If ever there was a blatant statement of realpolitik masquerading as friendliness, the latest United States-Pacific Island declaration must count as one of them, writes Binoy Kampmark.
Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to renew Australia’s standing in the region at the Pacific Islands Forum in Fiji. However, Peter Boyle argues it's not looking good given the country's record and projections on climate and militarisation.
West Papua advocates are calling on Pacific nations to raise the issue of Indonesia's human rights abuses on the 24th anniversary of the Biak massacre, reports Susan Price.
Climate action has never been a priority for Scott Morrison. He'd rather conspire with imperialist powers against China than face the music at COP26. Markela Panegyres reports.
Australia’s bullying behaviour was in full view again at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Tuvalu, as it ignored pleas to take climate change seriously.
Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi made an impassioned plea for the big powers in the region to stop bullying small Pacific Island nations just days before the 49th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) was held in Nauru over September 3-6.
“Any leader of any country who believes that there is no climate change, I think he ought to be taken to mental confinement. He is utterly stupid”, Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said on August 31.
Demonstration in solidarity with West Papua. Honiara, Solomon Islands.
Indonesian police beat two West Papuan students in Yahukimo, Papua Province, on September 16 for handing out leaflets about the Pacific Islands Forum.
The tasteless joking between immigration minister Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Tony Abbott about the threat of rising sea levels to Pacific Islands — caught on a microphone after the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) meeting — sums up the Australian government's attitude to the victims of its climate inaction.
The 46th PIF leaders' meeting in Port Moresby ended without reaching agreement on a united position to take to the Paris climate summit later this year. Pacific Island leaders could not convince Australia and New Zealand to agree on more ambitious targets.