New Caledonia

A French presidential hopeful says he would propose compulsory military service in New Caledonia among measures aimed to curb crime in the territory.

The French interior minister has condemned last weekend's unrest in New Caledonia in which five policemen suffered injuries from gunfire.

Reports from New Caledonia say calm has returned to the stretch of road blocked for three days by armed unrest but that one vehicle was stoned overnight.

The family of a man killed in New Caledonia at the weekend at a police checkpoint has challenged prosecution claims the police were acting in self defence.

The main road in New Caledonia which had been blocked since the weekend's unrest has been reopened.

Efforts have resumed in New Caledonia to clear a main road south of Noumea blocked because of unrest since Saturday.

The situation has remained tense overnight in the outskirts of the New Caledonian capital Noumea after shootings at the weekend.

Police in New Caledonia have used armoured vehicles to clear the main road north of Noumea after burning cars blocked it for part of the night.

Six police officers in New Caledonia have been injured after being shot at by unidentified gunmen in clashes near Noumea.

Several thousand people have rallied in Noumea to call for New Caledonia's indigenous Kanaks to be automatically enrolled for the independence vote in 2018.

France has promised more funding for education in New Caledonia including money for the expansion of the University of New Caledonia.

A rally has been called by New Caledonia's indigenous Kanaks to denounce what they call electoral fraud committed by the French state.

A New Caledonian blog says it has won a defamation case brought against it by a former vice president Gilbert Tyuienon and a top official Jean-Raymond Postic.

New Caledonia's anti-independence Rassemblement says it is opposed to a referendum to be held as outlined in the 1998 Noumea Accord.

New Caledonia's USTKE union has called for a rally next week to denounce what it calls electoral fraud committed by the French state.

A court in New Caledonia has stopped the Koniambo nickel plant from sacking 47 employees.

Concern over public safety needs to be raised at next month's Paris meeting of the signatories of the 1998 Noumea Accord, a leading New Caledonian politician says.

New Caledonia's anti-independence Republicans have written to the French High Commission to officially reinstate voters who had been unduly struck off earlier this year.

France's highest court has overturned 60 decisions by New Caledonian courts which had struck voters off the provincial electoral rolls.

New Caledonia's pro-independence leader Roch Wamytan says the territory should have remained an associate member of the Pacific Islands Forum because it is not an independent country.