News Snapshot:
Australia ’s appeal to the Solomon Islands on Wednesday to step away from a pact with China has laid bare Canberra’s scramble to show it is in control of regional security, amid inadequate efforts to burnish ties with its Pacific island neighbours, analysts said. Zed Seselja, a junior minister in the cabinet of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison who is in the midst of campaigning for a tough re-election, went to the Solomon Islands’ capital of Honiara, where he met Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and other officials. “Australia respects Solomon Islands right to make sovereign decisions about its national security,”...
