Japan plans to station drones on Iwo Jima and Chichijima Island to provide real-time intelligence, addressing a surveillance "blind spot" amid increasing Chinese maritime activity in the western Pacific.
A study published in Nature reveals that some Indigenous South American populations carry genetic ancestry remarkably similar to Indigenous populations in Australia and Pacific Islands. Researchers concluded this ancestry did not come from the Americas' earliest settlers, pointing to an ancient "ghost population" that contributed genes to Amazonian groups. The findings challenge the decades-old theory that the Americas were populated through two major migration waves beginning roughly 15,000 years ago via the Bering Strait land bridge.
Kiribati derives over 70% of government revenue from selling tuna fishing licenses to foreign fleets, the highest proportion of any nation. The country's EEZ of 3.4 million sq km generates $137m annually, but climate change threatens to push tuna eastward to cooler waters, potentially costing more than $10m per year by 2050 under high emission scenarios.
World Vision officials report that Pacific Island communities dependent on boat transport are facing challenges bringing food supplies to outlying centres, with transport to clinics becoming financially unreachable for some. People are skipping medical appointments and missing life-saving HIV and tuberculosis medicines. Data shows Pacific Island nations are the most diesel-dependent for power generation worldwide, with diesel fuelling more than half of electricity output in 2022.
