for his country as a petroleum and oil exporter.

“It will definitely benefit PNG, but then there’s the other side, where fuel prices for the domestic market will then go up,” Tkatchenko said.

PNG is predominantly a petroleum gas exporter, with China, Japan and Taiwan as its biggest importers.

With LNG prices impacted by the Middle East, but PNG protected by distance, it leaves a shortage that they can fill.

“Unfortunately, it’s the consumers that will cop it, the people, and they are the ones that end up paying for it,” Tkatchenko said.

“So yeah, it’s good in one way, but definitely won’t help out people in the long run.”

A higher price means a higher tax take. According to its 2025 budget, PNG’s mining and petroleum tax drew in roughly US$971 million, a 16.5 percent increase from 2024.

The MPT, which is linked to gains from the sale of mining and petroleum goods, comprises PNG’s second largest source of tax revenue.

It may put the government in a position where it can commit to supporting consumers through any eventual price shock, as Prime Minister James Marape told local media over the weekend.

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.

Beyond Gaza, Israel pushes to occupy more of the West Bank

APR editor — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 22:05:50 +0000

While the world has focused on the atrocities in Gaza, Israel continues its support of illegal settlements, hostility and apartheid in the West Bank. Asia-Pacific specialist journalist Ben Bohane reports from Bethlehem for Michael West Media.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Ben Bohane

We are no more than 5 minutes out of Bethlehem on a crisp December morning when my Palestinian driver — let’s call him Ahmed — stops and points to a curl of smoke rising in the valley below, near Beit Jala.

“That’s a local restaurant the Israeli’s are burning since last night. They demand permits even when it is on family land. Israel then gives demolition orders, and no one can stop them.”

It’s the day before Christmas. I’m in the West Bank and Israel for a month to see the situation for myself, to try and understand how this comparatively small area continues to hijack history and our news agenda.

Photojournalist and producer Ben Bohane . . . “Israel has killed more journalists in the past three years than any other government in history.” Image: BB/MWM

Gaza remains off-limits to all foreign media attempting to report on Israel’s genocide there, so I can’t go.

The international Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) states 249 media personnel have been killed so far by Israel in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Israel and Iran since the Gaza war began.

Israel has killed more journalists in the past three years than any other government in history,

assassinating more than all media personnel killed in all the wars of the 20th century combined.

Israel has also now banned many reputable international NGOs from operating there. In late January, the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) finally acknowledged the death toll tally compiled by Palestinian health authorities as accurate, saying it believed 71,000 people had been killed so far — the death toll is now more than 72,000.

I’ve come to the other front, the West Bank, as Israeli settlers and the IDF establish new illegal settlements and make life difficult for Palestinians just trying to eke out a living.

While I’m there, Israel announces 19 new settlements, bringing to 69 the number of new settlements approved in the past few years.

They are slowly circling and strangling Palestinian towns by taking the high ground on hilltops, establishing their own roads to link up with other settlements, and destroying ancient olive groves which locals have long relied on for a meagre income.

Some of these trees are many hundreds of years old, and their desecration seems somehow symbolic of Israel’s attempts to change history and geography.

“We are trapped here”, says Ahmed. “Ever since October 7, Israel has closed off our access to Jerusalem and the rest of Israel. A lot of businesses are struggling to survive after 5 years of shutdowns — first it was covid, and then the Gaza war. No tourists for years.”

Unless they are employed in one of a handful of jobs, such as in hospitals or working for a Christian organisation, Palestinians in the West Bank can’t leave. Denied both Palestinian statehood and Israeli citizenship,

West Bank Palestinians are caught in a limbo where they can’t travel into wider Israel or beyond.

“Israel controls all our movements, all our water, and controls our petrol supply”, says Ahmed. “The only thing they don’t control is the air we breathe, and if they could control that, they would.”

Bulldozer warfare
We visit a home recently bulldozed by settlers and fields uprooted because they were considered too close to the expanding nearby Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit. As locals lose access to their olive orchards, the only trees safe are those within towns or around their homes.

I see a young boy with a wheelbarrow full of seedlings and uprooted olive saplings moving towards a nearby field. Ahmed translates:

“The boy says that part of their resistance is to immediately replant the olive trees when settlers chop them down. The olives aren’t just an income for us, they are part of our identity on this land.”

We have to be quick when visiting the contested edges of these towns and fields, as settlers are always watching from nearby hilltops and the IDF can be on the scene in less than 5 minutes. On two occasions, my driver yells to get us back in the car for a hurried exit when he spots settlers driving down to intercept us.

Returning to Bethlehem, the annual Christmas parade is underway. Hundreds of Palestinian, Arab and Armenian Christians in uniforms march along roads leading to Manger Square in the heart of Bethlehem.

Palestinian Authority police guard the route and churches, including the Orthodox Basilica of the Nativity, first begun by Emperor Constantine’s Christian mother Saint Helena in the 4th century. Under this Byzantine church is a grotto where Jesus was supposedly born.

This is the first time in two years that Christmas celebrations, including a huge Christmas tree, have taken place. With few foreign tourists, shops in Bethlehem are happy to see many Muslim families from across the West Bank visiting with children to see Santa and the holy sites. It’s a peaceful time with Christian and Muslim families celebrating together.

I met Father Issa Thaljieh, a Palestinian (Greek Orthodox) priest overseeing the Basilica.

“Issa” is the Muslim name for Jesus. He says the number of Christians continues to dwindle, from 10 percent of the Palestinian population during the British mandate period 100 years ago, to around 1 percent today. Most live overseas now, with Israel incentivising their departure.

Apartheid
One thing I hadn’t known until I came here is that Israelis are forbidden from entering any West Bank towns. At the entrance to many towns I visited, including Jericho and Bethlehem, are large road signs in red warning Israeli citizens not to enter.

Although usually framed as a security measure to prevent kidnapping, it has the additional impact of preventing ordinary Israelis and Palestinians from mixing together and stops Israelis from really understanding what is going on across the West Bank. It underlined the sense of apartheid, along with the long winding separation wall that snakes between Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank.

Always interested in art and graffiti as forms of resistance, I cruise a length of the wall, near two refugee camps inside Bethlehem and come across artist Banksy’s “Walled Off” hotel, which had only reopened the week before after 5 years of closure.

Upstairs is a gallery supporting local artists, downstairs a museum about the wall and “occupation”, along with a chintzy piano bar styled like a frontier saloon.

The hotel faces a section of the wall emblazoned with graffiti and promises “the worst views in the world”. The wall began construction substantially in 2002, runs for 810 kms and is Israel’s biggest infrastructure project. Banksy’s museum quotes the man put in charge of the build, Danny Tirza:

“The main thing the government told me in giving me the job was,

to include as many Israelis inside the fence and leave as many Palestinians outside as possible.

Down the road, a number of local stores have popped up selling cheap Banksy merch, and apparently, Banksy is fine with all the rip-offs.

Other days are spent visiting Jericho and Hebron with its shrine containing the tomb of Abraham, patriarch of all the monotheistic faiths.

It is a town often at flashpoint between Palestinians and hardcore Israeli settlers who have moved right into pockets of the town, protected by IDF soldiers. A day trip to Ramallah is aborted when my driver says that Israeli forces had entered that morning to destroy dozens of shops and shot two people.

“It’s too dangerous today to visit, and besides, it would take us 5 hours to get through the checkpoints instead of one hour as normal,” he says.

Every day across the West Bank, Palestinians must navigate security challenges, declining business and hungry families. Given the impunity with which Israel operates in Gaza, Palestinians across the West Bank are still standing their ground, but without much hope that the international community will stop Israel’s encroachment.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government wants to extinguish any hope of a two-state solution, but Palestinians will not cede their homes — or their olive trees — easily.

Ben Bohane is Vanuatu-based photojournalist and producer who has reported for global media for more than three decades on religion and war across the world, mainly in the Asia-Pacific region. His website. Republished with permission,

Vanuatu citizenship sales strong despite currency hassles and integrity issues

APR editor — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 21:46:16 +0000

By Johnny Blades, RNZ Pacific bulletin editor

With all the setbacks of recent years, Vanuatu’s citizenship sale schemes should be dead in the water — instead they are thriving, and geopolitical chaos is playing a part.

The citizenship-by-investment sector is the biggest single revenue earner for Vanuatu’s government, but lingering issues of integrity cast a shadow over it.

In 2024, when Vanuatu became the first country to lose its European Union visa-free access over concerns about its golden passport scheme, there were fears it would be a huge blow to the sector.

READ MORE: Other Vanuatu passport sale reports

But designated agents for Vanuatu’s citizenship programmes have told RNZ Pacific this has not necessarily hurt them much, as their product has other benefits and passport holders can still apply to access Europe.

However, Vanuatu’s continued inclusion on an EU anti-money laundering blacklist hurts more, Francesca Grillon of approved agent Yawha & Associates said.

Currency hassles
Grillon said the decision to stop visa-free entry was not a major downfall for the citizenship programme.

“I think the main issue we are having is the blacklisting from Europe, because that that is an obstacle for receiving funds in foreign currency,” she said.

This issue came to a head last September when the Commonwealth Bank of Australia — which served as the correspondent bank for the National Bank of Vanuatu — advised it would no longer facilitate transfers for certified agents in the citizenship programmes

Melten Menauke of Smart Citizenship Vanuatu explained that this left the government in a bind over how it collects the donations and fees that foreign applicants pay.

“The National Bank is still looking for a correspondent bank to accept US dollars. I don’t know what is happening with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

“US currency was the first one they blocked, and now they are no longer accepting [Australian dollars]. They’re only accepting Japanese yen,” he said, adding that this created costly hurdles for agents and applicants alike.

Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila . . . integrity issues are not just creating pressure on Vanuatu’s citizenship sector internationally. Image: RNZ Pacific

But integrity issues are not just creating pressure on Vanuatu’s citizenship sector internationally.

‘Nobody trusts anyone’
A Commission of Inquiry into the citizenship programmes was initiated by Vanuatu’s government in 2024 following concerns about corrupt practices involving the sale of citizenship and misuse of the programmes for personal and political gain.

But the inquiry report has still not been made public, eight months after it was officially handed to the government. As calls for its release continue, Jenny Ligo, the chairperson of Women Against Crime and Corruption in Vanuatu, said citizenship schemes had been misled by political interests.

“That programme needs to be taken out totally. Because most of the projects under programmes in Vanuatu, it always ties in with pollitics and politicians,” Ligo said.

“This is all wrong. We need neutral people to run these programmes. But at the moment nobody trusts anyone.”

Vanuatu’s government has had a lot to contend with in the last few years, including responding to major disasters — earthquakes and cyclones — and the challenge of creating much-needed political reform. However, addressing the integrity problems of the citizenship-by-investment schemes is high on its priotiy list

Grillon said the government had been taking the right steps to improve compliance with regulations and rules, including strengthening the Financial Intelligence Unit which screens applicants.

“There’s a lot of effort, both from the high level government and directorship and public servants, in trying to really follow the international advice, and the newly introduced laws and doing everything properly.”

In demand
Overall, the sector is doing well. According to the Vanuatu Daily Post, citizenship sale receipts made up the bulk of the US$31 million in revenue in the past year — 24.3 percent more than what was forecast, with around 2000 foreigners granted citizenship last year.

Interest remains strong in several foreign markets, Norman Joseph of JG Marketing, Consulting and Recruitment Agency said.

“We have Chinese, we have Indonesians, we have Russians. Most of them are from different countries but they also have passports from different countries,” Joseph said.

“So they come in, for example, some might be Chinese but they also have a Mexican passport, so they apply from a Mexican passport.”

Vanuatu flags . . . the passports are attractive for a variety of reasons. Image: RNZ Pacific

Ros Stanford of designated agent Stanford Knight said the Vanuatu passport was attractive for a variety of reasons.

“So, either for visa free travel — so global mobility is one option; for those that actually physically want to reside for tax benefits; and then we have a lot of clients currently who just want a safe like a Plan B, a safe alternative residence, in case things turn to custard globally.”

On the latter reason, Stanford said they had seen an uptick in the last couple of years, a reflection of ongoing ruptures in the global geopolitical order.

Even without visa-free access to Europe, and despite the concerns of ni-Vanuatu about its commodification, Vanuatu Citizenship is in demand — and agents tout it as one of the fastest citizenships to get any where in the world.

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

Bonds, blockings and bans – a massive new-year US shakeup for Pacific travel

APR editor — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:56:09 +0000

By Kaya Selby, RNZ Pacific journalist

From heavy visa bonds to suspended applications to straight-up travel bans, the United States has implemented or announced sweeping restrictions on Pacific travel in just the first two weeks of 2026.

Confirmed on Thursday, Fiji is among a list of 75 countries for which the US will suspend the issue of migration visas next week from January 21.

The suspension does not apply to non-immigrant visas, such as for tourism or business.

At the same time, many Pacific Island countries will now have to pay bonds of up to US$15,000 to enter the country on a temporary visa.

And two weeks ago, The Guardian reported a complete freeze on all visa applications for Tongan citizens had come into force, impacting a community of around 79,000 Tongan Americans, according to latest estimates.

What happened?
A leaked State Department memo said the government was targeting nationalities more likely to require public assistance while living in the US.

“The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America’s immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people,” the US State Department said in a statement reported by the Associated Press.

“Immigrant visa processing from these 75 countries will be paused while the State Department reassess immigration processing procedures to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who would take welfare and public benefits.”

In terms of travel restrictions, it puts these pacific island nations in league with the likes of Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Somalia, and even Venezuela.

Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has gone as far as to tell the Fiji Sun on Friday that his nation “brought it on ourselves.”

“We rank very highly. They are illegal immigrants. They are there without authority and must be dealt with according to the law of the United States.” Rabuka said.

“We have to take the bull by the horns and make sure we comply with the new rules that will be placed on us.”

Who has been impacted?
Fijians, Tongans, Tuvaluans and Ni-Vans. Tongans most of all.

The suspension took out B-1 (Business), B-2 (Tourist), F (Student), M (Vocational), and J (Exchange Visitor) visas, but it left the door open for existing holders, as well as these exceptions:

Immigrant visas for ethnic and religious minorities facing persecution in Iran
Dual nationals applying with a passport of a nationality not subject to a suspension
Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) for some US government employees
Participants in certain major sporting events
Existing Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs)

Though the US State Department has remained tight-lipped about its reasons for targeting Tonga in particular, White House releases have pointed to high overstay rates, and concerns around Citizenship By Investment (CBI) passport schemes that lack secure background checking.

This would implicate Tonga, which may be developing a CBI scheme of their own, along with countries like Vanuatu and Nauru.

As for Fiji, immigration visas are off the table, but visitor visa categories are still open.

The two countries, alongside Tuvalu and Vanuatu, are on a list of countries included in the new US Visa Bond Pilot Programme, requiring a US$10,000 visa bond, a significant personal cost for a developing state.

Those bonds could be increased or decreased per application based on personal circumstances, with a cap of US$15,000.

What’s the logic?
Core to the Trump Administration’s philosophy towards migration is that those who enter the US (legally, that is) need to be able to pay their own way.

Based on social media activity, one of the many benchmarks for this standard could be the extent to which migrant households depend on US institutions, such as welfare, healthcare and other forms of support.

In a post on Truth Social on January 7, Trump released a chart detailing how often these households receive welfare and public assistance in the US.

Several Pacific nations featured highly on Trump’s chart, with the Marshall Islands ranking fourth on the list at 71.4 percent.

Other Pacific countries include Samoa at 63.4, Federated States of Micronesia at 58.1, Tonga at 54.4, and Fiji at 40.8.

American Samoa, a US territory, featured at 42.9 percent.

By the numbers
All the same, Pacific Islanders make up a relatively minor percentage of the immigrant population. The US Migration Policy Institute estimates that, as of 2023 there are 166,389 immigrants currently in the US who were born in Oceania (other than Australia and New Zealand).

On those estimates, islanders would make up 0.3 percent of foreign-born Americans. So while Trump’s figures may create the impression of big-league dole bludging, it is really a fraction of the overall picture.

All the same, it is not as though the US is not guilty of sweeping up Pacific states onto migrant ban lists that ought not be there.

Take Tuvalu for instance: in July they were included on a list of countries where visa bans were being strongly considered . . . by accident.

The microstate sought and obtained written assurance from the US that this was a mistake, to which the US pointed to “an administrative and systemic error on the part of the US Department of State”.

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

Former French Foreign Legion soldier key suspect in Vanuatu VT49m heist

APR editor — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 23:53:17 +0000

By Doddy Morris in Port Vila

The Vanuatu Police Force (VPF) has confirmed that the prime suspect in a Port Vila armed robbery is a former member of the French Foreign Legion, who served around 2019.

