PINA

Voting has started in French Polynesia in the second round to elect a new territorial assembly for a five-year term. About 200,000 voters can choose among three lists of candidates vying for the assembly's 57 seats. The lists of the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira, which won the first round two weeks ago, and of the autonomist A Here Ia Porinetia are unchanged. For...

China was surprised when the new Fijian government scrapped the deal between the Chinese police and their own police force. Chinese Government Special Envoy for Pacific Island Countries Qian Bo told the Samoa Observer that the decision was perplexing as the relationship between the two nations had been good. He also made his disappointment known about the Fijian Government’s further action...

ABC International Development (ABCID) has announced the the successful participants for the upcoming 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup Commentary and Mobile Journalism Training programme from around Oceania. ABC International Development (ABCID) is the international development branch of Australia's national public broadcaster, the Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). ABCID supports, connects, and empowers people in the Asia-Pacific region, and globally, to have a...

United States President Joe Biden will meet 18 leaders from the South Pacific when he visits Papua New Guinea in May, a top regional diplomat said on Saturday, as the U.S and China vie for influence in the region. After the end of World War II, the South Pacific was seen as a relative diplomatic backwater, but it is increasingly...

Pacific leaders are watching closely the debate in the United States Congress over foreign aid, hoping the Republicans will approve President Joe Biden’s economic assistance package to the island nations. In September last year, Biden hosted more than a dozen Pacific leaders and envoys at the White House, and announced the Pacific Partnership Strategy – worth US$800 million– to help...

Australia s always the ‘first there’ to help Pacific Islands in need during a crisis, says Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific Michael McCormack. “I think Australians do deeply care about it,” McCormack told Sky News Australia. “We know that Pacific Island nations need every bit of assistance; that’s why whenever there is a calamity, we’re the first there...

Last week Pacific Heads of Health were encouraged to jointly address the region’s growing HIV vulnerability through investments in proven prevention, testing, treatment and care approaches. Health Ministry senior advisers learned of rising AIDS-related deaths across the region, along with increasing new infections in Fiji and Papua New Guinea which put the entire Pacific at risk. The challenge calls for bold...

Gloria Julia King is the only female member of Vanuatu's parliament. Before she was elected last year, there hadn't been a female MP in Vanuatu for 15 years. “It was very hard to make the decision to go into parliament because ni-Vanuatu people — in their mind, in their upbringing, in their surroundings — the leadership has always been the men,”...

By John Grady The Freely Associated States lying between Hawaii and the Philippines are crucial to the United States remaining a Pacific power, the special envoy to these three island nations said Friday. To China, the Republics of the Marshall Islands and Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia “are the Second Island chain” in defining its historic territorial claims across...

The fourth-ranked Fijiana Drua scored 20 unanswered points to stun the previous unbeaten Waratahs in a rematch of last year’s final. Centre Vana Arei scored a double, including the match-winner in the 69th minute to seal their place in the Final for the second straight year, The Waratahs looked like they were going to replicate their 31-5 victory from round three...