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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
The Philippines yesterday slammed an “irresponsible” Chinese state media report claiming a disputed reef in the South China Sea was under Beijing’s control, saying the “status quo” was unchanged. Tiexian Reef (鐵線礁), also known as Sandy Cay Reef, lies near Thitu Island, or Pagasa, where the Philippines stations troops and maintains a coast guard monitoring base. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Saturday said that the China Coast Guard had “implemented maritime control” over Tiexian Reef in the middle of this month. The Philippines and China have been engaged in months of confrontations over the South China Sea, which Beijing claims nearly in its