Women have taken to the streets of the Papeete, to raise awareness about violence against women. The demonstration coincided with an appeal lodged by Christian Thony who has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend, Soraya Paari. Soraya was killed on October 25, 2007. She had taken refuge in her nephew’s home Read more
Last Thursday the Vatican announced that the Pope has appointed Bishop John Doaninoel sm, as the auxiliary Bishop of the archdiocese of Honiara, Solomon Islands. Bishop John has been auxiliary Bishop of the archdiocese of Rabaul, Papua New Guinea since 2008. In his role as auxiliary Bishop he will assist Archbishop Adrian Smith who has been Read more
A new Don Bosco Technical College campus has been opened at Salelologa, in Savai’i, Samoa. The new compound consists of eight classrooms, a computer lab and a workshop. Unlike the Don Bosco Technical Center in Apia, the school teaches trades and high school subjects in Year 9 and Year 10. The school also educates both males Read more
At the opening of a national Environment Week that was launched by the Fiji Department of Environment and the Pacific Conference of Churches at the Suva Civic Auditorium on Sunday Pacific Conference of Church’s Environment advocate, Peter Emberson said the theme was powerful in the sense that it would encourage people to reflect and think Read more
The Congregational Church of Samoa may set up a bank to counter the excessive interest rates and fees imposed by commercial banks operating in the country. Church general secretary Rev. Iutisone Salevao said the bank idea would include setting up a corporate plan operating under the development arm of the church. He said its operations would Read more
New Zealand Prime Minster, John Key and Rugby World Cup minister Murray McCully both have said that New Zealand had no intention of using the World Cup as an excuse to relax sanctions which it has applied against Fiji since a 2006 military coup. Vidya Lakhan president of the Fiji Association of Sports and National Olympic Read more
The Pacific Assembly of the New Zealand Marist Brothers Province was held recently in Suva at the Champagnat Institute 38 people including 12 Lay Marists attended from the contributing nations of Fiji, Samoa and Kiribati. This was the first time that lay people were there in numbers and they did influence some thinking within the Assembly. Read more
Any offer to host an asylum-seeker processing centre in the Solomons must be refused by Canberra, which should stop trying to off-load its problems onto fragile Pacific states recently retired Solomon Islands MP and former deputy PM Fred Fono. He said his government’s offer was ill-conceived, would likely trigger land disputes and lacked any community Read more
Ratu Tevita Mara is looking at applying to live in New Zealand. He said he might make a formal application to seek asylum in New Zealand and was already in informal discussions. He says is also talking with people in other countries.Colonel Mara says he would also like his family to move to New Zealand with him. Colonel Read more
Samoa plans to take TV3’s John Campbell to the High Court in a continuing battle over how tsunami relief funds were spent. Prime Minister Tuila’epa Sailele complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority over a story on New Zealand’s TV3 Samoa complained after Campbell Live aired a story questioning how $59.4 million of 2009 tsunami relief money Read more