Award-winning journalist Mary Louise O'Callaghan learned to listen in a whole new way when she married into a traditional Solomon Islands community

Alan Weeks, an Australian worker with Initiatives of Change, points up lessons from the peace process that ended the nine-year conflict on the South Pacific island of Bougainville.

Marie-Noëlle Ferrieux-Patterson is no stranger to controversy. As Vanuatu’s first Ombudsman (from 1994-99) she was responsible for exposing maladministration and breaches of the Leadership Code.

Australia's Minister of Justice, Senator Michael Tate, outlined some of the problems posed by environmental degradation, by warfare and by attitudes towards embryo research and abortion.

Life in such isolation, on a land area less than five miles by one, acquires a certain focus on the essentials, an acceptance of shortage, discomfort and monotony.