A former Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Hubert Ingraham, will lead a Commonwealth Observer Group to Vanuatu for its General Election on 22 January. The snap election is being held nine months ahead of schedule, following a period of political instability in which 14 Members of Parliament were convicted of bribery. The convictions led to…
PACNEWS: Papua New Guinea’s Northern Governor Gary Juffa has begun a cleanup of Popondetta Town by closing down all Asian trade stores and fast food outlets. The action came after numerous complaints about the quality of food produced and sold in these foreign-owned shops. Governor Juffa said only supermarkets will operate in the province. He…
PACIFIC Island Parties (PIPs) to the U.S Tuna Treaty have stood their ground and refused a proposed revision by the United States to the Statement of Intent (SOI) agreed to by all Parties in August last year. The US proposed to reduce by 1,930 the number of fishing days it committed to in the SOI.…
SOLOMON Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and Samoa top global trade estimates for illicit financial flows Three of the world’s top ten most corrupted trade routes involve Pacific Islands countries. In the Pacific, Vanuatu suffers most from what a watchdog group calls “illicit financial flows”, focusing mostly on fake trade invoicing. Or as Global Financial…
PORT VILA, (VANUATU POST) – Airline regulator of Vanuatu, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vanuatu (CAAV) says the national carrier, Air Vanuatu planes are safe to operate because the airline has complied with requirements of the civil aviation authority. The director of CAAV, Joseph Niel says this does not mean that Air Vanuatu has complied…
RNZI: Vanuatu’s finance department has confirmed that 14 former government MPs who are serving jail terms have applied to stand as candidates in January’s snap election. The former MPs, who are serving jail terms after they were convicted of bribery in October, submitted their applications and paid the US$890 candidates’ fee from their Port Vila…
PARIS, (SPREP) —- Before it has even been agreed upon, the world is already failing the current proposal for the new Climate Change agreement to reduce global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. While the Pacific islands call for the 190+ parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to limit global warming…
SUVA, (THE AUSTRALIAN) — More than 60 per cent of women and girls surveyed in the Pacific Islands have experienced violence by an intimate partner or family member, says a report released Monday night. But 12 extra Pacific Island women every day have received help from crisis support services in the three years since Australia…
BALI, (RADIO TUVALU) —–Papua New Guinea, one of the most powerful nations of the PNA, has called on the Pacific Tuna Commission to take urgent action to control fishing on the high seas. Fishing rules for the high seas are set by the commission and are much more lenient than the rules Pacific countries impose…
PACIFIC diplomacy at its best – that’s the only way to describe the Western Pacific Fisheries Commission’s recent road trip of Asia which poses the largest combined threat to regional fish stocks. The Chinese and Taiwanese fleets by their sheer size and state fuel subsidies have a distinct advantage over Pacific nations on the high…