Pacific

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.

On a per capita basis, the islands have higher vaccine rates than many states in the US, said the Marshall Islands Health Secretary in Majuro.

In the first 10 days since receiving a small number of doses to start, the Marshall Islands injected first vaccines to over 600 healthcare workers and front line government employees who work in sea and airports.

The US government is providing the Moderna brand Covid-19 vaccines to the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau.

Since its launch in Samoa in 2006, Digicel has been the key driver in the telecommunications revolution in the Pacific ensuring everyone, everywhere can be connected to, and benefit from, transformational communications services.

With its successful relaunch in October as a Digital Operator delivering 1440 minutes of digital experiences every day, all day, Digicel debuted its Digicel Prime Bundles which offer its suite of apps covering everything from sports, music and news to local radio, podcasts, messaging, marketplaces and cloud storage.

In its Pacific Business Monitor, the commission said the top three challenges for the Pacific as a result of Covid-19, remained poor cashflow, impact of closed international borders and not knowing how long the crisis would last.

Ninety percent of businesses said poor cashflow, 89 percent closed borders and 88 percent, for not knowing how long the pandemic will last.

But Trade Commissioner Caleb Jarvis said the extent and severity of impacts may be beginning to improve with 79 percent Fiji businesses reporting a negative impact - the lowest since tracking began.

Over the past few weeks, companies Pfizer, Moderna and Janssen Pharmaceutica have released results of significantly effective vaccines in preventing the virus.

But what does this mean for smaller nations who may not have the financial ability to be first in first served

The question of equitable and affordable access to vaccines for all countries is a matter of major importance to Doctors Without Borders