Allegations had circulated on social media for the past four days, but yesterday it was officially confirmed that the mastermind of the robbery on December 29 is an ex-Legionnaire with operational experience.

The French Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère) is an elite, volunteer military corps within the French Army, known for accepting foreign nationals from around the world to serve in challenging overseas missions.

The Legion, established in 1831, is famous for its rigorous selection, demanding training, and unique traditions, including name changes and an emphasis on “honour and fidelity.”

Legionnaires serve in roles such as infantry, engineers, and airborne troops, undergoing intense physical and mental tests to build cohesion and serve France’s global interests.

Social media posts suggest the suspect was deployed in conflict zones, highlighting the level of military training and experience he may have gained.

The robbery, described as a “well-coordinated and professionally executed armed robbery,” took place at Bauerfield International Airport, a critical infrastructure site.

Western Union vehicle
Three suspects in a minivan with an unauthorised number plate closely followed a Western Union vehicle carrying cash to the airport.

The suspects blocked the vehicle at the Vanuatu Terminal Services Limited (VTSL) building, assaulted the driver, and stole NZ$700,000 (about VT49 million). They then escaped swiftly in the minivan.

The police launched an official investigation on December 30 at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Within three days, they started arresting suspects, thanks to strong collaboration with the community of Port Vila and support from the Government of Vanuatu through the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

A total of eight suspects have been arrested so far. Seven have been remanded at the Correctional Centre, including a female suspect, while the prime suspect remains in police custody.

Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran confirmed that the .22-calibre firearm used in the robbery, the getaway vehicle, and 99 percent of the stolen cash had been recovered.

He also expressed gratitude to the public, the Vanuatu government and other stakeholders for their support in the investigation.

While the investigation continues, Commissioner Bongran urged the public not to take the law into their own hands and assured citizens, residents, and visitors that Vanuatu remained safe.

Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post.

Vanuatu Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran . . . eight suspects have been arrested so far, seven – including a woman – have been remanded at the Correctional Centre. Image: Vanuatu Daily Post

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

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.

NZ police chief acknowledges impact of criminal deportees on Pacific

APR editor — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 01:07:41 +0000

RNZ Pacific

New Zealand’s police commissioner says he understands the potential impact the country’s criminal deportees have on smaller Pacific Island nations.

Commissioner Richard Chambers’ comments on RNZ Pacific Waves come as the region’s police bosses gathered for the annual Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police conference in Waitangi.

The meeting, which is closed to media, began yesterday.

READ MORE: Other Pacific police reports

Chambers said a range of issues were on the agenda, including transnational organised crime and the training of police forces.

Inspector Riki Whiu, of Northland police, leads (from right), Secretary-General of Interpol Valdecy Urquiza, Vanuatu Police Commissioner Kalshem Bongran and Northern Mariana Islands Police Commissioner Anthony Macaranas during the pōwhiri. Image: RNZ/Peter de Graaf

Across the Pacific, the prevalence of methamphetamine and its role in driving social, criminal and health crises have thrust the problem of organised crime into the spotlight.

Commissioner Chambers said New Zealand had offered support to its fellow Pacific nations to combat transnational organised crime, in particular around the narcotics trade.

Deportation policies
However, the country’s own transnational crime advisory group also identified the country’s deportation policies as a “significant contributor to the rise of organised crime in the Pacific”.

In 2022, a research report showed that New Zealand returned 400 criminal deportees to Pacific nations between 2013 and 2018.

The report from the Lowy Institute also said criminal deportees from New Zealand, as well as Australia and the US, were a significant contributor to transnational crime in the Pacific.

Te Waaka Popata-Henare, of the Treaty Grounds cultural group Te Pito Whenua, leads the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police to Te Whare Rūnanga for a formal welcome. Image: RNZ/Peter de Graaf

When Chambers was asked about the issue and whether New Zealand’s criminal deportation policy undermined work against organised crime across the region, he said it had not been raised with him directly.

“The criminal networks that we are dealing with, in particular those such as the cartels out of South America, the CJNG [cartels] and Sinaloa cartels, who really do control a lot of the cocaine and also methamphetamine trades, also parts of Asia with the Triads,” Commissioner Chambers said.

“I know that the Pacific commissioners that I work with are very, very focused on what we can do to combat and disrupt a lot of that activity at source, in both Asia and South America.

“So that’s where our focus has been, and that’s what the commissioners have been asking me for in terms of support.”

Pacific nation difficulties
He said he understood the difficulties law enforcement in Pacific nations faced regarding criminal deportees, as New Zealand faced similar challenges under Australia’s deportation policy.

In New Zealand, the country’s returned nationals from Australia are known as 501 deportations, named after the section of the Australian Migration Act which permits their deportation due to criminal convictions.

These individuals have often spent the majority of their lives in Australia and have no family or ties to New Zealand but are forced to return due to Australia’s immigration laws.

New Zealand’s authorities have tracked how these deportees — who number in the hundreds — have contributed significantly to the country’s increasingly sophisticated and established organised crime networks over the past decade.

Chambers said that because police dealt with the real impacts of Australia’s 501 law, he could relate to what his Pacific counterparts faced.

“I understand from the New Zealand perspective [which is] the impact that New Zealand nationals returning to our country have on New Zealand, and the reality is, they’re offending, they’re re-offending.

“I suspect it’s no different from our Pacific colleagues in their own countries. And it may be something that we can talk about.”

This week’s conference was scheduled to finish tomorrow. Speakers due to appear included Interpol Secretary-General Valdecy Urquiza and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa.

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

Eyes of Fire is an updated Rainbow Warrior classic and must read for activism

APR editor — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 12:56:50 +0000

REVIEW: By Jenny Nicholls

Author David Robie left his cabin on the Rainbow Warrior three days before it was blown up by the Directorate General for External Security (DGSE), France’s foreign intelligence agency

The ship was destroyed at Marsden Wharf on 10 July 1985 by two limpet mines attached
below the waterline.

As New Zealand soon learned to its shock, the second explosion killed crew member and photographer Fernando Pereira as he tried to retrieve his cameras.

READ MORE: Other Eyes of Fire reports

“I had planned to spend the night of the bombing onboard with my two young sons, to give them a brief taste of shipboard life,” Dr Robie writes. “At the last moment I decided to leave it to another night.”

He left the ship after 11 weeks documenting what turned out to be the last of her humanitarian missions — a voyage which highlighted the exploitation of Pacific nations
by countries who used them to test nuclear weapons.

Dr Robie was the only journalist on board to cover both the evacuation of the people
of Rongelap Atoll after their land, fishing grounds and bodies were ravaged by US nuclear fallout, and the continued voyage to nuclear-free Vanuatu and New Zealand.

Eyes of Fire is not only the authoritative biography of the Rainbow Warrior and her
missions, but a gripping account of the infiltration of Greenpeace by a French spy, the bombing, its planning, the capture of the French agents, the political fallout, and ongoing
challenges for Pacific nations.

Dr Robie corrects the widely held belief that the first explosion on the Rainbow Warrior
was intended as a warning, to avoid loss of life. No, it turns out, the French state really
did mean to kill people.

“It was remarkable,” he writes, “that Fernando Pereira was the only person who
died.”

The explosives were set to detonate shortly before midnight, when members of the
crew would be asleep. (One of them was the ship’s relief cook, Waihekean Margaret Mills. She awoke in the nick of time. The next explosion blew in the wall of her cabin).

“Two cabins on the main deck had their floors ruptured by pieces of steel flying from
the [first] engine room blast,” writes Dr Robie.

“By chance, the four crew who slept in those rooms were not on board. If they had been,
they almost certainly would have been killed.”

Eyes of Fire author David Robie with Rainbow Warrior III . . . not only an account of the Rongelap humanitarian voyage, but also a gripping account of the infiltration of Greenpeace and the bombing. Image: Asia Pacific Report

Eyes of Fire was first published in 1986 — and also in the UK and USA, and has been reissued in 2005, 2015 and again this year to coincide with the 40th anniversary
of the bombing.

If you are lucky enough to own the first edition, you will find plenty that is new here; updated text, an index, new photographs, a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark and a searing preface by Waihekean Bunny McDiarmid, former executive director
of Greenpeace International.

As you would expect from the former head of journalism schools at the University
of Papua New Guinea and University of the South Pacific, and founder of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre, Eyes of Fire is not only a brilliant piece of research, it is an absolutely
fascinating read, filled with human detail.

The bombing and its aftermath make up a couple of chapters in a book which covers an enormous amount of ground.

Professor David Robie is a photographer, journalist and teacher who was awarded an MNZM in 2024 for his services to journalism and Asia-Pacific media education. He is founding editor of the Pacific Journalism Review, also well worth seeking out.

Eyes of Fire is an updated classic and required reading for anyone interested in activism
or the contemporary history of the Pacific.

Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, by David Robie; prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark (Little Island Press). There is a linked microsite Eyes of Fire: 40 Years On. Reviewer Jenny Nicholls is subeditor of the Waiheke Weekender, where this review was first published.
Available at Baka Books in Fiji
The Legends of the Pacific: Stories of a Nuclear-Free Moana exhibition curated by the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) is currently on at the Waiheke Library until September 11.

New Australia-Vanuatu deal won’t replicate Falepili-style pact, says analyst

APR editor — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 04:26:43 +0000

By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor

A Pacific analyst and commentator says it is unlikely that Vanuatu will agree to any exclusive rights in the new security and economic pact with Australia.

Senior ministers of both countries, including deputy prime ministers Richard Marles and Johnny Koanapo, initialled the Nakamal Agreement at the summit of Mount Yasur volcano on Tanna Island, ahead of formal sign-off next month.

The two nations have agreed to a landmark deal worth A$500 million that will replace the previous security pact that was scrapped in 2022.

READ MORE: Other Australia and Vanuatu security reports

Dr Tess Newton Cain of the Griffith Asia Institute said she did not believe Vanuatu would agree to anything similar to what Tuvalu (Falepili Union) and Papua New Guinea (Bilateral Security Agreement) had agreed to in recent times.

She said that the Australian government had been wanting the deal for some time, but had been “progressing quite slowly” because there was “significant pushback” on the Vanuatu side.

“Back in 2022, it took people by surprise that there was an announcement made that a security agreement had been signed while Senator Penny Wong, Australia’s Foreign Minister was in Port Vila. She and then-prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau had signed a security agreement.

“On the Australian side, they referred to it as having not been ratified. But essentially it was totally disregarded and thrown out by Vanuatu officials, and not considered to [be a] meaningful agreement.”

Analyst Dr Tess Newton Cain . . . significant process of negotiation between Vanuatu and Australian officials. Image: ResearchGate

High-level engagement
However, this time around, Dr Newton Cain said, there had been a significant process of negotiation between Vanuatu and Australian officials.

“There has been a lot of high-level engagement. We have had a lot of senior Australian officials visiting Vanuatu over the last six months, and possibly for a bit longer. So, it has been a steady process of negotiation.”

Dr Newton Cain said the text of the agreement had undergone a much more rigorous process, involving input from a wider range of people at the government level.

“And in the last few days leading up to the initialling of this agreement, it was brought before the National Security Council in Vanuatu, which discussed it and signed off on it.

“Then it went to the Council of Ministers, which also discussed it and made reference to further amendments. So there were some last-minute changes to the text, and then it was initialled.”

She said that while the agreement had been “substantially agreed”, more details on what it actually entailed remained scarce.

Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat said earlier this month that he would not sign the agreement unless visa-free travel was agreed.

Visa sticking point
Dr Newton Cain said visa-free travel between the two countries remained a sticking point.

“Prime Minister Napat said he hoped Prime Minister Albanese would travel to Port Vila in order to sign this agreement. But we know there is still more work to do — both Australia and Vanuatu [have] indicated that there were still aspects that were not completely aligned yet.

“I think it is reasonable to think that this is around text relating to visa-free access to Australia. There is a circle there that is yet to be squared.”

Australia is Vanuatu’s biggest development partner, as well as the biggest provider of foreign direct investment. Its support covers a range of critical sectors such as health, education, security, and infrastructure.

According to Dr Newton Cain, from Canberra’s point of view, they have concerns that countries like Vanuatu have “more visible, diversified and stronger” relations with China.

“As we have seen in other parts of the region, that has provoked a response from countries like Australia, New Zealand, the United States and others that want to be seen to be offering Vanuatu different options.”

However, she said it was not surprising that Vanuatu was looking to have a range of conversations with partners that can support the country.

“China’s relationship has moved more into security areas. There are aspects of policing that China is involved in in Vanuatu, and that this is a bit of a tipping point for countries like Australia and New Zealand.

“So these sorts of agreements with Australia [are] part of trying to cement the relationship [and] demonstrate that this relationship is built on lasting foundations and strong ties.”

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

Climate justice victory at the ICJ – the student journey from USP lectures to The Hague

Wansolwara — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 10:08:04 +0000

By Vahefonua Tupola in Suva

The University of the South Pacific (USP) is at the heart of a global legal victory with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivering a historic opinion last week affirming that states have binding legal obligations to protect the environment from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.

The case, hailed as a triumph for climate justice, was driven by a student-led movement that began within USP’s own regional classrooms.

In 2021, the government of Vanuatu took a bold step by announcing its intention to seek an advisory opinion from the ICJ on climate change. But what many may not have realised is that the inspiration behind this unprecedented move came from a group of determined young Pacific Islanders — students from USP who formed the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

According to the United Nations background information, these USP students led the charge, campaigning for years to bring the voices of vulnerable island nations to the highest court in the world.

Their call for accountability resonated across the globe, eventually leading to the adoption of a UN resolution in March 2023 that asked the ICJ two critical legal questions:

What obligations do states have under international law to protect the environment?
What are the legal consequences when they fail?

Students from the University of the South Pacific who formed the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC). Image: Wansolwara News

The result
A sweeping opinion from the ICJ affirming that climate change treaties place binding duties on countries to prevent environmental harm.

As the ICJ President, Judge Iwasawa Yuji, stated in the official delivery the court was: “Unanimously of the opinion that the climate change treaties set forth binding obligations for States parties to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.”

USP alumni lead the celebration
USP alumna Cynthia Houniuhi, president of the PISFCC, shared her pride in a statement to USP’s official news that this landmark opinion must guide not only courtrooms but also global climate negotiations and policy decisions and it’s a call to action.

“The law is on our side. I’m proud to be on the right side of history.”

Her words reflect the essence of USP’s regional identity, a university built not just to educate, but to empower Pacific Islanders to lead solutions to the region’s most pressing challenges.

Why is the ICJ’s climate ruling such a big deal? Video: Almost

Students in action, backed by global leaders
UN Secretary-General Antόnio Guterres, in a video message released by the UN, gave credit where it was due.

“This is a victory for our planet, for climate change and for the power of young people to make a difference. Young Pacific Islanders initiated this call for humanity to the world, and the world must respond.”

Vishal Prasad, director of PISFCC, in a video reel of the SPC (Secretariat of the Pacific Community), also credited youth activism rooted in the Pacific education system as six years ago young people from the Pacific decided to take climate change to the highest court and today the ICJ has responded.

“The ICJ has made it clear, it cemented the consensus on the science of climate change and formed the heart of all the arguments that many Pacific Island States made.”

USP’s influence is evident in the regional unity that drove this case forward showing that youth educated in the Pacific are capable of reshaping global narratives.

Residents wade through flooding caused by high ocean tides in low-lying parts of Majuro Atoll, the capital of the Marshall Islands. In 2011, the Marshall Islands warned that the clock was ticking on climate change and the world needed to act urgently to stop low-lying Pacific nations disappearing beneath the waves. Image: PHYS ORG/Wansolwara

A win for the Pacific
From coastal erosion and rising sea levels to the legacy of nuclear testing, the Pacific lives with the frontline effects of climate change daily.

Coral Pasisi, SPC Director of Climate Change & Sustainability, highlighted in a video message, the long-term importance of the ruling:

“Climate change is already impacting them (Pacific people) and every increment that happens is creating more and more harm, not just for the generations now but those into the future. I think this marks a real moment for our kids.”

Additionally, as Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change, noted to SPC, science was the cornerstone of the court’s reasoning.

“The opinion really used that science as the basis for its definitions of accountability, responsibility, and duty.”

Among the proud USP student voices is Siosiua Veikune, who told Tonga’s national broadcaster that this is not only a win for the students but for the Pacific islands also.

What now?
With 91 written statements and 97 countries participating in oral proceedings, this was the largest case ever seen by the ICJ and it all began with a movement sparked at USP.

Now, the challenge moves from the courtroom to the global stage and will see how nations implement this legal opinion.

Though advisory, the ICJ ruling carries immense moral and legal weight. It will likely shape global climate negotiations, strengthen lawsuits against polluting states, and empower developing nations especially vulnerable Pacific Islands to demand justice on the international stage.

