Four South Pacific nations yesterday accused Australia of violating the sovereignty of the Solomon Islands fueling tensions as the region's leaders gathered for their annual summit.
Disputes between Australia and the Solomons are threatening to overshadow the summit, which is expected to include discussions of the future of an Australian-led security force in the troubled country.
Canberra has asked the Solomons to extradite an Australian citizen -- and close friend of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare -- to face child sex abuse charges in his home country.
Sogavare has refused the request and has suggested he could kick Australia out of the regional force of troops, police and officials that arrived in the Solomons in July 2003 and has helped restore law and order following years of communal violence.
Australians were among the police who raided Sogavare's office on Friday looking for evidence connected to the extradition case, drawing a sharp response yesterday from Sogavare and three other Melanesian leaders, who held talks in Fiji ahead of the Pacific Island Forum meeting of 16 South Pacific nations.
The leaders of Vanuatu, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomons said they "strongly condemned" actions by Australian members of the police force in the Solomon Islands in the raid on Sogavare's office, which they described "as provocative, uncalled for, and unnecessary."
"These actions are certainly a serious violation of Solomon Islands' territorial sovereignty and integrity, and are inconsistent with the UN Charter on the Respect for the Principles of Sovereignty," the leaders said in a statement.
The matter will be raised formally at the forum meeting, they said.
Howard noted that some Australian police in the Solomons were acting in positions within that country's police force, and that "any suggestion this was an action in which Australia was involved in any way is totally wrong."
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark on Saturday described the situation in the Solomon Islands as volatile, and said she would call for continued support of the mission during the three-day talks in the Fiji town of Nadi. Some leaders held bilateral and smaller-group discussions yesterday ahead of today's formal opening of the forum, which wraps up tomorrow.
Howard has warned that aid could be cut for unstable South Pacific states if they don't reduce corruption and strengthen accountability -- a move likely to further enflame tensions.
Before leaving Australia yesterday for the forum, Howard toned down the language of earlier warnings.
"We want to continue to provide significant amounts of aid," he told reporters in Sydney. "Our only request is that aid be accompanied by improved standards of governance ... and also a better approach to economic development and economic management."
The forum chairman, Fijian Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, said he was sure a way of resolving the issues would be found.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
TRUDEAU IN TROUBLE: US president-elect Donald Trump reacted to Chrystia Freeland’s departure, saying: ‘Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power. Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election. “It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but
RSS