Pacific Islands Report ... popular Hawai'i-based regional news and current affairs source. Image: PMC Online

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Alex Perrottet of Pacific Media Watch

A popular news portal published by the University of Hawaii’s East-West Centre is the first victim of US Congress budget cuts to the centre.

The Pacific Islands Report’s comprehensive media round-up published in print and online will almost certainly be scaled back as the result of the recent retrenchment of its editor Peter Wagner.

Wagner, who has been at the helm of the report for the past 10 years, is an experienced journalist in Hawai’i and says the decision is a “shame”. Read more »

Oil being pumped off the stricken container ship Rena, grounded on the Astrolabe reef in the Bay of Plenty. Photo: Maritime NZ

WITH the Rena still precariously balanced on New Zealand’s Astrolabe Reef – an environmental catastrophe that has hit the Bay of Plenty coastline – it doesn’t take much imagination to envisage the sort of damage that could be done to fragile Pacific ecosystems in the wake of a similar disaster. Special report by Kim Austin for Pacific Scoop.

Although there has been much talk about the problem of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the Pacific over recent months, anti-landmine campaigners are worried the New Zealand government may be looking to downgrade its aid commitment to the region.

This, combined with pressure from the US government on the handful of Pacific nations yet to sign the Mine Ban Treaty, is causing concern for NGOs working in the Pacific.

At the recent Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in Auckland, a talk was given about the UXO problem that still plagues vast areas of the Pacific, especially in the North West. Read more »

Indonesian repression in West Papua. Cartoon: © Malcolm Evans / PJR

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By PMC news desk

The killing and abduction of journalists in Indonesian-occupied West Papua has been highlighted in a special new report on Pacific media freedom over the past year by Pacific Journalism Review.

“By far the most serious case of media freedom violations in the Pacific is in West Papua—far from international scrutiny,” says the journal in an editorial.

The 39-page report on the state of media freedom in the Pacific in 2011 notes that in August, in particular, “sustained repression has also hit the news media and journalists”. Read more »

Flashback to Nuku'alofa 2006 ... Pacific-wide fear of rioting, fuelled by jobless youth. Photo: SMH

THE 42nd Pacific Islands Forum came and went, but Pacific youth advocates are pleading with leaders to wake up to the increasing number of young people involved in crime and violence in the Pacific.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Christopher Chang

At 3:30pm on 16 November 2006, the first stone was thrown in Nuku’alofa, Tonga. Within three hours, rioters had tipped over cars and looted shops.

The Pacifica Royale hotel and ANZ Bank crackled under the blaze of fire. Eight people were killed.

The rioters were of all ages, but most were young males. It is a situation that Pacific youth advocates are still fearful of, five years on. Read more »

Oxfam launched its GROW campaign for the Pacific in Auckland. Featured in the street theatre are "trader" Tim McPoland and "farmer" Maria Vai. Photo: Glenn Welch

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Yvonne Brill

The Pacific region is at risk of falling victim to a “broken food system” with supplies being hit by environmental crises such as climate change, says Oxfam in a new global campaign.

Barry Coates, executive director of Oxfam New Zealand, said there was a growing global crisis in the world’s food system.

This view was supported by evidence from a new report released yesterday in conjunction with the launch of Oxfam’s GROW campaign. Read more »

A trail of tsunami devastation along the waterfront in Kailua-Kona town on Hawai'i Island. Photo: Anne Irene Wilcox

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Ana Currie in Kealakekua, Hawai’i

Civil Defence personnel and residents of the “Big Island” of Hawai‘i were today still assessing the extent of the damage that occurred during yesterday morning’s tsunami waves in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake off Japan, which hit the island around 4 am.

Beaches were swamped and low-lying areas flooded throughout the Hawai’ian Islands after the tsunami, spawned by an 8.9-magnitude quake about 150km off the east coast of Honshu, raced across the Pacific and surged onto Hawai’i’s shores.

Most of the damage, however, appears to have been centred on the west-facing coast of Hawai‘i Island, particularly in Kailua-Kona and the Kealakekua Bay area, where water rushed onto roadways, tumbling cars, damaging coastal buildings, and in at least one case, sweeping an entire house off its foundations and into the sea. Read more »

Cars swept away in dramatic tsunami scenes in Sendai, north-eastern Japan. Photo: RT

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Pacific Media Watch

Many South Pacific countries and territories have lifted tsunami warnings after Japan’s catastrophic 8.9 magnitude earthquake, but Tahiti is still ordering many residents to stay ashore.

The death toll from Friday’s 8.9 magnitude earthquake reached 202 on Saturday in nine prefectures, including Tokyo, with the toll likely to rise to well over 1000 as some areas suffered devastating damage, according to the National Police Agency.

Emergencies were declared at two nuclear power plants crippled by the quake. Read more »

Aisake Casimira, programmes coordinator for the Pacific Conference of Churches: “This is a social problem.” Photo: Joe Yaya/PCC

Church leaders at this month’s Pacific Conference of Churches meeting were called on to help deal with the issue of HIV and AIDS in the Pacific, with a focus on family and discouraging “outdated” cultural norms.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Alex Perrottet

Church leaders must face the facts about HIV/AIDS in the Pacific and drop long-held prejudices about those living with the virus, says a regional advocate.

Steven Vete of UNAIDS said prejudice and discrimination prevent access to treatment for those most in need. Read more »

Pacific Press Release – Samoa Times

HONOLULU: Distinguished Pacific author, political scientist, scholar and educator, Dr Fay Gilkey Calkins Ala’ilima, passed away peacefully at her home on Pia Street in Honolulu, Hawaii on Sunday, August 1, 2010.

She was aged 88.

Born of a US East Coast family with strong Puritan Quaker and Methodist traditions, Fay married her husband Vaiao John Ala’ilima in January 1952 in Washington, DC, and committed her life to a Pacific community emerging from a colonial era. Read more »

Press Release – Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust

Swapping one volcanic landscape for another¸ Hawaiian artist Jordan Souza is set to arrive in Auckland in late February to take up his Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust Artist Residency. Read more »