PINA

The Otago Highlanders have added one of Super Rugby’s most damaging ball carriers and a 22-test Welsh playmaker to their squad for 2024. Timoci Tavatavanawai, who has caused havoc with ball-in-hand for Moana Pasifika for the past two seasons, will make the shift south to join fellow new signing Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens in the Highlanders’ outside backs. Rhys Patchell, 30, will also...

Chair of the National Hosting Authority (NHA) of the Sol2023 Pacific Games, Dr Jimmie Rodgers has clarified that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) stadium funded project is a grant, not a loan. He made the clarification in response to social media claiming that the stadium is not a gift but it’s a concessional loan at two percent interest. Dr Rodgers...

Papua New Guinea should focus on developing young talent instead of bidding to be the 18th National Rugby League (NRL) franchise, says Melbourne Storm centre Justin Olam. While Olam was excited about the possibility of a PNG team joining the NRL by 2026, he said the focus had to be on developing talent through player pathways to help youngsters who...

The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has told RNZ Pacific its standards are not outdated. It comes as nuclear activists raise concerns about the viability of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Japan's impending release of over one million tonnes of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. The report, released last week, said Japan's plans for a...

China and Solomon Islands have signed a deal on police cooperation as part of an upgrade of their relations to a “comprehensive strategic partnership”, four years after the Pacific country switched ties from Taiwan to Beijing. The police cooperation pact was among nine deals signed as the prime minister of Solomon Islands, Manasseh Sogavare, met with the Chinese premier, Li...

An American research team, from Harvard University, took meteorite fragments from the Manus seabed without permission, a Papua New Guinea government official says. Manus deputy administrator Penua George Polon told The National that the research team flew into Manus, took a ship out to near the Harengan Island and retrieved fragments from the seabed and left. “When they came in, they...

The Media Council of Papua New Guinea (MCPNG) has re-elected its current core Executive Management team to another term in office, and to represent the mainstream media in PNG. At the Council’s Annual General Meeting Monday in Port Moresby, MCPNG members reelected Neville Choi as President; Gregory Moses as Vice President; Belinda Kora as Secretary; and Genesis Ketan of PNGFM...

Opinion by Dr Peter Nuttall Getting serious push-back to the Pacific's high ambition from China, Brazil and their buddies was fully expected this week at IMO. Getting so completely thrown under the bus by a conflicted and hyperbolic West wasn't. Two headlines this week tell the sad story. IMO had the choice between adopting a high ambition, 1.5 degree aligned...

Critical negotiations concerning the future of deep sea mining and mineral extraction kicked off Monday in Jamaica, as conservationists aim to rein in a nascent industry that so far lacks meaningful guardrails. The International Seabed Authority (ISA) — a little known intergovernmental body based in Kingston — and its member states have spent the last decade trying to hash out...

New Zealand Acting Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni says she was “unaware” dawn raids would continue after the 2021 Government apology. “I thought they'd already ended,” she told Breakfast Tuesday. “We were unaware of the practise that was ongoing by Immigration New Zealand and so deeply disappointed when we found out that these were being undertaken.” An independent review, triggered after an April...