PINA

The President of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday announced a New Year resolution on vaccine equity, calling on governments to come together on this issue ahead of a major event in mid-January. “Unless we can vaccinate the world, there is no way out of this. You see different types of variants coming out, and this is going to...

Questions remain over the future of New Caledonia as pro-independence groups refuse to discuss the future of the French Pacific territory with the government in Paris, until after the 2022 French presidential election. On paper, the result from Sunday's referendum appears clear cut, with 96.49 per cent of voters choosing to stay with France. However, the final result was distorted by...

The New Zealand government is setting up a new investment fund to help Pacific nations recover from covid-19. InvestPacific is the first partly private investment fund established that exclusively targets the Pacific. New Zealand is putting NZ$17 million(US$11.4 million) into the Invest Pacific fund and is expecting the fund to attract another NZ$40 million(US$26.9 million) via private investment. The Foreign Affairs Minister...

By Sam Sachdeva The Government has marked the first anniversary of a polarising Pacific trade deal with talk of expanding a seasonal worker scheme into a more sweeping ‘preference’ in our immigration settings For those in need of a reminder about the precarious state of the Pacific’s Covid-hit economies, on Monday came the news of a $100 million(US$67 million)-plus financial injection...

Two People's representatives Siaosi Sovaleni and Dr 'Aisake Eke have been nominated for Tonga's Prime Minister designate. Their names will be announced during a meeting today, when elected representatives to the Tonga Legislative Assembly will choose one of them as the new leader. At the close of nominations at 4.30pm Tuesday, two nominations had been received at the Office of the...

A leftwing candidate in the French presidential race Jean-Luc Melenchon says the outcome of New Caledonia's independence referendum is a catastrophe. He held a news conference after several leading French politicians welcomed Sunday's overwhelming rejection of independence, with just 3.5 percent voting for it. Melenchon said the government destroyed the consensus process of the 1998 Noumea Accord by imposing a referendum...

Papua New Guinea National Planning and Monitoring Minister and Finchafen MP Rainbo Paita, has announced that he is stepping aside from his Ministerial portfolio indefinitely, as of Tuesday. Paita in a statement said that he is stepping aside to allow for an investigation to be carried out, after a video he was featured in and firing a shot from a...

Police in the restive Solomon Islands said Tuesday they had arrested a leading member of the opposition in connection with deadly riots that rocked the country last month. United Party president John Kwaita was reportedly arrested by armed police at his home late Monday on unspecified charges. “We can confirm that a prominent Solomon Islander has been arrested yesterday evening in...

The United States will expand its military and economic relationships with partners in Asia to push back against China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific, U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday. Blinken said the Biden administration is committed to maintaining peace and prosperity in the region and will do that by boosting U.S alliances, forging new relationships and ensuring...

Fiji's Attorney-General and Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum Tuesday signed an additional $85 million (FJD$ 129.5 million) Funding Arrangement with the Australian Government under the Fiji Sustainable and Resilient Budget Support Programme. The programme is co-financed with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) with the overall goal to support the Fijian Government in achieving an agreed set of economic and fiscal...