The Pacific island nation of Nauru -- once rich with phosphates derived from bird droppings but now in financial ruins -- is appealing for help from 15 other regional states at an islands forum in Samoa over the coming three days, officials said yesterday.
Nauru's recently elected president, Ludwig Scotty, is to brief leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum's annual meeting on his financially strapped nation's plight and ask for assistance, said forum Secretary-General Greg Urwin.
The meeting will consider a proposal to station a forum official at the tiny island -- about 20 square kilometers halfway between Australia and Hawaii -- to advise it on how to tap sources of aid, he said.
Nauru never needed aid in the past when its tiny population was among the world's richest due to its vast reserves of phosphate, a chemical built up mainly from droppings of millions of birds that called the island home for centuries.
Mining of the phosphates, used in fertilizer, started early last century. Almost all of it has now been extracted, leaving the island looking like a moonscape.
Economic mismanagement and graft, coupled with depletion of phosphates, has driven the country to the brink of collapse. In June, Nauru officials were evicted from their consulate in Australia after their government failed to repay US$172 million owed to an American finance company.
"There is consciousness [among Forum nations] that in their days of plenty the Nauruans were quite generous to a number of countries" in the region, Urwin said.
Australia also is sending officials to Nauru to help the government manage its financial affairs and the few assets left after the loss of overseas investments valued at more nearly US$2 billion.
Australia pays millions of dollars each year to Nauru to host a detention center for asylum seekers.
Meanwhile, forum officials said they are confident leaders will adopt recommendations for a regional campaign against the spread of HIV/AIDS to be launched in December.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
RSS