For the students who dreamed it into motion, it’s only the beginning.

“Now, we have to make sure this ruling leads to real action — in parliaments, at climate summits, and in every space where our future is at stake,” said Veikune.

Vahefonua Tupola is a second-year student journalist at University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus. Republshed from Wansolwara News, the USP student journalism newspaper and website in partnership with Asia Pacific Report.

How Pacific students took their climate fight to the world’s highest court. And won

APR editor — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 05:38:38 +0000

Last week, the UN’s highest court issued a stinging ruling that countries have a legal obligation to limit climate change and provide restitution for harm caused, giving legal force to an idea that was hatched in a classroom in Port Vila. This is how a group of young students from Vanuatu changed the face of international law.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Jamie Tahana for RNZ Pacific

Vishal Prasad admitted to being nervous as he stood outside the imposing palace in the Hague, with its towering brick facade, marble interiors and crystal chandeliers.

It had taken more than six years of work to get here, where he was about to hear a decision he said could throw a “lifeline” to his home islands.

The Peace Palace, the home of the International Court of Justice, could not feel further from the Pacific.

READ MORE: Other climate justice reports

Yet it was here in this Dutch city that Prasad and a small group of Pacific islanders in their bright shirts and shell necklaces last week gathered before the UN’s top court to witness an opinion they had dreamt up when they were at university in 2019 and managed to convince the world’s governments to pursue.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague last week . . . a landmark non-binding rulings on the climate crisis. Image: X/@CIJ_ICJ

“We’re here to be heard,” said Siosiua Veikune, who was one of those students, as he waited on the grass verge outside the court’s gates. “Everyone has been waiting for this moment, it’s been six years of campaigning.”

What they wanted to hear was that more than a moral obligation, addressing climate change was also a legal one. That countries could be held responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions — both contemporary and historic — and that they could be penalised for their failure to act.

“For me personally, [I want] clarity on the rights of future generations,” Veikune said. “What rights are owed to future generations? Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again, and this is another step towards that justice.”

And they won.

Vishal Prasad of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change group speaks to the media in front of the International Court of Justice following the conclusion last week of an advisory opinion on countries’ obligations to protect the climate. Image: Instagram/Pacific Climate Warriors

The court’s president, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, took more than two hours to deliver an unusually stinging advisory opinion from the normally restrained court, going through the minutiae of legal arguments before delivering a unanimous ruling which largely fell on the side of Pacific states.

“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

After the opinion, the victorious students and lawyers spilled out of the palace alongside Vanuatu’s Climate Minister, Ralph Regenvanu. Their faces were beaming, if not a little shellshocked.

“The world’s smallest countries have made history,” Prasad told the world’s media from the palace’s front steps. “The ICJ’s decision brings us closer to a world where governments can no longer turn a blind eye to their legal responsibilities”.

“Young people around the world stepped up, not only as witnesses to injustice, but as architects of change”.

Vanuatu’s Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu talks to the media after the historic ICJ ruling in The Hague on Tuesday. Image: Arab News/VDP

A classroom exercise
It was 2019 when a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific’s campus in Port Vila, the harbourside capital of Vanuatu, were set a challenge in their tutorial. They had been learning about international law and, in groups, were tasked with finding ways it could address climate change.

It was a particularly acute question in Vanuatu, one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Many of the students’ teenage years had been defined by Cyclone Pam, the category five storm that ripped through much of the country in 2015 with winds in excess of 250km/h.

It destroyed entire villages, wiped out swathes of infrastructure and crippled the country’s crops and water supplies. The storm was so significant that thousands of kilometres away, in Tuvalu, the waves it whipped up displaced 45 percent of the country’s population and washed away an entire islet.

Cyclone Pam was meant to be a once-in-a-generation storm, but Vanuatu has been struck by five more category five cyclones since then.

Foormer Solomon Islands student at USP Belyndar Rikimani . . . It was seen as obscene that the communities with the smallest carbon footprint were paying the steepest price for a crisis they had almost no hand in creating.” Image: RNZ Pacific

Among many of the students, there was a frustration that no one beyond their borders seemed to care particularly much, recalled Belyndar Rikimani, a student from Solomon Islands who was at USP in 2019. She saw it as obscene that the communities with the smallest carbon footprint were paying the steepest price for a crisis they had almost no hand in creating.

Each year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was releasing a new avalanche of data that painted an increasingly grim prognosis for the Pacific. But, Rikimani said, the people didn’t need reams of paper to tell them that, for they were already acutely aware.

On her home island of Malaita, coastal villages were being inundated with every storm, the schools of fish on which they relied were migrating further away, and crops were increasingly failing.

“We would go by the sea shore and see people’s graves had been taken out,” Rikimani recalled. “The ground they use to garden their food in, it is no longer as fertile as it has once been because of the changes in weather.”

The mechanism used by the world to address climate change is largely based around a UN framework of voluntary agreements and summits — known as COP — where countries thrash out goals they often fail to meet. But it was seen as impotent by small island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean, who accused the system of being hijacked by vested interests set on hindering any drastic cuts to emissions.

So, the students argued, what if there was a way to push back? To add some teeth to the international process and move the climate discussion beyond agreements and adaptation to those of equity and justice? To give small countries a means to nudge those seen to be dragging their heels.

“From the beginning we were aware of the failure of the climate system or climate regime and how it works,” Prasad, who in 2019 was studying at the USP campus in Fiji’s capital, Suva, told me.

“This was known to us. Obviously there needs to be something else. Why should the law be silent on this?”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the main court for international law. It adjudicates disputes between nations and issues advisory opinions on big cross-border legal issues. So, the students wondered, could an advisory opinion help? What did international law have to say about climate change?

Members of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change activist group. Image: RNZ Pacific/PISFCC

Unlike most students, who would leave such discussions in the classroom, they decided to find out. But the ICJ does not hear cases from groups or individuals; they would have to convince a government to pursue the challenge.

Together, they wrote to various Pacific governments hoping to discuss the idea. It was ambitious, they conceded, but in one of the regions most threatened by rising seas and intensifying storms, they hoped there would at least be some interest.

But rallying enough students to join their cause was the first hurdle.

“There was a lot of doubts from the beginning,” Rikimani said. “We were trying to get the students who could, you know, be a part of the movement. And it was hard, it was too big, too grand.”

In the end, 27 people gathered to form the genesis of a new organisation: Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

A couple of weeks went by before a response popped up in their inboxes. The government of Vanuatu was intrigued. Ralph Regenvanu, who was at that time the foreign minister, asked the students if they would like to swing by for a meeting.

“I still remember when [the] group came into my office to discuss this. And I felt solidarity with them,” Regenvanu recalled last week.

“I could empathise with where they were, what they were doing, what they were feeling. So it was almost like the time had come to actually, okay, let’s do something about it.”

The students — “dressed to the nines,” as Regenvanu recalled — gave a presentation on what they hoped to achieve. Regenvanu was convinced. Not long after the wider Vanuatu government was, too. Now it was time for them to convince other countries.

“It was just a matter of the huge diplomatic effort that needed to be done,” Regenvanu said. “We had Odi Tevi, our ambassador in New York, who did a remarkable job with his team. And the strategy we employed to get a core group of countries from all over the world to be with us.

“A landmark ruling . . . International Court of Justice sides with survivors, not polluters.” Image: 350 Pacific

“It’s interesting that, you know, some of the most important achievements of the international community originated in the Pacific,” Regenvanu said, citing efforts in the 20th century to ban nuclear testing, or support decolonisation.

“We have this unique geographic and historic position that makes us able to, as small states, have a voice that’s much louder, I think. And you saw that again in this case, that it’s the Pacific once again taking the lead to do something that is of benefit to the whole world.”

What Vanuatu needed to take the case to the ICJ was to garner a majority of the UN General Assembly — that is, a majority of every country in the world — to vote to ask the court to answer a question.

To rally support, they decided to start close to home.

Hope and disappointment
The students set their sights on the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s pre-eminent political group, which that year was holding its annual leaders’ summit in Tuvalu. A smattering of atolls along the equator which, in recent years, has become a reluctant poster child for the perils of climate change.

Tuvalu had hoped world leaders on Funafuti would see a coastline being eaten by the ocean, evidence of where the sea washes across the entire island at king tide, or saltwater bubbles up into gardens to kill crops, and that it would convince the world that time was running out.

But the 2019 Forum was a disaster. Pacific countries had pushed for a strong commitment from the region’s leaders at their retreat, but it nearly broke down when Australia’s government refused to budge on certain red lines. The then-prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, accused Australia and New Zealand of neo-colonialism, questioning their very role in the Forum.

“That was disappointing,” Prasad said. “The first push was, okay, let’s put it at the forum and ask leaders to endorse this idea and then they take it forward. It was put on the agenda but the leaders did not endorse it; they ‘noted’ it. The language is ‘noted’, so it didn’t go ahead.”

Another disappointment came a few months later, when Rikimani and another of the students, Solomon Yeo, travelled to Spain for the annual COP meeting, the UN process where the world’s countries agree their next targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

But small island countries left angry after a small bloc derailed any progress, despite massive protests.

Solomon Yeo (standing, second left) of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, with youth climate activists. Image: RNZ Pacific/PISFCC

That was an eye-opening two weeks in Madrid for Rikimani, whose initial scepticism of the system had been validated.

“It was disappointing when there’s nothing that’s been done. There is very little outcome that actually, you know, safeguards the future of the Pacific,” she said.

“But for us, it was the COP where there was interest being showed by various young leaders from around the world, seeing that this campaign could actually bring light to these climate negotiations.”

By now, Regenvanu said, that frustration was boiling over and more countries were siding with their campaign. By the end of 2019, that included some major countries from Europe and Asia, which brought financial and diplomatic heft. Other small-island countries from Africa and the Caribbean had also joined.

“Many of the Pacific states had never appeared before the ICJ before. So [we were] doing write shops with legal teams from different countries,” he said.

“We did write shops in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in Africa, getting people just to be there at the court to present their stories, and then of course trying to coordinate.”

Meanwhile, Prasad was trying to spread word elsewhere. The hardest part, he said, was making it relevant to the people.

International law, The Hague, the Paris Agreement and other bureaucratic frameworks were nebulous and tedious. How could this possibly help the fisherman on Banaba struggling to haul in a catch?

To rally support, the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change decided to start close to home. Image: RNZ Pacific/PISFCC

They spent time travelling to villages and islands, sipping kava shells and sharing meals, weaving a testimony of Indigenous stories and knowledge.

In Fiji, he said, the word for land is vanua, which is also the word for life.

“It’s the source of your identity, the source of your culture. It’s this connection that the land provides the connection with the past, with the ancestors, and with a way of life and a way of doing things.”

He travelled to the village of Vunidologa where, in 2014, its people faced the rupture of having to leave their ancestral lands, as the sea had marched in too far. In the months leading up to the relocation, they held prayer circles and fasted. When the day came, the elders wailed as they made an about two kilometre move inland.

“That’s the element of injustice there. It touches on this whole idea of self-determination that was argued very strongly at the ICJ, that people’s right to self-determination is completely taken away from them because of climate change,” Prasad said.

“Some have even called it a new face of colonialism. And that’s not fair and that cannot stand in 2025.”

Preparing the case
If 2019 was the year of building momentum, then a significant hurdle came in 2020, when the coronavirus shuttered much of the world. COP summits were delayed and the Pacific Islands Forum postponed. The borders of the Pacific were sealed for as long as two years.

But the students kept finding ways to gather their body of evidence.

“Everything went online, we gathered young people who would be able to take this idea forward in their own countries,” Prasad said.

On the diplomatic front, Vanuatu kept plugging away to rally countries so that by the time the Forum leaders met again — in 2022 — they were ready to ask for support again.

“It was in Fiji and we were so worried about the Australia and New Zealand presence at the Forum because we wanted an endorsement so that it would send a signal to all the other countries: ‘the Pacific’s on board, let’s get the others’,” Prasad recalled.

“We were very worried about Australia, but it was more like if Australia declines to support then the whole process falls, and we thought New Zealand might also follow.”

They didn’t. In an about-turn, Australia was now fully behind the campaign for an advisory opinion, and the New Zealand government was by now helping out too. By the end of 2022, several European powers were also involved.

Attention now turned to developing what question they wanted to actually ask the international court. And how would they write it in such a way that the majority of the world’s governments would back it.

“That was the process where it was make and break really to get the best outcome we could,” said Regenvanu.

“In the end we got a question that was like 90 percent as good as we wanted and that was very important to get that and that was a very difficult process.”

By December 2022, Vanuatu announced that it would ask the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice to weigh what, exactly, international law requires states to do about climate change, and what the consequences should be for states that harm the climate through actions or omissions.

More lobbying followed and then, in March 2023, it came to a vote and the result was unanimous. The UN assembly in New York erupted in cheers at a rare sign of consensus.

“All countries were on board,” said Regenvanu. “Even those countries that opposed it [we] were able to talk to them so they didn’t oppose it publicly.”

They were off to The Hague.

A tense wait
Late last year, the court held two weeks of hearings in which countries put forth their arguments. Julian Aguon, a Chamorro lawyer from Guam who was one of the lead counsel, told the court that “these testimonies unequivocally demonstrate that climate change has already caused grievous violations of the right to self-determination of peoples across the subregion.”

Over its deliberations, the court heard from more than 100 countries and international organisations hoping to influence its opinion, the highest level of participation in the court’s history. That included the governments of low-lying islands and atolls, which were hoping the court would provide a yardstick by which to measure other countries’ actions.

They argued that climate change threatened fundamental human rights — such as life, liberty, health, and a clean environment — as well as other international laws like those of the sea, and those of self-determination.

In their testimonies, high-emitting Western countries, including Australia, the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia maintained that the current system was enough.

It’s been a tense and nervous wait for the court’s answer, but they finally got it last Wednesday.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the strength of the decision,” Regenvanu said. “The fact that it was unanimous, we weren’t expecting that.”

The court said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions. It also said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change, and that countries had a right to pursue restitution for loss and damage.

The opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, it carries legal and political weight.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the ICJ to hold each other to account, something Regenvanu said Vanuatu wasn’t ruling out. But, ultimately, he hoped it wouldn’t reach that point, and the advisory opinion would be seen as a wake-up call.

“We can call upon this advisory opinion in all our negotiations, particularly when countries say they can only do so much,” Regenvanu said. “They have said very clearly [that] all states have an obligation to do everything within their means according to the best available science.

“It’s really up to all countries of the world — in good faith — to take this on, realise that these are the legal obligations under custom law. That’s very clear. There’s no denying that anymore.

“And then discharge your legal obligations. If you are in breach, fix the breach, acknowledge that you have caused harm. Help to set it right. And also don’t do it again.”

Student leader Vishal Prasad . . . “Oh, it definitely does not feel real. I don’t think it’s settled in.” Image: Instagram/Earth.org

Vishal Prasad still hadn’t quite processed the whole thing by the time we met again the next morning. In shorts, t-shirt, and jandals, he cut a much more relaxed figure as he reclined on a couch sipping a mug of coffee. His phone had been buzzing non-stop with messages from around the world.

“Oh, it definitely does not feel real. I don’t think it’s settled in,” he said. “I got, like, a flood of messages, well wishes. People say, ‘you guys have changed the world’. I think it’s gonna take a while.”

He was under no illusions that there was a long road ahead. The court’s advisory came at a time when international law and multilateralism was under particular strain.

When the urgency of the climate debate from a few years ago appears to have given way to a new enthusiasm for fossil fuel in some countries. He had no doubt the Pacific would continue to lead those battles.

“People have been messaging me that across the group chats they’re in, there’s this renewed sense of courage, strength and determination to do something because of what the ICJ has said,” he said.

“I’ve just been responding to messages and just saying thanks to people and just talking to them and I think it’s amazing to see that it’s been able to cause such a shift in the climate movement.”

Watching the advisory opinion being read out at 3am in Honiara was Belyndar Rikimani, hunched over a live stream in the dead of the night.

“What’s very special about this campaign is that it didn’t start with government experts, climate experts or policy experts. It started with students.

“And these law students are not from Harvard or Cambridge or all those big universities, but they are students from the Pacific that have seen the first-hand effects of climate change. It started with students who have the heart to see change for our islands and for our people.”

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

Historic ICJ climate ruling ‘just the beginning’, says Vanuatu’s Regenvanu

APR editor — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:08:05 +0000

By Ezra Toara in Port Vila

Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change Adaptation, Ralph Regenvanu, has welcomed the historic International Court of Justice (ICJ) climate ruling, calling it a “milestone in the fight for climate justice”.

The ICJ has delivered a landmark advisory opinion on states’ obligations under international law to act on climate change.

