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☆ French Leader Heads to Pacific Outpost Gripped by Deadly Unrest
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-22 | by ( Pete Mckenzie | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

President Emmanuel Macron of France is making a surprise trip to New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific that has been gripped by deadly unrest for more than a week, to hold talks with pro-independence leaders. Six people have died and hundreds have been injured since demonstrations by the Indigenous Kanak people turned violent early last week. Some local leaders expressed doubts that Mr. Macron, who is scheduled to arrive on Thursday, could defuse the tensions. Many in the Kanak community have accused Mr. Macron and France of reneging on an agreement that had put New Caledonia on a possible path to independence. Mr. Macron has refused calls to withdraw the amendment.

Persons: Emmanuel Macron, Macron, Jimmy Naouna Organizations: South Pacific Locations: France, New Caledonia, South, Indigenous, reneging

☆ Deadly Clashes in a French Pacific Territory Raise Fears of Civil War
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-17 | by ( Pete Mckenzie | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A chocolate factory and a soda bottling plant set on fire. As protests against French control boiled over this week in New Caledonia, the South Pacific archipelago experienced some of its most intense violence since a civil war decades ago. “I’m in a state of shock, I can’t move,” Lizzie Carboni, a writer who lives in Noumea, the capital, said by phone as the fourth night of protests began on Thursday. It built a penal colony and over time shipped in more foreigners to mine New Caledonia’s vast nickel reserves. That eventually made the Indigenous Kanaks a minority in their own land.

Persons: Molotov, “, Lizzie Carboni, Carboni Organizations: Pacific, ” Locations: New Caledonia, Noumea, ” France, Australia

☆ The Tiny Nation at the Vanguard of Mining the Ocean Floor
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-09 | by ( Pete Mckenzie | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Two ships arrived in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific in March of last year. One was a familiar sight: a massive cruise ship, bringing hundreds of tourists to the pristine shores of this nation of 15,000 people. To Mr. Brown, the cruise ship represented his country’s troubling dependence on tourism. He described the other vessel, owned by an international mining company, as a harbinger of incredible wealth. The Cook Islands is at the vanguard of a quest to mine the ocean floor for minerals used in electric car batteries.

Persons: Mark Brown, Brown Organizations: South Pacific Locations: Cook, South

☆ After Decades of Decline, a Feathered Icon Breeds in New Zealand’s Capital
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Pete Mckenzie | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At the foot of a towering fern, Pete Kirkman pushed his hand through a curtain of dead branches into a burrow. Baffled by the daylight, the chocolate-colored nocturnal bird shook its pencil-like beak from side to side. “You’re OK,” Mr. Kirkman, a conservationist, said soothingly, as he made the discovery last week. He watched in delight as another hatchling charged out, searching for its sibling, and fell into his arms. Starting in the 1800s, millions were slaughtered by nonnative predators like stoats, a mammal related to the weasel.

Persons: Pete Kirkman, Mr, Kirkman Organizations: New, kiwis Locations: New Zealanders

☆ As a National Favorite Fumbles, New Zealand Falls for Another Rugby Team
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( Pete Mckenzie | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In their three-decade existence, the Warriors have not won a single league title. The All Blacks are one of the most successful teams in sports history, with a win record of nearly 80 percent. The new season brought with it a new coach, Andrew Webster, who came with limited experience in the job. “It was so amazing that they were there, with the stadium packed out and with that sense of unity. It was euphoric.”The team has even become a talking point, however small, in national politics ahead of next month’s election.

Persons: “ They’ve, ”, Will Evans, “, Andrew Webster, Tohu Harris, Mr, Evans, Chris Hipkins, let’s, — Organizations: Warriors, Blacks, —

☆ For These Veterans, ‘Free’ Health Care Is a 5-Hour Flight Away
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Pete Mckenzie | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ovenny Jermeto was on a combat tour 7,000 miles away from his island home in the Pacific when a bomb blew up his vehicle in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan. He survived and completed his deployment, but later lost feeling in his right foot and struggled with anxiety and depression. He returned to the United States to finish his enlistment, eventually getting discharged on medical grounds. Thousands of foreign citizens enlist in the U.S. military every year; hundreds of them are from Micronesia, a result of the country’s close ties to the United States. According to the State Department, the regional rate of enlistment is double the rate in the United States, with almost 1 percent of Micronesians serving.

☆ $59 Million, Gone: How Bikini Atoll Leaders Blew Through U.S. Trust Fund
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Pete Mckenzie | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The golden sand of Bikini Atoll is laced with plutonium. In the 1940s and ’50s, the U.S. government used this coral reef, in the Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands, for testing nuclear weapons. In 2017, after a campaign by Bikini leaders for greater autonomy, the Trump administration announced that the government would lift withdrawal limits and stop auditing the main fund, then worth $59 million. Six years later, only about $100,000 remains, and the Bikini community is in crisis. He has defended some of the purchases as investments against climate change, as necessary to support isolated Bikinians and as attempts at revenue-generating projects.

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