Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that newly elected Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele had told him the Pacific Island nation is undertaking a security review that would determine the future of policing cooperation.
A security pact struck with China in 2022 by then-Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare, who was pro-Beijing and encouraged Chinese infrastructure projects, alarmed Canberra and Washington amid concerns over China’s naval ambitions in the region.
The Solomon Islands’ biggest aid donor, Australia provided policing support for national elections last month. China also has a policing presence on the archipelago, strategically located 1,600km northeast of Australia.
Photo: AP
The Solomon Islands is a critically important relationship for Australia and a new government gives an opportunity for a new partnership, Marles told reporters on a one-day visit to Honiara.
“Prime Minister Manele made clear to me that the Solomon Islands government is going through a security review. We obviously will watch that with great interest and we await the outcome of that,” Marles told reporters, according to a transcript.
The review would “inform both governments” in terms of the Australian police presence in the Solomon Islands, which has a long history, and whether or not the island nation holds ambitions to form a military, he said.
Australia has provided extra budget support of A$7 million (US$4.7 million), and is in further talks, the Solomon Islands government said in a statement.
“Australia remains Solomon Islands’ partner of choice and I want to see our relationship grow to new heights during my tenure as prime minister,” Manele had told Marles, the statement said.
“I am ready to discuss the possibility of much, much larger bilateral cooperation partnerships to fast-track transformational undertakings,” Manele said.
Such steps would hasten the Solomon Islands’ efforts to achieve economic, social and security goals, he added.
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
RSS