Results for Pacific Islands

Ex-Tropical Cyclone Mal has moved away from Tongan waters. Tonga Met reported that the cyclone system located to the southwest of Tonga had weakened to a low pressure, yesterday and will no longer directly affect Tonga. Previous gale warnings for Tele-ki-Tonga and Tele-ki-Tokelau coastal waters have since been downgraded to strong wind warnings.

Australia is supporting Solomon Islands to host a safe and successful 2023 Pacific Games through a $17 million Pacific Games Partnership and additional personnel deployments, made at the request of the Solomon Islands Government.

The Pacific Partnership exercise has returned to Tonga after a decade, marking the largest annual multinational mission in the Indo-Pacific. With nearly 1500 personnel from Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the mission focuses on disaster response, public health, and civic preparedness.

Ahead of the signing of the Samoa Agreement in Apia next week Tonga's Prime Minister Hon. Hu’akavameiliku met with the Secretary General of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) HE Mr. Georges Rebelo Chikoti, in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. The Samoa Agreement to be signed by the European Union and its Member States, and the 79 Member States of OACPS, on 15 November 2023 in Samoa, is the first comprehensive partnership agreement between the OACPS and EU to be signed in the Pacific.

The quality of Tonga's water supplies will come into focus next week, when stakeholders come together for a workshop to look at water supply and sanitation management. The Water Safety Planning process will result in a Quality Risk Assessment for the Nuku’alofa Water Supply System. At a second workshop, the Ministry of Health and ADB, will present findings from a recent pilot study on Village Water Supply systems in Tongatapu.

BSP Financial Group Ltd., announced this week, a change to their leadership team in Tonga, following the appointment of Marcellina Wolfgramm Haapai to the position of Head of Customer Experience, Brand & Marketing, based in Papua New Guinea, where she will be accountable for driving initiatives to achieve world class customer service standards for the Group.

Tonga’s economy is performing strongly but faces growing headwinds, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated in its country report for Tonga published on 3 November. Although tourism-related services are recovering, tourism receipts as a share of GDP are anticipated to remain below pre-pandemic levels until FY2026 due to slow reconstruction of damaged facilities. Worker migration is causing severe labour shortages.

TASANOC - the Tonga Sports Association and National Olympic Committee, received a $600,000 pa'anga cheque from the Tonga government, yesterday 2 November, to fund the national teams going to regional competitions. The Pacific Games and SOL2023, are coming up from 19 November – 2 December in Honiara, Solomon Islands.

The Tonga government is planning to convert seawater into drinking water for the outer islands during the current drought caused by El Niño conditions across the southern region of the Pacific. "The government's main concern is to provide sufficient water resources for the outer islands," he told a media briefing at St George Government building in Nuku'alofa.