Results for Pacific Islands

Pacific Island countries, including Tonga, are preparing for the new edition of the Harmonized System (HS 2022) used to classify traded goods which will come into force on 1 January 2022.

Tonga’s Minister of Health said she was shocked by a report on adolescent unplanned pregnancy in Tonga, launched today, “because I did not know that young girls can take their own lives because they find out they are pregnant. ...We cannot continue that into the future!” The country report presented recommendations for long-term changes that need to happen.

In the Pacific Islands, evidence of climate change is all around us, but when dozens of images showing its impact across the Pacific come together in one room, it is sobering and challenging to the viewer. Photographs submitted by amateur photographers of all ages capture the immediacy of of the harmful effects of climate change, in a competition organised by the UK Government, on display in Nuku'alofa.

Tonga has a new handbook to guide parliamentary reporters. The 88 pages bilingual Tongan/English, “Tonga Parliamentary Reporters’ Handbook” was launched by the Speaker Lord Fakafanua, at Parliament House, Nuku'alofa, this morning, 4 March 2021. But significantly, the new handbook makes no mention of the role of political parties in Tonga’s parliament.

Repatriation flights are scheduled to arrive in Tonga on March 3, from New Zealand, Australia and Fiji.

We know many people are asking when vaccines will be available in Pacific countries. We anticipate that in 2021, demand will vastly exceed supply. But this doesn’t mean we should just sit and wait. PICs now need to focus on preparing, so they are ready when the first vaccines do arrive. This includes starting pre-registration for priority groups. It means making sure the systems are in place and working, for delivering vaccines and monitoring their safety and effectiveness. This requires investments to strengthen health systems, which will bring benefits beyond COVID-19. By Dr Takeshi Kasai.

The COVAX Initiative expects to release first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTec vaccine and the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine during the first half of 2021 to COVAX Facility participants. Twelve South Pacific countries are included in its first “interim distribution forecast” that targets at least 3% of their populations.

Air New Zealand has announced the start of services from Rarotonga, Cook Islands, to New Zealand after the recent announcement of a one-way quarantine-free travel route, stating “this is the first step of the phased approach to two-way quarantine-free travel between the two nations.”

Digicel, the largest mobile business in the Western Pacific, owned by the Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien, “is being crawled over by buyers who see an opportunity to buy the key infrastructure, which is suffering from high debt levels and weak earnings because of the pandemic”, reported the Australian Financial Review on 18 December.