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Monday 22 June 2020 6:47pm
Nuku'alofa,Tonga : One of three soldiers, jointly charged with causing serious bodily harm to a civilian two-years ago, was found guilty by the Supreme Court, on June 18, while two soldiers were acquitted.
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Saturday 20 June 2020 5:07pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : The Tongan Parliament yesterday 18 June, passed its $589.6 Million pa’anga national Budget for 2020-2021 with votes of 21-0. With Tonga’s biggest-ever deficit of $60 million, debate has been tense at times over the last two weeks. A 20 per cent salary cut for MPs, proposed by the PM, did not happen. From the House by Pesi Fonua Premium content -
Friday 19 June 2020 5:33pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : Tests for CoViD-19 can now be processed in Tonga in a new laboratory extension which was officially opened today by the Prime Minister Hon Dr Pohiva Tu’i’onetoa at Vaiola Hospital in Tongatapu. By Eleanor Gee. Premium content -
Friday 19 June 2020 5:27pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : A 'Beautiful Tonga Clean Up' campaign held earlier this year, has today presented new lawnmowers to eight villages who did the best clean up work in Tongatapu. Premium content -
Friday 19 June 2020 5:23pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : A new ATM point has been opened in a busy commercial area outside of Nuku'alofa by the Bank of South Pacific, to cater for the people on the eastern and central districts in Tongatapu. Premium content -
Friday 19 June 2020 11:30am
Suva, Fiji : The COVID19 pandemic has upended economies the world over, while there is financial pain there is also an opportunity for the reorganisation of national and global economics. Fiji's economic fault lines have been exposed under the pressures of COVID-19, exposing the gaps through which people and communities are falling. As governments continue to act to support economies undone by the pandemic it's important to see that any community relief that is being offered also has an eye to the future. By Maureen Penjueli.1 comment -
Thursday 18 June 2020 7:57pm
Wellington, New Zealand : A massive joint effort between New Zealand Government agencies, employers, and the Vanuatu Government is underway to repatriate over 1000 Vanuatu nationals stranded in New Zealand, NZ Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark said today. -
Thursday 18 June 2020 6:53pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : Louena, a Tongan mother of two who lives in Japan, is desperate to be reunited with her babies, daughter Kathleen (5) and infant son, who are now in Tonga without her. The sudden border closure caught the family by surprise and has separated them for over three months. -
Thursday 18 June 2020 6:40pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : ‘Aleki Filikitonga (26) was sentenced to one-year six-months imprisonment, which was fully suspended, for theft of $28,000 pa’anga from the Tonga Development Bank branch in 'Eua. Premium content -
Thursday 18 June 2020 6:31pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : Three men were arrested with illicit drugs at Patangata and Pili in a Tonga Police operation on June 16-17. Premium content -
Thursday 18 June 2020 6:29pm
Auckland, New Zealand : A plan to improve the health and wellbeing of New Zealand’s growing Pacific population was launched by Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa on 13 June. -
Thursday 18 June 2020 10:55am
Bangkok, Thailand : CoViD-19’s effects on health, jobs and economies are simply an acute version of what climate change is predicted to bring – and in places already has. Unless we aspire to a better normal with recovery, we are treating the symptom, not the disease. We must build back better than before. For example, it may be tempting to scale up funds for infrastructure like roads, but that funding can go to improved and greener public transport systems to service more people. More public transit capacity will reduce the load on roads and reduce air pollution and emissions. Investment in IT can decentralize business operations, reducing time lost and carbon produced in commutes and travel. By Armida Alisjahbana and Inger Andersen. -
Wednesday 17 June 2020 9:43pm
Sydney, Australia : Kau fakatalanoa mu’a ki he uho ‘o e palopalema ‘oku tau fehangahangai moia ‘i he lolotonga, pea ‘oku ‘i ai ‘eku tui te tau hokohoko atu ki he kaha’u pea toe kovi ange.- 'Inoke Fotu Huakau. -
Wednesday 17 June 2020 5:54pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : The 50 passengers to board the first repatriation flight from Auckland to Tonga will probably be selected next week, confirmed MEIDECC CEO, Paula Ma’u today, 17 June. “If that goes well, it depends on health and their analysis on whether we will increase the number and even the flights.” Otherwise at that rate, with about 7,000 Tongans overseas who want to return to Tonga, it might take years to repatriate everyone and quarantine will be costly. By Eleanor Gee. -
Wednesday 17 June 2020 5:22pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : Tavalea Tupou (17) was sentenced to four-years imprisonment for stabbing another boy on the head with a sharp object, in a school fight in Nuku'alofa, last year. There is need for deterrence to bring such senseless violence to a halt, the Supreme Court judge said in imposing the sentence yesterday. This is the second student involved in a school violence to be sent to prison this year. Premium content -
Wednesday 17 June 2020 2:28pm
London, United Kingdom : Governments cannot openly admit that the "controlled easing” of COVID-19 lockdowns in fact means controlled progress toward so-called herd immunity to the virus. Because there is currently no COVID-19 vaccine, governments have had to find other ways to prevent “excess deaths.” Most have opted for lockdowns, which remove entire populations from the path of the virus and thus deprive it of hosts. But this strategy has a terrible weakness: governments cannot keep their populations locked down until a vaccine arrives. Apart from anything else, the economic cost would be unthinkable. So, they have to ease the lockdown gradually. By Robert Skidelsky -
Tuesday 16 June 2020 6:38pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : 'Ileana Suliana Taulua was found not guilty on five counts of making a false declaration to obtain a Tongan passport at the Supreme Court on June 11. A sixth count of possession of a forged passport was dismissed, after the Crown led no evidence. The Chief Justice also noted that an era within this country to grant passports to non Tongan nationals for considerable sums of money had led to renewals of those passports that caused significant concern. Premium content -
Tuesday 16 June 2020 6:21pm
Auckland, New Zealand : Air New Zealand will resume passenger flights between Auckland and Shanghai next week, with passengers subject to government border controls in each direction. Premium content -
Tuesday 16 June 2020 6:08pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : By this morning, 900 people had registered for repatriation to Tonga. MEIDECC, the Ministry responsible for the Repatriation Registry said that at least 70 stranded public servants are also looking to return to Tonga. A mock repatriation exercise held this morning involved four stages of arrangements. -
Tuesday 16 June 2020 12:47pm
Nuku'alofa, Tonga : Tonga’s Ministry of Tourism has confirmed today that government is planning for the first repatriation flight of 50 Tongans “after next week as a start” and that the first passengers will arrive “in three weeks from last Friday, if everything is going as planned”.
