- Angus Grigg, Jonathan Shapiro, and Lisa Murray have written three articles for the Australian Financial Review this week investigating Paladin Group, a company that received contracts worth $423 million from the Department of Home Affairs to provide security for refugees on Manus Island.
- The Morrison government lost a parliamentary vote on medical treatment of asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island and Nauru. The dispute between Coalition and Labor is set to feature prominently in the coming federal election campaign.
- In the Vanuatu Daily Post, Glenda Willie talks about the Convention Centre built in 2016 by China in Port Vila and explains why the government cannot maintain it, due to budget restrictions.
- This week, 63 officials and experts from around the Pacific gathered at Sydney University to discuss maritime boundaries and climate change. Stephen Dziedzic covers this issue.
- Just six weeks into the new year, Australia has already sent its prime minister, its foreign minister, the assistant minister for the Pacific, the chief of defence force, and the commissioner of the Australian federal police to the Pacific. Natalie Whiting and Stephen Dziedzic analyse the reasons behind this “step-up”.
- Here is the full transcript of the keynote address by Dame Meg Taylor, Secretary General of the PIF, in Vanuatu, titled “The China Alternative: Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands”.
- In Policy Forum, Martyn Pearce summarises a conversation between a number of experts about the state of regional cooperation amongst the Pacific Islands and the challenges they face in coordinating policy efforts.
- The Economist examines the Chinese paradox of logging exploitation: protecting tress at home while deforesting other countries, especially in the Pacific.
- In the past 150 years, only three islands have erupted from the ocean. One of them is in Tonga. The NASA organised an expedition and here is its story.
