PINA

The HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens on 09-10 April is set to thrill fans with the highly anticipated return to HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series action of Olympic champions Fiji, 2020 Series winners New Zealand and Samoa. The team captains lined-up on Wednesday at the Toa Payoh Dragon Playground, a site of local cultural significance since 1979 where they had the...

Fijian Drua captain Nemani Nagusa has been banned for four weeks after a red card for “a particuarly dangerous tackle’’ against the Waratahs. The Sanzaar foul play review committee accepted Nagusa’s guilty plea for contravening a law preventing players from making early, late or dangerous tackles. Nagusa, 33, has been suspended up to an including May 8 after his late and...

Fijian Drua centre Apisalome Vota has returned to the starting line-up for the Swire Shipping-sponsored side’s Super Rugby Pacific Round 8 line-up against the Brumbies. Vota missed last week’s game against the NSW Waratahs and will form a new partnership with Tuidraki Samusamuvodre. Meli Derenalagi will captain the side in the absence of Nemani Nagusa who is suspended for four weeks...

Moana Pasifika has named their team to play the Highlanders in the inaugural DHL Super Rugby Pacific match between the franchises. The squad will travel to Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium in search of their second win of the season on Friday night. After being on the receiving end of a 46-16 defeat at the hands of the Blues, Head Coach...

Australia would bid to host a United Nations climate change summit in partnership with other Pacific nations if Labor won next month’s federal election as part of the federal opposition’s bid to improve the nation’s credentials with the region on the issue. The annual Conference of the Parties – known as COP – has brought together the world’s nations for...

After two years of recession caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the Pacific is expected to return to positive growth this year, according to the Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2022, ADB’s flagship economic publication, which was released today. The economies of ADB’s Pacific developing member countries contracted by 0.6% on average in 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to...

The Solomon Islands government is believed to have abandoned its plan to extend Parliament by another year, sources have revealed. Instead, it has backed the idea of an early dissolution of Parliament – an option proposed by the Opposition, the sources said. It is understood that public outcry against the proposed 12-month extension forced Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s government to take...

New Zealand expects the Solomon Islands security tie-up with China to be the subject of a special Pacific Islands Forum meeting. Regional security and the potential militarisation of the Pacific has caused a blue continent blow-up over the past week. Australia and New Zealand were in one corner, attempting to talk the Solomon Islands and China out of a potential security...

Work has already begun to reunite the Pacific Islands Forum after the Micronesian block of nations initiated moves to exit the regional body. Speaking virtually during the Peter Tali Coleman Lecture on Pacific Public Policy at Georgetown University on Tuesday, Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa said work has already started to reunite the “Pacific family.” “Work is already being done to...

In his national address of late, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare made an assurance that Solomon Islands will never be used as a military base or other military institutions of any foreign country now or in the future. PM Sogavare pointed out that any naval or military bases of foreign countries will destroy, and not develop Solomon Islands. “It will...