COVID-19

The sailors have contracts with Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) or have requested to return home.

Four repatriation flights have been scheduled to bring home Samoans stranded overseas including the sailors.

A second charter flight has been scheduled to fly from Los Angeles to Apia on 27 November.

By the end of the month, over 170 sailors will be brought back home according to the Chief Executive Officer of Samoa Shipping Services, Lautimuia Afoa Uelese Va’ai in a report in Savali Newspaper.

The container ship, the Fesko Askold, has 17 crew on board.

It arrived in Pago Pago on Sunday afternoon and sailed out of the main harbour at nine yesterday morning.

It remains about eight kilometres from shore.

American Samoa's COVID-19 task force chairman Iulogologo Joseph Pereira said this would allow local authorities to complete their assessment of the situation and come up with a plan to offload and pick up containers.

He said steps had been taken to decontaminate the dock in case of any contamination while the vessel was dockside.

Three crew members of the container ship Fesco Askold were confirmed to have tested positive for the coronavirus as it arrived in American Samoa's waters.

Before American Samoa's capital Pago Pago, the Cyprus-flagged vessel had sailed from Tahiti to Samoa.

In Samoa, Fesco docked at Apia's Matautu port for less than 24 hours.

According to the local Health Department, strict health controls were followed and no one from the vessel came ashore.

The department said that Samoa remained covid-19 free.

Biden said the US faced a "very dark winter" and the "worst wave yet", and Americans had to put aside political differences to tackle Covid-19.

He has named a new task force and vowed to "follow the science" as he puts together his transition team.

Donald Trump still refuses to concede defeat and is challenging key results. He is taking legal action in several states.

Biden's victory was declared on Saturday but it remains a projection, with a number of states still counting ballot papers. He leads Trump in the nationwide vote by about 4.5 million.

The Chief of the Defence Force General Angus Campbell AO DSC, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece P Kershaw APM, and Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram APM, joined security leaders from 24 nations and territories, and five regional bodies for the strategic-level dialogue.

The themes for the event focused on responding to the collective challenge of COVID-19 in the areas of border security, maritime security, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) and how to become better than the sum of our parts.

The Fiji Rugby Union said the trio who initially tested positive for Covid-19 have now tested negative after a second and third round of testing.

The Fiji squad is being tested twice-weekly as they prepare for their Autumn Nations Cup opener against France next weekend.

Three people tested positive for the coronavirus last week after arriving at their camp in Limoges in central France, while a further three people went into self-isolation after the Barbarians game against England was scrapped following a breach of team protocols in London.

Italy is now split into three zones: red for high risk, then orange and yellow. The red areas are Lombardy, Piedmont and Aosta Valley in the north and Calabria in the south.

The whole country has a night curfew.

In neighbouring Slovenia police clashed with violent anti-lockdown protesters.

Riot police used water cannon and teargas to disperse the crowd of several hundred outside parliament in the capital Ljubljana. Some demonstrators threw bottles, stones and smoke bombs at officers.

The workshop, part of the Pacific E-commerce Initiative, is enabling trade officials across the region to unpack findings of a Pacific E-commerce assessment, and a sub-regional assessment for the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). These discussions will feed into a Pacific E-Commerce Strategy aiming to lift engagement in digital trade.

Mr Macron said that under the new measures, starting on Friday, people would only be allowed to leave home for essential work or medical reasons.

Non-essential businesses, such as restaurants and bars, will close, but schools and factories will remain open.

Covid daily deaths in France are at the highest level since April. On Tuesday, 33,000 new cases were confirmed.

Mr Macron said the country risked being "overwhelmed by a second wave that no doubt will be harder than the first".

Several Barbarian players had left their hotel rooms without the permission of the organisers this week, prompting the RFU to conduct a review on whether the game can be held safely.

In a statement on Saturday, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) said the discovery of a further breach of Covid-19 protocols had given it no choice but to cancel the game.