COVID-19

Suva-based WHO representative Angela Merianos said Pacific nations were among the first group of countries receiving specially developed cartridges from US manufacturer Cepheid, for local testing of Covid-19.

South Pacific nations using New Zealand or Australia to run their testing should be getting cartridges. Some, like Tokelau where there was no testing facility, would also receive the GeneXpert system.

While the $7.4m loss represents a 37 per cent improvement on budget, NZR financial officer Nicki Nicol warned of the significant impacts Covid-19 will bring.

“At New Zealand Rugby we are forecasting up to a 70 per cent decline in revenue and we’ve had to quickly adjust our cost base accordingly,” Nicol said at Thursday’s annual general meeting.

“We know this has had an impact across all areas of our game; our players, teams, competitions, programmes and partnerships with provincial unions, Super clubs and others across the industry.

Chief Executive Officer, Tupuivao Seiuli Alvin Tuala made the clarification in response to recent media enquiries regarding the airlines’ online bookings website.

He said the airline has withdrawn all services till end of June 2020 to comply with government sanctioned flight bans.

A further review will be undertaken again next month in consultation with our Government.

Zahara de los Atunes, near Cadiz, used tractors to spray more than 2km (1.2 miles) of beach with a bleach solution a day before Spain allowed children out of lockdown for the first time.

Environmentalists say the move caused "brutal damage" to the local ecosystem.

Spain has been badly affected by the coronavirus, with 23,800 deaths.

It recently announced a four-phase plan to lift its stringent lockdown measures and return to a "new normality" by the end of June.

The music-streaming platform says it gained six million subscribers in the first quarter of 2020.

It said the figures fell into the higher end of what had been predicted before the coronavirus outbreak.

But analysts have warned Spotify's quarterly results may not be as positive as the company suggests.

Spotify said a double-digit rise in quarterly revenue had helped offset a decline in ad sales, which contributed less than 10% of its overall revenue.

The WHO's Angela Merianos said new initiatives like the Pacific Islands Forum's fast-track humanitarian pathway are helping these efforts.

Dr Merianos leads a new space for more than 20 agencies joining forces against Covid-19 in the Pacific.

She said the team are well aware of the impact of restrictions on tourism-dependent economies.

"I think we really have to again work collectively watch this space, make sure that we're balancing the interest of public health and human safety."

To register your interest for this flight — and for any subsequent flights — please email the Air New Zealand Travel Centre in Apia at AIRNZSamoa@airnz.co.nz and provide your full legal name, passport number, citizenship, destination, and contact details.

He was one of a handful of people left who survived Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in occupied southern Poland during World War II.

He spoke to the BBC in January about his experience. Asked how he survived, he said: "You did not live through Auschwitz. The place itself is death."

In a Facebook tribute, his son Michel Kichka wrote: "A small microscopic coronavirus has succeeded where the entire Nazi army had failed. My father had survived the Death March, but today his Life March has ended."

Thousands of jobs in countries like Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are dependent on visitor numbers, which have fallen to zero.

Thousands of jobs have already been lost, with resorts and hotels closing in Fiji, the Cook Islands and Samoa, countries where tourism makes up more than half the economy.

And the ILO said with the pain brought by the pandemic expected to be long-lasting, workers with previously stable incomes are sliding into poverty.

Many of these people are also informal workers, with few protections if their jobs fall through.

The funds are in addition to the US$5.1 million already delivered by the World Bank to Samoa for its COVID-19 response at the end of March 2020. This brings the World Bank’s total funding to support Samoa’s COVID-19 response to approximately US$8.5m – and overall health funding to US$21.4m. The additional US$3.4m are being delivered through a dedicated emergency health project, and from the Contingency Emergency Response Component (CERC) of the Samoa – Pacific Resilience Project.