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Togoru, Fiji (AFP) by Steven TRASK The sea has already swallowed the village graveyard in Togoru, Fiji, and long-time resident Lavenia McGoon is dreading the day it claims her house. She piles old rubber car tyres under the coconut trees that line the beachfront, hoping this makeshift seawall will at least buy some time. The 70-year-old believes climate change, and the creeping ocean, will inevitably force her family to leave. “Nobody can stop it,” she […]
Fiji faces its biggest threat from “devastating climate change” rather than geopolitical tensions, the country’s defence minister warned Sunday at a high-level security summit. This weekend’s Shangri-La Dialogue, which brings together defence ministers from Asia and around the world, has been dominated by the United States and China sparring over Taiwan. It also comes as Beijing jostles with Western powers for influence over Pacific island nations. But Fijian Defence Minister Inia Seruiratu sought instead to focus […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Authorities in Fiji have seized the $300 million yacht of Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov after the US Justice Department requested the vessel be held for violating sanctions and for alleged ties to corruption, the department said Thursday. The five-year-old, 348-foot (106 meter) “Amadea” was berthed in Lautoka, Fiji in the South Pacific when local authorities took control of it based on a US warrant and a Justice Department request. “The […]
Kiribati and Samoa entered lockdowns Saturday after overseas arrivals brought Covid to the Pacific island nations that had avoided the worst of the pandemic for two years. Until this month, Kiribati hadn’t reported a single virus case, while Samoa had only recorded two since the pandemic began, according to the World Health Organization. But authorities in both countries have been forced to put in place stay-at-home orders after the virus was detected in international arrivals. […]
by Alfred Acenas (EBC Hawaii-Pacific) HONOLULU (Eagle News) – At the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting on Friday, August 6, US President Joseph R. Biden commended his foreign counterparts and pledged America’s support to the said region in overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic and in raising global ambition to tackle climate change. “This pandemic has taken a heavy toll and the lives lost can never ever be replaced,” said President Biden through videoconferencing. “The economic impacts […]
SUVA, Fiji (AFP) — A Covid-19 outbreak that forced Fiji’s capital into lockdown after the island nation avoided transmission for a year was confirmed as the Indian variant Tuesday, with health officials saying they feared a “tsunami” of cases. The Pacific country had largely dodged community transmission before a cluster emerged this month centred on a quarantine facility in Nadi, the city that is home to Fiji’s international airport. The permanent secretary for health and […]
SUVA, Fiji (AFP) — Fiji ordered two of its largest cities into lockdown Monday after the Pacific island nation recorded its first case of Covid-19 community transmission in 12 months. Health authorities said the case was a 53 year-old woman who was a close contact of a soldier who contracted the virus at a quarantine facility in Nadi. “To aid rapid contact tracing and reduce the likelihood of further transmission, we are announcing a lockdown […]
SUVA, Fiji (AFP) — Disease threatens to worsen an already desperate situation in Fiji, an official warned Sunday, where thousands of lives have been devastated in the wake of the deadly super cyclone Yasa. Agencies rushed food and clean water to areas where the storm smashed into the northern islands of the South Pacific nation on Thursday night, forcing more than 23,000 people to flee their homes. Four people died and entire villages were wiped […]
SUVA, Fiji (AFP) — Super cyclone Yasa flattened entire villages as it tore through Fiji, but there were no initial reports of casualties, aid agencies in the Pacific island nation said Friday. The top-of-the-scale Category Five storm made landfall on Fiji’s second-largest island Vanua Levu late Thursday, packing winds gusts of up to 345 kilometers an hour (210 miles an hour). The eye of the slow-moving cyclone took about four hours to gouge its way […]
by Leon LORD SUVA, Fiji (AFP) — Fijians were warned Thursday that no part of the Pacific island nation would escape the wrath of approaching super cyclone Yasa, expected to bring flash floods, huge waves and widespread destruction. Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama blamed the unfolding emergency on climate change and told islanders that the storm could be worse than a cyclone four years ago that killed dozens. The top-of-the-scale category five storm continued to gather […]
by Leon LORD Agence France-Presse CORAL COAST, Fiji (AFP) — Fiji dive operator Ashwin Pal was living his dream until the global pandemic hit, guiding tourists around an underwater wonderland of dazzling Pacific coral reefs. Now the 35-year-old hunts the neon-hued fish he once proudly showed off to international visitors, forced to kill the creatures he loves to feed his wife and four children. And the coronavirus-induced shutdown of Fiji’s tourism industry is not the […]
SUVA, Fiji (AFP) — Fiji’s 78-day run without coronavirus is over, with Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama confirming Monday a 66-year-old man tested positive after returning from India. It is the 19th case in the small South Pacific island nation, and more are now expected. “We’ve confirmed a border case of COVID-19 among a returning citizen while he was securely in the confines of government-funded quarantine,” Bainimarama said. All arrivals to Fiji have to undergo 14 […]
