Australia’s asylum-seeker policy, relations with Fiji and PNG’s mining sector featured in the media this week.

The Solomon Star reports that its Prime Minister has categorically denied that his country will participate in an Australian ‘Pacific Solution’ for asylum-seekers.

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Rowan Callick provides an in-depth assessment of how the fortunes of PNG’s petroleum and mining sectors have begun to diverge in The Australian.

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In an interview with Radio Australia, Julie Bishop, Australia’s Deputy Opposition Leader and Shadow Foreign Minister says a Coalition Government will prioritise the normalising of relations with the military-led regime in Fiji, if it is elected.

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Meanwhile Fiji has hosted the inaugural gathering of the Pacific Development Forum, the body it is promoting as an alternative to the Pacific Islands Forum from which it is currently excluded.

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New Caledonia’s remote Loyalty Islands are featured in the Travel Section of the BBC website. ‘[They] represent the survival of a fragile world, one untouched by mass tourism where the indigenous Melanesians treat nature with care and respect’.

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The UK’s Telegraph profiles the world’s largest container ship, the Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller, that commenced its maiden voyage between Europe and Asia last month.