PINA

Opinion by Gerard Finin and Terence Wesley-Smith After decades of ambivalence, the United States plans to expand its footprint in the Pacific islands region to dimensions larger than at any time since the second world war. But the Biden administration may be on the brink of embracing a flawed foreign policy initiative spanning almost one-third of the globe. Legislation before Congress,...

Vaccine inequity, unaffordable accommodation, travel challenges and new surges in the Covid19 pandemic will lock out huge numbers of developing country delegates from the UN climate talks set to take place in November. Climate Action Network (CAN), a global network of more than 1500 civil society organisations in over 130 countries working together to fight the climate emergency, has today...

Nauru is looking to host a Micronesia Presidents’ Summit Secretariat with leaders of Nauru, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and Kiribati putting in motion efforts to formalise the legal status of the new Secretariat. In the 20th Micronesian Presidents’ Summit communique signed by the five presidents – President of Kiribati, Taneti Maamau; President...

Australia's Minister for the Pacific, Zed Seselja, recently declared that “until everyone is safe from COVID, no one is safe”. But it's an objective that looks a long way off, given countries like Australia's nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, have some of the world’s lowest vaccination rates. Australia has donated hundreds of thousands of vaccines to its Pacific neighbours. But PNG's most...

Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr, signed an air service agreement last week with Nauru, citing Palau looks forward to the day when air services can be restored with Nauru Airlines. According to a press statement from the Nauru government last Friday, President Lionel Aingimea says the signing of the agreement “symbolises the profound relationship and friendship between Nauru and Palau,...

Holidaymakers wanting to travel to Samoa once borders re-open will likely have to wait until 2022. CEO of Samoa's tourism authority Fa'amatuainu Lenata'i Suifua said that vaccinations and a tracer app would be key to letting tourists in. “You'll need to download the app before you come to Samoa,” he told Pacific Beat. He said the app was based off the “privacy...

Warm greetings from the Blue Pacific region, and thank you for this opportunity to share with you what the Pacific Islands Forum is doing to respond to the climate change crisis and implement the Sustainable Development Goals, to assure our future generations of a resilient future. The 2021 Sustainable Development Report by Cambridge University confirms that the COVID-19 pandemic has...

The decision of the former Vanuatu Speaker of Parliament on the announcement of the vacation of seats of 19 Members of Parliament (MPs) has been overturned. This comes as Justice Viran Molisa Trief ruled Monday that the MPs have not been absent on three consecutive sittings, thus Prime Minister Bob Loughman, Deputy Prime Minister, Ishmael Kalsakau and other 16 other...

The President of Liberal Democratic Party, Willie Jimmy, said granting pardons to three former Vanuatu Prime Ministers (PMs), particularly Charlot Salwai, who had not even served half of his sentence is unfair to him and other convicted politicians. He personally thinks the pardon power, under Article 38 of the Constitution, is being abused. “It’s totally unfair to many of us,”...

With extreme weather events increasingly impacting countries across the world, the deputy UN chief on Monday underlined the importance of limiting temperature rise to the internationally agreed goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. “The entire planet is going through a season of fire and floods”, Amina Mohammed told a high-level meeting on climate action, primarily hurting fragile and...