PINA

Fiji's former Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho are at the centre of a legal case where the defence counsel has called for a suspended sentence, contrasting with the State’s push for a custodial sentence favouring the upper range of the tariff. Magistrate Seini Puamau had refrained from pronouncing Bainimarama and Qiliho guilty as directed by...

Despite compromises that have been reached on nuclear reparations, the lingering impact of the massive U.S nuclear testing in Bikini Atoll is likely to be the recurring centerpiece of future dialogues between the U.S and the Marshall Islands, a State Department official said. “This is a sensitive issue, and we remember just on 01 March, we commemorated Nuclear Remembrance Day,”...

U. S deputy secretary of State Kurt Campbell last week met with a high-level delegation from the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) including Secretary General Henry Puna as well as the Prime Minister of Cook Islands Mark Brown. The deputy secretary highlighted the United States’ growing engagement in the Pacific region and ever closer U.S relationship with the PIF, as evidenced...

The Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) has launched a major upgrade and development to their monitoring and surveillance efforts, with two new systems built for vessel registrations and Port State Measures. The Electronic Vessel Register and the Electronic Port State Measures (e-PSM) System was unveiled by FFA Director General Dr Manu Tupou-Roosen at the 27th Annual Monitoring Control Surveillance...

By Rebecca Kessler Chris Malgan sits in his outrigger canoe, singing and shaking a ring of coconut shells in the water next to the boat. The inky skies backdropping the reef portend a late-morning storm that will bring a deluge of rain and tumultuous seas, likely skunking any attempt to “call” sharks to his boat. So today, he’s merely doing...

The most significant political global gathering on climate change since COP28 is just a day away, with countries coming together at the Copenhagen Climate Ministerial from 21st March. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is keen to see a strong commitment from the incoming COP29 Presidency, Azerbaijan, to ensure outcomes that will deliver the critical support small island developing...

Defence Minister Minoru Kihara pledged Wednesday that Japan will work with Pacific island nations to build a future of peace, stability, and prosperity for them, apparently with China's growing military clout in the region in mind. On the second day of ministerial-level defece talks in Tokyo between Japan and Pacific island states, Kihara said the Pacific Ocean must be “free,...

Pacific nations can't afford to snub Chinese money as they struggle with the impacts of climate change but foreign police being shipped in should be a red line, a former Kiribati president says. Uniformed Chinese officers in Kiribati have been aiding community policing, drawing a rebuke from the United States, which cautioned Pacific nations against using Chinese security forces. Law enforcement...

An official from the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) says his nation values its relationship with China in terms of its economic partnership, which benefits its people. Acting secretary of justice Leonito Bacalando Jr spoke to NHK in Tokyo on Wednesday. He is visiting Japan to attend a meeting of defence ministers of Pacific island nations. Bacalando called Japan “an important...

Shipping negotiators for governments at UN talks this week want a proposed tax on the sector’s emissions to be spent mostly on cleaning up the industry – which could thwart international plans to use some of the money to address broader damage from climate change. With rich countries failing to deliver promised amounts of their taxpayers’ money to help developing...