The ruling marks a major shift in the global push for climate justice.

Vanuatu — one of the nations behind the campaign — has pledged to take the decision back to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to seek a resolution supporting its full implementation.

Climate Change Minister Regenvanu said in a statement: “We now have a common foundation based on the rule of law, releasing us from the limitations of individual nations’ political interests that have dominated climate action.

“This moment will drive stronger action and accountability to protect our planet and peoples.”

The ICJ confirmed that state responsibilities extend beyond voluntary commitments under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement.

It ruled that customary international law also requires states to prevent environmental and transboundary harm, protect human rights, and cooperate to address climate change impacts.

Duties apply to all states
These duties apply to all states, whether or not they have ratified specific climate treaties.

Violations of these obligations carry legal consequences. The ICJ clarified that climate damage can be scientifically traced to specific polluter states whose actions or inaction cause harm.

As a result, those states could be required to stop harmful activities, regulate private sector emissions, end fossil fuel subsidies, and provide reparations to affected states and individuals.

“The implementation of this decision will set a new status quo and the structural change required to give our current and future generations hope for a healthy planet and sustainable future,” Minister Regenvanu added.

He said high-emitting nations, especially those with a history of emissions, must be held accountable.

Despite continued fossil fuel expansion and weakening global ambition — compounded by the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement — Regenvanu said the ICJ ruling was a powerful tool for campaigners, lawyers, and governments.

“Vanuatu is proud and honoured to have spearheaded this initiative,” he said.

‘Powerful testament’
“The number of states and civil society actors that have joined this cause is a powerful testament to the leadership of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and youth activists.”

The court’s decision follows a resolution adopted by consensus at the UNGA on 29 March 2023. That campaign was initiated by the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change and backed by the Vanuatu government, calling for greater accountability from high-emitting countries.

The ruling will now be taken to the UNGA in September and is expected to be a central topic at COP30 in Brazil this November.

Vanuatu has committed to working with other nations to turn this legal outcome into coordinated action through diplomacy, policy, litigation, and international cooperation.<

“This is just the beginning,” Regenvanu said. “Success will depend on what happens next. We look forward to working with global partners to ensure this becomes a true turning point for climate justice.”

Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post with permission.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivers its historic climate ruling in The Hague on Tuesday. Image: VDP

UN’s highest court finds countries can be held legally responsible for emissions

APR editor — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 23:06:51 +0000

By Jamie Tahana in The Hague for RNZ Pacific

The United Nations’ highest court has found that countries can be held legally responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions, in a ruling highly anticipated by Pacific countries long frustrated with the pace of global action to address climate change.

In a landmark opinion delivered yesterday in The Hague, the president of the International Court of Justice, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, said climate change was an “urgent and existential threat” that was “unequivocally” caused by human activity with consequences and effects that crossed borders.

The court’s opinion was the culmination of six years of advocacy and diplomatic manoeuvring which started with a group of Pacific university students in 2019.

They were frustrated at what they saw was a lack of action to address the climate crisis, and saw current mechanisms to address it as woefully inadequate.

Their idea was backed by the government of Vanuatu, which convinced the UN General Assembly to seek the court’s advisory opinion on what countries’ obligations are under international law.

The court’s 15 judges were asked to provide an opinion on two questions: What are countries obliged to do under existing international law to protect the climate and environment, and, second, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts — or lack of action — have significantly harmed the climate and environment?

The International Court of Justice in The Hague yesterday . . . landmark non-binding rulings on the climate crisis. Image: X/@CIJ_ICJ

Overnight, reading a summary that took nearly two hours to deliver, Iwasawa said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions.

Iwasawa said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change.

‘Precondition for human rights’
“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

To reach its conclusion, judges waded through tens of thousands of pages of written submissions and heard two weeks of oral arguments in what the court said was the ICJ’s largest-ever case, with more than 100 countries and international organisations providing testimony.

They also examined the entire corpus of international law — including human rights conventions, the law of the sea, the Paris climate agreement and many others — to determine whether countries have a human rights obligation to address climate change.

The president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Yuji Iwasawa, delivering the landmark rulings on climate change. Image: X/@CIJ_ICJ

Major powers and emitters, like the United States and China, had argued in their testimonies that existing UN agreements, such as the Paris climate accord, were sufficient to address climate change.

But the court found that states’ obligations extended beyond climate treaties, instead to many other areas of international law, such as human rights law, environmental law, and laws around restricting cross-border harm.

Significantly for many Pacific countries, the court also provided an opinion on what would happen if sea levels rose to such a level that some states were lost altogether.

“Once a state is established, the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail the loss of its statehood.”

READ HERE: The summary of the #ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change. https://t.co/7TWc7ifwfX pic.twitter.com/vVxxwpZpbX

— CIJ_ICJ (@CIJ_ICJ) July 23, 2025

Significant legal weight
The ICJ’s opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, advocates say it carries significant legal and political weight that cannot be ignored, potentially opening the floodgates for climate litigation and claims for compensation or reparations for climate-related loss and damage.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the International Court of Justice to hold each other to account.

The opinion would also be a powerful precedent for legislators and judges to call on as they tackle questions related to the climate crisis, and give small countries greater weight in negotiations over future COP agreements and other climate mechanisms.

Outside the court, several dozen climate activists, from both the Netherlands and abroad, had gathered on a square as cyclists and trams rumbled by on the summer afternoon. Among them was Siaosi Vaikune, a Tongan who was among those original students to hatch the idea for the challenge.

“Everyone has been waiting for this moment,” he said. “It’s been six years of campaigning.

“Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again,” Vaikune said. “And this is another step towards that justice.”

Vanuatu’s Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu (cenbtre) speaks to the media after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings on climate change in The Hague yesterday. Image: X/CIJ_ICJ

‘It gives hope’
Vanuatu’s Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu said the ruling was better than he expected and he was emotional about the result.

“The most pleasing aspect is [the ruling] was so strong in the current context where climate action and policy seems to be going backwards,” Regenvanu told RNZ Pacific.

“It gives such hope to the youth, because they were the ones who pushed this.

“I think it will regenerate an entire new generation of youth activists to push their governments for a better future for themselves.”

Regenvanu said the result showed the power of multilateralism.

“There was a point in time where everyone could compromise to agree to have this case heard here, and then here again, we see the court with the judges from all different countries of the world all unanimously agreeing on such a strong opinion, it gives you hope for multilateralism.”

He said the Pacific now has more leverage in climate negotiations.

“Communities on the ground, who are suffering from sea level rise, losing territory and so on, they know what they want, and we have to provide that,” Regenvanu said.

“Now we know that we can rely on international cooperation because of the obligations that have been declared here to assist them.”

The director of climate change at the Pacific Community (SPC), Coral Pasisi, also said the decision was a strong outcome for Pacific Island nations.

“The acknowledgement that the science is very clear, there is a direct clause between greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and the harm that is causing, particularly the most vulnerable countries.”

She said the health of the environment is closely linked to the health of people, which was acknowledged by the court.

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

ICJ climate crisis ruling: Will world’s top court back Pacific-led call to hold governments accountable?

APR editor — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 00:33:19 +0000

By Jamie Tahana in The Hague for RNZ Pacific

In 2019, a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific, frustrated at the slow pace with which the world’s governments were moving to address the climate crisis, had an idea — they would take the world’s governments to court.

They arranged a meeting with government ministers in Vanuatu and convinced them to take a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ top court, where they would seek an opinion to clarify countries’ legal obligations under international law.

Six years after that idea was hatched in a classroom in Port Vila, the court will today (early Thursday morning NZT) deliver its verdict in the Dutch city of The Hague.

READ MORE: Other climate crisis reports

More than 100 countries – including New Zealand, Australia and all the countries of the Pacific – have testified before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alongside civil society and intergovernmental organisations. Image: UN Web TV/screengrab

If successful — and those involved are quietly confident they will be — it could have major ramifications for international law, how climate change disputes are litigated, and it could give small Pacific countries greater leverage in arguments around loss and damage.

Most significantly, the claimants argue, it could establish legal consequences for countries that have driven climate change and what they owe to people harmed.

“Six long years of campaigning have led us to this moment,” said Vishal Prasad, the president of Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, the organisation formed out of those original students.

“For too long, international responses have fallen short. We expect a clear and authoritative declaration,” he said.

“[That] climate inaction is not just a failure of policy, but a breach of international law.”

More than 100 countries — including New Zealand, Australia and all the countries of the Pacific — have testified before the court, alongside civil society and intergovernmental organisations.

And now today they will gather in the brick palace that sits in ornate gardens in this canal-ringed city to hear if the judges of the world’s top court agree.

What is the case?
The ICJ adjudicates disputes between nations and issues advisory opinions on big international legal issues.

In this case, Vanuatu asked the UN General Assembly to request the judges to weigh what exactly international law requires states to do about climate change, and what the consequences should be for states that harm the climate through actions or omissions.

Over its deliberations, the court has heard from more than 100 countries and international organisations hoping to influence its opinion, the highest level of participation in the court’s history.

That has included the governments of low-lying islands and atolls in the Pacific, which say they are paying the steepest price for a crisis they had little role in creating.

These nations have long been frustrated with the current mechanisms for addressing climate change, like the UN COP conferences, and are hoping that, ultimately, the court will provide a yardstick by which to measure other countries’ actions.

Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change Ralph Regenvanu . . . “This may well be the most consequential case in the history of humanity.” Image: IISD-ENB

“I choose my words carefully when I say that this may well be the most consequential case in the history of humanity,” Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change Ralph Regenvanu said in his statement to the court last year.

“Let us not allow future generations to look back and wonder why the cause of their doom was condoned.”

But major powers and emitters, like the United States and China, have argued in their testimonies that existing UN agreements, such as the Paris climate accord, are sufficient to address climate change.

“We expect this landmark climate ruling, grounded in binding international law, to reflect the critical legal flashpoints raised during the proceedings,” said Joie Chowdhury, a senior attorney at the US-based Centre for International Environmental Law (which has been involved with the case).

“Among them: whether States’ climate obligations are anchored in multiple legal sources, extending far beyond the Paris Agreement; whether there is a right to remedy for climate harm; and how human rights and the precautionary principle define States’ climate obligations.”

Pacific youth climate activist at a demonstration at COP27 in November 2022 . . . “We are not drowning. We are fighting.” Image: Facebook/Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change

What could this mean?
Rulings from the ICJ are non-binding, and there are myriad cases of international law being flouted by countries the world over.

Still, the court’s opinion — if it falls in Vanuatu’s favour — could still have major ramifications, bolstering the case for linking human rights and climate change in legal proceedings — both international and domestic — and potentially opening the floodgates for climate litigation, where individuals, groups, Indigenous Peoples, and even countries, sue governments or private companies for climate harm.

An advisory opinion would also be a powerful precedent for legislators and judges to call on as they tackle questions related to the climate crisis, and give small countries a powerful cudgel in negotiations over future COP agreements and other climate mechanisms.

“This would empower vulnerable nations and communities to demand accountability, strengthen legal arguments and negotiations and litigation and push for policies that prioritise prevention and redress over delay and denial,” Prasad said.

In essence, those who have taken the case have asked the court to issue an opinion on whether governments have “legal obligations” to protect people from climate hazards, but also whether a failure to meet those obligations could bring “legal consequences”.

At the Peace Palace today, they will find out from the court’s 15 judges.

“[The advisory opinion] is not just a legal milestone, it is a defining moment in the global climate justice movement and a beacon of hope for present and future generations,” said Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat in a statement ahead of the decision.

“I am hopeful for a powerful opinion from the ICJ. It could set the world on a meaningful path to accountability and action.”

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

Eyewitness account of Rainbow Warrior voyage – new Eyes of Fire edition

APR editor — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 02:50:59 +0000

By Giff Johnson, editor of the Marshall Islands Journal

Author David Robie and Little Island Press are about to publish next week a 40th anniversary edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, a first-hand account of the relocation of the Rongelap people by Greenpeace’s flagship Rainbow Warrior in 1985.

Dr Robie joined what turned out to be the ill-fated voyage of the Rainbow Warrior from Hawai’i across the Pacific, with its first stop in the Marshall Islands and the momentous evacuation of Rongelap Atoll.

After completing the evacuation of the 320 people of Rongelap from their unsafe nuclear test-affected home islands to Mejatto Island in Kwajalein Atoll, the Rainbow Warrior headed south via Kiribati and Vanuatu.

READ MORE: Other Eyes of Fire reports

After a stop in New Zealand, it was scheduled to head to the French nuclear testing zone at Moruroa in French Polynesia to protest the then-ongoing atmospheric nuclear tests conducted by France for decades.

But French secret agents attached bombs to the hull of the Rainbow Warrior while it was tied up at a pier in Auckland. The bombs mortally damaged the Warrior and killed Greenpeace photographer Fernando Peirera, preventing the vessel from continuing its Pacific voyage.

The new edition of Eyes of Fire will be launched on July 10 in New Zealand.

“This edition has a small change of title, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, and has an extra 30 pages, with a new prologue by former Prime Minister Helen Clark,” Dr Robie said in an email to the Journal.

“The core of the book is similar to earlier editions, but bookended by a lot of new material: Helen’s Prologue, Bunny McDiarmid’s updated Preface and a long Postscript 2025 by me with a lot more photographs, some in colour.”

Dr Robie added: “I hope this edition is doing justice to our humanitarian mission and the Rongelap people that we helped.”

He said the new edition is published by a small publisher that specialises in Pacific Island books, often in Pacific languages, Little Island Press.

For more information about the new book: https://littleisland.nz/books/eyes-fire

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.

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.

Fiji advocacy group slams Indonesian role in MSG as a ‘disgrace’

APR editor — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 12:38:38 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

A Fiji-based advocacy group has condemned the participation of Indonesia in the Melanesian Spearhead Group which is meeting in Suva this week, saying it is a “profound disgrace” that the Indonesian Embassy continues to “operate freely” within the the MSG Secretariat.

“This presence blatantly undermines the core principles of justice and solidarity we claim to uphold as Melanesians,” said We Bleed Black and Red in a social media post.

The group said that as the new MSG chair, the Fiji government could not speak cannot credibly about equity, peace, regional unity, or the Melanesian family “while the very agent of prolonged Melanesian oppression sits at the decision-making table”.

The statement said that for more than six decades, the people of West Papua had endured “systemic atrocities from mass killings to environmental devastation — acts that clearly constitute ecocide and gross human rights violations”.

“Indonesia’s track record is not only morally indefensible but also a flagrant breach of numerous international agreements and conventions,” the group said.

“It is time for all Melanesian nations to confront the reality behind the diplomatic facades and development aid.

“No amount of financial incentives or diplomatic charm can erase the undeniable suffering of the West Papuan people.

“We must rise above political appeasement and fulfill our moral and regional duty as one Melanesian family.

“The Pacific cannot claim moral leadership while turning a blind eye and deaf ear to colonial violence on our own shores. Justice delayed is justice denied.”

‘Peaceful, prosperous Melanesia’
Meanwhile, The Fiji Times reports that the 23rd MSG Leaders’ Summit got underway on Monday in Suva, drawing heads of state from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and representatives from New Caledonia’s FLNKS.

Hosted under the theme “A Peaceful and Prosperous Melanesia,” the summit ended yesterday.

This year’s meeting also marked Fiji’s first time chairing the regional bloc since 1997.

Fiji officially assumed the MSG chairmanship from Vanuatu following a traditional handover ceremony attended by senior officials, observers, and dignitaries at Draiba.

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape arrived in Suva on Sunday and reaffirmed Papua New Guinea’s commitment to MSG cooperation during today’s plenary session.

He will also take part in high-level talanoa discussions with the Pacific Islands Forum’s Eminent Persons Group, aimed at deepening institutional reform and regional solidarity.

Observers from the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) and Indonesia were also present, reflecting ongoing efforts to expand the bloc’s influence on issues like self-determination, regional trade, security, and climate resilience in the Pacific.

US travel ban on Pacific 3 – countries have right to decide over borders, Peters says

APR editor — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 02:06:57 +0000

RNZ Pacific

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters says countries have the right to choose who enters their borders in response to reports that the Trump administration is planning to impose travel restrictions on three dozen nations, including three in the Pacific.

But opposition Labour’s deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni says the foreign minister should push back on the US proposal.

Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu have reportedly been included in an expanded proposal of 36 additional countries for which the Trump administration is considering travel restrictions.

The plan was first reported by The Washington Post. A State Department spokesperson told the outlet that the agency would not comment on internal deliberations or communications.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Peters said countries had the right to decide who could cross their borders.

“Before we all get offended, we’ve got the right to decide in New Zealand who comes to our country. So has Australia, so has . . . China, so has the United States,” Peters said.

