I think the point is that the newsworthiness here is that a nation is fighting for control of their TLD. It doesn't really matter what nation it is, and most people have probably never heard of it. The issue is that there exists a nation at all that has this problem. I think most would assume that all ccTLDs are well under the control of their respective nations.

IOW, I don't think headlines aim or should aim for information density, but rather focusing on the points that makes the story newsworthy to the target audience. Aiming for information density causes distraction from the point of the story and consequently maybe disinterest the specific potential readers the author is aiming for.

Saying "a tiny island nation" rather than specifying the nation is also better because it focuses on the fact that its problem is probably due to being a tiny island nation, i.e. a nation that is largely unknown and ignored. Putting it like that might invoke sympathy. Saying "Niue" instead might cause the target audience to think the news is not really relevant to them since they don't know "Niue".