PINA

Fiji has recorded 398 new cases of COVID-19 and five new deaths Thursday, increasing the total number of cases to 38,742 and 343 deaths since the outbreak in April. Permanent secretary for Health, Dr James Fong said 254 cases are from the Western division and 144 cases are from the Central division in Vitilevu, Fiji's main island. “There have been 703...

Pacific Countries will be benefiting from a $14-million (US$9.7 million) climate change funding support from the New Zealand government. The five-year funding assistance will help Pacific countries in addressing the impacts of climate change in the region. The fund will be channelled through the Pacific Community programme to improve food security, livelihoods, economic and environmental resilience in the Pacific. New Zealand Minister...

Public assembly or procession of any form will not be allowed under the current state of emergency unless authorised by the Prime Minister, says Solomon Islands Attorney General John Muria junior. Parts of Honiara, the Western Border, and Malaita Outer Islands are currently declared as emergency zones. “In any emergency zone, public assembly or procession is prohibited, unless there’s any order...

Pacific island leaders have agreed that their maritime borders should be permanent, even if their countries shrink due to a future rise in sea levels caused by climate change. In a declaration released by Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders, 18 member countries and territories affirmed that once Pacific islands have established and notified maritime zones to the secretary-general of the...

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape says Parliament needs to address soon the quest for independence by the people of Bougainville. “There is no greater issue than that of one part of the country trying to break away from the rest of the country,” he said. “This is a very important issue. “I rank it the greatest challenge than Covid-19, the...

Australia is already considered a “bad neighbour” and will become a “pariah” if the federal government does not move past its long-running climate policy wars and do more to help limit global warming, a senior UN official warns. The country is feeling the pressure to stop dragging its heels after the United Nations’ latest climate report card revealed earlier this...

Travel is restricted to New Zealand from Fiji this weekend. There are more than 24,000 active cases of Covid-19 in Fiji and at least 330 deaths, since the outbreak began in April. Fiji is now considered "very high risk," to New Zealand and from midnight Sunday, only New Zealand citizens, their partners and children, will be able to travel there from...

The catastrophic cost of weightlifting losing its Olympic status is laid out in a letter to the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) and all its members. It says that if weightlifting was dropped from the Olympic Games doping would take off unchecked, income would nosedive at global, continental and national level, and weightlifting would die in smaller nations. There would be "a...

-Three individuals who have received their second jab of the COVID-19 vaccine were among the 13 new covid deaths reported by Fiji's Ministry of Health Wednesday. Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong said of the three individuals, two were infected with the virus before they received their second jab. “We know from the timeline of when their symptoms first developed...

The Covid-19 Delta variant has reached Guam, government officials disclosed this week. Five out of 21 samples sent to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention for testing contained the Delta variant. Of those five, four had no history of travel, which shows it is being spread within the community. The arrival of this new strain on the island has again...