Pacific Beat

It's been two weeks since the assassination of one of Solomon Islands leading peace brokers Sir Frederick Soaki - yet police still have not made any arrests.

There's been no official reaction from the American Samoa government to the guilty verdict for the former owner of a garment factory in the territory, accused of running a sweatshop with cheap Vietnamese and Chinese labour.

French Polynesia's President Gaston Flosse is on his way back to Tahiti, via the Cook Islands, after a four day visit in Fiji where he handed over relief supplies for cyclone Ami's victims in northern and south-eastern Fiji.

In the US Pacific Territory of Guam, there are serious concerns the health system may be near collapse.

In Papua New Guinea, Arua Maraga Hariki was sentenced to death by hanging last month for the wilful murder of two youths in a village near Port Moresby.

In Kiribati, the Chief Justice has officially declared Teburoro Tito as the country's new President.

Tonga's government has banned the country's only independent newspaper, the Times of Tonga.

In Fiji, the expulsion of a prominent member of the local Muslim community has raised concerns over religious freedom in the wake of worldwide fears of terrorism.

Hardly a day passes without reports in the media about violence against women.

The long-running court case in which the South Korean owner of a garment factory in American Samoa was accused of practising a form of modern slavery has ended with a guilty verdict.

Papuan activists are again calling on the international community to put pressure on Indonesia over its annexation of the western half of New Guinea in 1963.

Normal communications with Nauru are out of action, and it could be several weeks before they are restored.

On the small Australian territory of Norfolk Island, locals are describing a federal government push to amend their electoral laws as "genocidal".

A sociologist who worked for several years in Papua New Guinea on an Australian aid project aimed at helping improve PNG's prisons says it's time Australia started demanding action from the PNG Government on high-level corruption.

What exactly happens to all those plastic bags we pick up while shopping.

A dispute has broken out in the Cook Islands over a proposed extension to the Rarotonga Airport runway.

An increasing number of Pacific Island countries are now urging Australia, Britain and the United States to rethink their stance on war against Iraq.

Voters in Kiribati return to the polls tomorrow, the 25th of February, to vote for the country's next president.

The Australian government hopes proposed compulsory courses in good governance at the University of the South Pacific will make a difference in efforts to improve the running of regional governments.