US security concerns
He said New Zealand would do its best to address the US security concerns.

“We need to do our best to ensure there are no misunderstandings.”

Peters said US concerns could be over selling citizenship or citizenship-by-investment schemes.

Vanuatu runs a “golden passport” scheme where applicants can be granted Vanuatu citizenship for a minimum investment of US$130,000.

Peters says citizenship programmes, such as the citizenship-by-investment schemes which allow people to purchase passports, could have concerned the Trump administration. Image: 123rf/RNZ Pacific

Peters said programmes like that could have concerned the Trump administration.

“There are certain decisions that have been made, which look innocent, but when they come to an international capacity do not have that effect.

“Tuvalu has been selling passports. You see where an innocent . . . decision made in Tuvalu can lead to the concerns in the United States when it comes to security.”

Sepuloni wants push back
However, Sepuloni wants Peters to push back on the US considering travel restrictions for Pacific nations.

Labour Party Deputy Leader Carmel Sepuloni . . . “I would expect [Peters] to be pushing back on the US and supporting our Pacific nations to be taken off that list.” Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver

Sepuloni said she wanted the foreign minister to get a full explanation on the proposed restrictions.

“From there, I would expect him to be pushing back on the US and supporting our Pacific nations to be taken off that list,” she said.

“Their response is, ‘why us? We’re so tiny — what risk do we pose?'”

Wait to see how this unfolds – expert
Massey University associate professor in defence and security studies Anna Powles said Vanuatu has appeared on the US’ bad side in the past.

“Back in March Vanuatu was one of over 40 countries that was reported to be on the immigration watchlist and that related to Vanuatu’s golden passport scheme,” Dr Powles said.

However, a US spokesperson denied the existence of such a list.

“What people are looking at . . . is not a list that exists here that is being acted on,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said, according to a transcript of her press briefing.

“There is a review, as we know, through the president’s executive order, for us to look at the nature of what’s going to help keep America safer in dealing with the issue of visas and who’s allowed into the country.”

Dr Powles said it was the first time Tonga had been included.

“That certainly has raised some concern among Tongans because there’s a large Tongan diaspora in the United States.”

She said students studying in the US could be affected; but while there was a degree of bemusement and concern over the issue, there was also a degree of waiting to see how this unfolded.

Trump signed a proclamation on June 4 banning the nationals of 12 countries from entering the United States, saying the move was needed to protect against “foreign terrorists” and other security threats.

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

Pacific civil society groups challenge France over hosting UN oceans event as political ‘rebranding’

APR editor — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 00:33:39 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

Pacific advocacy movements and civil society organisations have challenged French credentials in hosting a global ocean conference, saying that unless France is accountable for its actions in the Pacific, it is merely “rebranding”.

The call for accountability marked the French-sponsored UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice this week, during which President Emmanuel Macron will be hosting a France-Pacific Summit.

French officials have described the UNOC event as a coming together “in the true spirit of Talanoa” and one that would be inconceivable without the Pacific.

While acknowledging the importance of leveraging global partnerships for urgent climate action and ocean protection through the UNOC process, Pacific civil society groups have issued a joint statement saying that their political leaders must hold France accountable for its past actions and not allow it to “launder its dirty linen in ‘Blue Pacific’ and ‘critical transition’ narratives”.

‘Responsible steward’ image undermined
France’s claims of being a “responsible steward” of the ocean were undermined by its historical actions in the Pacific, said the statement. This included:

● A brutal colonial legacy dating back to the mid-1800s, with the annexation of island nations now known as Kanaky-New Caledonia and Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia;

● A refusal to complete the decolonisation process, and in fact the perpetuation of the colonial condition, particularly for the those “territories” on the UN decolonisation list. In Kanaky-New Caledonia, for instance, France and its agents continue to renege on longstanding decolonisation commitments, while weaponising democratic ideals and processes such as “universal” voting rights to deny the fundamental rights of the indigenous population to self-determination;

● 30 years of nuclear violence in Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia with 193 test detonations — 46 in the atmosphere and close to 150 under the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, irradiating both land and sea, and people. Approximately 90 percent of the local population was exposed to radioactive fallout, resulting in long-term health impacts, including elevated rates of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses;

● Active efforts to obscure the true extent of its nuclear violence in Maʻohi Nui-French Polynesia, diverting resources to discredit independent research and obstructing transparency around health and environmental impacts. These actions reveal a persistent pattern of denial and narrative control that continues to undermine compensation efforts and delay justice for victims and communities;

● French claims to approximately one-third of the Pacific’s combined EEZ, and to being the world’s second largest ocean state, accruing largely from its so-called Pacific dependencies; and

● The supply of French military equipment, and the 1985 bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior by French secret service agents — a state-sponsored terrorist attack with the 40th anniversary this year.

A poster highlighting the issue of political prisoners depicting the Kanak flag after the pro-independence unrest and riots in New Caledonia last year. Image: Collectif Solidarité Kanaky

Seeking diplomatic support
“Since the late 1980s, France has worked to build on diplomatic, development and defence fronts to garner support from Pacific governments.

This includes development assistance through the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), Asian Development Fund, language and cultural exchanges, scientific collaboration and humanitarian assistance.

A strong diplomatic presence in Pacific capitals as well as a full schedule of high-level exchanges, including a triennial France-Oceania leaders’ Summit commencing in 2003, together function to enhance proximity with and inclination towards Paris sentiments and priorities.

The Pacific civil society statement said that French leadership at this UNOC process was once again central to its ongoing efforts to rebrand itself as a global leader on climate action, a champion of ocean protection, and a promoter of sovereignty.

“Nothing can be further from the truth,” the groups said.

“The reality is that France is rather more interested in strengthening its position as a middle power in an Indo-Pacific rather than a Pacific framework, and as a balancing power within the context of big-power rivalry between the US and China, all of which undermines rather than enhances Pacific sovereignty.”

New global image
The statement said that leaders must not allow France to build this new global image on the “foundations of its atrocities against Pacific peoples” and the ocean continent.

Pacific civil society called on France:

● For immediate and irreversible commitments and practical steps to bring its colonial presence in the Pacific to an end before the conclusion, in 2030, of the 4th International Decade on the Eradication of Colonialism; and

● To acknowledge and take responsibility for the oceanic and human harms caused by 30 years of nuclear violence in Maʻohi Nui–French Polynesia, and to commit to full and just reparations, including support for affected communities, environmental remediation of test sites, and full public disclosure of all health and contamination data.

The statement also called on Pacific leaders to:

● Keep France accountable for its multiple and longstanding debt to Pacific people; and

● Ensure that Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia and Kanaky-New Caledonia remain on the UN list of non-self-governing territories to be decolonised (UN decolonisation list).

“Pacific leaders must ensure that France does not succeed in laundering its soiled linen — soiled by the blood of thousands of Pacific Islanders who resisted colonial occupation and/or who were used as test subjects for its industrial-military machinery — in the UNOC process,” said the statement.

Motarilavoa Hilda Lini – strong, passionate fighter for decolonisation, nuclear-free Pacific

Pacific Media Watch — Mon, 26 May 2025 22:10:00 +0000

By Stanley Simpson in Suva

I am saddened by the death of one of the most inspirational Pacific women and leaders I have worked with — Motarilavoa Hilda Lini of Vanuatu.

She was one of the strongest, most committed passionate fighter I know for self-determination, decolonisation, independence, indigenous rights, customary systems and a nuclear-free Pacific.

Hilda coordinated the executive committee of the women’s wing of the Vanuatu Liberation Movement prior to independence and became the first woman Member of Parliament in Vanuatu in 1987.

Hilda became director of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (PCRC) in Suva in 2000. She took over from another Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) giant Lopeti Senituli, who returned to Tonga to help the late ‘Akilisi Poviha with the pro-democracy movement.

I was editor of the PCRC newsletter Pacific News Bulletin at the time. There was no social media then so the newsletter spread information to activists and groups across the Pacific on issues such as the struggle in West Papua, East Timor’s fight for independence, decolonisation in Tahiti and New Caledonia, demilitarisation, indigenous movements, anti-nuclear issues, and sustainable development.

On all these issues — Hilda Lini was a willing and fearless chief taking on any government, corporation or entity that undermined the rights or interests of Pacific peoples.

Hilda was uncompromising on issues close to her heart. There are very few Pacific leaders like her left today. Leaders who did not hold back from challenging the norm or disrupting the status quo, even if that meant being an outsider.

Banned over activism
She was banned from entering French Pacific territories in the 1990s for her activism against their colonial rule and nuclear testing.

She was fierce but also strategic and effective.

“Hilda Lini was a willing and fearless chief taking on any government, corporation or entity that undermined the rights or interests of Pacific peoples.” Image: Stanley Simpson/PCRC

We brought Jose Ramos Horta to speak and lobby in Fiji as East Timor fought for independence from Indonesia, Oscar Temaru before he became President of French Polynesia, West Papua’s Otto Ondawame, and organised Flotilla protests against shipments of Japanese plutonium across the Pacific, among the many other actions to stir awareness and action.

On top of her bold activism, Hilda was also a mother to us. She was kind and caring and always pushed the importance of family and indigenous values.

Our Pacific connections were strong and before our eldest son Mitchell was born in 2002 — she asked me if she could give him a middle name.

She gave him the name Hadye after her brother — Father Walter Hadye Lini who was the first Prime Minister of Vanuatu. Mitchell’s full name is Mitchell Julian Hadye Simpson.

Pushed strongly for ideas
We would cross paths several times even after I moved to start the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) but she finished from PCRC in 2004 and returned to Vanuatu.

She often pushed ideas on indigenous rights and systems that some found uncomfortable but stood strong on what she believed in.

Hilda had mana, spoke with authority and truly embodied the spirit and heart of a Melanesian and Pacific leader and chief.

Thank you Hilda for being the Pacific champion that you were.

Stanley Simpson is director of Fiji’s Mai Television and general secretary of the Fijian Media Association. Father Walter Hadye Lini wrote the foreword to Asia Pacific Media editor David Robie’s 1986 book Eyes Of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior.

Motarilavoa Hilda Lini, ‘a trailblazer’ for Vanuatu women in politics, dies

APR editor — Mon, 26 May 2025 00:39:55 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Motarilavoa Hilda Lini, a pioneering Ni-Vanuatu politician, has died.

Lini passed away at the Port Vila General Hospital on Sunday, according to local news media.

Lini was the first woman to be elected to the Vanuatu Parliament in 1987 as a member of the National United Party.

Motarilavoa Hilda Lini in 1989 . . . She received the Nuclear-Free Future Award in 2005. Image: Wikipedia

She went on to become the country’s first female minister in 1991 after being appointed as the Minister for Health and Rural Water Supplies. She held several ministerial portfolios until the late 1990s, serving three terms in Parliament.

While Health Minister, she helped to persuade the World Health Organisation to bring the question of the legality of nuclear weapons to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

She received the Nuclear-Free Future Award in 2005.

She was the sister of the late Father Walter Lini, who is regarded as the country’s founding father.

Chief of the Turaga nation
She was a chief of the Turaga nation of Pentecost Island in Vanuatu.

“On behalf of the government, we wish to extend our deepest condolences to the Lini family for the passing of late Motarilavoa Hilda Lini — one of the first to break through our male-dominated Parliament during those hey days,” the Vanuatu Ministry for the Prime Minister said in a statement today.

“She later championed many causes, including a Nuclear-Free Pacific. Rest in Peace soldier, for you have fought a great fight.

In a condolence message posted on Facebook, Vanuatu’s Speaker Stephen Dorrick Felix Ma Au Malfes said Lini was “a trailblazer who paved the way for women in leadership and politics in Vanuatu”.

“Her courage, dedication, and vision inspired many and have left an indelible mark on the history of our nation.

“As Vanuatu continues to grow and celebrate its independence, her story and contributions will forever be remembered and honoured. She has left behind a legacy filled with wisdom, strength, and cherished memories that we will carry with us always.”

A Vanuatu human rights women’s rights advocate, Anne Pakoa, said Lini was a “Pacific hero”.

‘Wise and humble leader’
“She was a woman of integrity, a prestigious, wise and yet very humble woman leader,” Pakoa wrote in a Facebook post.

Port Vila MP Marie Louise Milne, the third woman to represent the capital in Parliament after the late Lini and the late Maria Crowby, said “Lini was more than a leader”.

“She was a pioneer . . . serving our country with strength, dignity, and an unshakable commitment to justice and peace. She carried her chiefly title with pride, wisdom, and purpose, always serving with the voice of a true daughter of the land,” Milne said.

“I remember her powerful presence at the Independence Day flag-raising ceremonies, calling me ‘Marie Louise’ in her firm, commanding tone — a voice that resonated with leadership and care.”

“Though I am not in Port Vila to pay my last respects in person, I carry her memory with me in my heart, in my work, and in my prayers. My thoughts are with the Lini family and all who mourn this national loss.”

She said Lini’s legacy lives on in every woman who rises to serve, in every ni-Vanuatu who believes in justice and unity.

“She will forever remain a symbol of strength for Vanuatu and for all Melanesian women.”

Motarilavoa Hilda Lini will be buried in North Pentecost tomorrow.

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

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.

Vanuatu communities growing climate resilience in wake of Cyclone Lola

APR editor — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 10:42:28 +0000

By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor, and Christina Persico, RNZ Pacific bulletin editor

Communities in Vanuatu are learning to grow climate resilient crops, 18 months after Cyclone Lola devastated the country.

The category 5 storm struck in October 2023, generating wind speeds of up to 215 kmph, which destroyed homes, schools, plantations, and left at least four people dead.

It was all the worse for following twin cyclones Judy and Kevin earlier that year.

Save the Children Vanuatu country director Polly Banks said they have been working alongside Vanuatu’s Ministry of Agriculture and local partners, supporting families through the Tropical Cyclone Lola Recovery Programme.

“It really affected backyard gardening and the communities across the areas affected – their ability to pursue an income and also their own nutritional needs,” she said.

She said the programme looked at the impact of the cyclone on backyard gardening and on people’s economic reliance on what they grow in their gardens, and developed a recovery plan to respond.

“We trained community members and also provided them with the equipment to establish cyclone resilient nurseries.

Ready for harsh weather
“So for example, nurseries that can be put up and then pulled down when a harsh weather event – including cyclones but even heavy rainfall — is arriving.

“There was a focus on these climate resilient nurseries, but also through that partnership with the Department of Agriculture, there was also a much stronger focus than we’ve had before on teaching community members climate smart agricultural techniques.”

Banks said these techniques included open pollinating seed and learning skills such as grassing; and another part of the project was introducing more variety into people’s diets.

She said out of the project has also come the first seed bank on Epi Island.

“That seed bank now has a ready supply of seeds, and the community are adding to that regularly, and they’re taking those seeds from really climate-resilient crops, so that they have a cyclone secure storage facility,” she said.

“The next time a cyclone happens — and we know that they’re going to become more ferocious and more frequent — the community are ready to replant the moment that the cyclone passes.

Setting up seed bank
“But in setting the seed bank up as well, the community have been taught how to select the most productive seeds, the seeds that show the most promise; how to dry them out; how to preserve them.”

Banks said they were also working with the Department of Agriculture in the delivery of a community-based climate resilience project, which is funded by the Green Climate Fund.

Rolled out across 282 communities across the country, a key focus of it is the creation of more climate-resilient backyard gardening, food preservation and climate resilient nurseries.

“We’re also setting up early warning systems through the provision of internet to really remote communities so that they have better access to more knowledge about when a big storm or a cyclone is approaching and what steps to take.

“But that particular project is still just a drop in the ocean in terms of the adaptation needs that communities have.”

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

Peters emphasises growing importance of NZ’s Pacific ties with the United States

APR editor — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 00:12:20 +0000

By Grace Tinetali-Fiavaai, RNZ Pacific journalist in Hawai’i

New Zealand’s Pacific connection with the United States is “more important than ever”, says Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters after rounding up the Hawai’i leg of his Pacific trip.

Peters said common strategic interests of the US and New Zealand were underlined while in the state.

“Our Pacific links with the United States are more important than ever,” Peters said.

READ MORE: Other Indo-Pacific reports

“New Zealand’s partnership with the United States remains one of our most long standing and important, particularly when seen in the light of our joint interests in the Pacific and the evolving security environment.”

The Deputy Prime Minister has led a delegation made up of cross-party MPs, who are heading to Fiji for a brief overnight stop, before heading to Vanuatu.

Peters said the stop in Honolulu allowed for an exchange of ideas and the role New Zealand can play in working with regional partners in the region.

“We have long advocated for the importance of an active and engaged United States in the Indo-Pacific, and this time in Honolulu allowed us to continue to make that case.”

