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Cook Islanders had lost the art of voyaging until the 1990s with the building of Te Au o Tonga under the leadership of Sir Thomas Davis. Inspired by the coming of the vaka Hokule’a to Rarotonga for the 6th Pacific Arts Festival, Cook Islanders committed to learning the lost art of non-instrument navigation and traditional voyaging. Now older generation of crew members is ready to train the younger generation. Are they ready?

Ahead of the launch of her debut novel The Earth Cries Out, author Bonnie Etherington talks with Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Kendall Hutt about the grief and loss intertwined with growing up in West Papua, against a backdrop of the wider political and humanitarian issues of the controversial Indonesian-ruled region.

The free association arrangement between New Zealand and the Cook Islands is a pivotal force behind the movement of Cook Islanders between the two countries, and part of the Cook Islanders’ way of life is understanding and leveraging the different opportunities that exist across the Cook Islands, New Zealand and further afield. The creation of a Cook Islands transnational social field has emerged as a new conceptual understanding of the constellations of Cook Islanders’ lives stretching beyond nation state boundaries. 

Voting has begun for PNG's national elections, but Australians know little about the complications of democracy in our nearest neighbour. The average Australian is more likely to know what the US President had for breakfast than the current Prime Minister of our nearest neighbour. But with over 800 languages and cultures, Papua New Guinea offers a complex and fascinating society on our doorstep.