Nauru president lashes out at critics

Nauru's president is fed up with his island country being used as a punching bag by outsiders.

Baron Waqa has hit back at what he calls ill-informed, politically and racially motivated attacks from critics over his country's treatment of asylum seekers and refugees as well as his government's reform agenda.

"These untruths being spread about the Nauruan people, by so-called refugee advocacy groups who use the refugees as political pawns, are bringing us closer together as a nation," he said in a statement.