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. A human rights organisation [i.e. Human Rights Watch] says asylum seekers granted refugee status on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, are still trapped there.
2. Two Nauru opposition MPs [i.e. Sprent Dabwido and Squire Jeremiah] who have been in custody on Nauru for the last month have been released on bail along with eight other men in relation to anti government protests last month.
3. A communications blackout in the Northern Marianas has been devastating to businesses, with some losing tens of thousands of dollars for each day they were unable to access the internet.
4. Police in Papua New Guinea's Western Highlands province say they are powerless to stop a tribal war on the remote border with Enga province that has killed about 300 people over thirty years.
5. Hundreds of millions of litres of untreated waste water is to be pumped into a major river in Solomon Islands Guadalcanal province over the next few months.
6. Health authorities in American Samoa have described the recent dengue fever outbreak in the territory as an epidemic.
7. The Secretariat of the Pacific Community says a junk food tax has to be considered to prevent obesity in children.
8. A newly-published book [i.e. Idyllic No More: Pacific Islands Climate, Corruption and Development] by long-time Marshall Islands journalist Giff Johnson hopes to shine a light on the difficult problems and choices facing the Pacific Islands today.