2025 in review: Politics, health and climate change dominated Pacific news headlines this year

Elections

Samoa: The year was barely two weeks old before the first ructions of discontent started in Samoa's Parliament.

A split in the country's FAST Party in January saw then-prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa remove FAST Party chairman La'aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt and several FAST ministers from her Cabinet.

In turn, La'auli ejected her from FAST, leaving her leading a minority government.

Fiame finally conceded defeat in May after her government's 2025 Budget was voted down.

On election day, 29 August, voters gave FAST 30 seats, HRPP 14, and the Samoa Uniting Party three. Independents won four seats.

La'aulialemalietoa Poltaivao Schmidt was sworn in as Samoa's eighth prime minister in September and then spent several weeks receiving healthcare in Auckland.

Tonga: The kingdom's election took place in November, with eight new MPs getting seats - six people's representatives and two noble's representatives.

Among the election issues were a fuel shortage, leaving people waiting hours for the petrol pumps to get back into action.

The new prime minister, Lord Fakafanua, was decided by the newly elected representatives through an election in parliament conducted via a secret ballot.

Fakafanua, 40, won the secret ballot by 16 votes to 10.

Fakafanua is a member of Tonga's royal family through his mother - who was a granddaughter of the beloved Queen Salote III - and has noble lineage through his father.

He is also the president of Tonga Rugby League.

Vanuatu: Jotham Napat was elected unopposed as the new prime minister in February - the country's fifth PM in five years.

The election was triggered in November 2024 by the president, Nikenike Vurobaravu, who dissolved parliament ahead of a motion-of-no-confidence in then-prime minister Charlot Salwai.

This was despite the people of Vanuatu supporting referendums, aimed at establishing greater political stability in the country, earlier that year.

Napat's Leaders Party secured the most seats in January's snap election.

He came in to a challenging position, as the capital Port Vila was in recovery from the 2024 earthquake which killed at least 14 people.

Bougainville: The autonomous region of Papua New Guinea voted incumbent president Ishmael Toroama back in.

The election hit several delays, but people had respected the process, according to the electoral commissioner.

The president is vowing to gain political independence for his people, despite his lack of success in the past five years.

In 2019, 97.7 percent of Bougainvilleans voted for independence in a non-binding referendum.

Nauru: David Adeang was re-elected unopposed as president of Nauru.

One of the 19 MPs is elected as the Speaker, leaving 18 members to vote for the president.

The incumbent had won his Ubenide constituency in October.

TVNZ Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver said Adeang had shown to be a "controversial" leader from his previous presidential term and time as the country's justice minister.

"He doesn't take the easy option," she said.

Health

In January, Fiji's minister for health and medical services has declared an HIV outbreak.

By September, assistant health minister Penioni Ravunawa told the Fiji Sun the country could surpass 3000 cases by December.

"This is a national crisis, and it is not slowing down," he said at the time.

Unprotected sex, drug use and mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy and childbirth are all contributing to the spread.

Papua New Guinea also grappled with HIV, prompting the government to declare a national HIV crisis in June.

Seven people died of dengue fever in Samoa this year, including two children in one family. Schools were closed in an attempt to stop more cases.

Tonga had three deaths before it declared its dengue outbreak over in August.

Outbreaks were also declared several other states including American Samoa, Rarotonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu and parts of Fiji.

The World Health Organisation said cases in the Pacific this year were at their highest since 2016.

WHO's Pacific technical support director Dr Mark Jacobs told Pacific Waves that July regional data showed the number of suspected dengue cases was at 18,766 - the highest since 2016.

"We've been seeing a gradual increase in dengue in the Pacific for at least the last couple of decades. But looking at the last 10 years, what we tend to see is peaks in some years and then lower levels in other years."

Jacobs said the high case numbers were due to a range of factors, including the movement of people between Pacific nations.

Climate change and shifting weather patterns in the region also increased the risk around dengue spread, he said. The lack of understanding around dengue hot-spots was another risk factor.

The World Health Organisation also declared an outbreak of polio in Papua New Guinea, in May, after two otherwise healthy children were found to be carrying the disease.

The symptomatic case count was one, while there were more than 30 instances of non-symptomatic polio recorded.

According to the WHO, an individual is only counted as a polio case if they exhibit polio symptoms like paralysis.

Acting secretary Ken Wai said a four-year-old unvaccinated child from Lae, in Morobe Province, was confirmed by the laboratory as having acute flaccid paralysis caused by the polio virus.

New Caledonia

The future of the French Pacific territory remains uncertain, with 2025 seeing more talk but little actually decided.

An accord known as the Bougival agreement was signed in July, proposing to create a "state of New Caledonia", as well as a New Caledonian nationality and transfer of key powers (such as foreign affairs) from France.

However, one of the major components of the pro-independence movement, the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), decided to withdraw from it.

France's new overseas minister Naïma Moutchou visited New Caledonia in November, meeting with political, business and economic leaders - the major challenge being to resume political discussions after the FLNKS pulled out of the Bougival agreement.

Since then, two of the FLNKS parties have left the alliance - the UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia) and PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party).

In late October, both Houses of the French Parliament endorsed, for the third time, that New Caledonia's crucial provincial local elections should now take place no later than June 2026.

The postponement was validated by France's Constitutional Council on 6 November.

