PINA

by Hermann Mückler The withdrawal of the five Micronesian members from the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) may be seen by pessimists as the beginning of a further erosion of regional cooperation institutions. Others point to the only conditional importance of the PIF, positioning the bar for withdrawal very low. Still others accuse Australia, and some Australia in cooperation with New...

Crew on a Royal New Zealand Air Force Boeing 757 have carried out a contactless delivery of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to Port Moresby to help Papua New Guinea deal with a surge in COVID-19 cases. The delivery of the PPE follows the Government’s announcement on Friday that New Zealand is providing additional support to PNG following the spike in...

New Zealand’s Pacific organisations need to lead by example when it comes to providing governance opportunities for the many ideal Pacific candidates in our midst. Co-founder of WE Accounting and Pacific Education Centre (PEC) Board Member Eli Tagi says he knows of some large organisations which are slowly beginning to address the issue of having more Pacific faces on...

The contribution of Pacific people in business across Aotearoa New Zealand and their economic impact has been highlighted in a new report jointly released by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples (MPP) and Manatū Wāhine Ministry for Women. Pacific women and men in business reports a third of Pacific-owned businesses employ others, and Pacific business owners earn 20 percent more than...

By Ofani Eremae At the Korona logging camp on San Jorge Island in the Solomon Islands’ Isabel province, the logging machinery lay quiet. Except for the movement of three local security guards, the silence at this once-bustling log pond was deafening. “The workers have gone home,” Eric Gnokro, a chief in the area who negotiated my entry into this tightly...

Term one of the school year has been cut short, and a four-week holiday begins on Monday, as the Papua New Guinea Government implements a plan to arrest the current surge in Covid-19 cases. National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning said the total Covid-19 cases as of noon Tuesday was 2,479, including 31 deaths. There were 128 new cases reported in...

Papua New Guinea could have received Covid-19 vaccines before its current crisis if Australia had not been part of a group of countries that blocked a proposal to free up access to Covid-19 medicines, say Médecins Sans Frontières Australia. “There’s no doubt the intellectual property waiver had been hastened and scaled at an earlier time there was a higher...

Europe has threatened to seize AstraZeneca factories and strip the pharmaceutical giant of its intellectual property rights in a fresh escalation of the bitter row over coronavirus vaccine exports. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen refused to rule out the dramatic interventions on Wednesday, warning “all options are on the table” to boost the number of doses available to...

Following a recent public consultation in the northern group and an internal policy review, the Cook Islands Opposition Democratic Party has come out against a ten-year moratorium on seabed mining. The new policy aligns the Demos with Government but puts the party at odds with environmental groups such as Te Ipukarea Society, global NGO’s, and Pacific nations such as Fiji...

One of Papua New Guinea's leading doctors says Australia's promise to share COVID-19 vaccine doses is of vital importance. “We desperately need the vaccine because our health workers are being infected at an alarming rate,” Glen Mola told 7.30. In hotel quarantine in Cairns, the 74-year-old obstetrician is hoping to get vaccinated in Australia before returning to work in Port Moresby....