PINA

Once a great invention for the service of humanity, plastics have become an enemy of civilisation. That’s an observation of Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka to mark World Environment Day on Monday 05 June 2023. In a one-page advertisement in the Fiji Times newspaper, titled, “A Ticking Time Bomb”, the Fijian leader called on all Fijians to take up the fight...

Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has arrived in New Zealand for a visit, including a number of scheduled formal engagements. Rabuka will spend time in Auckland and Wellington, meeting with Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Climate Change Minister James Shaw. “Prime Minister Rabuka officially visited New Zealand in 1998, over 25 years ago, and we look...

World Vision New Zealand is highlighting the urgent need for more innovative grassroots initiatives to help communities in the Pacific mitigate and adapt to climate change. On World Environment Day (05 June), the international aid organisation says it’s the right time to reflect on what more needs to be done to ensure communities in the Pacific can thrive in the...

Former staff have lashed the U.S Department of the Interior for failing to predict that a 2017 decision to lift oversight from a US$59million trust fund for Pacific Islanders displaced by American nuclear testing would lead to the fund’s exhaustion through mismanagement and alleged fraud. Tom Bussanich, who in 2017 was a senior official in the department’s Office of Insular...

350.org Pacific Climate Warriors has encouraged more Pacific governments to back the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty ahead of the Bonn Climate Change Conference next week. At COP27 in Egypt, Tuvalu and Vanuatu became the first state parties to endorse the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty, a global initiative to accelerate an equitable shift away from coal, oil and gas, and...

New Caledonia's pro-independence parties are prepared to negotiate changes to the provincial electoral rolls, according to the French interior minister Gerald Darmanin. On his second visit to Noumea in less than four months, the minister announced the apparent change in the stance of the pro-independence FLNKS movement, which until now has ruled out any willingness to open the roll. As yet,...

In the Pacific Islands and many developing and emerging countries worldwide, the informal economy far outsizes the formal one, playing a vital role in the survival of urban and rural households and absorbing expanding working-age populations. Informal business entrepreneurs and workers make up more than 60 percent of the labour force worldwide. But they are also the most exposed, with...

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...