PINA

The Fijian Drua have today announced the appointment of Mick Byrne as the Club’s first ever Head Coach. The vastly experienced Byrne has been Assistant and Skills Coach for the Wallabies, All Blacks, Japan and Scotland over a 23-year rugby union coaching career. The Australian also brings with him Super Rugby experience as Assistant Coach of the Auckland Blues from 2012...

In the lead-up to the upcoming COP26, the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company (PCRIC), has strategically launched its website to serve both as a major tool for ongoing awareness and information while also acting as an impactful instrument to maximise its tactical agenda at this prestigious event. PCRIC is a dedicated regional provider of specialist disaster risk finance services, based...

Fiji's High Court has struck out the constitutional redress filed by Lautoka lawyer Aman Ravindra Singh on the no jab no job policy. The matter was called in the High Court Thursday, however Singh did not appear on time. Chief Justice Kamal Kumar then struck out the case. A similar application has been filed by the Fijian Teachers Association. Meanwhile, an employment legal...

Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Associate Health Minister Aupito Sua William Sio announced today that New Zealand is donating additional Pfizer vaccines to the Pacific and AstraZeneca vaccines to the COVAX Facility, to support equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. “New Zealand is donating 708,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to the COVAX Facility to support vaccine programmes in...

In a historic event convened by the United Nations today, Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama and Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) delivered a bold statement on the region’s unwavering commitment for global food systems transformation to advance the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and recover better from COVID-19. At the UN Food Summit 2021, UN Secretary-General Antoìnio Guterres collaborated...

Thank you for the opportunity to once again address the Pacific Islands Forum. Your nations are confronting a dual crisis of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. Both threaten Pacific lives and livelihoods. If we follow the current path, the consequences of climate disruption for the prosperity, the well-being and the very survival of Pacific communities will be severe. I witnessed the impacts...

By Kemueli Naiqama, former Fiji Bureau of Statistics chief I note that there has been much debate since the release of the 2019-2020 Household Income and Expenditure Survey on the Fiji Bureau of Statistics Website www.statsfiji.gov.fi. The Minister of Economy, Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum made a statement regarding the report on Tuesday evening 14th September 2021. I wish to set the...

Pacific Islands Forum Leaders will meet with the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, in the margins of the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly. The meeting will be held virtually 24 September 2021 and recommences the annual meeting after it was postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Usually a face-to-face session, the meeting will give Forum Leaders the...

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday again urged eight key countries which have not yet signed or ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), to do so without delay. His request came in remarks to the latest conference to promote the treaty’s entry into force, which were delivered by UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu. The CTBT was adopted in...

The Marshall Islands president has urged world leaders at the United Nations to monitor geopolitical tensions in the Pacific. Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York via a recorded video message, David Kabua, said countries in the region were in the middle of a tug-o-war between 'the world's greatest powers'. “My own Pacific islands region faces a new emerging security...