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 leverage high-speed internet connectivity to ensure more Pacific students have access to high-quality education and learning opportunities," said Ardern.

The package includes a project to support teachers to deliver an interactive e-learning science curriculum for year 10 students in Samoa, Vanuatu, Cook Islands and Solomon Islands.

The $5 million e-learning for science project will develop a suite of interactive e-learning resources that will allow non-specialist teachers to deliver the year 10 science curriculum.

The package also provides for a partnership project with the University of the South Pacific and the Commonwealth of Learning to expand open, distance and flexible learning opportunities at secondary and tertiary levels.

Broadcasting.

An expanded Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Ltd service will include a dedicated Pasifika TV channel with New Zealand content.

The expansion will also include a comprehensive training programme to support broadcasting and journalism across the Pacific including equipment, internships and cross-regional training.

"Informed open conversation facilitated by the media is the backbone of transparent governance," said Peters.

"This initiative provides an opportunity to support broadcasters throughout the region to contribute to that debate."

The expanded Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Ltd service, valued at NZ$10 million over three years, will include a dedicated Pasifika TV channel with New Zealand content, improving both quality and access for free-to-air broadcasters across the region.

"The expansion of the Pasifika TV service will dramatically improve the way in which New Zealand content is delivered across the Pacific," said Peters.

Source

scoop.co.nz

scoop.co.nz

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 states.

Shaw said delegates from Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia read statements at the Vatican meeting on different facets of the climate challenge.

Pope Francis responded drawing on his encyclical of 2015, in which he described climate change as a global problem with grave implications.

"He is extremely concerned about the territorial threat from rising sea levels and about the state of the oceans," Shaw said.

He is continuing to use the weight of his office and his influence to draw attention to the environment in general, but climate change specifically.

"The reason it's such a big deal for the Pacific Islands is that he's now drawing attention specifically to the immediate threat that the islands are facing."

Before he left for the meeting Shaw said, "We want to really show that we stand with our Pacific Island neighbours," Shaw said.

"It is an important meeting... The status of it will mean a lot to them and I think it's really important we stand alongside them."

And if you're wondering what one wears when they have an audience with the Pope, Shaw said he would probably wear a suit.

Read the Pope's statement

Source

• Stuff
• Vatican Radio
• RNZ
• Zenit
• L'Osservatore Romano
• Image: L'Osservatore Romano

The new Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) challenges the Pacific Island Forum (PIF), a 16-member inter-governmental organisation which includes 14 Pacific Island countries plus Australia and New Zealand. The PIF is headquartered in Fijian capital Suva. Fiji itself was suspended from the PIF in 2009 after naval commander Frank Bainimarama grabbed power in a coup in 2006 and refused to hold elections. Read more

PCC acting general secretary and Tahiti native, Reverend Francois Pihaate, told Radio Australia's Pacific Beat program that it was time Pacific Island Forum Leaders showed their support for the move.

When the UN was founded in 1945, one of its first initiatives was to engage in a proper decolonisation process, establishing a list of territories yet to be decolonised.

French Polynesia, of which Tahiti is the economic and political centre, was included on the list.

France succeeded in having French Polynesia withdrawn from the list two years later.

Source

• Radio Australia
• Image Flagsflagsflags.net

These sentiments were echoed by other pacific youth leaders the Official Side Event on "Youth Matters NOW: Investing in Young People for a Secure, Prosperous and Sustainable Pacific" as part of the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' Meeting held in Auckland last week.

"We need opportunities, we need service delivery, we need resources…we need capacity building and partnerships through education and training, as well as support for safe and open space for dialogue, and affordable and access to communication technologies to encourage young people to be part of national decision-making processes," said Fale Lesa, Committee Member for the Wansolwara Youth Pacific Conference.

Source

• Scoop
• Image: wilgpacific.org

Fiji hosted a shadow summit last week and in a communiqué the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu endorsed Bainimarama's plan to hold off having elections until 2014.

The grouping did not specially ask for Fiji to be returned to the forum fold, but they want more engagement with Fiji. In diplomatic language they recall "the importance of Fiji's continuous engagement with the region and its full participation in regional development initiatives and programmes."

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Savali News

• 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 not WTO members are just as affected by WTO's far-reaching rules and negotiations.
• "Provision of technical advice to Forum Island Countries (FIC)/WTO Members and Observers remains the highest priority of the office," said the Forum's Permanent Representative to the Geneva Office, Mrs Aivu Tauvasa.
• Most of the region's trading partners are Members of WTO, and therefore bound by WTO rules. This means that the outcomes of WTO negotiations have implications for all FICs, including those that are not presently members of the WTO.
• Negotiations such as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), PACER Plus with Australia and New Zealand, and the broadening of PICTA must necessarily result in WTO-compatible agreements. Meaningful advocacy of FIC interests can, therefore, only take place from within the WTO system.

Source:

• Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat
• Image: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat

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 to safeguard and protect the Pacific from nuclear contamination

"As the designers and custodians of the 1985 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga), the PIFS has been mandated to protect the Pacific region from nuclear contamination and must make strong it's calls on Japan to account for the way it is handling this nuclear catastrophe," Tevi said in a statement.

Source

Samoa Observer
Image: theboldcorsicanflame.wordpress.com