PINA

The Oceania National Olympic Committees (ONOC) held a General Assembly online Saturday, highlighting successes from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and celebrating the organisation's 40th anniversary. ONOC President Robin Mitchell praised Tokyo 2020, calling the Games "magic" and thanked International Olympic Committee (IOC) Coordination Commission chair and Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates for his work in preparing the Olympics. Mitchell also...

Fiji Airways has announced a return to commercial flying for fully vaccinated international travellers from 01 December 2021. The airline is scheduled a number of daily flights and weekly flights between Fiji and its major tourism destination markets, with the first commercial flight from Australia to Fiji since March 2020 scheduled to depart Sydney on the morning of the 1st...

Australia’s defence minister, Peter Dutton, has chaired a meeting with his counterparts from Chile, Fiji, France, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga with a view to driving ‘more effective regional cooperation with partners’. Dutton dialled into the virtual meeting on Friday, describing the South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting (SPDMM) as an ‘important forum’ given the significant changes the regional...

The French overseas minister Sebastien Lecornu is adamant that New Caledonia's independence referendum should go ahead on 12 December. The minister, who is in quarantine in Noumea after arriving last week, said only an out-of-control pandemic could justify a postponement. Lecornu said he doesn't want the Covid-19 outbreak to be used for political ends, adding that in democracies elections are held...

Fiji’s international border will re-open to its travel partner countries from 11 November, 2021. Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama while announcing the easing of COVID restrictions Sunday said Fiji’s list of travel partners includes Australia, New Zealand, United States of America, United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Qatar, Germany, Spain, France, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Japan and most...

The Fiji Government aims to make vaccine passports available to Fijians by early December. This has been confirmed by Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum who said it is amongst reliable tactics to verify the vaccination status of every traveling Fijian. Sayed-Khaiyum said they have engaged a German company to assist the government effectively roll out this plan. “Fiji has also announced that they...

By Ian Kemish Things were looking very bad three months ago for both Papua New Guinea and Fiji. The two Pacific countries were each looking very vulnerable to the COVID Delta variant, albeit in different ways. On July 10, PNG recorded its first official Delta case, and the nation’s health professionals were soon warning the combination of very low testing...

There will be no restrictions on the size of outdoor gatherings after Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama announced ease of COVID-19 restrictions Sunday. Funerals, weddings, birthdays and other events can be held outdoors without restrictions on the number in attendance. Indoor venues can operate at 80 percent capacity, and everyone at the event must be fully vaccinated. The Fijian Government will continue...

Fiji has recorded 16 new cases of COVID-19 Saturday, increasing the total number of cases to 51,429 and 651 deaths since the outbreak in April. Permanent secretary for Health, Dr James Fong said there have been 62 new recoveries to report since the last update, which means that there are now 2,636 active cases. “There have been 51,429 cases during the...

Hospitals in Papua New Guinea are being pushed to the brink and morgues are overflowing, as the country suffers what health authorities say is the worst surge in Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began. The country’s health care system has long been plagued by shortages of drugs, funding, an ailing infrastructure and a severe lack of health workers. Now, major hospitals...