Category: Pacific News

RAROTONGA (COOK ISLANDS NEWS) — New Zealand has called on Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown to test the views of the Cook Islands people and hold a referendum on independence from New Zealand following his latest defence of agreements with China. New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs made this comment in response to PM […]

MAJURO (RNZ/PACNEWS) — United States immigration and deportation enforcement continues to ramp up, affecting Marshallese and Micronesians in new and unprecedented ways. The Trump administration’s directive to Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) to arrest and deport massive numbers of potentially illegal aliens, including those with convictions from decades past, is seeing Marshallese and Micronesians swept up […]

KINGSTON/YAREN (RNZ PACIFIC) — Nauru is a step closer to mining in international waters under highly contentious United States legislation. The path has been set out in the nation’s new agreement with Canadian mining group The Metals Company (TMC) and sits outside international law. News of it comes as delegates from around the world have […]

KINGSTON (PACNEWS)—With pressure mounting inside and outside the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the Council has agreed to continue work on the long-awaited draft regulations for commercial exploitation of deep-sea minerals. A major sticking point emerged over the operationalisation of the Economic Planning Commission (EPC), a UN-mandated body meant to guide the ISA Council on economic […]

By Blake Johnson and Astrid Young SYDNEY (ASPI) —The Pacific faces a rapidly evolving security environment. Foreign partners increasingly compete for comprehensive partnerships, engagements, coordination and influence. Security risks are also evolving, with a greater emphasis on climate- and disaster-driven security threats, and increasing transnational crime and hybrid threats. As a result, it is necessary […]

CANBERRA/HAGATNA (THE JERUSALEM POST) — Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) identified the earliest known evidence of rice in the Pacific Islands at an ancient cave site on Guam in the Mariana Islands of western Micronesia.  The discovery pushes back the timeline of rice’s arrival in the Pacific Islands, settling long-standing academic debates and […]