News stories by Catherine Wilson, page 11

HONIARA, Solomon Islands, Oct 29 (IPS) - For generations, eye diseases have taken their toll on Pacific Island peoples. Now the first nationwide survey in the Solomon Islands of Trachoma, which can lead to irreversible blindness by early adulthood, is revealing the silent penetration of this disease in widely dispersed Melanesian rural island communities.

HONIARA, Solomon Islands, Oct 20 (IPS) - In the Solomon Islands in the south-west Pacific, where two in three of the estimated female population of 252,000 have experienced physical and sexual partner abuse, recognition is growing that ending the cycle of violence cannot be achieved without the partnership of men as catalysts of change. And initiatives by men are gaining support.

SYDNEY, Sep 30 (IPS) - Reports of fraudulent medicines in the south-west Pacific island states of Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea have drawn attention to the need for more public awareness of the lethal trade and its tragic consequences.

SYDNEY, Aug 19 (IPS) - Governments in the Western Pacific Islands, believed to be home to a third of the world's smokers, have begun a long battle with the growing crisis of non-communicable diseases. Such diseases currently account for 75 percent of the region's fatalities.

SYDNEY, Aug 05 (IPS) - The Australian asylum policy of rejecting boat arrivals has been condemned by the United Nations Refugee Agency, Pacific island leaders, migration experts and human rights organisations.

SYDNEY, Jul 07 (IPS) - Many Pacific Island nations are celebrating the success of rising school enrolment rates, with 14 members of the 16-member Pacific Island Forum on target to meet Millennium Development Goal 2: achieving universal primary education by 2015.

SYDNEY, Jun 15 (IPS) - Following worldwide outrage over a spate of brutal sorcery-related murders in Papua New Guinea, the government has rolled out a new hard-line approach to spiralling crime in this southwest Pacific island state.

SYDNEY, Jun 08 (IPS) - The immense scale of the Pacific Ocean at 165 million square kilometres inspires awe and fascination, but for those who inhabit the 22 Pacific island countries and territories, it is the very source of life. Without it, livelihoods and economies would collapse, hunger and ill-health would become endemic and human survival would be threatened.

AUKI, Solomon Islands, Jun 01 (IPS) - Forty-five-year-old Serah Kei began building her artificial island and eco-lodge resort 26 years ago in Langa Langa Lagoon, located on the Solomon Island's Malaita Province, about four hours by boat from the nation's capital, Honiara. Kei, a single mother, paid for the construction by undertaking the laborious task of making and selling ‘shell money' and finally opened Serah's Lagoon Hideaway, which accommodates up to twelve visitors, in 2006.

AUKI, Solomon Islands, May 30 (IPS) - Selina, a resident of a small community in Malaita, the most populous province in the Solomon Islands, watched in horror as a man standing on the road in front of her house tore the clothing off his wife, then beat her and inflicted wounds with a knife.