Results for Pacific Islands

The Pacific is likely to experience a rare occurrence of what is called a double dip La Niña in the coming months, Climate models and predictions tools used by Pacific National Meteorological and Hydrological services (NMHSs) show. As a result, Pacific Island countries in the Central Pacific region such as Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu may experience below normal rainfall during this period, while islands in the South West Pacific will experience higher than normal rainfall, such as Fiji, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

One hundred and fifty Samoan RSE workers left Samoa for New Zealand on Saturday, 16 October under a special arrangement to facilitate a One-way Quarantine-free Travel Arrangement from Samoa to New Zealand that was signed by the Samoan Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mataafa and the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden on 1 October 2021.

Life in Fiji is starting to return to normal as businesses re-open at 70 percent capacity starting from today but only for people who have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19. There are currently 12,828 active COVID-19 cases in Fiji. Since the COVID-19 outbreak that started in April 2021, there have been 51,132 cases and 631 deaths there.

New research into the effect of drinking kava on driving has revealed it has a significant impact on temporal order judgement - or how well the brain is able to keep track of the order of events. Dr Apo Aporosa says the research findings will assist with kava drink-driving cases in court, but there is more work to be done.

In New Zealand, the University of Waikato, in support of increased Covid-19 vaccination rates among Māori and Pacific communities, will host a vaccination clinic and drive on September 16 to mark Kīngitanga day. There is concern that vaccination rates among the Māori and Pacific communities are lower when compared to the New Zealand national average, while some studies also suggest that Pacific people are three times more likely to need hospitalisation when infected with the virus than non-Pacific people.

Seasonal workers from Tonga, Samoa, and Vanuatu will be able to travel to New Zealand quarantine-free starting in October, announced New Zealand’s COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor yesterday, September 14. The arrangement will help New Zealand’s horticulture industry for the upcoming picking season.

Heads of Customs in the Pacific, including Tonga, have agreed that they need to work together with national security to ensure the region is more secure from transnational crimes. Despite border closures because of COVID-19, they say threats in the Pacific remain high from illegal activities, which are often facilitated by trusted insiders.

Tonga’s Director of Meteorology, ‘Ofa Fa’anunu has been re-elected for another four-years as President of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Region V, at their virtual session held from September 1-3. "Our challenges are quite unique in the sense that we are in charge of monitoring the atmosphere and the ocean in a very large area of mostly ocean," he said.

More than 20 Tongan nationals stranded in Fiji since March after Tonga closed its borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic, claim they have been neglected by their government. The Fiji Times reported a claim by the Tongans that their government had turned a blind eye to their pleas to return home after it allowed 14 Chinese into the Kingdom from Vanuatu late last month.