News stories by Catherine Wilson

SYDNEY, June 17 (IPS) - The French overseas territory of New Caledonia in the Pacific will hold elections on 28 June in the wake of the latest agreement on its political status with France being rejected. The representatives elected in the three provincial assemblies and territorial congress will then determine a new round of negotiations as the mission of achieving consensus on New Caledonia’s future continues.

SYDNEY, Australia, May 13 (IPS) - Péter Magyar, leader of the pro-democratic centre-right Tisza Party, which recently swept into power on an unstoppable wave of hope for change, has now been sworn into office as Hungary’s new Prime Minister.

SYDNEY, Australia, April 29 (IPS) - It is an invisible contaminant that has been found in fisheries, an essential part of the food chain for many Pacific Islanders. Mercury, emitted from fossil fuel power generation and other industrial processes around the world, has now penetrated marine ecosystems in the Pacific Islands with detrimental consequences for people’s health and wellbeing.

SYDNEY, April 13 (IPS) - A rising cycle of poverty and extreme weather threatens many towns and cities, especially those situated on coastlines, in the Pacific Islands. Urban centres in the Pacific have grown at an unprecedented rate this century, rapidly straining national resources for urban planning. But governments are now making progress on improving people’s lives in the informal settlements that dominate the urban sprawl in some of the region’s largest cities.

SYDNEY, Australia, February 25 (IPS) - Two Pacific Island nations have been applauded for their successes in the global health campaign to eliminate the infectious eye disease, Trachoma.

SYDNEY, Australia , October 24 (IPS) - The burden of breast cancer, the most common cancer among women, is global, and the projected increase in cases in the coming decades will affect women in high- and low-income countries in every region.

SYDNEY, Australia , October 6 (IPS) - Last century the remote Solomon Islands was the stage for some of the most intense battles fought during the Pacific campaign of the Second World War. But while Allied troops departed on the heels of victory, the military forces of both sides left a massive legacy of unexploded ordnance (UXO) which is still scattered across the country and others in the region.

SYDNEY, August 14 (IPS) - Fiji, a nation located west of Tonga in the central Pacific, is renowned for its natural beauty and beach resorts. But for 38 years it has endured a political rollercoaster of instability with four armed coups that overturned democratically elected governments and eroded human rights.

SYDNEY, Jun 17 (IPS) - Registering the birth of a newborn, which is taken for granted in many countries, has profound lifelong repercussions for a child’s health, protection, and well-being. But after initially increasing this century, the global birth registration rate has declined in the past ten years, with some countries in the Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa facing significant challenges. Embracing new registration technologies, increasing political will, and increasing parents’ understanding of its importance are paramount to reversing the trend.

LONDON, May 26 (IPS) - Israel’s ongoing war of annihilation in Gaza has wiped out hospitals, schools, homes, water, and food, reducing the Palestinian territory to a wasteland and leaving a death toll of more than 53,000 people. But an equally lethal campaign has been unleashed against the foundations of Palestinian society and identity.