PINA

China will seek a region-wide deal with almost a dozen Pacific islands covering policing, security and data communications cooperation when Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosts a meeting in Fiji next week, documents seen by Reuters show. A draft communique and five-year action plan sent by Beijing to 10 Pacific islands ahead of a foreign ministers meeting on 30 May has...

Pacific journalists have raised serious concerns about secrecy surrounding the upcoming marathon tour of the Pacific by China’s foreign minister, who will be visiting eight countries in 10 days. Wang Yi will visit Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste and Fiji between 26 May and 04 June, on a tour of the region that has...

Australia's new foreign minister, Penny Wong travels to Fiji Thursday  "to discuss how we can best secure our region and help build a stronger Pacific family." She says the visit in her first week on the job "demonstrates the importance we place on our relationship with Fiji and on our Pacific engagement." Wong says Australia will listen to its Pacific partners...

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has urged China to be transparent as it sends a high-level delegation through the “contested” Pacific. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is leading a tour through the region from Thursday, beginning with the hotspot Solomon Islands, which recently signed a security tie-up with Beijing. The Australian and New Zealand governments sounded the alarm on that...

The monkeypox outbreak that has been reported in 16 countries and several regions of the world can still be contained and the overall risk of transmission is low, the UN health agency said on Tuesday. “What we know from this virus and these modes of transmission, this outbreak can still be contained; it is the objective of the World Health...

The leaders of Japan, the United States, Australia and India on Tuesday vowed to extend more than US$50 billion in infrastructure aid and investment in the Indo-Pacific over the next five years, while making clear that a change of status quo by force anywhere is unacceptable in the wake of Russia's war in Ukraine. The message that came out from...

Pacific and Caribbean nations have joined Vanuatu in calling for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on countries’ legal obligations to protect people from climate harm. Formed of more than 80 islands stretched across 1,300 kilometres, Vanuatu is facing sea level rise and increasingly powerful cyclones that periodically cripple its economy. With the world not on track...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is to visit Kiribati on Friday for four hours as part of a Pacific tour to strengthen security ties in the region. It’s the first top level bilateral meeting between the two countries since Kiribati switched allegiance to China from Taiwan in 2019. Concern is mounting over a potential security deal following the PRC’s recent controversial...

Vanuatu appears ready to stop exporting dried kava roots to Fiji after years of Fijian producers failing to acknowledge that their exports contain imported produce. The CEO of the Vanuatu Primary Producers Authority Timothy Tumukon indicated on local media that Vanuatu would be better off exporting directly to Australia where it could value-add to its product. “Export to Australia and not...

The Member States of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday, re-elected Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to serve a second five-year term as Director-General of the world’s leading public health agency. First elected in 2017, his re-election by secret ballot, was confirmed during the 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva. He was the sole candidate. The vote was the culmination of an...