Regional
PNG seeks deadline for refugee resettlement
Saturday 24 March 2018 | Published in Regional
PAPUA NEW GUINEA – The Papua New Guinea government wants Australia to set a deadline to get refugees from Manus Island out of the country.
New Zealands festival of Pacific culture marks 26 years
Saturday 24 March 2018 | Published in Regional
NEW ZEALAND – Organisers of Pasifika Festival, held in Auckland this weekend, want to focus the two-day event on re-connecting with grassroots this year.
Vanuatu bans single-use plastics
Saturday 24 March 2018 | Published in Regional
VANUATU – Vanuatu’s government has signed orders limiting the use of plastic and regulating waste throughout its 82 islands.
Cyclones looming near PNG and Vanuatu
Saturday 24 March 2018 | Published in Regional
PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Papua New Guinea’s weather office is warning people to prepare for a possible tropical cyclone.
'Children's lives in danger'
Saturday 24 March 2018 | Published in Regional
PAPUA NEW GUINEA – More than a quarter of a million people remain in need of urgent assistance almost a month after a large earthquake devastated the Papua New Guinea highlands.
Girls rugby project promotes equality
Saturday 24 March 2018 | Published in Regional
TONGA – A Tongan community centre for young women has announced a ‘Girls in Rugby’ project to boost support for gender equality through sport.
Tonga's PM rejects girls rugby ban
Saturday 24 March 2018 | Published in Regional
TONGA – Tonga’s ban on school girls playing rugby is over already.
Highlands town 'a battlefield'
Friday 23 March 2018 | Published in Regional
PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Violence and lawlessness are surging again in Papua New Guinea’s Hela province.
Outrage in Tonga over girls ban
Friday 23 March 2018 | Published in Regional
TONGA –The Tongan government has banned schoolgirls from playing rugby or boxing because the sports are deemed undignified and not in keeping with the island’s traditional culture.
Discovery of WW2 wreck locates brothers' grave
Thursday 22 March 2018 | Published in Regional
SOLOMON ISLANDS – The recent discovery of the USS Juneau in the depths of the South Pacific has provided some closure to people with connections to the warship, which was blown apart during World War Two.
'Live by the sword, die by the sword'
Thursday 22 March 2018 | Published in Regional
SAMOA – It takes the smallest of sparks to start a fire. If that small fire finds fuel and if it is not contained properly, it has the potential to develop into an inferno destroying everything in its wake.
Orion finds lost fishermen
Thursday 22 March 2018 | Published in Regional
KIRIBATI –The New Zealand Defence Force says two missing Kiribati fishermen were found 300 kilometres from the atoll they set off from.
Village violence creates uproar
Thursday 22 March 2018 | Published in Regional
SAMOA – A Samoa Member of Parliament has made a public apology in Parliament for the incident that injured several police officers and affected the public when young men from a village in his electorate blocked a public road this week.
Spouse abuse remains an issue in Marshall Islands
Monday 19 March 2018 | Published in Regional
MARSHALL ISLANDS – A steady flow of women seeking court relief from domestic violence confirms that spouse abuse continues as a serious problem in the Marshall Islands.
Accused priests sent to 'paedophile heaven'
Monday 19 March 2018 | Published in Regional
PACIFIC – As debate continues about the Catholic Church’s approach to the national redress scheme for Australian victims of child sexual abuse, the church is now being challenged to take responsibility and deal with crimes carried out by church officials overseas – in developing countries that include Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.
No sign of two missing Kiribati fishermen
Monday 19 March 2018 | Published in Regional
KIRIBATI – Two Kiribati fishermen missing for four days are yet to be found. The men aged 30 and 45 left a village in Kiribati’s Nonouti atoll on a six-metre aluminium boat early on Wednesday to fish off the south end of the atoll.
Archbishop guilt of sex abuse claims
Monday 19 March 2018 | Published in Regional
GUAM – A Vatican tribunal has found the archbishop of Guam, Anthony Apuron, guilty of “certain accusations” related to the sexual abuse of minors.
Quake victims just emerging
Monday 19 March 2018 | Published in Regional
PAPUA NEW GUINEA – A community worker from Mogulu in Papua New Guinea’s Western Province says some people have only just managed to walk out from landslip affected areas three weeks after the 7.5-magnitude earthquake rocked the Highlands.
Beetle pest threatens livelihoods
Monday 19 March 2018 | Published in Regional
SOLOMON ISLANDS – Solomon Islanders are facing a bleak future as the coconut rhinoceros beetle marches across its fertile plains, killing their “tree of life” by the millions.
Atoll bones most likely Earhart's
Monday 19 March 2018 | Published in Regional
PACIFIC – Bones discovered on a Pacific island in 1940 are “likely” to be those of famed pilot Amelia Earhart, according to a US peer-reviewed science journal.