Pacific

In a statement released late Wednesday night, Health Permanent Secretary Dr James Fong said the first six were related to the Vunimono/Nadali cluster and were in home isolation.

The other five are household contacts of a previous case who had been quarantined at a facility in Nausori and had tested negative when they were first admitted to the facility.

The session was supported by the United Nations Pacific Regional Anti-Corruption (UN-PRAC) Project and the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA). 

The Pacific Anti-Corruption Journalists Network (PACJN) hosted the 28 April webinar for UN-PRAC and PINA through the Media Association of Tonga (MAT), with a presentation by UN-PRAC international procurement specialist, Kuban Mambetkulov, on current good practices in COVID-19 procurement.

The Pacific Community (SPC) is convening the 14th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women and the 7th Meeting of the Pacific Ministers for Women: "Our Ocean, Our Heritage, Our Future - Empowering All Women in the Blue Pacific Continent."

This event will bring together decision-makers, development partners, research institutions and civil society organisations.

Senator Seselja is from the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and has a strong interest in labour mobility so he is expected to reveal how this can help the Pacific's economic recovery post-Covid 19.

Aupito and Senator Seselja's get-together follows their foreign ministers' Nanaia Mahuta and Marise Payne meeting today.

The discussions had centred around the issue of 501 deportees and the Five Eyes matters.

The meetings are the first face-to-face ministerial talks betwen the two countries since the Covid-19 pandemic shut the borders.

At a media conference in Napier this morning they demanded more help.

Apples are rotting on the ground at many orchards.

Chestergrove Orchards owner Bruce Mitchell said he could not find enough pickers to pick his royal galas.

"The apple crop that you see here represents 10 to 12 months of planning, investment and work and just days before I came to pick it I had 20 pickers sign up, and at induction two pickers turned up, so we went into crisis mode."

He said it was the worst his family had ever seen.

Latest figures show the value and volume of transfers made by ANZ customers to the Pacific has increased substantially on the same period last year.

In February 2021 ANZ Australia and New Zealand customers sent a combined volume of 8,761 International Money Transfers worth AUD$12m (US$9.2 million) – a 95 percent increase in volume and 33 percent increase in value compared with the same period last year.

Money sent back to the Pacific from overseas, known as remittances, can make up a large part of a Pacific household's disposable income - up to 25 percent.

Researchers used declassified French military documents, calculations and testimonies to reconstruct the impact of a number of the tests.

They estimated that around 110,000 people in French Polynesia were affected by the radioactive fallout.

The number represented "almost the entire" population at the time, the researchers found.

French Polynesia, a French territory made up of hundreds of islands and atolls including Tahiti, was the site of dozens of nuclear tests over 30 years.

Five feminists from the Pacific chose to acknowledge International Women's Day this year by sharing their ideas on tackling gender-based violence and gender inequality.

A Samoan woman is using her non-governmental organisation called Brown Girl Woke to empower young girls in primary schools in rural areas.

These are findings in a new report, Nutrition Critical, released by Save the Children.

The report showed the impacts of both crises had led to an increase in poverty, a loss of livelihoods, and reduced access to health and nutrition services, pushing up rates of hunger and malnutrition.

The report found that 600 million children world-wide had missed out on vital assistance during both crises.

Jacqui Southey of Save the Children New Zealand said governments must implement child benefits to ease family hardships.

Medical authorities in New Zealand have already approved the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine for use to immunise people 16 years and older.

"We'll be really looking to have conversations with our counterparts in the Pacific around what might be possible with some of those trickier vaccines so that we can see similar levels of protection provided in the Pacific at the same time as we might be seeing that in New Zealand," said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Ardern said her government was also in discussions about how vaccine distribution will work in the Pacific.