Solomon Islands

  Peace Corps has found “overwhelming support and enthusiasm” for return to Pacific island nation, report shows.   By Erin Hale and John Power Aljazeera,  24 Apr 2024     A United States development aid agency whose return to the Solomon Islands has been delayed for years without explanation found “overwhelming support and enthusiasm” for its work, with the Pacific island nation’s leader telling officials “We need you”, a previously unreleased report shows. The Peace Corps’ findings bring into focus the agency’s unexplained failure to resume operations in the archipelago nearly five years after it announced its return amid jockeying for influence between the US and China. The “Solomon Islands Re-entry Assessment Report,” obtained by Al Jazeera via a freedom of information request, paints a picture of emphatic support for the agency resuming operations in the country after a two-decade absence, both among the local population and within the government. Solomon Islands Prime . . .

  US opens embassy in Solomon Islands to counter China By NICK PERRY Seattle Times February 01, 2023        WELLINGTON, New Zealand — (AP) — The United States opened an embassy in the Solomon Islands on Thursday in its latest move to counter China’s push into the Pacific. The embassy in the capital, Honiara, is starting small, with a chargé d’affaires, a couple of State Department staff and a handful of local employees. The U.S. previously operated an embassy in the Solomon Islands for five years before closing it in 1993 as part of a global reduction in diplomatic posts after the end of the Cold War. But China’s bold moves in the region have the U.S. seeking to increase its engagement in a number of ways, such as by donating COVID-19 vaccines, bringing back Peace Corps volunteers to several island nations, and investing in forestry and tourism projects. “The opening . . .

  (AP) The US says it will open an embassy in the Solomon Islands, laying out in unusually blunt terms a plan to increase its influence in the South Pacific nation before China becomes strongly embedded. The reasoning was explained in a State Department notification to Congress that was obtained by The Associated Press. The plan was confirmed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a visit to Fiji Saturday on a Pacific tour that began in Australia. The State Department said the Peace Corps was planning to reopen an office in the Solomon Islands and have its volunteers serve there, and that several US agencies were establishing government positions with portfolios in the Solomons. The Peace Corps first went to the Solomon Islands in 1971. The Department needs to be part of this increased US presence, rather than remaining a remote player, it wrote. The State Department said . . .