This year's Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer's Residency at the University of Hawaii has been awarded to Oscar Kightly.

The Cook Islands Ministry of Agriculture is releasing three booklets this week with the aim of sparking enthusiasm for growing food.

New Caledonia fails to elect president; Drug use a growing concern in Tonga; Reckless spending behind cuts in Fiji budget reduction, economist; Pacific churches urged to help stop gender-based violence; Sport - PNG cricketers facing ban after being caught shoplifting.

The 11 ministers chosen by Congress as New Caledonia's government fail to agree on who should be president.

There are signs that a serious drug use problem in Tonga is getting worse.

An economist in Fiji says reckless spending has caught up with the government, which has had to cut expenditure in this year's budget.

The Pacific Conference of Churches has welcomed a study by New Zealand academics urging churches to do more to help stop violence against women in Samoa. And it believes a theological approach can help achieve this.

Suspended PNG cricketers facing further sanctions after shoplifting in Japan.

A coral bleaching around the French Polynesian islands of Tahiti and Mo'orea is being described as the most devastating seen in years; a marine ecologist from New Zealand says lessons learnt from the 2011 Rena oil spill in New Zealand can be applied to help deal with the Solomon Islands' environmental disaster in Rennell; the announcment by Papua New Guinea's new prime minister that he wants to review the laws governing the country's resources has caused some concern among investors in the sector. But the move is popular at the grassroots level in PNG; young males in the Cook Islands are twice as likely to be sexually abused as those in New Zealand according to a study conducted by the University of the South Pacific's campus director on the Rarotonga, Debi Futter Puati

A coral bleaching around the French Polynesian islands of Tahiti and Mo'orea is being described as the most devastating seen in years.