Pacific Beat

Access to energy sources for rural communities in the Pacific are still limited despite $1.3 billion being spent importing of oil-based or fossil fuels in 2008.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program has signed an agreement with the United Nations Development Program for new projects under PIGGAREP Plus, better known as the Pacific Island Greenhouse Gas Abatement through Renewable Energy Project.

Vanuatu is adding to its mix of alternative energy by developing a bio-mass energy to help reduce its reliance on imported petroleum products.

It might be a political hot potato, but Australia's 5 billion dollar annual foreign aid program has been given a glowing report card by the OECD.

It's not so much human rights in the Pacific but "human wrongs" and women and girls are always at the receiving end, long-time campaigner Graham Leung says.

Vanuatu police have arrested a journalist for publishing a seditious statement about the government on the internet.

Economist Dr Mahendra Reddy describes his latest job as "a daunting task".

American Samoan Governor Lolo Moliga has welcomed an investigation by US Treasury into allegations raised in a report on a housing program which was administered by Development Bank of American Samoa while he was bank president.

Trade unions in Australia and New Zealand have joined forces in a campaign to get tourists visiting Fiji to support workers rights.

Meanwhile, the tourism industry in Fiji says its workers are treated well, and the Australian and New Zealand unions aren't helping with their campaign.

Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister Peter O'Neill wants Australia to help him boost PNG's profile in Asia.

The Papua New Guinea Government has declared Sandaun province a disease area after confirming the contagious Newcastle bird disease is killing chickens in the PNG-Indonesia border villages.

Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr has announced that his government will provide 100,000 dollars for the emergency supply of desalination units for the Marshall Islands, following continued severe droughts which have severely reduced agricultural capacity and risk endangering local lives.

Evidence from data collected by Ghost Nets Australia indicates that thousands of discarded fishing nets are travelling through the Pacific and the rest of the world's oceans, they're invisible, can't be tracked and cause ecological damage by catching fish and other sea creatures.

The former Bishop of Malaita in Solomon Islands, Terry Brown says true reconciliation can only happen when people know the facts of the issue.

Some islands in the northern atolls of the Marshall Islands have totally run out of water because of an extended drought.

The northern atolls of Marshall Islands are reporting severe drought conditions, with almost 4,000 people without drinking water.

World Press Freedom Day was marked last week but one Marianas journalist has suddenly found that Freedom of Speech and Media freedom guaranteed by the US Constitution are not all they're crack up to be.