Moutchou said the Bougival pact would be submitted to a "consultation" in New Caledonia, akin to a local referendum, so as to give it more popular weight.

Climate

There were mixed reactions to the final document out of the UN climate summit COP30, hosted in Belem, Brazil, near the Amazon rainforest.

COP30 finished with an agreement that does not explicitly mention cutting fossil fuels.

One Pacific campaigner called it an "extremely weak" outcome.

Shiva Gounden, the head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said the outcomes of this COP and previous ones mean global temperature rise will not be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius - the threshold climate scientists say is needed to ensure a healthy planet.

The agreement included an initiative for countries to collaborate on a voluntary basis to reduce carbon emissions and strive to limit global warming to 1.5C relative to pre-industrial levels.

It also noted a commitment made by all nations at COP28 in Dubai to "transition away from fossil fuels" - but this exact phrase, which has become politically sensitive, was not included.

Despite pressure from more than 80 nations from Europe to Latin American to the Pacific, the conference did not adopt a "roadmap" to phase out fossil fuels.

Instead, COP30 president André Aranha Corrêa do Lago offered to create one for countries willing to join on a voluntary basis, and another plan to halt deforestation.

The final agreement "calls for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035"; and seven countries - Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Norway, Japan and Kazakhstan - signed a statement vowing to achieve "near zero" methane emissions across the fossil fuel sector.

The other big climate news of 2025 was the opinion from the International Court of Justice, finding that countries can be held legally responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions.

The president of the International Court of Justice, Yuji Iwasawa, said climate change was an "urgent and existential threat" that was "unequivocally" caused by human activity with consequences and effects that crossed borders.

The ruling was seen as a win in the Pacific, which is where the process started with a group of Vanuatu students.

The court's 15 judges were asked to provide an opinion on two questions: What are countries obliged to do under existing international law to protect the climate and environment?

And, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts - or lack of action - have significantly harmed the climate and environment?

Reading a summary that took nearly two hours to deliver, Iwasawa said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries - and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries - are required to curb emissions.

Manawanui

Aotearoa New Zealand paid NZ$6 million (US$3.4 million) to the Samoan government over the Manawanui, but the future of the wreckage and potential compensation payments remain a major talking point in Samoa.

New Zealand's foreign minister Winston Peters said the payment - worth 10 million Samoan tālā - followed a request from the Samoan government, and was made in full and in good faith.

The vessel sunk off the south coast of Upolu in October 2024.

"We have always said we will do the right thing," Peters said.

"We recognise the impact the sinking has had on local communities and acknowledge the disruption it caused."

Village elders have told RNZ Pacific the once-rich fishing grounds have been destroyed, and they wanted the wreck removed.

Peters told Pacific Waves this past October that the Samoa government were leading the ongoing process around compensation and the wreckage, which included any discussion around its removal.

He also denied there was any cover-up over the environmental impacts of the wreckage.

Regional tensions

There's been some tension in the Pacific family in 2025, with the Cook Islands and Aotearoa at loggerheads, and mixed reactions to Solomon Islands' decision to exclude external partners from the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders' Meeting.

New Zealand has "reluctantly" extended its funding pause to the realm country, to a total of NZ$29.8 million over two financial years.

It followed Cook Islands prime minister Mark Brown signing agreements with China earlier in the year, without consulting Aotearoa - which New Zealand's foreign minister Winston Peters said breached the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration.

Brown disagreed. He said although the Cook Islands shares a Head of State and citizenship with New Zealand, the islands remain self-governing and independent in external affairs.

Meanwhile, for PIF, Solomons prime minister Jeremiah Manele's proposal not to invite countries such as the US, China and Taiwan was approved at the Foreign Ministers' Meeting, prior to the main gathering.

Palau's President Surangel Whipps Jr said it was "a missed opportunity" not to include partners, but that he respects the position of Solomon Islands as hosts.

Marshall Islands president Hilda Heine, however, said it would hurt the Pacific Island region.

She said the Pacific Islands Form is "the only avenue where we, as Pacific leaders, engage collectively with our development and dialogue partners in support of urgent and shared regional priorities".

"To delay these dialogues at such a critical time - when global attention, funding and cooperation are essential - would be a significant missed opportunity for both our Forum and our region."

George "Fiji" Veikoso

The Pacific lost one of its beloved musical voices in July.

Fijian-born recording artist and Pacific music legend George "Fiji" Veikoso died at the age of 55 in Suva.

Best known for shaping the sound of Polynesian reggae and island R&B, Veikoso spent more than 30 years in Hawai'i, where his music career took off and earned him global fame.

Dave Stevens, one of George 'Fiji' Veikoso's closest companions, told RNZ Pacific he cared for the island reggae icon for "over a year" and was by his side in Suva when he died.

"I'm feeling okay, at the same time I'm like, he knew it was his time to go; right now we don't have anything to say in terms of hearts are achin', but he knew his time was right."

Veikoso was born in Fiji, and later moved to Hawai'i where his music career truly began, starting out as a member of the band Rootstrata in the 1980s, then eventually going solo, carving out a distinctive sound that blended reggae, soul, gospel, and island rhythms.

His music spanned generations, with hits like 'Lonely Days' and 'Come On Over' becoming anthems not just in Fiji, but across the entire Pacific diaspora.