Oceania

New Zealand singer and songwriter Lorde attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "In America: A Lexicon of Fashion" exhibition on Sept. 13, 2021, in New York City.

It’s ‘huge for our language’: Lorde’s new Māori-language EP strikes a chord with NZ's Indigenous community

The release of "Te Ao Mārama," which comes during Māori Language Week, has received a wide range of reactions from New Zealand's Indigenous community.

It’s ‘huge for our language’: Lorde’s new Māori-language EP strikes a chord with NZ's Indigenous community
A photo taken overhead shows dozens of Muslims praying in a mosque

'It feels like it happened right here,' says one American Muslim

'It feels like it happened right here,' says one American Muslim
Fiji's Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama recently led a rally in support of this year's UN climate summit in Germany, at which Fiji will be presiding.

Fijians speak from the front lines of climate change

Fijians speak from the front lines of climate change
Sunila Wati at her vegetable stall in the market in Rakiraki, Fiji

Extreme weather is wreaking havoc on the lives of women farmers in Fiji

Extreme weather is wreaking havoc on the lives of women farmers in Fiji
After taking off from Abu Dhabi on March 9, the Solar Impulse 2 has flown across Asia and now more than halfway across the Pacific, with a goal of circumnavigating the world powered only by the 17,000 solar panels on its 236 foot-wide wings.

Will Solar Impulse 2 inspire a whole fleet of solar-powered planes?

Will Solar Impulse 2 inspire a whole fleet of solar-powered planes?
Dorothy Ketau

How a struggling single mom in Papua New Guinea found her cloth on a New York fashion runway

Florence Jaukae found herself abandoned by her husband, with children to feed and didn't know what to do. So she took a tradition from her Papua New Guinea village and reinvented it for a modern world.

How a struggling single mom in Papua New Guinea found her cloth on a New York fashion runway
The World

The UN climate summit opens with a voice from an endangered nation

Leaders from all over the world have gathered in New York to attend the UN Climate Summit. The first thing they heard was an impassioned poem from a mother and activist from the Marshall Islands, a tiny nation in the Pacific that may no longer exists if climate change isn't halted.

The UN climate summit opens with a voice from an endangered nation
Scientists holds the arms of a colossal squid as they examine the squid at a national museum facility in Wellington, New Zealand.

A rare colossal squid was dissected in New Zealand — and you can watch it on YouTube

Last summer in the southern hemisphere, a fishing vessel in the Antarctic Ocean pulled up a rare creature — a 770-pound colossal squid. Only one other such animal had been pulled up intact before, surprisingly, by the same vessel. It is thought that the giant marine beast might be the origin of legends of undersea monsters. Scientists in New Zealand froze it to preserve it and just defrosted and dissected it.

A rare colossal squid was dissected in New Zealand — and you can watch it on YouTube
Nuku Island is in the southern part of Tonga.

Here's how a tiny Pacific island got better Internet than the US

Until last year, citizens of the island nation of Tonga were connected to the world via slow, expensive satellite Internet. Now a new and seemingly unlikely fiber optic network has boosted business and firmed up connections with the widespread Tongan diaspora.

Here's how a tiny Pacific island got better Internet than the US
Robotic arm taking samples

Deep seabed mining is a new — and lightly regulated — ecological experiment

A Canadian company has struck a deal with Papua New Guinea to mine gold and other metals from deep beneath the sea. The project raises great concerns about the impact on life in the deep ocean.

Deep seabed mining is a new — and lightly regulated — ecological experiment
mangroves

Saved by the Mangroves? A Philippine town dodges Haiyan's storm surge

What’s a bunch of trees worth? Well, if they save your town from the storm surge of a huge typhoon, you might say they’re invaluable. That’s what happened to the community of General MacArthur, in the Philippines, and its fate holds a lesson for coastal communities around the world.

Saved by the Mangroves? A Philippine town dodges Haiyan's storm surge
storms

Storm expert says climate change may have played a big role in Typhoon Haiyan after all

Atmospheric scientist and tropical storm expert Kerry Emanuel has taken a deeper look at the possible influence of climate change on supertyphoon Haiyan, and has found that global warming may have had a good deal more to do with the storm's intensity than he originally thought.

Storm expert says climate change may have played a big role in Typhoon Haiyan after all
Local residents help replant mangrove trees on a degraded beach on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Tropical mangroves are vital for both fish habitat and protection from storms, but over the last few decades they've been disappearing around the world a

Restoring mangroves in Indonesia

A hidden culprit in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was degraded shorelines. Now Indonesia's moving to protect its coasts by restoring thousands of miles of mangrove swamps.

Restoring mangroves in Indonesia