Pacific

The Minister for International Development and the Pacific Zed Seselja told parliament this was one of the reasons why assistance to the Pacific remains critical.

He said on pandemic response, Australia had fronted up with COVID-19 vaccines.

"We have now gifted over 2.1 million life-saving vaccines to our neighbourhood. Because until everyone is safe from COVID, nobody is safe.

"And similarly, hundreds of thousands of Australian jobs depend on strong economic growth across our region."

Corruption costs the global economy approximately US$2.6 trillion, or 5 percent of global GDP, each year. Corruption, together with tax evasion and illicit financial flows, costs developing countries approximately US$1.26 trillion each year.[*]

Rugby Sevens (Men's)

Fiji v Canada- 8:00pm

Sailing

Men's Radial Laser event, 3:05pm (PNG and Samoa)

Teariki Numa of Papua New Guinea and Eroni Leilua of Samoa join sailors from around the world taking to the waters for the third and fourth races of the Sailing - Men's Radial Laser event.

It's been 28 years since PNG have been seen sailing at the Olympics - a record held by Te Ariki Numa's father, Graham Numa, who represented the nation in windsurfing at Seoul in 1988 and Barcelona in 1992.

ADB is providing US$2 million and Australia US$390,000 (in equivalent AUD$500,000) in additional financing to the program which was established in June 2020 to support the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Niue, Samoa, Tonga, and Tuvalu.

“The additional financing from the Government of Australia is highly appreciated and will be used to expand the scope of the assistance to Fiji where reforms will focus on strengthening public financial management practices in Fiji,” said Regional Director of ADB’s Pacific Subregional Office in Fiji Masayuki Tachiiri.

The ministers met virtually last Wednesday and endorsed the Port Moresby Declaration.

This aims to help member countries respond to the challenges regarding aviation safety and security brought by the pandemic.

The ministers accepted the Pacific faces challenges in building and maintaining a safe, resilient, environmentally sustainable, and economically viable civil aviation system.

This includes complying with the International Civil Aviation Organisation's (ICAO) Standards and the Convention on International Civil Aviation.

This is being done in partnership with the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), and the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

The investment of 3.3M NZD by both the New Zealand and Australian Governments to the Business Adaptation Grants is another example of how these two nations are working together with the Pacific Islands to contribute to a stable and prosperous region.

New research shows beverage exports to the islands have increased significantly to more than 39 million kilograms a year.

At the same time, New Zealand taxpayers are stumping up for the region's escalating healthcare costs exacerbated by that, the report said.

The biggest cause of death in the Pacific is diet-related chronic diseases, with the region having some of the highest rates of type two diabetes (47 percent) and obesity (75 percent) in the world.

Pacific public servants are paid 19.5 percent less than non-Pasifika, and unions want to see efforts stepped up to address it.

Lost in the recent furore around the public sector pay-freeze of high earners was the government's ongoing commitment to lifting the incomes of Pacific workers.

The Public Service minister Chris Hipkins said "It will not impact the work we are doing within the Public Service to close gender and ethnic pay gaps."

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.