Samoa

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Tuilaepa commented on aid assistance being offered to Samoa and the Pacific Region.

Beggars could not be choosers and Samoa would take aid assistance from any country, he said.

It was good when countries competed to offer aid to countries like Samoa, the prime minister said.

Even the biggest and most developed countries depended on assistance from elsewhere, he said.

"America still needs assistance but they spend a lot of money on wars and spying on Russia."

A statement from the Attorney General, Lemalu Herman Retzlaff confirmed that one of the nurses involved with the vaccination injections of the two babies who passed away 6 July, 2018, was charged by police on Saturday 4 August, 2018. 

Lemalu said the nurse will appear in Court 14 August 2018, where the charges will be confirmed publically. 

According to the AG, “the file was referred to this office for advice last week, after swift and hard-working investigations by the CID section of the Ministry of Police both in Apia and Savaii, which is to be commended.” 

Junior Pauli and Viliamu Touli were convicted of intentional damage while another man, Tommy Fiu, has been convicted of possessing an unlicensed firearm.

Fiu was discharged and put under probation for 12 months and was also ordered to pay $US95 in court costs.

The three defendants were charged as a result of a brawl between youths of Salelavalu and Salelologa villages.

A village orator and a former ruling HRPP party MP, Fiu Loimata, representing Salelologa village in court, had asked for leniency for the three men.

Twenty students, aged between their 20s and 50s, have completed an Australian community care qualification offered by the Bradford Institute of Advanced Education programme.

Nineteen of them are now looking for jobs to care for the elderly in Brisbane.

The course also teaches skills to care for people with special needs, youth and domestic violence victims.

The Samoa-based director of the institute, Va'a Alofipo, said the plan was for all of them to find work in Australia where there was already a high demand for caregivers.

According to the Newsline Samoa newspaper, the group has completed a 12-month course offered by Australia's Bradford Institute of Advanced Education.

The director of the programme, Vaaaoao Alofipo, said Samoa had been chosen for the training because of the work ethic of Samoans in the industry in Australia.

As Samoans were close to their elders, there was a huge demand for Samoans in nursing homes, he said.

A second course will start later this month and is already beyond capacity with 80 people signed up but only 65 slots available.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi told KHJ News it was "common sense" for the government to pay CSL's debt.

The debt, understood to be worth millions of US dollars, was incurred by CSL for using ASH's cable linking the two Samoas and beyond.

The Samoan government has now taken over the cable lease.

In a letter dated October 2017, the Ministry of Finance instructed government departments and corporations to make all payments for CSL internet services directly to the ministry.

Private CSL clients were not included in the directive.

Last week, the commission set aside the task force's proposal and put forward a structure of its own that included an advisory board and a midwife nurse as one of the directors.

The Minister of Health and task force chai, Tuitama Talalelei Tuitama, said the commission should have called him and other members to explain its proposal.

Cabinet was today expected to consider and make a final decision on the commission's report, which was also referred to the task force last week for consideration, Tuitama said.

David Nicholson left his posting over the weekend after almost two years in Apia.

He told the Samoa Observer a lot of aid projects failed because officials in Wellington do not understand the local context in the Pacific.

"When people talk about the Pacific in Wellington, they use a generic noun and as you know, you go to different Pacific countries and they are all very different," he said.

He said the aid process is full of process and takes too long to be implemented, although it has a focus on quality.

The operation was called off on Sunday night, but continued yesterday.

In April last year a New Zealand naval sailor also went missing while visiting the To Sua trench.

Twenty-four-year-old Kiligo Joseph Lemafo'e Tua disappeared last April, a day after he arrived at Leauvaa village to visit family.

All church ministers in Samoa are now required to pay tax under a new law.

Newsline Samoa reports the church ministers in default have been issued notices after failing to register with the ministry by the deadline on 15 July.

The Revenue Minister, Tialavea Tionisio Hunt, said the majority of those who defaulted are from the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa.

Only 16 ministers from that church have registered while the majority are sticking to a decision made in April to reject the new law.