Pacific

No journalist applications for Nauru since fee hike

04:30 am on 28 April 2014

Nauru says not a single journalist has applied for a Nauru visa since the government raised application fees by more than 4,000 percent.

Nauru hiked the fee from 200 US dollars to more than 7,000US dollars in January, saying it was a revenue gathering measure.

The increase was widely criticised as a move to ban foreign journalists from reporting on the Australian-run asylum seeker detention camp on the island.

In February, Nauru's home affairs minister, Charmaine Scotty, accused foreign media of inflicting significant damage on Nauru through its negative reporting about the island.