Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke about China’s “problematic behavior” while visiting the Pacific Island nation of Tonga this week. Asked about China’s investment in Tonga, Mr. Blinken said the United States doesn’t object to “productive” investments from foreign nations, including Beijing, but noted concerns come in where there’s a lack of transparency or if […]
Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the tiny kingdom of Tonga on Wednesday, as the United States continues to increase its diplomatic efforts in the Pacific while China’s influence in the region grows. Home to just over 100,000 people, Tonga last year was the site of a massive volcanic eruption that created a tsunami, killed […]
WELLINGTON, New Zealand—A powerful, shallow underwater earthquake struck Friday near Tonga in the southern Pacific, prompting authorities to issue and then lift a tsunami advisory. The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.3 quake was centered 211 kilometers (132 miles) east-southeast of Neiafu, Tonga, at a depth of 24.8 kilometers (15 miles). It predicted strong […]
WASHINGTON—The powerful Jan. 15 underwater eruption of Tonga’s Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in the South Pacific produced a plume that soared higher into Earth’s atmosphere than any other on record—about 35 miles (57 km)—as it extended more than halfway to space, researchers said on Thursday. The white-grayish plume unleashed by the eruption in the Polynesian […]
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has managed to secure several bilateral agreements with Tonga on disaster relief, agriculture, fishery, health and police equipment as he reaches the backend of his ten-day trip around the Pacific. It comes after Beijing vows to continue pushing Pacific nations to join a sweeping regional security and economy deal despite […]
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Police Department announced that they arrested the suspect who killed a UCLA grad student. Police announced that they busted a fencing operation over the weekend and recovered approximately $185,000 worth of merchandise stolen from Bay Area retailers. A company in California is collecting donations for Tonga. The vessel leaves Friday but […]
Entire villages on one of Tonga’s small outer islands have been wiped out by the tsunami that followed Saturday’s massive volcanic eruption, which killed at least three people, the Tongan government said on Tuesday in its first update since the tragedy struck. The three known fatalities from the tsunami are a 65-year-old woman on Mango […]
Tonga—a Polynesian island nation—was isolated from the rest of the world—after a massive volcanic eruption over the weekend, cutting off phone and internet lines. The eruption also triggered a deadly tsunami, which killed one person in Tonga and two others in Peru. Today, Australia and New Zealand were able to send surveillance flights to assess […]
SYDNEY/WELLINGTON—All the homes on one of Tonga’s small outer islands were destroyed in the massive volcanic eruption and tsunami, with three people so far confirmed dead, the government said on Tuesday in its first update since the disaster hit. With communications severely hampered by an undersea cable being severed, information on the scale of the […]
An underwater volcano off Tonga erupted on Saturday, triggering a tsunami warning for several South Pacific island nations, with footage on social media showing waves crashing into homes. Tsunami waves were observed in Tonga’s capital and the capital of American Samoa, a U.S.-based tsunami monitor said. The eruption at 0410 GMT of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga […]
Israel Folau will not be returning to rugby league with the Tongan national team after the Rugby League International Federation officially suspended the Tongan national rugby league board.
A massive quake of magnitude 8.2 struck in the Pacific Ocean close to Fiji and Tonga on Aug. 19 but it was so deep that it was not expected to cause any damage, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said. The U.S. Tsunami Warning Center also said the quake was too deep to cause a tsunami. […]
WELLINGTON—Tonga’s neighbors scrambled to deliver emergency relief on Tuesday after Cyclone Gita tore across the Pacific island nation in the middle of the night, flattening the parliament, tearing roofs off homes and causing widespread flooding. There were no confirmed reports of deaths from the Category 4 storm that bought winds of around 200 km (125 […]
