Vanuatu

BELGRADE - Serbian FM Marko Djuric met with Vanuatu's Deputy PM and FM Matai Seremaiah Nawalu in Belgrade on Tuesday to discuss bilateral relations and sign a MoU on bilateral consultations between the MFAs of the two countries.

Pacific Island leaders endorsed a landmark regional policing plan Wednesday at a summit in Tonga, a contentious move seen as an attempt to limit China's security role in the region.

Leaders unveiled a plan to create up to four regional police training centers and a multinational crisis reaction force, backed by $271 million in initial funding from Australia.

Two Russians and one French national, ages 28 to 63, were on board the boat as it traveled from Vanuatu to the northeastern city of Cairns

Ten foreigners accused of involvement in a major money laundering operation in Singapore were again remanded to custody on Wednesday, with new charges slapped on eight, as the city-state widens the net in one of its highest-profile crime cases.

Gulf oil states are using their vast wealth to build influence across the far-flung South Pacific, experts have told AFP, tearing a page straight out of China's Belt and Road playbook.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of the world's biggest crude oil producers, have been ramping up efforts to shed their reputations as global climate laggards.

A daring idea, the brain child of a group of law students in Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, an island country in the South Pacific, back in 2019, finally resulted in the adoption of a monumental resolution by consensus.

Australia's new government has urged China to lift trade sanctions if it wants to reset a bilateral relationship that plumbed new depths under the previous administration.

Romania's National Committee for Emergency Situations (CNSU) updated on Friday its list of countries or areas with high COVID-19 epidemiological risk. "The classification of the countries/areas by the cumulative rate of COVID-19 cases in order to sort the persons arriving in Romania accordingly and subject them to quarantine is hereby approved," reads CNSU Decision 39.

The unification of the leaders started after the WHO opened the annual session with the draft resolution which recognizes the mistakes in the response to COVID-19, the AP reported.

The chief of a remote Pacific village which worshipped Prince Philip with religious fervour said on April 12  it was too early to know whether the British royal's descendants will receive similar deification.

Yakel village on the Vanuatu island of Tanna for decades venerated Philip, who died at Windsor Castle last week at the age of 99.