PINA

Samoa are now the highest ranked of the Pacific Island nations after their thrilling 19-18 victory over Fiji in the final round of the Oceania Rugby Women’s Championship 2023 at Bond University on Australia’s Gold Coast. The result saw Manusina top the table and confirm their place in WXV 2 as Oceania champions, while also moving them up two places...

Cancer survivor Christian Lealiifano is close to penning another special chapter in his rollercoaster career with a 2023 Rugby World Cup appearance for Samoa. The former Wallabies playmaker has revealed he is "close" to finalising the necessary paperwork to formally transfer his allegiance from Australia to Samoa. Then it's up to selectors to decide whether the 35-year-old will feature at the...

The challenge facing Warren Gatland’s Wales and the Wallabies under Eddie Jones at the Rugby World Cup has suddenly become even more daunting thanks to the significant strides made by the Fijian Drua in the Super Rugby Pacific championship and the heart of the improvement is Welshman Mark Evans, who admits he is getting increasingly nervous about his nation’s...

To commemorate World Environment Day, Papua New Guinea MP for Kundiawa Gembogl Muguwa Dilu is renewing calls for Japan to abort the plans to dump nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean. “We must keep our blue Pacific Ocean clean and free of all waste, including dangerous and highly toxic nuclear waste,” Dilu said. He expressed that the Pacific Ocean is home...

As international negotiators committed to hammering out a draft treaty by November on ending plastic pollution, the UN chief stressed in his message for World Environment Day on Monday, the importance of curbing the “catastrophic” consequences of waste plastics. “Every year, over 400 million tons of plastic is produced worldwide – one third of which is used just once”, said...

Q and A with Ambassador Ilana Seid, Permanent Representative of Palau to the UN and Chair of Pacific Small Island Developing States Nearly 200 countries met in Paris last week to negotiate one of the most consequential international multilateral environmental agreements of our time. The second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on...

Thirty-three coral atolls and islands are dispersed among the three groups that form Kiribati, which are the Gilbert, Line, and Phoenix islands. Covering a land area of 810km2, the island groups are spread over a vast ocean area of approximately 3.5 million square kilometers in the Central Pacific Ocean. An estimated 13 percent of the waste stream in Kiribati is...

Nauru might be a small country with a population of around 10,000 people on a single island in the Pacific Ocean but its voice is loud and clear at the second Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-2) in Paris, France. As negotiators, including delegations...

Slow progress is better than no progress at all. That’s the view of the Director of Tuvalu’s Department of Waste Management, Epu Falega, as negotiations at the second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-2) wind down in Paris, France. Falega and his delegation last week...

25 broadcasters from 13 Pacific countries touched down in Auckland recently for the Pacific Broadcasters conference. A meet and greet filled with lots of talanoa, networking and healthy debate, the conference was a welcome change from a typical Zoom meeting. Natasha Meleisea, CEO of Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Ltd (PCBL) which operates Pasifika TV, says the conference is about uniting Pacific broadcasters. “I’ve...