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Sep 17, 2024 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Mihai Sora
Digital transformation in the Pacific relies on external partners. As Australia, the United States, Japan and China vie to finance strategic infrastructure such as undersea internet cables and telecommunications networks, the cyber domain is becoming as geopolitically contested as traditional domains of competition.
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Aug 20, 2024 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Mihai Sora
The Pacific region is facing a “polycrisis”, said Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka at a Pacific security conference in Suva in June. The mounting threats of climate change, transnational crime, intense geopolitical competition, severe debt and economic distress are compounding regional human security pressures, such as mental health, non-communicable diseases, gasping health systems and plummeting education outcomes.
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Aug 5, 2024 | 
inkl.com | Mihai Sora |Anna Powles
China is striking security pacts and working to increase influence in the Pacific, experts say. (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)China muscling into the Pacific goes beyond trying to establish a strategic foothold in attempting to secure vital support for any future action against Taiwan, experts say. Beijing has courted Pacific island nations to switch allegiances from recognising Taiwan to gain vital allies in the United Nations, where every state has a single vote, Mihai Sora said.
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May 5, 2024 | 
samoaobserver.ws | Terence Wood |William Robinson |Stephen Howes |Mihai Sora
Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs.
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May 2, 2024 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Mihai Sora
“Leading a nation is never an easy task,” said Jeremiah Manele while standing on the steps of Solomon Islands’ National Parliament, moments after he was elected prime minister. The otherwise peaceful national election on 17 April delivered the brutal realisation that a second consecutive government lead by Manasseh Sogavare would be a difficult pill for the Solomon Islands community to swallow after five years of divisive identity politics.
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Mar 19, 2024 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Mihai Sora
Heard diplomats or analysts using a new turn of phrase only to wonder, “What does that mean?” Today we ask …What is “Friends to all”? At its core, “Friends to all” is a declaration of non-alignment by small Pacific Islands states. It’s a strategic choice to engage positively with all external powers and obtain the best development and security deals possible, irrespective of these powers' competing geopolitical interests.
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Mar 11, 2024 | 
theguardian.com | Meg Keen |Mihai Sora
A dysfunctional US Congress finally got its act together and approved a $7bn funding package for three Pacific nations. After years of negotiations and more recently, months of delay by US lawmakers, Congress late Friday cleared the way for the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau to renew the Compacts of Free Association (Cofa) agreements that fund critical services for the next two decades, and keep open a special migration pathway to the US.
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Nov 22, 2023 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Mihai Sora
Pacific Island countries, with their sprawling geography, have been caught in a digital divide. Lack of critical, digitally enabling infrastructure slows down development progress and widens the gap between Pacific communities and the global economic system at a time when many countries are undertaking rapid digital transformations.
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May 16, 2023 | 
canberratimes.com.au | Mihai Sora
Australian Army soldier Corporal Brandon Grey deployed on Operation Lilia shows children photographs on his camera at the Private Jamie Clark Memorial Kindergarten in Honiara, Solomon Islands. Picture DefenceThe Defence Strategic Review recognises that diplomacy, development and defence will have to work together to meet Australia's security needs in a period of heightened global uncertainty and increasing contestation in the Pacific.
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Apr 20, 2023 | 
theguardian.com | Mihai Sora
James Cleverly’s visit to the Pacific, the first by a British foreign minister to some of the islands since the 1970s, is as welcome as it is overdue. Australia and the US have already made significant renewed commitments to the Pacific after China signed a security pact with Solomon Islands in April last year but the UK’s Indo-Pacific “Tilt” has been some years in arriving to the South Pacific.
