At the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru, New Zealand announced aid packages to assist Pacific Island Nations. Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern announced a $9 million package to make it easier for Pacific students to access education. Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced $10 million over three years to enhance free-to-air Pasifika TV service. Education “This initiative will Read more
The Minister for Climate Change James Shaw and Pacific People’s Minister Aupito William Sio met with Pope Francis on Saturday. En route to United Nations COP-23 Climate Change Conference in Bonn, they took part in a Pacific Island Leaders Forum discussion with the Holy Father. The Pope received in audience the leaders of the “Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat” from the eleven island Read more
A new Pacific islands forum will seek to challenge the Australasian dominance in a regional body. The new grouping’s approach is being billed the ‘Pacific Way’, and also the ‘green and blue’ way for its commitment to environmentally sustainable oceans as well as land. The new Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) challenges the Pacific Island Read more
A proposal to endorse the re-inscription of Tahiti on the United Nations Decolonization Committee’s list will be on the agenda at the Pacific Conference of Churches’ annual general assembly in Solomon Islands this week, despite opposition from France, New Zealand and Australia. PCC acting general secretary and Tahiti native, Reverend Francois Pihaate, told Radio Australia’s Pacific Read more
“Life is full of challenges, but when these challenges affect our rights, when these challenges are too great to overcome on our own, we must call for help…we ask our leaders, our communities to let us work alongside them,” said Merewalesi Nailatikau, UNICEF Pacific Regional Ambassador. These sentiments were echoed by other pacific youth leaders Read more
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who will chair the 40th edition of the Pacific Forum, faces a Melanesian and Micronesian rebellion over his hard-line on Bainimarama, who seized power in a military coup in 2006. Fiji hosted a shadow summit last week and in a communiqué the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Read more
The Forum Trade Ministers met in Vava’u, Kingdom of Tonga on 18-19 May 2011. Of the 14 Forum Island Countries, four – Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tonga – are World trade Organisation (WTO) Members and two Observers – Samoa and Vanuatu – are in the process of acceding to the WTO. FICs who are Read more
The Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has condemned the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat’s (PIFS) continued silence and stand on the threatening nuclear contamination of Pacific eco-systems calling it unacceptable. PCC General Secretary Fei Tevi says the continued silence from the PIFS undermines the enormous works of the founding members of the Forum in their vision Read more