PINA

by Sunil Kumar The daily rate of new COVID-19 infections in Fiji now exceeds 500 (as of 6 July 2021), much higher than India’s peak daily infection rate on a per million population basis. If people start dying at the same rate as in India at the peak of the second wave, it will be a disaster for the...

By Nacanieli Tuilevuka Most national airlines in the Pacific including Fiji Airways have run out of money. Association of the South Pacific Airlines (ASPA) chief executive George Faktaufon said the closures of borders due to the coronavirus have had a huge impact on the national airlines in the Pacific. Faktaufon said this has caused million-dollar of losses to national airlines in...

Tailevu halfback Simione Kuruvoli has a huge role to play for the Flying Fijians as Head Coach Vern Cotter named his 23-member run-on team for the first test match against the All Blacks in Dunedin on Saturday. Kuruvoli who has been part of the Flying Fijians since last year gets an opportunity to start after experienced halfback Frank Lomani together...

Samoa Supreme Court’s decision whether to enforce its orders of 28 June 2021 after the Attorney General and others did not comply to convene Parliament after seven days, will be delivered by the end of business today. This was the ruling by Justice Vui Clarence Nelson in a special hearing this afternoon. The Attorney General has filed an appeal and stay...

After five months status quo, the FLNKS candidate Louis Mapou, a member of UNI-Palika has been elected President of the Government of New Caledonia. “It is an honour and a heavy responsibility”, he told local media after his election in Noumea. He was elected as head of the 11-member multi-party government by 6-4 votes, defeating outgoing President Thierry Santa (with one...

The Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) has filed a formal complaint against members of the Samoa Judiciary, calling the Chief Justice ‘incompetent’ in handling cases since the beginning of electoral petitions, saying the Judiciary are on a mission to ‘oust’ HRPP from being in government, and singling out Justice Tuatagaloa for being impartial toward the leader of FAST. The complaint...

The world was not on track to meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) before COVID-19 struck, and now the challenge has been magnified many times over, according to a new flagship UN report that indicates countries must take ‘critical’ steps on the road out of the pandemic, during the next 18 months. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2021, launched...

Pacific post COVID-19 recovery and climate change are expected to dominate a series of back-to-back high level Pacific Forum meetings planned for next week. Agenda items, themes, and papers for Forum economic and trade ministerial meetings are being finalised this week by officials across the region. Finance and economic officials hope to complete discussions today aimed at setting the agenda...

Fiji has reported 791 new positive COVID-19 cases and three deaths Wednesday. Ministry of Health and Medical Services permanent secretary Dr James Fong said the first COVID-19 death is a 61-year-old man from Qauia Village, Lami. Dr Fong said the man was brought to the CWMH Emergency Department in severe respiratory distress. “He had been experiencing severe COVID-19 symptoms, including shortness of...

Variants like Delta are “currently winning the race against vaccines” said the World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday, pinning the blame squarely on a lack of equitable vaccine production and distribution. During his biweekly conference in Geneva, he added that passing the four millionth recorded death worldwide from COVID-19 was a “tragic milestone” which “likely underestimates...