Approaching Trump ‘right way’
The delegation met with Hawai’i’s Governor Josh Green, who confirmed with him that New Zealand was approaching US President Donald Trump in the “right way”.

“The fact is, this is a massively Democrat state. But nevertheless, they deal with Washington very, very well, and privately, we have got an inside confirmation that our approach is right.

“Be very careful, these things are very important, words matter and be ultra-cautious. All those things were confirmed by the governor.”

Governor Green told reporters he had spent time with Trump and talked to the US administration all the time.

“I can’t guarantee that they will bend their policies, but I try to be very rational for the good of our state, in our region, and it seems to be so far working,” he said.

He said the US and New Zealand were close allies.

“So having these additional connections with the political leadership and people from the community and business leaders, it helps us, because as we move forward in somewhat uncertain times, having more friends helps.”

At the East-West Center in Honolulu, Peters said New Zealand and the United States had not always seen eye-to-eye and “US Presidents have not always been popular back home”.

“My view of the strategic partnership between New Zealand and the United States is this: we each have the right, indeed the imperative, to pursue our own foreign policies, driven by our own sense of national interest.”

The delegation also met the commander of US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Samuel Paparo, the interim president of the East-West Center Dr James Scott, and Hawai’i-based representatives for Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands.

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

Fiji slapped with Trump’s highest tariffs among Pacific countries

APR editor — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 06:39:43 +0000

By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist

Although New Zealand and Australia seem to have escaped the worst of Donald Trump’s latest tariffs, some Pacific Islands stand to be hit hard — including a few that aren’t even “countries”.

The US will impose a base tariff of 10 percent on all foreign imports, with rates between 20 and 50 percent for countries judged to have major tariffs on US goods.

In the Pacific, Fiji is set to be charged the most at 32 percent, the US claiming this was a reciprocal tariff for the island nation imposing a 63 percent tariff on it.

Nauru, one of the smallest nations in the world, has been slapped with a 30 percent tariff, the US claimed they are imposing a 59 percent tariff.

Vanuatu will be given a 22 percent tariff.

Norfolk Island, which is an Australian territory, has been given a 29 percent tariff, this is despite Australia getting only 10 percent.

Most other Pacific nations were given the 10 percent base tariff.

This included Tokelau, despite it being a non-self-governing territory of New Zealand, with a population of only about 1500 people living on the atoll islands.

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

Vanuatu mourns loss of iconic Pacific media pioneer Marc Neil-Jones

Pacific Media Watch — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 09:57:41 +0000

OBITUARY: By Terence Malapa in Port Vila

Vanuatu’s media community was in mourning today following the death on Monday of Marc Neil-Jones, founder of the Trading Post Vanuatu, which later became the Vanuatu Daily Post, and also radio 96BuzzFM. He was 67.

His fearless pursuit of press freedom and dedication to truth have left an indelible mark on the country’s media landscape.

Neil-Jones’s journey began in 1989 when he arrived in Vanuatu from the United Kingdom with just $8000, an early Macintosh computer, and an Apple laser printer.

READ MORE: Vanuatu’s Daily Post founder Marc Neil-Jones swaps print for tourism – Tribute by David Robie
Marc Neil-Jones, Vanuatu’s media pioneer, passes away
Other Marc Neil-Jones reports

It was only four years after Cyclone Uma had ravaged the country, and he was determined to create something that would stand the test of time — a voice for independent journalism.

In 1993, Neil-Jones succeeded in convincing then Prime Minister Maxime Carlot Korman to grant permission to launch the Trading Post, the country’s first independent newspaper. Prior to this, the media was under tight government control, and there had been no platform for critical or independent reporting.

The Trading Post was a bold step toward change. Neil-Jones’s decision to start the newspaper, with its unapologetically independent voice, was driven by his desire to provide the people of Vanuatu with the truth, no matter how difficult or controversial.

This was a turning point for the country’s media, and his dedication to fairness and transparency quickly made his newspaper a staple in the community.

Blend of passion, wit and commitment
Marc Neil-Jones’s blend of passion, wit, and unyielding commitment to press freedom became the foundation upon which the Vanuatu Trading Post evolved. The paper grew, expanded, and ultimately rebranded as the Vanuatu Daily Post, but Marc’s vision remained constant — to provide a platform for honest journalism and to hold power to account.

His ability to navigate the challenges that came with being an independent voice in a country where media freedom was still in its infancy is a testament to his resilience and determination.

Marc Neil-Jones faced numerous hurdles throughout his career — imprisonment, deportation, threats, and physical attacks — but he never wavered. Image: Del Abcede/Asia Pacific Report

Neil-Jones faced numerous hurdles throughout his career — imprisonment, deportation, threats, and physical attacks — but he never wavered. His sense of fairness and his commitment to truth were unwavering, even when the challenges seemed insurmountable.

His personal integrity and passion for his work left a lasting impact on the development of independent journalism in Vanuatu, ensuring that the country’s media continued to evolve and grow despite the odds.

Marc Neil-Jones’ legacy is immeasurable. He not only created a platform for independent news in Vanuatu, but he also became a symbol of resilience and a staunch defender of press freedom.

Marc Neil-Jones explaining how he used his radio journalism as a “guide” in the Secret Garden in 2016. Video: David Robie

His work has influenced generations of journalists, and his fight for the truth has shaped the media landscape in the Pacific.

As we remember Marc Neil-Jones, we also remember the Trading Post — the paper that started it all and grew into an institution that continues to uphold the values of fairness, integrity, and transparency.

Marc Neil-Jones’s work has changed the course of Vanuatu’s media history, and his contributions will continue to inspire those who fight for the freedom of the press in the Pacific and beyond.

Rest in peace, Marc Neil-Jones. Your legacy will live on in every headline, every report, and every story told with truth and integrity.

Terence Malapa is publisher of Vanuatu Politics and Home News.

Photojournalist Ben Bohane’s tribute
Vale Marc Neil-Jones, media pioneer and kava enthusiast who passed away last night. He fought for and normalised media freedom in Vanuatu through his Daily Post newspaper with business partner Gene Wong and a great bunch of local journalists.

Reporting the Pacific can sometimes be a body contact sport and Marc had the lumps to prove it. It was Marc who brought me to Vanuatu to work as founding editor for the regional Pacific Weekly Review in 2002 and I never left.

The newspaper didn’t last but our friendship did.

He was a humane and eccentric character who loved journalism and the botanical garden he ran with long time partner Jenny.

Rest easy mate, there will be many shells of kava raised in your honour today.

Gallery: Vanuatu ‘welcomes all’ to rebuilt traditional chiefs’ nakamal meeting house

APR editor — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 23:06:25 +0000

By Leah Lowonbu

Vanuatu has celebrated the reconstruction of the national council of chiefs meeting house, called the Malvatumauri nakamal, destroyed by fire two years ago.

Dozens of chiefs from across the country — and also Kanaky New Caledonia — joined the ceremony in the capital Port Vila on Wednesday, March 5, during the Chiefs Day national public holiday alongside the president, prime minister and general public.

Traditional dances, kastom ceremonies, and speeches highlighted the building’s cultural significance, reinforcing its role as a place for conflict resolution, discussions on governance, and the preservation of oral traditions.

After independence in 1980, the chiefs decided a symbol representing unity for all of Vanuatu’s peoples and customs be built in Port Vila. The nakamal was officially opened in 1990.

Ahead of the ceremony, Prime Minister Jotham Napat emphasised all are welcome at the meeting house, in the heart of the capital.

“Nakamal does not separate the people, nakamal has a place for everyone,” Napat said.

President of the Malvatumauri Council of Chiefs Paul Robert Ravun used the occasion to call for greater parliamentary consultation with customary leaders.

‘Right time to speak’
“For 44 years we have been silent, but now, in this moment, I believe it is the right time to speak,” Ravun said.

“Any bill that is to be passed through Parliament must first pass through the father’s house, the father must agree and have the final say before it can proceed,” he said, referring to the council of chiefs.

The nakamal took two years to rebuild using locally sourced materials, including natangura palm for the thatched roof and hardwood for the framework, after it was destroyed by fire in early 2023.

Volunteers including chiefs, community members, and apprentices eager to learn ancestral building techniques all contributed to its construction and it survived December’s 7.3 magnitude earthquake intact.

Vanuatu’s government and international donors France, Australia, New Zealand, and China provided financial and logistical support for its reconstruction, costing about 20 million vatu (US$160,000).

Republished with permission from BenarNews.

Images by the VBTC

The Malvatumauri nakamal

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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.

Vanuatu parliament elects Jotham Napat as new prime minister

APR editor — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 09:47:01 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Jotham Napat has been elected as the new prime minister of Vanuatu.

Napat was elected unopposed in Port Vila today, receiving 50 votes with two void votes.

He is the country’s fifth prime minister in four years and will lead a coalition government made up of five political parties — Leaders Party, Vanua’aku Party, Graon Mo Jastis Party, Reunification Movement for Change, and the Iauko Group.

READ MORE: Other Vanuatu politics reports

Napat is president of the Leaders Party, which secured the most seats in the House after the snap election last month.

The former prime minister Charlot Salwai nominated Napat for the top job.

The nomination was seconded by Ralph Regenvanu, president of the Graon Mo Jastis Pati, before the MP for Tanna and president of the Leaders Party accepted the nomination.

The MP for Port Vila and leader of the Union of Moderate Parties, Ishmael Kalsakau, congratulated Napat on his nomination and said there would be no other nomination for prime minister.

Who is Jotham Napat?
Napat, 52, is an MP for Tanna Constituency and is the president of the Leaders Party which emerged from the January 16 snap election with nine seats making it the largest party in Parliament.

He was born on Tanna in August 1972.

He heads a five party coalition government with more micro parties likely to affiliate to his administration in the coming days and weeks.

More than 30 MPs were seated on the government side of the House for today’s Parliament sitting.

Napat was first elected to the house in 2016.

He was re-elected in 2020 and again in the snap elections of 2022 and 2025.

Before entering Parliament he chaired the National Disaster Committee in the aftermath of the devastating Cyclone Pam.

New government facing many challenges
The incoming government will have a long list of urgent priorities to attend to, including the 2025 Budget and the ongoing rebuild of the central business district in the capital Port Vila after a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in December.

That quake claimed 14 lives, injured more than 200 people, and displaced thousands.

One voter who spoke to RNZ Pacific during last month’s election said they wanted leaders with good ideas for Vanuatu’s future.

“And not just the vision to run the government and the nation but also who has leadership qualities and is transparent.

“People who can work with communities and who don’t just think about themselves.”

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

‘Journalism has become a blood sport. It is harder and harder to tell the truth’

Pacific Media Watch — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 07:57:13 +0000

A investigative journalism programme — Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) — that has pubiished exposes about the South Pacific and has not been impacted on by the “freeze” of USAID funding has hit back in an editorial calling for support of independent media.

EDITORIAL: By the OCCRP editors

“OCCRP is a deep state operation.
“OCCRP is connected to the CIA.
“OCCRP was tasked by USAID to overthrow President Donald Trump.”

How did we end up getting this kind of attention? Old fashioned investigative journalism.

We wrote a simple story in 2019 about how Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine for some opposition research and ended up working with people connected to organised crime who misled him.

Unbeknown to us, a whistleblower found the story online and added it to a complaint that was the basis of President Trump’s first impeachment. We also wrote a story about Hunter Biden‘s business partners and their ties to organised crime but that hasn’t received the same attention.

Journalism has become a blood sport. It’s harder and harder to tell the truth without someone’s interests getting stepped on.

OCCRP prides itself on being independent and nonpartisan. No donor has any say in our reporting, but we often find ourselves under attack for our funding.

It’s not just political interests but organised crime, businesses, enablers, and other journalists who regularly attack us. What’s common in all of these attacks is that the truth doesn’t matter and it will not protect you.

Few attack the facts in our reporting. Instead we’re left perplexed by how to respond to wild conspiracy theories, outright disinformation, and hyperbolic hatred.

At the same time, we’ve lost 29 percent of our funding because of the US foreign aid freeze. This includes 82 percent of the money we give to newsrooms in our network, many of which operate in places [Pacific Media Watch: Such as in the Pacific] where no one else will support them.

This money did not only fund groundbreaking, prize-winning collaborative journalism but it also trained young investigative reporters to expose wrongdoing. It’s money that kept journalists safe from physical and digital attacks and supported those in exile who continued to report on crooks and dictators back in their home countries.

OCCRP now has 43 less journalists and staff to do our work.

No attack or funding freeze will stop us from trying to fulfill our mission. Just in the past week, OCCRP and its partners revealed how Russia’s shadow fleet sources its ships, how taxes haven’t been paid on Roman Abramovich’s yachts, and how Syrian intelligence spied on journalists.

Next week, we’ll take on another set of powerful actors to defend the public interest. And another set the week after that.

We are determined to stay in the fight and keep reporting on organised crime and the corrupt who enable and benefit from it. But it’s getting harder and we need help.

How to donate to the OCCRP project.

Ni-Vanuatu journalist Doddy Morris balances grief and duty in the aftermath of earthquake

Pacific Media Watch — Sun, 26 Jan 2025 02:39:20 +0000

By Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson

For Doddy Morris, a journalist with the Vanuatu Daily Post, the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Vanuatu last month on December 17, 2024, was more than just a story — it was a personal tragedy.

Amid the chaos, Morris learned his brother, an Anglican priest, had died.

“My mom called me crying and asked, ‘Did your brother die?’. I wasn’t sure and told her I was heading to Vila Central Hospital right away,” he recalled.

Morris arrived at the hospital to confirm the worst. “My heart sank when I confirmed that my brother had indeed passed away. At that moment, I forgot about my job.”

Doddy’s brother’s coffin . . . Doddy bids him farewell before the casket is flown to their home island. Image: Doddy Morris The New Atoll

Despite his grief, Morris joined his remaining brothers at the hospital mortuary that night, staying by their deceased sibling’s side and mourning together. “We were the only ones there. We spent the whole night drinking kava outside while he lay in the cool room,” he said.

The quake — which claimed 14 lives, injured more than 265 people, and displaced more than 1000 — left an indelible mark on Port Vila and its residents. Infrastructure damage was extensive, with schools, homes, and water reserves destroyed, and the Central Business District (CBD) heavily impacted.

In the days following the earthquake, Morris returned to his role as a reporter, capturing the unfolding crisis despite the emotional toll. “When the earthquake struck, I thought I was going to die myself,” he said. Yet, minutes after the tremor subsided, he grabbed his camera and rushed to the CBD.

At the heart of the destruction, he witnessed harrowing scenes. “I was shocked to see the collapsed Billabong building. A body lay covered with a blue tarpaulin, and Pro Rescue teams were trying to save others who were trapped inside,” Morris recounted.

The lack of a network connection frustrated his efforts to report live, but he pressed on, documenting the damage.

A month after the disaster, Morris continues to cover the aftermath as Vanuatu transitions from emergency response to recovery. “A month has passed since the earthquake, but the memories remain fresh. We don’t know when Port Vila will return to normal,” he said.

His photojournalism has been demonstrating the true impact of the earthquake as he continues to capture the mourning of a nation after such a tragic event.

Doddy Morris’ photojournalism . . . demonstrating the true impact of the earthquake as he continues to capture the mourning of a nation after such a tragic event. Image: Vanuatu Daily Post/The New Atoll

The earthquake left deep scars, not only on the nation’s infrastructure but also on its people. “Unlike cyclones, which we can predict, prepare for, and survive, earthquakes strike without warning and show no mercy,” Morris said.

Through grief and uncertainty, Morris remains committed to his work, documenting the resilience of his community and the challenges they face as they rebuild. His reporting serves as a testament to the strength of both the people of Vanuatu and a journalist who continues to bear witness, even in the face of personal loss.

Journalist Doddy Morris . . . reporting on the traumatic events of the earthquake meant confronting his own grief while documenting the grief of others. Image: The New Atoll

Reporting on his own community while grappling with personal loss is a reality for many Pacific Island journalists who cover disasters. For Doddy Morris, reporting on the traumatic events of the earthquake meant confronting his own grief while documenting the grief of others.

Dr Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson is a Pacific journalism trainer with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. She expresses her support for Morris and his colleagues in showing “extraordinary courage and resilience”. This article was first published by The New Atoll and is republished with permission.

Vanuatu AG condemns Trump’s Paris climate treaty exit as ‘troubling precedent’

APR editor — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 06:30:16 +0000

By Harry Pearl of BenarNews

Vanuatu’s top lawyer has called out the United States for “bad behavior” after newly inaugurated President Donald Trump withdrew the world’s biggest historic emitter of greenhouse gasses from the Paris Agreement for a second time.

The Pacific nation’s Attorney-General Arnold Loughman, who led Vanuatu’s landmark International Court of Justice climate case at The Hague last month, said the withdrawal represented an “undeniable setback” for international action on global warming.

