Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, will not be attending the Pacific Islands Forum in Palau next week. The visit would have been Abbott’s first chance to meet Pacific leaders since the election of his coalition government in September last year to discuss many regionally important issues. However, with the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17…
DIGICEL Fiji confirmed on Tuesday an investment of FJ$70 million (K90.9 million) to expand and upgrade its high speed data network. Since its launch in 2008, the company described this as the ‘most significant investment’. The company said the investment will deliver Fiji’s largest 4G network and expand its existing network to 3G+ coverage. Chief…
Around the Pacific, the theatre group Won Smolbag and their TV production Love Patrol are a well-known part of the region’s cultural life. This week the 12,000 delegates at the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne were able to look some of the episodes and meet the actors and writers who bring it to the screen.…
More than 300 delegates including leaders, ministers and senior government officials from Forum Member countries, associate members and observers and development partners of the Forum, as well as representatives of the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP) and the media, are in Koror, Palau to attend the 45th Pacific Islands Forum and related…
Media association of Solomon Islands (MASI) over the weekend kick off with its media training in preparation for the upcoming national general election. Ben McNair, a media trainer and Ms Josephine Teakeni a MASI member led out in the training. Members from all the mainstream media organisations in the country attended the training. It was…
THERE are many things people love to hate when it comes to gushy romantic couples. Get ready to roll your eyes. Losing them A friend goes into the serious relationship/engagement/marriage zone — never to be seen or heard from again. When I was single I would joke that my friends bought a one-way ticket to…
WHEN I was 23 years old, my husband died of skin cancer. A week after his funeral I got a tattoo on the back of my neck as a tribute — an exact copy of the ‘all-seeing eye’ my late husband had on his forearm. In my mind, it was the ultimate romantic gesture that…
Count kilojoules, always eat breakfast, don’t eat carbs after 6pm. Whether it’s public health advice or conflicting opinions in the media about nutrition, we hear a lot of messages about what and how we should eat. But there’s one message that needs to be louder, says Gabriella Heruc, an Adelaide based Accredited Practising Dietitian –…
The Samoan breadfruit variety ‘maafala’ will be distributed globally in an effort to help food security in vulnerable countries around the world. It is part of a partnership project that has been running for over ten years between the Samoan government and the Hawaii National Botanical Gardens where 120 varieties of breadfruit were tested over…
Opinion by Shane Rosenthal, Resident Representative of the Asian Development Bank’s Timor-Leste Resident Mission Last week government officials, development partners and civil society groups will have met in Dili as part of an annual gathering to review achievements over the last year and consider priorities and plans going forward. Participants will speak about successes and…