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The Papua New Guinea and autonomous Bougainville governments have agreed on a moderator to be brought to try and repair an impasse over the province’s push for independence.

What happens to a people when their land disappears? Facing extinction, Tuvalu tries to create digital ‘twin’ to survive.

While Bougainville’s Panguna mine was abandoned decades ago, mining has not stopped in the area. Families have set up makeshift houses in the gaping pit, and men, women and children pass their days digging for whatever gold and copper they can reach.

Kiwi pilot Phillip Mehrtens was unlucky–he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was taken hostage by a rebel group in West Papua. The Detail takes a closer look at West Papua’s complicated independence struggle.

Bougainville is likely to play a surprisingly significant role in the tussles between China and the US in the Pacific region. Lucas Knotter analyses the future of this breakaway island.

By some estimations, Australia hosts around a third of the world’s self-declared micronations. There are three good reasons why

A Chinese couple plotted to set up a mini-state on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, bribing MPs and officials along the way, US prosecutors say. The man and woman tried to persuade lawmakers to set up a ‘Semi-Autonomous Region’ (SAR) on a remote atoll.

A wealthy American wanted to build an island republic. The king of Tonga had other ideas.

In 2027, the world will see the first newly independent country since South Sudan in 2011. Bougainville, an autonomous province in Papua New Guinea (PNG), voted almost unanimously for independence in a 2019 referendum.

Local government hopes reopening of mine – once world’s most profitable – will support bid for independence from Papua New Guinea