“The Paris Agreement remains key to the world’s efforts to combat climate change and respond to its effects, and the participation of major economies like the US is crucial,” he told BenarNews in a statement.

The withdrawal could also set a “troubling precedent” regarding the accountability of rich nations that are disproportionately responsible for global warming, said Loughman.

“At the same time, the US’ bad behavior could inspire resolve on behalf of developed countries to act more responsibly to try and safeguard the international rule of law,” he said.

“Ultimately, the whole world stands to lose if the international legal framework is allowed to erode.”

Vanuatu’s Attorney-General Arnold Loughman at the International Court of Justice last month . . . “The whole world stands to lose if the international legal framework is allowed to erode.” Image: ICJ-CIJ

Trump’s announcement on Monday came less than two weeks after scientists confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first in which average temperatures exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Agreed to ‘pursue efforts’
Under the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, leaders agreed to “pursue efforts” to limit warming under the 1.5°C threshold or, failing that, keep rises “well below” 2°C by the end of the century.

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said on Wednesday in a brief comment that Trump’s action would “force us to rethink our position” but the US president must do “what is in the best interest of the United States of America”.

Other Pacific leaders and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) regional intergovernmental body have not responded to BenarNews requests for comment.

The forum — comprising 18 Pacific states and territories — in its 2018 Boe Declaration said: “Climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific and [we reaffirm] our commitment to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement.”

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka speaks at the opening of the new Nabouwalu Water Treatment Plant this week . . . Trump’s action would “force us to rethink our position”. Image: Fiji govt

Trump’s executive order sparked dismay and criticism in the Pacific, where the impacts of a warming planet are already being felt in the form of more intense storms and rising seas.

Jacynta Fa’amau, regional Pacific campaigner with environmental group 350 Pacific, said the withdrawal would be a diplomatic setback for the US.

“The climate crisis has for a long time now been our greatest security threat, especially to the Pacific,” she told BenarNews.

A clear signal
“This withdrawal from the agreement is a clear signal about how much the US values the survival of Pacific nations and all communities on the front lines.”

New Zealand’s former Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio, said that if the US withdrew from its traditional leadership roles in multilateral organisations China would fill the gap.

“Some people may not like how China plays its role,” wrote the former Labour MP on Facebook. “But when the great USA withdraws from these global organisations . . . it just means China can now go about providing global leadership.”

Analysts and former White House advisers told BenarNews last year that climate change could be a potential “flashpoint” between Pacific nations and a second Trump administration at a time of heightened geopolitical competition with China.

Trump’s announcement was not unexpected. During his first term he withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, only for former President Joe Biden to promptly rejoin in 2021.

The latest withdrawal puts the US, the world’s largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, alongside only Iran, Libya and Yemen outside the climate pact.

In his executive order, Trump said the US would immediately begin withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and from any other commitments made under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

US also ending climate finance
The US would also end its international climate finance programme to developing countries — a blow to small Pacific island states that already struggle to obtain funding for resilience and mitigation.

Press releases by the Biden administration were removed from the White House website immediately after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Image: White House website/Screen capture on Monday

A fact sheet published by the Biden administration on November 17, which has now been removed from the White House website, said that US international climate finance reached more than US$11 billion in 2024.

Loughman said the cessation of climate finance payments was particularly concerning for the Pacific region.

“These funds are essential for building resilience and supporting adaptation strategies,” he said. “Losing this support could severely hinder ongoing and future projects aimed at protecting our vulnerable ecosystems and communities.”

George Carter, deputy head of the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University and member of the COP29 Scientific Council, said at the centre of the Biden administration’s re-engagement with the South Pacific was a regional programme on climate adaptation.

“While the majority of climate finance that flows through the Pacific comes from Australia, Japan, European Union, New Zealand — then the United States — the climate networks and knowledge production from the US to the Pacific are substantial,” he said.

Sala George Carter (third from right) hosted a panel discussion at COP29 highlighting key challenges Indigenous communities face from climate change last November. Image: Sera Sefeti/BenarNews

Climate actions plans
Pacific island states, like all other signatories to the Paris Agreement, will this year be submitting Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, outlining their climate action plans for the next five years.

“All climate actions, policies and activities are conditional on international climate finance,” Carter said.

Pacific island nations are being disproportionately affected by climate change despite contributing just 0.02 percent of global emissions, according to a UN report released last year.

Low-lying islands are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and extreme weather events like cyclones, floods and marine heatwaves, which are projected to occur more frequently this century as a result of higher average global temperatures.

On January 10, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) confirmed that last year for the first time the global mean temperature tipped over 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average.

WMO experts emphasised that a single year of more than 1.5°C does not mean that the world has failed to meet long-term temperature goals, which are measured over decades, but added that “leaders must act — now” to avert negative impacts.

Harry Pearl is a BenarNews journalist. This article was first published by BenarNews and is republished at Asia Pacific Report with permission.

‘Decolonise’ aid urgent call from Fiji’s Prasad to face Pacific climate crisis

APR editor — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 20:53:49 +0000

By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad has told an international conference in Bangkok that some of the most severely debt-stressed countries are the island states of the Pacific.

Dr Prasad, who is also a former economic professor, said the harshest impacts of global economic re-engineering are being felt by the poorest communities across this region.

He told the conference last month that the adaptation challenges arising from runaway climate change were the steepest across the atoll states of the Pacific — Kiribati, Tuvalu and Marshall Islands.

READ MORE: Other Pacific climate crisis reports

Dr Prasad said at no time, outside of war, had economies had to face a 30 to 70 percent contraction as a consequence of a single cyclone, but Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga had faced such a situation within this decade.

He said the world must secure the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“There is no Plan B. The two options before the world are to either secure the goals, or face extreme chaos,” he said.

“There is nothing in the middle. Not this time.”

Extreme chaos risk
Prasad said there will be extreme chaos if the world went ahead and used the same international financial architecture it had had in place for years.

“And if we continue with the same complex processes to actually access any grant funding which is now available, then we cannot address the issue of this financing gap, as well as climate finance — both for mitigation and adaptation that is badly needed by small vulnerable economies.”

More and more Pacific states would approach a state of existential crisis unless development funding was sorted, he said.

Dr Prasad said many planned projects in the region should already be in place.

“We don’t have time on our hands plus the delay in accessing financing, particularly climate resilient infrastructure and for adaptation — then the situation for these countries is going to get worse and worse.”

He wants to “decolonise” aid, giving the developing countries more control over the aid dollars.

More direct donor aid
This would involve more donor nations providing aid directly into the recipient nation’s budgets.

Dr Prasad, who is also the Fiji Finance Minister, has welcomed the budget funding lead taken by Australia and New Zealand, and said Fiji’s experience with Canberra’s putting aid into the Budget had been a great help for his government.

“It allows us, not only the flexibility, but also it allows us to access funding and building our Budget, building our national development planned strategy, and built in with our own locally designed, and locally led strategies.”

He said the new Pacific Resilience Facility, to be set up in Tonga, is one way that this process of decolonising aid could be achieved.

Prasad said the region had welcomed the pledges made so far to support this new facility.

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

Vanuatu risks return to all-male parliament in snap election in spite of strong ‘ vot woman’ campaign

APR editor — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 05:01:51 +0000

By Leah Lowonbu in Port Vila

Vanuatu’s only incumbent female parliamentarian has lost her seat in a snap election leaving only one woman candidate in contention after an unofficial vote count.

The unofficial counting at polling locations indicated the majority of the 52 incumbent MPs have been reelected but also with some high profile departures.

Former deputy prime minister Jotham Napat, head of the Leaders Party, has secured up to nine MPs, putting him in poll position to try to form a coalition government.

Vanuatu’s snap election last Thursday was called in November and held in spite of a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that devastated the capital Port Vila in December.

The election results will be confirmed by the official count of votes in the capital once all ballot boxes have been transported from electorates to Port Vila.

Former female MP Julia King from the Efate constituency has likely lost her seat.

She made international headlines in 2022 as the first woman elected in Vanuatu in more than a decade and only the sixth woman to serve in Parliament since the nation’s independence in 1980.

Only hope for women
Marie Louis Milne, a candidate for the Port Vila constituency, has emerged as the only hope for a woman to sit in the chamber in the next term. Both Milne and a male candidate claim to have won the sixth and final seat in the electorate, based on the unofficial figures.

Campaigners for women parliamentarians hold “Vot Woman” t-shirts on polling day last week to support Marie Louise Milne in the Efate electorate. Image: BenarNews

“The high number of voters supporting women is a positive indication of changing perceptions surrounding women’s leadership and decision-making,” Milne told BenarNews.

“There are numerous pressing issues we want to address in Parliament, including women’s health and their economic development.”

The possible lack of female representation is a disappointment for Vanuatu governance and development policy specialist Anna Naupa.

Electoral officers confirm voters’ eligibility to vote in Vanuatu’s snap election last Thursday. Image: Leah Lowonbu/BenarNews

Marie Louis Milne, a candidate for the Port Vila constituency, has emerged as the only hope for a woman to sit in the chamber in the next term. Both Milne and a male candidate claim to have won the sixth and final seat in the electorate, based on the unofficial figures.

“The high number of voters supporting women is a positive indication of changing perceptions surrounding women’s leadership and decision-making,” Milne told BenarNews.

“There are numerous pressing issues we want to address in Parliament, including women’s health and their economic development.”

Gender disappointment
The possible lack of female representation is a disappointment for Vanuatu governance and development policy specialist Anna Naupa.

“We will wait for the official results, and if that turns out to be true, it is a sad reality for our country (that) women continue to face significant challenges in entering Parliament,” Naupa told BenarNews.

“We really need to look back at systems we have in place to help facilitate voices of women and vulnerable groups in our society.

“This means the new legislature needs to pull up its socks to listen to all people, at every level of society.”

This election there were seven women among the 217 candidates contesting, matching the number in 2022 but down from 18 in 2020.

“Thumbs up . . . Jotham Napat and his wife Lettis Napat after voting in Vanuatu’s snap election last week. Image: BenarNews

Several high profile MPs losing seats
The unofficial results show several high profile MPs are likely to lose their seats, including four-time prime minister Sato Kilman, head of the People’s Progressive Party.

Leaders from seven parties were re-elected including former prime minister Charlot Salwai from the Reunification Movement for Change, former prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau of the Union of Moderate Parties and former foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu of the Graon mo Jastis Pati.

“I am happy to return again and start working very soon — that’s all I have to say for now,” Regenvanu told BenarNews.

Other leaders thanked their voters on social media for their re-election.

Hopes for a generational change in Parliament rest with the few new MPs who look likely to be elected, including Matai Kaltabang in Julia King’s former electorate in Efate.

If elected, the member of the Iauko Group will be the youngest person in the 14th Parliament, at the age of 28 years old, and one of the youngest ever elected.

Parliamentary standing orders require the first sitting of the house be convened within 21 days of the election.

Despite the setbacks in the unofficial results for women, Milne remains optimistic, urging the six other female candidates who participated in the elections to persevere.

“I encourage them to never give up, build on what they have, and continue to make a difference in their communities so that in four years, we can see more women represented in Parliament,” she said.

Leah Lowonbu is a BenarNews contributor. Stefan Armbruster contributed to this report from Brisbane. Copyright BenarNews 2025 and republished with permission.

Leaders Party on track to be Vanuatu’s largest bloc as coalition talks underway

APR editor — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 05:40:47 +0000

By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Port Vila and Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

Vanuatu’s Parliament is starting to take shape according to preliminary election results.

As of Saturday, the Leaders Party was on track to becoming the largest in Parliament with 11 MPs.

Vanua’aku Party is next with seven, and United Moderates and Reunification Movement for Change are tied on six seats each.

Iauko Group had five and Graon Mo Jastis, four.

Coalition talks, already underway, are set to be complicated because in the last Parliament at least two parties had MPs split across both the government and opposition benches.

Ballot boxes from all around the country have been transported back to Port Vila where the Vanuatu Electoral Commission is conducting the official count.

Many Port Vila voters spoken to by RNZ Pacific said they wanted leaders who would act quickly to rebuild the quake-stricken city.

Others said they were sick of political instability.

Last week’s snap election was triggered by a premature dissolution of Parliament last year — the second consecutive time President Nike Vurobaravu has acted on a council of ministers’ request to dissolve the House in the face of a leadership challenge.

Counting the latest election Vanuatu will have had five prime ministers in five years.

Last June, a referendum agreed to two changes to the country’s constitution aimed at helping to settle the troubled political arena.

Ni-Vanuatu voters in New Caledonia
Meanwhile, New Caledonia’s diaspora also voted in Vanuatu’s snap poll to renew the 52-seat Parliament.

The only polling station, set up in the capital Nouméa near the Vanuatu Consulate-General, counted as part as the Vanuatu capital Port Vila’s constituency.

It was open to voters last Thursday from 7:30am to 8pm.

For New Caledonia, the estimated number of ni-Vanuatu registered voters is about 1600.

Bus shuttles were also organised for ni-Vanuatu voters residing in the Greater Nouméa area (Mont-Dore, Dumbéa and Païta).

Vanuatu one month on: aftershocks, a no-go zone and anxiety

APR editor — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 09:31:12 +0000

By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Port Vila

Today marks one month since a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila, claiming 14 lives, injuring more than 200 people, and displacing thousands more.

Downtown Port Vila remains a no-go zone.

Star Wharf, the international port, is still out of action and parts of the city and some of the villages surrounding it still have not had their water supply reconnected.

The Recovery Operations Centre estimates around 6000 workers from 200 businesses that operate in the CBD have been impacted.

All the while, loud rumbling tremors continue to rock the city; a recent one measuring above magnitude 5 on the Richter scale.

Leinasei Tarisiu lives outside of Vila but came in to vote in the snap election yesterday. She said children in her household still panic when there is an earthquake, even if it is small.

“They are still afraid. Even last night when we had that one that happened, we all ran outside,” she said.

“It’s hard for us to remain in the house.”

Ongoing trauma
The only mental health specialist at Vila Central Hospital, Dr Jimmy Obed, said the ongoing seismic activity is re-traumatising many.

Obed said as things slowly returned to something resembling normalcy, more people were reaching out for mental health support.

“What we try and tell them is that it’s a normal thing for you to be having this anxiety,” he said.

“And then we give them some skills. How to calm themselves down . . . when they are panicking, or are under stress, or have difficulty sleeping.

“Simple skills that they can use — even how children can calm and regulate their emotions.”

Post-earthquake scenes from Port Vila in Vanuatu. Image: Michael Thompson/FB/RNZ Pacific

Meanwhile, following yesterday’s snap election, preliminary counting and the transportation of ballot boxes back to the capital for the official tally continues.

Trenold Tari, an aviation worker who spoke to RNZ Pacific after he had cast his vote, said he hopes they are able to elect leaders with good ideas for Vanuatu’s future.

“And not just the vision to run the government and the nation but also who has leadership qualities and is transparent. People who can work with communities and who don’t just think about themselves,” he said.

Wanting quick rebuild
Many voters in the capital said they wanted leaders who would act quickly to rebuild the quake-stricken city.

Others said they were sick of political instability.

This week’s snap election was triggered by a premature dissolution of parliament last year; the second consecutive time President Nike Vurobaravu has acted on a council of ministers’ request to dissolve the house in the face of a leadership challenge.

Counting this week’s election, Vanuatu will have had five prime ministers in the last four years.

The chairperson of the Seaside Tongoa community, Paul Fred Tariliu, said they have discussed this as a group and made their feelings clear to their election candidate.

“We told our candidate to tell the presidents of all the political parties they are affiliated with — that if they end up in government and they find at some point they don’t have the number and a motion is brought against you, please be honest and set a good example — tell one group to step down and let another government come in,” Tariliu said.

Desperate need of aid
Election fever aside, thousands of people in Port Vila are still in desperate need of assistance.

The head of the Vanuatu Red Cross Society is looking to start distributing financial relief assistance to families affected by last month’s earthquake.

The embassy building for NZ, the US, the UK and France in Vanuatu was severely damaged in the earthquake. Image: Dan McGarry

The society’s secretary-general, Dickinson Tevi, said some villages were still without water and a lot of people were out of work.

“We have realised that there are still a few requests coming from the communities. People who haven’t been assessed during the emergency,” Tevi said.

“So, we have made plans to do a more detailed assessment after this to make sure we don’t leave anyone out.”

Tevi said with schools due to restart soon, parents and families who had lost their main source of income were under a lot of stress.

In a release, Save the Children Vanuatu country director Polly Bank, said disasters often had the power to suddenly turn children’s lives upside down, especially if they had lost loved ones, had their education interrupted, or had been forced to flee their homes.

