Pacific Beat

On the program: Cyclone Sarai has barrelled through Fiji over the weekend, and we speak to local reporter Lice Movono about the experience on the ground, in our last sports cross for 2019, we talk about highlights over the past year and decade, ABC Radio Australia regular Sam Seke shares his memories of prevently a rude diplomatic incident between Australia and Solomon Islands.

On the program: Fiji is bracing for tropical cyclone Sarai as authorities urge people to prepare for wild and damaging weather, Australian scientists are helping heal longstanding wounds with the Kwaio people from Solomon Islands, and we hear the latest in sport throughout the region with Richard Ewart.

On the program: how Fiji is cashing in on the growing world demand for vanilla, plans to create a new coconut industry on the Cocos Islands, and how all-indigenous firefighting crews are helping to protect sacred sites and communities living on reserves in far-west Australia.

An Australian investor is backing a project to make Fiji a world supplier in vanilla and cash in on the growing demand and rising prices. They are hoping to build on other successes in the Pacific that are exporting the spice globally.

On the program: Will members of the Nauru 19 be spending Christmas with their families, the PNG Supreme Court has decided NOT to answer questions regarding SIM card registration regulations which means that unregistered SIM cards currently in use in mobile phones around the country will likely be deactivated, and you'll hear about Christmas toy drives for refugee and asylum seeker children.

The 12 members of the Nauru 19 who were jailed last week, should know by late this afternoon if President Lionel Aingimea has agreed to pardon them, and allow them to return home to their families for Christmas.

All mining exploration on Bougainville has been suspended following the killing of a geologist working for Australian listed mining company, Kalia Limited. The Bougainville government says the geologist, Terry Win Kilya, died after being attacked during a field visit at a remote site.

On the program: the future of mining in Bougainville, the impact of the Solomon Islands switch of diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China and what this has meant for Solomon Islands students studying in Taiwan, and the ten finalists for the Pacific Break competition were announced on the weekend.

A French museum has agreed to return a fragment of a sacred Polynesian belt called the Maro 'Ura to Tahiti, after the French Polynesian artefact was found in their collection. But the deal will only allow the belt to kept in Tahiti's museum on consecutive three-year loans.

There are fresh calls for Australia to introduce a visa lottery system to allow Pacific Islanders to gain permanent residency, as Canberra looks to step up its engagement in the region.