Nouméa’s Magenta domestic airport Photo: RRB
New Caledonia - bomb scare
Nouméa domestic Magenta airport was evacuated and sealed off for at least three hours on Thursday after a bomb scare.
Airport management had received an email shortly before 9am local time (11am NZ time) saying a bomb had been placed inside the domestic terminal.
Police special explosive squads were sent immediately while all staff and passengers inside had been moved to outside of the building.
The whole neighbourhood was also cordoned off.
After a thorough inspection, police specialists declared that no explosive device or suspicious object had been found.
Normal flights, including to New Caledonia's outer islands, were then allowed to resume after lunchtime.
New Caledonia - Loyalty Islands face debt
New Caledonia's Loyalty Islands province (which comprises the North-eastern outer islands of Maré, Lifou, Ouvéa and Tiga) has announced it is currently faced with a staggering debt of some 7.51 billion French Pacific Francs (CFP, 62.8 million Euro).
The province's Assembly new President, Mathias Waneux had earlier in February 2025 announced a debt of some 4 billion CFP (currency used in the French overseas communities).
Waneux just took office recently after his predecessor Jacques Lalié was found guilty and declared unfit to hold office following a Court ruling in a corruption-related case.
"Now it's 7.51 (billion) and it looks like it's not the end of it yet", he told public broadcaster NC la 1ère.
He said the immediate urgency was to cut jobs within the provincial administration workforce of some 600+.
"We'll have to look at each department. But we can't just sack everyone at the same time. We need to reorganise, but we have to respect the public servants, their families", he said, mentioning back to school time next week as well as the post-May 2024 riots' financial crisis for the whole of New Caledonia.
Another deadline is the Loyalty Islands' provincial assembly which is scheduled to vote on its 2025 budget on 25 March 2025, with anticipated cost cuts to the tune of about 30 percent.
France/New Zealand - diplomatic ties
New logo unveiled to celebrate 80 years of France-New Zealand diplomatic ties Photo: Ambassade de France en Nouvelle-Zélande
France has unveiled the logo that will be used throughout 2025 to celebrate the 80th anniversary of its diplomatic ties with New Zealand.
The logo depicts, inserted in a blue, white and red 80 figure, a kiwi and a rooster to mark "80 years of France-New Zealand diplomatic ties, cooperation, & shared values".
The official programme for those celebrations has not been disclosed yet.
New Caledonia-based French Ambassador for the Pacific, Véronique Roger-Lacan, was in New Zealand recently, where she met her local counterpart, Wellington-based French Ambassador for New Zealand Laurence Beau.
Talks included a so-called "Pacific Fund" set up in the 1980s and aimed at boosting regional cooperation through financial assistance to small-scale regional projects.
Some of the meetings also involved New Zealand past recipients of the French Fund.
The French embassy said since the inception of the programme, more than 100 New Zealand institutions have benefited from the Pacific Fund for a total budget of €3.5 million, addressing a wide range of Pacific challenges including climate change, biodiversity conservation, food security, public health and Pacific Islands societies".
French Polynesia - Brotherson meets Pitcairn's Governor
French Polynesia’s President Moetai Brotherson, meets with Pitcairn Governor and British High Commissioner Iona Thomas Obe on 13 February 2025 Photo: Présidence de la Polynésie française
French Polynesia's President Moetai Brotherson and Pitcairn Governor, New Zealand-based British High Commissioner Iona Thomas Obe, held talks this week in Papeete.
Topics included cooperation between Pitcairn and French Polynesia, including a weekly maritime link between Mangareva (French Polynesia) and Pitcairn and another sea connection between Pitcairn and New Zealand, every second month, Brotherson's office said in a statement on Wednesday.
French Polynesia and Pitcairn share a historic bond: they have both become home to some of the crewmen and officers who mutineered on Britain's Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty in April 1789.
Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of the ship from their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and other crewmen adrift in high seas.
Some of the mutineers aboard the Bounty settled on Tahiti with Tahitian women, others stayed on Pitcairn, where most of the island's tiny population of around 50 is made up of descendants of the mutineers.
Tahiti/New Zealand - museums
The Museum of Tahiti and Her Islands Photo: Musée de Tahiti et des Îles
Tahiti's Museum Te Fare Iamanaha has signed several partnership agreements with regional institutions, including two from New Zealand.
The new Aotearoa partners are Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and Auckland's Tamaki Paenga Hira Museum.
The third agreement was signed with the Museum of Austronesian Cultures in Pingtan (China's Fujian province), the French Polynesia government said in a release.
Tahiti - film festival
A New Zealand movie telling the story of a trans-gender couple's long path to parenthood is one of the recipients of this year's Tahiti-based international Pacific Islands film festival, the FIFO.
The movie, Trans & Pregnant, is from New Zealand director Ramon Te Wake, who received the FIFO Jury's 1st special award, at its closing ceremony this weekend.
The Jury's Grand Prix, this year, is The Dark Emu Story (Directed by Allan Clark), dedicated to Australia's aboriginal people.
The FIFO Jury's 2nd special award went to French Polynesia's Reynald Merienne's "FIER.E.S, la voix du Pacifique" (PROUD, voice of the Pacific), another movie dedicated to transgender issues in the Pacific region.