Critical for children’s recovery
“In the aftermath of any disaster, it is critical for children recovering that they are able to return to their normal routines as soon as possible,” she said.

“And for most kids, this would include returning to school, where they can reconnect with friends and share their experiences.”

She said at least 12,500 children in the country may be forced to start the new school year in temporary learning centres with at least 100 classrooms across the country damaged or destroyed.

It is back to business for Vanuatu today after the public holiday that was declared yesterday to allow people to go and vote.

Unofficial election results continue to trickle in with local media reporting an even distribution of seats across the country for the Leaders Party, Vanua’aku Party, Reunification Movement for Change and the Iauko Group.

But it is still early days, with official results a while away.

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

Vanuatu polling underway in snap election one month after quake

APR editor — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 09:36:51 +0000

By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Port Vila

More than 180,000 registered voters are expected to cast their votes today with polls now open in Vanuatu.

It is remarkable the snap election is even able to happen with Friday marking one month since the 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck the capital Port Vila.

According to the government, 14 people died as a result of the quake, more than 210 were injured and thousands displaced.

Despite all of this Principal Electoral Officer Guilain Malessas said they worked around the clock to deliver the election within the two-month timeframe stipulated by the constitution.

The voter turnout at the last election was less than 50 percent but Malessas is optimistic participation today will be high.

He urged voters to go and exercise their democratic right.

“This country — we own it, it’s ours. If we just sit and complain that, this, that and the other thing aren’t good but then don’t contribute to making decisions then we will never change,” Malessas said.

Not everybody convinced
But not everybody is convinced that proceeding with the election was the right decision.

The president of the Port Vila Council of Women, Jane Iatika, said many families were still grieving, traumatised and struggling to put food on the table.

“If they were thinking about the people they would have [postponed] the election and dealt with the disaster first,” she said.

“Like right now if a mother goes and lines up to vote in the election — when they come back home what are they going to eat?”

This is the second consecutive time Vanuatu’s Parliament has been dissolved in the face of political instability.

And the country has had four prime ministerial changes in as many years.

The chairman of the Seaside Tongoa community, Paul Fred Tariliu,. said people were starting to lose faith in leadership, not just in Parliament but at the community level as well.

Urging candidates to ‘be humble’
He said they had been urging their candidates to be humble and concede defeat if they found themselves short of the numbers needed to rule.

“Instead of just going [into Parliament] for a short time [then] finding out they don’t have the numbers and dissolving Parliament,” Tariliu said.

“We are wasting money.

“When we continue with this kind of attitude people lose their trust in us [community] leaders and our national leaders.”

The official results of the last election in 2022 show a low voter turnout of just over 44 percent with the lowest participation in the country, just 34 percent, registered here in the capital Port Vila.

The Owen Hall polling station in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Image: Koroi Hawkins/RNZ Pacific

Conducting the election itself is a complicated logistical exercise with 352 polling stations spread out over the 12,000-sq km archipelago manned by 1700 polling officials and an additional one in Nouméa for citizens residing in New Caledonia.

Proxy voting is also being facilitated for workers overseas.

360 police for security
Deputy Police Commissioner Operations Kalo Willie Ben said more than 360 police officers had been deployed to provide security for the election process.

He said there were no active security threats for the election, but he said they were prepared to deploy more resources to any part of the country should the need arise.

“My advice [to the public] is that we conduct ourselves peacefully and raise any issues through the election dispute process,” Kalo Willie Ben said.

The head of the government Recovery Unit, Peter Korisa, said according to their initial estimates it would cost just over US$230 million to fully rebuild the capital after the earthquake.

Korisa said they were getting backlash for the indefinite closure of the CBD but continued to work diligently to ensure that, whatever government comes to power this month, it would be presented with a clear recovery plan.

“We still have a bit of funding but there is a greater challenge because we need to have a government in place so that we can trigger the bigger funding,” Korisa said.

Polling stations close at 4:30pm local time.

Unofficial check count
Principal electoral officer Malessas said an unofficial count would be conducted at all polling station venues before ballot boxes were transported back to the capital Port Vila for the official tally.

According to parliamentary standing orders, the first sitting of the new Parliament must be called within 21 days of the official election results being declared.

A spokesperson for the caretaker government has confirmed to RNZ Pacific that constitutional amendments aimed at curbing political instability would apply after the snap election.

The most immediate impact of these amendments will be that all independent MPs, and MPs who are the only member of their party or custom movement, must affiliate themselves with a larger political party for the full term of Parliament.

They also lock MPs into political parties with any defection or removal from a party resulting in the MP concerned losing their seat in Parliament.

However, the amendments do not prohibit entire parties from crossing the floor to either side so long as they do it as a united group.

It remains to be seen how effective the amendments will be in curbing instability.

The only real certainty provided by the constitution after this snap election is that the option to dissolve Parliament will not be available for the next 12 months.

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

Vanuatu election: Preparation almost complete for snap ballot

APR editor — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 01:22:55 +0000

By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Port Vila

The electoral commission in Vanuatu is trying its best to clear up some confusion with the voting process for tomorrow’s snap election.

Principal Electoral Officer Guilain Malessas said this is due to the tight turnaround to deliver this election after Parliament was dissolved last year.

The Vanuatu Electoral Office has confirmed that 52 seats, across 18 constituencies, will be contested by 217 candidates, seven of whom are women.

READ MORE: Other Vanuatu election reports

But Malessas said against all odds, preparations were almost complete.

The final ballot boxes are being deployed to the farthest polling stations in the country and final checks are being carried out.

He said the premature dissolution of parliament last year forced them to have to deliver an election a year early, and within a two-month timeframe, as required in the constitution.

Worked around the clock
Then last month’s 7.3 magnitude quake struck and he said they had worked around the clock.

“The final challenge that remains is for us to make sure all the ballot boxes that we have deployed have reached all the polling stations safely,” he said.

“Also, there is the challenge of a new ballot structure which we have not had enough awareness on.”

He said they had not had enough time to conduct community awareness about the new system, and there was also new electoral legislation, which was passed in preparation for 2026 — the original date for the next election.

“With the new ballot structure you just have a single page with all the candidates and their symbols on it and you just have to tick the one you want,” Malessas said.

“We have not had enough awareness.

“We have used all existing social media platforms but lots of people in rural areas do not have access to these things.”

Extra training
Malessas said they had had extra training for polling station officials to help voters on Thursday, and had printed lots of informational material to be posted up at polling stations.

He said election candidates had also been conducting awareness during their political campaigns.

With the December 17 earthquake forcing the relocation of many polling stations, they were also anticipating people turning up with national ID cards at the wrong polling stations.

To manage this, they plan to verify that the person is a resident of the constituency and that their ID card was issued before the close of voter registrations for this election on 3 December 2024.

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

Vanuatu election 2025: Earthquake aftershocks expose high cost of democracy

APR editor — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 12:18:17 +0000

COMMENTARY: By Anna Naupa

Out of the rubble of last year’s 7.3 magnitude earthquake that hit Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila on December 17 and the snap election due next week on January 16, a new leadership is required to reset the country’s developmental trajectory.

Persistent political turmoil has hampered the Pacific nation’s ability to deal with a compounding set of social and economic shocks over recent years, caused by climate-related and other natural disasters.

The earthquake is estimated to have conservatively caused US$244 million (VUV29 billion) in damage, and the Vanuatu government’s ability to pay for disaster response, the election, and resume public service delivery will require strong, committed and stable leadership.

Prior to the devastating quake and dramatic dissolution of Parliament on November 18, economist Peter Judge from Vanuatu-based Pacific Consulting warned of an evolving economic emergency.

Vanuatu’s US$1 billion economy faced a concerning decline in government revenue from value-added tax, down 25 percent on the previous year.

This was a ripple effect from the decline in economic activity after the collapse of national airline Air Vanuatu last May, as well as the falling revenues from the troubled Citizenship by Investment Programme.

Both were plagued by lack of oversight by parliamentarians.

Struggling economy
In 2024, Vanuatu is expected to record about 1 percent economic growth, as it struggles to climb out of the red and back to pre-pandemic levels.

Conversely, Vanuatu has a much more positive, although somewhat contradictory democratic profile.

According to the Global State of Democracy Initiative, Vanuatu is one of the more democratic states in the Pacific islands region, and currently ranks as 45th in the world.

But this performance comes with a significant price. Leadership turnover is frequent, with 28 prime ministerial terms in just 44 years of statehood, 20 of those in the last 25 years — the highest frequency of change in the Melanesian region.

The impacts of disrupted leadership and political instability are highly visible. Government decision-making and service delivery is grindingly slow.

In Vanuatu’s Parliament, the legislative process is frequently deferred due to regular motions of no confidence, with several critical bills still awaiting MPs’ attention.

Last October, for example, the Vanuatu government proposed a 2025 budget 10 percent smaller than 2024’s, due to reduced economic activity and declining government revenue.

Sudden dissolution
Parliament was unable to approve this year’s budget due to its sudden dissolution on November 18, only two-and-a-half years into a four-year political term.

This is the second consecutive presidential dissolution of Parliament, the previous one in 2022 also occurring barely two-and-a-half years into its term.

The Bill for the appropriation of the 2025 budget now awaits the formation of the next legislature for approval. In the meantime, earthquake recovery and election management costs accumulate under a caretaker government.

With deepening economic hardship and industries facing slow economic growth across multiple sectors, voters are looking for leadership that can stabilise the compounding cost of living pressures.

The new government will need to urgently tackle overdue, unresolved issues pertaining to reliable inter-island transport and air connectivity, outstanding teacher salaries and greater opportunities for the nation’s restive youth.

The youth unemployment rate is at 10.7 percent and rising.

Democracy with political stability is the holy grail for Vanuatu. But attaining this legendary and supposedly miraculous prize comes with costs attached.

Rules come into force
In response to civic and youth activism in late 2023 calling for political stability and transparency, the last Parliament approved a national referendum to make political affiliation more accountable and end party hopping.The rules come into force in the next parliamentary term for the first time.

The referendum passed successfully on May 29, 2024, but cost US$2.9 million. The 2022 snap election required US$1.4 million and the 2025 poll is expected to require another US$1.6 million.

While revenue from candidature fees of US$250,000 does cover part of these costs, each legislature transition also weighs on the public purse.

The current crop of outgoing 52 parliamentarians were paid out US$1.62 million in gratuities and benefits — around US$31,000 per MP — even though most did not see out their full terms.

Vanuatu’s average annual household income in 2020 was US$9000.

Whatever the outcome of the 2025 snap election, the incoming government will need to refocus attention on stabilising the trajectory of Vanuatu’s economy and development.

The next legislature — the 14th — will need to commit to stability in the interests of Vanuatu’s people and the nation’s development.

Budget, earthquake recovery priorities
The most immediate priorities for a new government should be the passage of the 2025 national budget and the implementation of an earthquake recovery and reconstruction plan.

In the 45 years since throwing off the British and French colonial yoke, citizens have enthusiastically done their duty at elections in the expectation of a national leadership that will take Vanuatu forward.

Now their faith appears to be waning, after the 2022 poll saw voter turnout — a key indicator of the health of a democracy — dropped below 50 percent for the first time since independence.

This election therefore needs to see a return on the considerable investment made in Vanuatu’s democratic processes, both in terms of financial cost to successive governments and donors, and more to the point, a political dividend for voters.

Anna Naupa is a ni-Vanuatu scholar and currently a PhD student at the Australian National University. Republished from BenarNews with permission.

Pacific 2025: Vanuatu quake, Tongan and Kanaky shakeups, Trump questions set tone for coming year

APR editor — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 23:32:49 +0000

Navigating the shared challenges of climate change, geostrategic tensions, political upheaval, disaster recovery and decolonisation plus a 50th birthday party, reports a BenarNews contributor’s analysis.

COMMENTARY: By Tess Newton Cain

Vanuatu’s devastating earthquake and dramatic political developments in Tonga and New Caledonia at the end of 2024 set the tone for the coming year in the Pacific.

The incoming Trump administration adds another level of uncertainty, ranging from the geostrategic competition with China and the region’s resulting militarisation through to the U.S. response to climate change.

And decolonisation for a number of territories in the Pacific will remain in focus as the region’s largest country celebrates its 50th anniversary of independence.

The deadly 7.3 earthquake that struck Port Vila on December 17 has left Vanuatu reeling. As the country moves from response to recovery, the full impacts of the damage will come to light.

The economic hit will be significant, with some businesses announcing that they will not open until well into the New Year or later.

Amid the physical carnage there’s Vanuatu’s political turmoil, with a snap general election triggered in November before the disaster struck to go ahead on January 16.

On Christmas Eve a new prime minister was elected in Tonga. ‘Aisake Valu Eke is a veteran politician, who has previously served as Minister of Finance. He succeeded Siaosi Sovaleni who resigned suddenly after a prolonged period of tension between his office and the Tongan royal family.

Eke takes the reins as Tonga heads towards national elections, due before the end of November. He will likely want to keep things stable and low key between now and then.

Fall of New Caledonia government
In Kanaky New Caledonia, the resignation of the Calédonie Ensemble party — also on Christmas Eve — led to the fall of the French territory’s government.

After last year’s violence and civil disorder – that crippled the economy but stopped a controversial electoral reform — the political turmoil jeopardises about US$77 million (75 million euro) of a US$237 million recovery funding package from France.

In addition, and given the fall of the Barnier government in Paris, attempts to reach a workable political settlement in New Caledonia are likely to be severely hampered, including any further movement to secure independence.

In France’s other Pacific territory, the government of French Polynesia is expected to step up its campaign for decolonisation from the European power.

Possibly the biggest party in the Pacific in 2025 will be the 50th anniversary of Papua New Guinea’s independence from Australia, accompanied hopefully by some reflection and action about the country’s future.

Eagerly awaited also will be the data from the country’s flawed census last year, due for release on the same day — September 16. But the celebrations will also serve as a reminder of unfinished self-determination business, with its Autonomous Region of Bougainville preparing for their independence declaration in the next two years.

The shadow of geopolitics looms large in the Pacific islands region. There is no reason to think that will change this year.

Trump administration unkowns
A significant unknown is how the incoming Trump administration will alter policy and funding settings, if at all. The current (re)engagement by the US in the region started with Trump during his first incumbency. His 2019 meeting with the then leaders of the compact states — Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands — at the White House was a pivotal moment.

Under Biden, billions of dollars have been committed to “securitise” the region in response to China. This year, we expect to see US marines start to transfer in numbers from Okinawa to Guam.

However, given Trump’s history and rhetoric when it comes to climate change, there is some concern about how reliable an ally the US will be when it comes to this vital security challenge for the region.

The last time Trump entered the White House, he withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement and he is widely expected to do the same again this time around.

In addition to polls in Tonga and Vanuatu, elections will be held in the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Caledonia and for the Autonomous Bougainville Government.

There will also be a federal election in Australia, the biggest aid donor in the Pacific, and a change in government will almost certainly have impacts in the region.

Given the sway that the national security community has on both sides of Australian politics, the centrality of Pacific engagement to foreign policy, particularly in response to China, is unlikely to change.

Likely climate policy change
How that manifests could look quite different under a conservative Liberal/National party government. The most likely change is in climate policy, including an avowed commitment to invest in nuclear power.

A refusal to shift away from fossil fuels or commit to enhanced finance for adaptation by a new administration could reignite tensions within the Pacific Islands Forum that have, to some extent, been quietened under Labor’s Albanese government.

Who is in government could also impact on the bid to host COP31 in 2026, with a decision between candidates Turkey and Australia not due until June, after the poll.

Pacific leaders and advocates face a systemic challenge regarding climate change. With the rise in conflict and geopolitical competition, the global focus on the climate crisis has weakened. The prevailing sense of disappointment over COP29 last year is likely to continue as partners’ engagement becomes increasingly securitised.

A major global event for this year is the Oceans Summit which will be held in Nice, France, in June. This is a critical forum for Pacific countries to take their climate diplomacy to a new level and attack the problem at its core.

In 2023, the G20 countries were responsible for 76 percent of global emissions. By capitalising on the geopolitical moment, the Pacific could nudge the key players to greater ambition.

Several G20 countries are seeking to expand and deepen their influence in the region alongside the five largest emitters — China, US, India, Russia, and Japan — all of which have strategic interests in the Pacific.

Given the increasingly transactional nature of Pacific engagement, 2025 should present an opportunity for Pacific governments to leverage their geostrategic capital in ways that will address human security for their peoples.

Dr Tess Newton Cain is a principal consultant at Sustineo P/L and adjunct associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute. She is a former lecturer at the University of the South Pacific and has over 25 years of experience working in the Pacific islands region. The views expressed here are hers, not those of BenarNews/RFA. Republished from BenarNews with permission.