The United States plans to re-establish an embassy in the Solomon Islands, a senior State Department official said Saturday, as Washington seeks to beef up its presence in a region where China is rapidly expanding its influence. (https://news.yahoo.com/us-reopen-solomon-islands-embassy-030421111.html) Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to announce the opening of a new embassy on the Pacific island state during a visit to nearby Fiji — 29 years after the United States downgraded its diplomatic presence in Honiara. The move comes just a few months after riots in the island chain of 800,000 people in November when protesters tried to storm parliament and then went on a three-day rampage, torching much of the capital Honiara’s Chinatown. The United States closed its embassy in the Solomons Island capital in 1993 and is now represented by a consulate there, with an embassy in the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby.