Results for Pacific Islands

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.

UPDATED: Fiji has received 12,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, making it the first Pacific Island country to receive a rollout under the COVAX facility. Around 6,000 frontline workers are expected to receive the first doses.

More than 100 seasonal workers left Tonga on a chartered flight for Australia this afternoon, February 25. Tonga has since last year been sending seasonal workers to Australia, despite the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and border closures.

The University of the South Pacific (USP) Council has extended the appointment of Dr Giulio Masasso Paunga as Acting Vice-Chancellor & President until further notice, following a special meeting held yesterday, 16 February. This follows the Fiji Government's sudden deportation of Vice Chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia earlier this month.

A positive CoViD-19 test was reported in Samoa on Saturday in a passenger who arrived in Samoa from California, USA, via New Zealand, on 12 February. Further tests are to be conducted on other passengers and staff who were involved with the flight and quarantine.

Eight hundred and fifteen additional seasonal workers from the Pacific Islands, including Tonga, have been approved to help fill jobs in horticulture and meat processing industries in New South Wales, Australia.

Tonga has joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), becoming its 84th member at an official flag raising ceremony held at the AIIB headquarter in Beijing, China, on 5 February. The AIIB was established in 2016 with $100 billion capital. It was created with the purpose of serving as a regional financing tool for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative.

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.

In the field of ancient DNA remarkable new insights for Oceanic settlement are being revealed. The Lapita migration across Oceania was rapid, and undertaken by a homogeneous group both culturally and genetically. Arriving in Tonga almost three millennia ago, it marks the birth of Polynesia. By David V. Burley and Geoffrey R. Clark.