- Chinese President Xi Jinping has offered to host a meeting with Pacific leaders in Papua New Guinea ahead of the APEC leaders summit in November. The invitation comes amid extensive discussion in Australia regarding China’s growing influence in the Pacific.
- Nauru announced last week that it would not allow ABC reporters to attend the Pacific Island Forum leaders summit in September, accusing the broadcaster of false reporting about Nauru. Malcolm Turnbull offered an “expression of regret” over the decision. This response was criticised by many as “meek”, and highlighted the government’s beholdenness to Nauru as the site of one of Australia’s offshore detention centres.
- At Devpolicy, Jemima Garrett looks at the Australian Government’s decision to review ABC broadcasting in the Pacific. She argues that the services are of “critical value” in the Pacific, and that our broadcasting operations could play an important role in Malcolm Turnbull’s recent promise to “step up” Australia’s Pacific engagement.
- GFDRR and the World Bank have released a new fact sheet covering community resilience in Solomon Islands. The publication looks at how Solomon Islands is building community resilience in the face of natural disaster risks amplified by climate change.
- The Development Policy Centre and the University of South Pacific’s 2018 Pacific Update was held last week in Suva. Presentations from the conference can be found here, and cover topics including resilience, climate change, health, and gender. The conference also saw the release of an edited collection of DevPolicy blog posts, Pacific Stories, available for download here.
- At NPR, a beautiful photographic exploration of some of the Second World War wrecks found in the waters around PNG.
- The 2018 Melanesian Arts and Cultural Festival was held last week in Solomon Islands with a theme of “Past Recollections, Future Connections”. The festival takes place every four years and aims to promote traditional and contemporary Melanesian arts and preserve Melanesian culture. Some photos from the festival are below.
