PINA

Former Fiji rugby union player Sale Sorovaki has been named as the Pacific country's Chef de Mission for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. The 52-year-old made 19 appearances for his country between 1995 and 1998, scoring two tries. He moved into sports governance and was Chef de Mission for Fiji at the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Ashgabat...

Papua Guinea National Capital District(NCD) Governor Powes Parkop has called on the government to revise and adopt a more courageous policy on West Papua. He said this when raising a series of questions to Foreign Affairs Minister Soroi Eoe in recognition of the West Papuan declaration of Independence on 01 December, 1961. “Hiding under a policy of ‘Friends to All, Enemy...

The United Kingdom has re-joined the Pacific Community, 17 years after severing ties with the regional organisation. It was one of the six founding members of the then South Pacific Commission in 1947 - along with Australia, New Zealand, the United States, France and the Netherlands - but pulled out after closing many of its high commissions in the Pacific. In...

By Opinion by Tagaloa Cooper The odds are always stacked against the Pacific region in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, and at COP26 we faced the additional challenge of Covid-19. The Pacific nations contribute less than 0.06% of the world's total greenhouse gasses, but are amongst the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change....

By Rowena Dickins Morrison, Adrian Muckle & Benoît Trépied With the growing possibility of a pro-independence victory, France is derailing decolonisation in a bid to shore up its position in the Indo-Pacific The French government’s decision to hold New Caledonia’s self-determination referendum on 12 December, despite the resolve of pro-independence parties not to participate, is a reckless political gambit with potentially...

The Pacific Community (SPC) has set its vision for a sustainable, thriving and peaceful Blue Pacific with the endorsement of its new 10-year Strategic Plan 2021+ during the 51st Meeting of the Committee of Representatives of Governments and Administrations (CRGA) in Noumea, New Caledonia. This strategic plan is the first to be co-developed directly with members, staff and stakeholders, including...

Solomon Islands Opposition leader Matthew Wale has rejected the prime minister’s claim that he and other opposition members were behind last week’s rioting in the capital of Honiara. Wale claimed that the false statements were aimed at diverting the public’s attention from Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s “own failures” in dealing with the crisis. Wale said Sogavare “must recognise his role in...

Guam's Catholic Church has come up with a revised proposed payment of US$27.96 million to US$34.38 million to those who claimed they were raped or sexually molested by priests and other members of the clergy when they were minors, dating back to the 1950s. That's more than US$100,000 per clergy sex abuse survivor if the award is based on equal...

By Francisco Blaha The public perception of fisheries tends to focus on operations—boats, weather, accidents, overfishing, illegal fishing. It can be difficult to focus much public attention on the good news side of Western and Central Pacific tuna fisheries, and the fact that the four main stocks of tuna are healthy and sustainably harvested. While it’s true that the operational side...

OP- Ed by Levan Bouadze, Resident Representative, UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji The COVID-19 pandemic affected lives, plagued economies, left millions without jobs and income and deprived us of social relations as we used to know. In this context, one issue found fertile soil to dramatically grow: Violence against Women and Girls. In Fiji alone, there was a recorded 606 percent...