E-money FAILS to sell

Call to review Pacific financial inclusion products FINANCIAL inclusion products for the Pacific islands need to be differentiated by their target markets and target clients. That’s the message from the Executive

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Call to cut trade agreements

PACIFIC leaders have been told the cost of doing business in the islands will be greatly reduced if there are fewer trade agreements in the region. The advice came from Dr Edwini Kessie when he addressed Pacific leaders

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We say

Embrace inclusivity, reject exclusivity WHEN the Pacific Islands Development Forum ejected West Papuan activist Octavianus Mote from its summit in Suva, Fiji, it missed an opportunity to show it was an inclusive

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VDS has worked for us, says PNA

EXECUTIVE Director of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement Dr Transform Aqorau believes the group’s Vessel Day Scheme has been an effective tool in increasing it members’ share of the value of their tuna

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Editor’s Note

IT was the 46th Pacific Islands Forum meeting yet local and Forum organisers seem to have stumbled through yet another annual Leaders’ meeting, marred by sloppy coordination and broken communications.   More than

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Marine Park in TROUBLED WATERS

LANDOWNERS of the US$161million site of what’s going to be the largest tuna processing zone in the South Pacific wants work on the site to stop immediately. In a petition signed by 5,000 people and sent to Prime

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Whispers

NEVER before seen pictures of the six Pacific journalists that were detained in PNG the day they arrived to cover the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders summit. Told to step aside at the immigration line after their arrival

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Deathtrap ferry

Vanuatu’s worst maritime tragedy raises questions on safety checks THE inter-island Vanuatu ferry which capsized and sank in July last year with the loss of four lives was a floating deathtrap, a leaked report has

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Back to the future

How traditional Pacific navigators proved Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki theory wrong UNDER the gaze of the night stars, Tua Pittman comes alive with the spirit of his ancestors and navigates across the vast space

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Ghost of the skies

Elusive kingfisher A BIRD that has been seen in the wild once has been found last month by scientists during the first biological survey of the highest peak in Solomon Islands. The male moustached kingfisher was finally

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West Papua’s case heats up

Solomon Islands, Tonga join the cause WEST Papua and its campaign to seek more international support for independence has gone up a few notches with Pacific Island Leaders discussing their plight at their annual summit

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The returning son of a disappearing nation

THE deportation of Ioane Teitiota by the John Key government signals a strong message to the low-lying islands in the Pacific that they are not disappearing because their people are still “alive.” The New

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Bribery case rocks Vanuatu

POLITICIANS FACE TRIAL THE people of Vanuatu are closely watching a high profile bribery case which involves 19 Government Members of Parliament in the country’s Supreme Court. On August 12 before a packed

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From Vavau with love

Heilala Vanilla makes its mark in export vanilla markets A PIECE of the friendly Kingdom of Tonga in a bottle is what Heilala Vanilla is proving to be like for its customers abroad. So much so that the boutique vanilla

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Sogavare moves to tighten grip

THE third meeting of the 10th Parliament of Solomon Islands begins on Thursday 15th October 2015. This meeting was delayed since July due to the busy schedule of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. The October sitting

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Oceania football dumps treasurer

Missing audit notes, silence from Auckland BEHIND the world headlines about millions in FIFA bribes, corruption and multibillion contracts, the Pacific Islands region has yet to have its own story. Parts of the story

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Solomon eyes interim EPA

More fracture in regional solidarity anticipated THE tear in Pacific solidarity over negotiations for a free trade agreement with the European Union may soon widen into a serious fracture with news that Solomon Islands

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PACER Plus gets the nod

LEADERS have given their blessings on the near completion of negotiations for a free trade agreement between Forum island countries on the one hand and Australia and New Zealand on the other. Forum chair and Prime

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Suva Declaration on Climate Change

More than a message in a bottle PACIFIC Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have penned what they believe is a strong and stern message to the industrialised world: It is an immoral betrayal for the world to let

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Forum agrees to disagree on 1.5

AGREEING that a 1.5 degrees Celsius rise in temperature would “severely exacerbate” impacts of climate change in the “most vulnerable smaller island states of the Pacific,” leaders of the Pacific

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A nation’s key to resilience

A SURVEY of the nature of climate change adaptation planning and implementation that is rolling out in the Pacific region may well reflect the predominance of infrastructural and/or physical investment and related

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Landowners in billion-dollar deal

A MULTI-billion kina investment by a landowner company is expected to boost the tourism industry in Papua New Guinea. Star Mountain Plaza in Port Moresby, a project led by the Mineral Resources Development Company

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