Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — As the demand for electric car batteries and smartphones grows, mining companies are turning their attention to the deep sea, where precious metals such as nickel and cobalt can be found in potato-size nodules sitting on the ocean floor.

Beneath the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawaii, a hidden treasure trove of polymetallic nodules can be found scattered across the seafloor. These nodules form as metals in seawater or sediment collect around a nucleus, such as a piece of shell or shark’s tooth. They grow at an incredibly slow rate of a few millimeters per million years. The nodules are rich in metals such as nickel, cobalt and manganese – key ingredients for batteries, smartphones, wind turbines and military hardware.

As demand for these technologies increases, mining companies are targeting this remote area, known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, as well as a few other zones with similar nodules around the world.

So far, only test mining has been carried out. However, plans for full-scale commercial mining are rapidly advancing.

Exploratory deep-sea mining began in the 1970s, and the International Seabed Authority was established in 1994 under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to regulate it. But it was not until 2022 that The Metals Company and Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. fully tested the first integrated nodule collection system in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.

The companies are now planning full-scale mining operations in the region. They originally said they expected to submit their application to the ISA by June 27, 2025, but The Metals Company’s CEO announced on March 27 that he was frustrated with the pace of ISA action and was negotiating with the Trump administration for approval to mine. The U.S. is one of a handful of countries that never ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

[The Conversation]

HAWAIʻI CONFIRMS FIRST MEASLES CASE SINCE 2023

Officials confirmed Hawaiʻi’s first measles case in two years, underscoring the urgency of a health department campaign announced last week to get more children vaccinated for the highly contagious disease.

The measles patient is a child under 5 who recently returned to Oʻahu after traveling internationally. The child is unvaccinated and is not enrolled in a K-12 public school, said State Epidemiologist Sarah Kemble in a press conference on Tuesday. They are recovering at home.

The health department is currently reaching out to individuals who may have been infected and is identifying public areas where people may have been exposed to the virus over the past week, including certain parts of the Honolulu airport and an urgent care clinic in Kapahulu, said department director Kenneth Fink.

Fink said that measles rates have been rising nationally and globally.

“We should not be surprised to see other cases in Hawaii,” Fink said during Tuesday’s press conference.

Hawaiʻi currently has a 90% vaccination rate for measles, below the 95% threshold needed to protect unvaccinated individuals from the virus. The number of Hawaiʻi students opting out of state vaccine requirements by obtaining a religious exemption has increased by roughly 250% over the past decade.

Gov. Josh Green signed an emergency rule Tuesday allowing families with a religious exemption to get their children vaccinated for measles without losing their ability to skip other childhood immunizations.

DOH is also working with schools to host on-site vaccination clinics.

Nearly two dozen states have reported measles cases this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(Civil Beat)

SAMOA POWER CRISIS

Samoa's government emergency center has issued a form for gathering data on the energy crisis.

The form is intended to gather accurate information on damages to electrical appliances and equipment, disruptions to services, and loss of income resulting from the crisis.

It said the information collected will guide planning and coordination of support, subject to available resources and verified need.

Forms must be in by 25 April.

(RNZ Pacific)

MARSHALL ISLANDS SIGNS RAROTONGA TREATY

The Marshall Islands has formally signed the Rarotonga Treaty.

The country's Minister for Natural Resources and Commerce Anthony Muller said the Marshall Islands is honored to join the original 13 Pacific nations as a signatory.

The Treaty was set up in August 1985 and its purpose is to prohibit the manufacturing, possession, stationing, and testing of nuclear explosive devices in the South Pacific.

Muller said although the Marshall Islands was not able to sign the Treaty at the time, they recognized the collective strength and power to seek peace, harmony, security and economic prosperity.

(RNZ Pacific)

PNG APOLOGY

The Tukunjup tribe of Upper Mendi have given 70,000 kina (US$17,062.50), 19 pigs, and a cow as a gesture of peace and apology to the relatives of a police officer who died in January.

The National reported the vehicle Constable Noah Biape was travelling in was shot at as it was passing through Mendi.

His body was retrieved from the vehicle which went off the road.

The Koroba people accepted the gesture with both parties clarifying that it was not a compensation payment for Constable Biape's death.

Tukunjup representative Morgan Mendepo expressed sorrow to the family saying the presentation was an expression of remorse and respect.

Another occupant of the police vehicle, Harry Gorano, died a week later from injuries.

(RNZ Pacific)

VANUATU FOOD INSECURITY

Mataso Island residents in Vanuatu are calling for urgent assistance after their main gardening area was destroyed during December's massive earthquake.

Mataso Island Chiefs Council Chairman, Joshua Siviu, has told local media many families have been left without access to locally grown food.

He describes the aftermath of the quake as devastating, not because of damage to homes, but due to a massive landslide that buried their primary agricultural land.

(RNZ Pacific)

PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Secretary General, Baron Waqa has met with the French Ambassador to the Pacific to discuss the Forum Troika mission to New Caledonia.

Pacific leaders traveled to Noumea at the request of the former President Loui Mapou last October for a three-day fact-finding mission on the French territory's political crisis.

Véronique Roger-Lacan has met Waqa to discuss a draft report on the visit.

The full report is expected to be presented to Pacific leaders at their next summit in Solomon Islands in September.

The pair also spoke about reforms on the status of PIF dialogue partners.

(RNZ Pacific)

VANUATU TOURISM

International arrivals in Santo, the largest island in Vanuatu, are up more than 40 percent for February, compared to the same time last year.

Airports Vanuatu Limited's February report found overall passenger traffic is down for the whole of Vanuatu by 26 percent.

Local media reported the positive results for Santo have been attributed to travel from Solomon Islands through Solomon Airlines.

(RNZ Pacific