Results for Pacific Islands

Hon. Sitiveni Rabuka (74), was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Fiji this afternoon, after narrowly winning a secret ballot in parliament, getting 28 votes to the incumbent Frank Bainimarama's 27.

The United Nations Resident Coordinator, Mr. Sanaka Samarasinha, based in Fiji and visiting Nuku'alofa this week, said he held productive discussions with the Tonga Government regarding current and future UN programs.

Tonga is among 14 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) attending the Pacific SIDS Solutions Forum, in Apia, Samoa from 28-30 November, where they will address the disproportionate aftershocks experienced in the Pacific Islands, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and other global crises.

Tonga has won the bid to host the Pacific Community's first-ever Polynesian Sub-regional Office.

Tonga for the first time, attended the 2022 Korea International Cooperation Conference on Oceans and Fisheries (KICCOF), at the Grand Pacific Hotel, Suva, Fiji, from 23-24 November.  

Pacific island nations suffered severe depopulation from introduced diseases as a consequence of contact with European vessels, a new study from The Australian National University (ANU) shows. Researchers Phillip Parton and Prof. Geoffrey Clark found that Tongatapu had a population decline of between 70 and 86 per cent once Europeans made contact and introduced new pathogens.

Eighteen Pacific countries and territories conducted their first-ever regional exercise (PacWave22-PICT) to test new early warning procedures for a potential tsunami arising from volcanic activity in the Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai (HTHH) volcano. A two hour long live regional exercise took place yesterday, 10 November.

Grants of $16.5 million for the Blue Pacific Finance Hub, which aims to build ocean and coastal resilience in countries threatened by the impacts of climate change was announced by the Asian Development Bank with the Global Environment Facility and the Nordic Development Fund at COP27, in Egypt.

Climate change is the single greatest threat to the Pacific, say the South Pacific Defence Ministers who met in Nuku'alofa last month. The Prime Minister's Office in issuing the SPDMM Joint Communique today, November 8, stated that delegates adopted and reaffirmed the importance of the SPDMM as a forum to enhance cooperation among defence partners and to collectively address Pacific security challenges.