PINA

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) recommends raising to two metres, instead of the existing one metre, the imaginary waterline demarcation for projects in the Asia Pacific region to improve the resilience of structures against rising sea levels. An ADB report presented during the bank’s annual board meeting (26-30 September) warns that sea levels in the Asia-Pacific could exceed two metres...

Pacific climate change activists will be pushing for the establishment of a Loss and Damage funding facility at the UN's annual climate change summit “to advance climate justice for grassroots communities” in the region. With less than a month to go before the 27th Conference of Parties or COP27 in Egypt, civil society groups and other stakeholders met last week...

Images of Tagaloa, the giant Samoan creation God show him balancing on two islands and beaming with a smile. The islands were stepping stones for his Polynesian people that have always been on the move. He would be proud of this Samoan rugby league team who are looking to make history and write the final chapter of the Pacific Revolution...

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has refused to admit his visit to Papua New Guinea is about deterring relationships with China amid its growing influence in the Pacific. China has moved to improve its relationships with several Pacific nations in recent years including a landmark security partnership with the Solomon Islands which caused great concern over the possibility of...

By Makereta Komai, PACNEWS Editor in Taipei Taiwan ranks sixth out of 163 countries around the world in overall gender equality and the first in Asia. And women, account for more than 42 percent of the nation’s legislators, well above the world average. “I very much look forward to the day when phrases like “female president” and “woman president” are things...

By Dorothy Wickham; Associate Professor Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, University of Hawaii at Mānoa; Dean Wickham Latrobe University; Hunhak Matt Gale; Dr Debra McDougall, University of Melbourne Last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and Australia’s Anthony Albanese met in Canberra for the first time, less than a month after Australia offered to fund Solomon Islands’ elections to avoid delay. Since...

By Anthony Bergin and Grant Newsham When it comes to Australia’s policy in the Pacific islands, what’s first needed is a changed mindset. We need to recognise that the region is key terrain. It’s essential for U.S and Australian defence; it’s not a secondary theatre where we do ‘just enough to keep the locals calm and on side’. What...

The government of Guam has rejected suggestions Washington is behind the United States territory's bid to join the Pacific's peak diplomatic body. Experts say the move would place the U.S "firmly on the inside" of debates about China and other regional matters. The Pacific Islands Forum , which currently has 17 members, is the primary body through which Pacific nations and...

By Makereta Komai, PACNEWS Editot in Taipei Taiwan says it will not actively go out of its way to try and persuade two of its former allies in the Pacific - Kiribati and Solomon Islands – to switch diplomatic relations back to Taipei. Both Kiribati and Solomon Islands severed ties with Taiwan in favour of the People’s Republic of China...

The South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu will hold a snap election today with six former prime ministers contesting the poll, after parliament was dissolved in August to avoid a vote of no confidence in the government, said local media. Opposition leader Ralph Regenvanu of the GJP Party has accused Prime Minister Bob Loughman of attempting to make “dangerous amendments”...