Former education minister Derek Sikua was elected prime minister of the Solomon Islands yesterday, and immediately moved to repair ties with regional powers that became strained under his ousted predecessor
Sikua pledged yesterday to soothe ties with Canberra by sending controversial Attorney-General Julian Moti back to Australia to face child sex charges.
He had beem elected by legislators earlier in the day under tight security following last week's ousting of controversial leader Manasseh Sogavare.
PHOTO: AFP
Sikua, who was a leading critic of combative former leader Manasseh Sogavare, defeated Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Patteson Oti in the vote, said Deli Oso, a spokeswoman for the prime minister's office.
The new leader, who led a defection by a dozen government lawmakers last month, won by 32 votes to 15 in the ballot among 47 lawmakers. One legislator in the 48-member house is dead and his seat remains unfilled.
Sogavare was ousted in a no-confidence vote last week, following the defection of nine ministers -- including Sikua -- who had become increasingly disillusioned over the prime minister's handling of the relationship with Australia and other regional neighbors.
Sogavare was embroiled in a bitter stand-off with Australia after the appointment last year of his friend Julian Moti, who Canberra wants to extradite over child sex charges dating back to 1997.
Sikua said his Cabinet would make a formal decision on how Moti would be sent back to Australia when it meets this weekend.
"Moti is an Australian citizen, he will be sent back to Australia," he told a press conference. "The new immigration minister needs to be in place to sign the instruments."
A tight security cordon surrounded the parliament during the vote, with a police helicopter circling overhead and troops guarding the road up to the building on a hill overlooking the capital.
Police guarded the parliament and kept the public out of the immediate area, but there was no sign of trouble during the day.
Security forces belonging to the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) and local police were accused of negligence in failing to prevent rioting after a similar election in April last year.
The unpopular Snyder Rini was elected as prime minister but resigned less than a week later to be replaced by Sogavare, who regularly accused Australia of bullying during his 19-month term. Sogavare had been trying to reduce Australia's dominant role in RAMSI.
But Sikua said he wanted to visit Canberra early in the new year and would improve relations with RAMSI.
Sikua's election was welcomed by Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith.
"Australia is committed to assisting the Solomon Islands, through RAMSI and our bilateral aid program, to build a prosperous and sustainable future," Smith said.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
RSS