Pacific | Pakistan

Australia and Vanuatu signed a sweeping economic and security agreement on Monday that bars the establishment of any foreign military base in the Pacific nation. Vanuatu is at the centre of strategic rivalry between China and US allies in the South Pacific, and Australia has expressed concern that Beijing is seeking a permanent security presence in the region. The agreement commits Australia to $345 million in support for Vanuatu, whose largest external creditor is China, and it stops a foreign military power establishing a base there. “What this does is to provide certainty for Australia that there will be no foreign military base,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters after signing the deal in Canberra with his Vanuatu counterpart Jotham Napat. “We have concluded a balanced agreement that will protect our collective and individual security and our sovereignty,” he said. China’s navy has made repeated port calls to Vanuatu. Beijing also funded the expansion of a wharf in Luganville, once the larges...

American forces killed 14 people in strikes that destroyed four alleged drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean, United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday, bringing the death toll from Washington’s anti-narcotics campaign to at least 57. The United States began carrying out the strikes — which experts say are illegal — in early September, and has now destroyed at least 14 vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific. “A total of 14 narco-terrorists were killed during the three strikes, with one survivor. All strikes were in international waters with no US forces harmed,” Hegseth said in a post on X about strikes carried out the day before. “The four vessels were known by our intelligence apparatus, transiting along known narco-trafficking routes, and carrying narcotics,” he said. The Pentagon chief’s post included video of the strikes, the first of which targeted two stationary boats that appeared to be moored together, and the other two on vessels that were speeding across open water. Heg...