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A weekly wrap-up of news, issues and current affairs from the Pacific. The programme is broadcast nationwide every Saturday evening on Radio New Zealand National and is produced by the newsroom of Radio New Zealand International. The following rundown is supplied from the broadcaster’s news system:
1. Amnesty International says the contempt of court conviction given to a prominent Fiji civil society group is chilling and a setback to freedom of expression in the country. On Friday the Citizens' Constitutional Forum chief, the Reverend Akuila Yabaki, received a three-month suspended jail sentence following CCF's reprinting of an article raising concern about the impartiality of Fiji's judiciary.
2. The Vanuatu government is being urged to provide details of its plans for an overhaul of the country's airport services.
3. New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully officially opened the Munda airstrip on Thursday, as work drew to a close in the Western Division of the Solomon Islands.
4. The French Polynesian government is struggling to revive the economy beset by record unemployment.
5. A New Zealand MP, Asenati Lole Taylor, says there has been overwhelming support in Kiribati for a report addressing adolescent sexual and reproductive health.
6. Papua New Guinea's government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Victoria University of Wellington to promote educational co-operation and training in New Zealand of Papua New Guineans.
7. A memoir has been released into the mystery surrounding the deaths of an American couple aboard their boat as they sailed towards Tahiti 36 years ago. Dare I Call it Murder? delves into the case of Loren and Joanne Edwards who were six months into a trip aboard their yacht, the Spellbound.