Pacific Islands

Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All, released, finds that four of the ten Pacific Island economies measured by the report have implemented reforms making it easier to do business - for a total of 9 reforms.

  This is an increase from only three reforms in the previous year.  Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu implemented reforms to improve the business environment.

But some people have said the film and its merchandise are appropriating Samoan culture.

Arieta Rika, who founded a website called Talanoa as a home for Pacific stories, told the BBC how she wants her culture to be celebrated.

As a Pacific person, I can't tell you how excited I am to see this movie. Seeing faces that look like mine, telling a story that relates to me. I just don't have the words.

I haven't felt this excited about a Disney film in decades.

RNZ reports most of these islands are dependent on ground water that is replenished by rainfall.

Researchers from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, as part of a UNESCO study, looked at the state of ground water in 43 small island states in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.

Their study has now been published in Nature Climate Change and author, Diana Allen, said when they looked at the ability of aquifers to recharge they found many small islands in a state of water stress.

She put this down to warmer temperatures causing higher evaporation.

RNZ reports under an international agreement via the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, also known as the Tuna Commission, 34 countries including the United States have signed an agreement to stomp out IUU fishing.

American Samoa is now part of the international enforcement of an anti IUU regulation which would identify violators, seize their catches and stop them from continuing to trade illegally.
Murray Bauer, from American Samoa's Office of law Enforcement, said they are mainly targeting foreign vessels by closing off local ports.

This is following a successful introductory programme last summer.

A group of 16 talented New Zealand Aid Pacific and Timor Leste Scholars will be using their summer to give them a professional edge before returning home to find employment.

This year the programme will include 16 scholars as drive to build with host agency engagement continues, PCF Programme Development Manager Leaupepe Taala said.

“We are excited about the summer internship as we have another group of high calibre scholars , and increased interest from the private sector,’’ Ralph says.

Tevita Halahingano Hafoka an emerging artist from Tonga hopes to spread happiness to people with his group Kava Drive.

Tevita’s passion for singing began when he was 5 years and his family started signing him to sing for occasions like birthdays and singing competitions.

“I started singing in Tonga and it was in those performances I began to enjoy singing and found I had a passion for it as well as listening to music”

“Singing became an escape from any form of disappointment and still is to this day”

According to RNZI, the report, by the Pacific Network on Globalisation, or PANG, was based on leaked negotiating texts from talks on the regional agreement, which is still being finalised.

It accuses Australia and New Zealand of aggressively advancing their own interests, at the expense of their smaller neighbours, and called for a proper impact assessment.

One of the report's chapters was written by Auckland University's Jane Kelsey, a prominent critic of free trade agreements.

“ADB is the largest investor in renewable energy in the Pacific, which is still heavily reliant on diesel for power generation,” said Michael Trainor, Energy Specialist in ADB’s Pacific Department. “We are working with governments and communities to improve the quantity and quality of energy services across the region by ramping up support for the transition to renewable energy.”

The IPCC is the international body for assessing the science related to climate change, and was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation and United Nations Environment Programme.

The IPCC's newly elected mitigation co-chair, Professor Jim Skea, was in New Zealand recently and met with Pacific representatives at Victoria University.

Professor Skea says Pacific countries were instrumental in pushing to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century at the Paris climate change conference.

This is a music competition called “Sound the Alarm” which is open to Pacific youths between the ages of 18-35 and runs from Dec 1 2015, to Jan 16, 2016.  

Countries eligible to participate are PNG, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Federal States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The competition calls on youths in the Pacific to share their views on corruption and suggest innovative solutions on how to address the issue through music by using their voices.