PINA

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...

Solomon Islands leader of Opposition, Matthew Wale has cautioned the government to tread very carefully and adopt a zero risk approach in its preparedness for further repatriation flights that are likely to introduce the delta variant into Solomon Islands. Wale made this call in response to the Prime Minister’s statement on Monday this week that the government has assessed the...

The cocaine haul seized in Vava’u has been weighed at just over 14 kilograms, with an estimated street value over $5 million pa’anga (US$2.2 million), Tonga Police said Acting deputy Commissioner Halatoa Taufa said a total of 12 people had so far been arrested and charged, regarding the cocaine that washed up on Vava’u beaches recently. He said 10 were arrested...

The Fifty-First Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Retreat was held virtually on 06 August 2021, and was attended by the Heads of State, Government, and Territories of Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. Solomon Islands was represented at Ministerial level, and French Polynesia and Tonga by Special Envoys. Forum...

Our future got much bleaker with the release of the first report in the sixth series from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Monday. Released just days before World Youth Day, the Report does not bode well for our future generations, reinforcing the same key messages from earlier IPCCC Annual Reports. Urgent changes must be made to limit...