SBS News in Easy English
Fiji has told a security summit in Singapore that climate change is the biggest threat in the Pacific.
Fiji has been affected by a series of tropical cyclones in recent years, causing devastating flooding that has displaced thousands from their homes and damaged the island's economy.
Defence Minister Inia Seruiratu says the war in Ukraine and tensions between China and the United States is of lesser concern to Pacific Island nations.
"In Fiji, we are not threatened by geopolitical competition. In our blue Pacific continent, machine guns, fighter jets, grey ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern. The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change. It threatens our very hopes and dreams of prosperity."
A proposal for gun reform in the United States supported by a group of senators has been welcomed by gun control activists.
The framework is backed 10 Republicans, nine Democrats and one independent - and includes measures such as tougher background checks for buyers under the age of 21 and cracking down on illegal gun purchases.
Gun control activist Christian Heyne - from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence - says it is a big breakthrough in the debate on gun safety in the country.
"We have not seen the likes of, of a framework of what we see in this package for the last 30 years. It is significant, not only because of how this can have a real impact on lives, but to me it feels like... this is sort of a testing ground that we can pass bipartisan gun laws in this country and the sky won't fall, and for all of those reasons I think this agreement is really important."
Gun lobbyist Tom Jones, from the American Accountability Foundation, says he thinks the proposal "is going in the wrong direction".
"I think it's deeply disappointing that Republican leadership decided to get in league with the Democratic conference in the Senate to put together a gun control bill. That should be a huge red flag for Republican voters going into the fall. Democrats are going to come back for more. Just because they're framing this as a modest deal doesn't mean this is the last bite at the apple. It's going in the wrong direction and it seems to be a clear sign that Republican leadership hasn't gotten the message."
The head of the World Trade Organisation has urged its 164 member countries to take action to deal with the famine triggered by the war in Ukraine.
There are warnings that tens of millions of people are at risk of famine in parts of the globe.
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says she hopes the body's highest level meeting in four-and-a-half years addresses the stronger impact on African countries from wheat and fertiliser shortages.
"The WTO must also respond to the looming food crisis. Droughts, floods, heatwaves and other extreme weather events had already combined with COVID-19 pandemic-related supply chain bottlenecks, to lead us to rising food prices around the world. The war in Ukraine has escalated this situation... Economies everywhere are facing inflationary pressures with high food and energy prices hitting poor people the hardest."
Socceroos coach Graham Arnold is confident his team will be ready, should their World Cup play-off with Peru have to be decided by a penalty shootout.
Australia will discover within 24 hours whether they will qualify for a fifth- straight World Cup or miss out on this year's tournament in a winner-takes-all clash against their South American opponents in Qatar on Monday [[Tue 0400 AEST]].
Arnold says the team is prepared.
"Everything that I have been driving since we have been able to do this camp has just been around making sure that we work hard. And when we lose possession we get back behind the ball and we make things difficult for the opposition. Obviously a South American team - we haven't played in World Cup qualifiers since 2005. They want to throw a different challenge at us, but I do believe the boys will be ready for it."
