Regional
Youth leaders take climate change message to Sydney
Tuesday 12 May 2015 | Published in Regional
SYDNEY – Two months after category five cyclone Pam battered their small nations, four young Pacific island leaders have journeyed to southeast Sydney to encourage Australians to act on climate change.
One million to get feet wet for Tuvalu
Tuesday 12 May 2015 | Published in Regional
VENICE – An artwork that gets your feet wet is about to be unveiled in Venice at the 56th International Biennale.
Death penalty under review
Tuesday 12 May 2015 | Published in Regional
PORT MORESBY – Papua New Guinea’s prime minister Peter O’Neill says the death penalty is “under review” after recent global outcry over the execution of foreign drug convicts in neighbouring Indonesia.
Gloves are off as Bougainville polls open
Monday 11 May 2015 | Published in Regional
BUKA – Polls have opened in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville to elect a government that will lead the island on the path towards a referendum on independence from Papua New Guinea.
Fiji Sevens lead series and qualify for Olympics
Monday 11 May 2015 | Published in Regional
Fiji have beaten New Zealand 24-17 in the final of the Glasgow Sevens to claim their fourth title of the season and move to the brink of the World Series title.
Papuan prisoners released
Monday 11 May 2015 | Published in Regional
JAKARTA – Indonesian president Joko Widodo has ordered the release of a group of political prisoners in Papua in a rare conciliatory gesture to the restive eastern province.
Typhoon Noul thrashes Philippines
Monday 11 May 2015 | Published in Regional
MANILA – A powerful Pacific-born typhoon has swept across the Western Pacific after making landfall in the north-east of the Philippines as a “super typhoon”, before weakening and moving towards Taiwan.
UN torture team calls for transparency
Monday 11 May 2015 | Published in Regional
YAREN – A United Nations torture prevention team has called for greater transparency on conditions and systems governing the immigration detention centre in Nauru following a visit to the island nation.
Fiji minister resigns due to ill health
Monday 11 May 2015 | Published in Regional
SUVA – Fiji’s Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, and the leader of the Government in the Parliament, Pio Tikoduadua, has resigned due to illness.
Landowners pay $100 for a gold mine
Saturday 9 May 2015 | Published in Regional
HONIARA – A landowner company in Solomon Islands has bought the troubled Gold Ridge mine for just $100 from Australian gold miner Saint Barbara.
Surfboards shaped with bush knives
Saturday 9 May 2015 | Published in Regional
TIPURA – Surfers in Papua New Guinea are going back to basics and learning the traditional Hawaiian techniques of timber surfboard building.
Backlash over tax-free salaries
Saturday 9 May 2015 | Published in Regional
HONIARA – There is a growing discontent against moves in Solomon Islands to offer tax-free salaries to federal members of parliament.
Turning waste into energy
Saturday 9 May 2015 | Published in Regional
MAJURO – A $2 million waste-to-power investment by one of the biggest corporations in the United States is underway at the Marshall Islands Energy Company’s power plant in Majuro.
They named the village after the builder
Saturday 9 May 2015 | Published in Regional
LAUTOKA – Just outside Fiji’s second biggest city, Lautoka, lies a place known as Koroipita or Peter’s village, home to some of the country’s poorest people.
He's survived every natural disaster
Monday 23 March 2015 | Published in Regional
EFATE – Volcanic eruptions, landslides, earthquakes and cyclones – 76-year-old Lik Simelum from Vanuatu has survived them all – although he did see his father and youngest brother killed by a cyclone triggered landslide.
Death toll rises, homeless go hungry
Monday 23 March 2015 | Published in Regional
PORT VILA – The United Nations has raised the confirmed death toll in Vanuatu in the wake of Cyclone Pam from 11 to 16 in the wake of the direct hit from the devastating category five storm on March 13.
Importance of forests highlighted
Monday 23 March 2015 | Published in Regional
PORT MORESBY – A United Nations ecology expert says the world needs to realise the importance the forests of Papua New Guinea holds in the fight against climate change.
Apology demanded after Nauru review
Monday 23 March 2015 | Published in Regional
CANBERRA – The Australian Greens says the former Immigration Minister Scott Morrison must apologise for his role in the wrongful sacking of ten charity workers on Nauru.
Violence against refugees continues
Monday 23 March 2015 | Published in Regional
YAREN – Tensions between refugees and locals on the pacific island of Nauru have been heightened again after a series of violent attacks that have left multiple refugees injured or arrested.
'Pam' a popular name for new babies
Monday 23 March 2015 | Published in Regional
PORT VILA – Pam has suddenly a become the trendiest name for new baby girls born in Vanuatu since the country was hit by Cyclone Pam last Friday. The local charity ambulance operation Promedical has been involved with two babies called Pam in the past few days and Australian volunteer paramedic Charlotte Gillon said she has heard of others too. Gillon helped deliver local woman Trisha Ronald’s little girl in the back of the ambulance immediately attending to the birth of another little Pamela. “Just before we got a call to come see Trisha we picked up a newborn baby just outside of Port Vila and she’d already been named Pamela so we dropped her off at hospital and then we got another call.” The next baby was born in the ambulance and her mother decided to call the baby Charlotte Pam – for the paramedic and to mark the cyclone. Young paramedic Charlotte, who has been in Vanuatu for two years under the Australian Volunteers International programme, said that was a great honour, and a bright spot in a challenging week. “It’s wonderful to do a job like this at a time like this when the nation’s grappling with a national disaster and to have a joyful healthy baby girl born is wonderful work.” Promedical is a not-for-profit ambulance service that survives via donations and subscriptions. In the days after the storm, with communications down, manager Michael Benjamin and his staff simply drove around looking for people who needed help. He said the community response to the storm had been inspiring. “The people are just simply amazing. I can’t believe the amount of work that these local people are putting in and how quickly they’ve got the roads clear and electricity on and water on. It’s just pretty impressive.” Having been stretched by the demands after the storm, Promedical has set up a fundraising page so it can continue to provide an effective service. Meanwhile, a week on from Cyclone Pam, communities in Vanuatu are on the brink of running out of food and water as aid agencies and local authorities grapple with meeting the immense need. The Vanuatu government estimates that more than 100,000 people have been made homeless by the storm, and not all communities have yet been reached. Cooper Henry, a school teacher from Northern Effate, said the people were catching and eating flying foxes and birds. “Things are getting expensive, rice, the main food in town, is getting expensive. We are trying to find something else like flying bats, flying foxes – we also ate birds. It’s so sad, they too want to live but somehow since they are under our management so we just have to kill.” Food in Vanuatu comes mostly from small gardens but they have been completely wiped out and will take months or years to re-establish.
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