PINA

Portugal coach Patrice Lagisquet said his team continued to surprise him with the standard of their play but he feared that Fijian physicality might be too much for them in their final World Cup match next weekend. Portugal gave Wales and Australia scares in their Pool C matches with what Lagisquet calls their “Total Rugby” style and came within a...

Fiji have insisted they will block out the “outside noise” surrounding the prospect of a World Cup quarter-final showdown against England, with the scrum-half Frank Lomani adamant the Pacific Islanders’ historic win at Twickenham last month would count for nothing. Fiji stumbled to the cusp of what would be only a third appearance in the last eight with a jittery...

Marcus Smith will be a marked man if he lines up at full-back again against Samoa next week with the Pacific islanders wary of the threat posed by England’s attacking livewire. Samoa go into Saturday’s match without any realistic hopes of reaching the knockout stages but can seal third spot in the pool to guarantee qualification for the 2027 World...

Japan will begin releasing a second batch of wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant from this week, its operator has said, an exercise that angered China and others when it began in August. On 24 August, Japan began discharging into the Pacific some of the 1.34m tonnes of wastewater that has collected since a tsunami crippled the facility in...

The Pacific island nations are hoping they will not have to wait another 12 months for “much-needed” foreign aid promised by the United States. When President Joe Biden hosted more than a dozen Pacific leaders and envoys in Washington last week, he pledged US$200 million to help the region address the challenges of climate change, peace and security. The move, some...

Forum Secretary General, Henry Puna says it is a sad fact that everyday, thousands of criminals go to work with the sole intention of inflicting harm on innocent people across the globe, including here in the Blue Pacific Continent. “We cannot, and will not, let them win. “One only has to look around the region to see examples of this. “The Vanuatu...

Immigration reforms are urgently needed to create a pathway for climate migration to Aotearoa New Zealand from the low-lying atoll countries of Tuvalu and Kiribati, a researcher says. “There are currently no formal immigration pathways for Tuvaluans and I-Kiribati (Kiribati people) to migrate here for climate-related reasons,” says Dr Olivia Yates, a graduate of the University of Auckland’s School of...

Fiji's Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka will formally propose his vision of the Pacific status as a ‘Zone of Peace’ during the Pacific Island Forum Leaders meeting in Cook Islands in November. Rabuka said this idea was first mooted in Papua New Guinea during a summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year. The Prime Minister said that once adopted,...

Papua New Guinea’s seconded alternate director at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Damien Horiambe is using the opportunity to not only raise issues for his country and the countries it represents on the Board but also strongly advocate for the Pacific Developing Member Countries (PMDCs). Horiambe is based at the ABD Manila headquarters – serving in the office of the...

The United States struck security agreements last week with Pacific Island nations seen as a key part of U.S plans to counter China’s territorial expansion. But after three years of negotiations, one of those Pacific nations — the Marshall Islands — still has not reached a deal with Washington. A member of the U.S negotiating team blames the State Department’s legal...