Results for Pacific

NASA will launch a powerful and advanced weather satellite named GOES-S on Thursday 1 March from Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, enabling more accurate and reliable weather forecasts and severe weather outlooks over most of the Western Hemisphere, including the Pacific.

UNICEF is calling for urgent action to protect children from a host of risks and harms online around the world including the Pacific, as part of its Safer Internet Day message this week. Tonga is playing its part with cyber safety programmes being delivered in the kingdom in partnership with UNICEF, who reports that that one in three internet users worldwide is a child.

Five Pacific Islands are included in the European Union’s first blacklist, which names 17 tax havens, including American Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands, Palau and Samoa as "non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes".

Tonga, Samoa and Tuvalu will be able to access $15 million to strengthen resilience to disasters after the Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced on 18 December it would provide policy-based loans and grants under its Pacific Disaster Resilience Program.

Tonga has stepped up its efforts to curb domestic violence with a new ‘Access to Justice Project’ legal centre launched last Friday, 8 December, that will provide free legal advice and support to survivors, as complaints of domestic violence continue to rise. It is the first in the Pacific Islands.

Children as young as 12 months old around the world are experiencing violence in their homes by those entrusted to take care of them, reveals a new UNICEF report released on 1 November. Six out of every 10 one year olds in 30 countries are subjected to violent discipline on a regular basis and nearly a quarter are physically shaken as punishment. One in 10 are hit or slapped on the face, head or ears.

Fiji will receive a $31 million grant from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) through the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and a $42 million ADB loan for climate resilience projects and improving water and sanitation services.

A platoon of Royal Tonga Marines from His Majesty’s Armed Forces (HMAF) has joined the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) to evacuate around 11,000 residents from the active volcanic Ambae Island in Vanuatu on 30 September.

A push for the development of political parties in democratic societies in the Pacific by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was the focus of a dialogue held this week in Momi Bay, Fiji where over 40 representatives from the Pacific region attended, including Tonga. UNDP's Bakhodir Burkhanov said political parties need to be “more than just a temporary vehicle for the promotion of the interests of one political leader or a small group”.