Cook Islands

The Green Climate Fund, a United Nations fund to help developing countries adapt to climate change, has granted the Cook Islands US$12 million to expand the main island's energy grid.

The announcement is the first of a series of projects, which will be led by the Asia Development Bank, to expand renewable energy around the Pacific.

The Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister's office, Elizabeth Wright-Koteka, said the current grid cannot handle the current uptake of renewable energy, and the expansion will help solve that.

The pageant week begins with a church service and over the course of the week will assess each contestants through various activities planned.

Contestants representing eight Pacific Islands - American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa and Tonga have all gathered in Apia, Samoa.

Contestants and their teams started arriving in Samoa last week for the 30^th anniversary of the Miss Pacific Islands.

Better known as the Mitre 10 Mega man, Levi Vaoga spent a decade pulling trucks and flipping tractor tyres for the hardware franchise promoting the message "big is good."

But as the New Zealand-born Cook Islands filmmaker Jamie Aureka Maoate Dunn discovers in "The Life I've Lived," there is more to Levi Vaoga than meets the eye.

Levi Vaoga's journey from farmhand to competitor in eleven world strongman tournaments is an honest first-hand account and Jamie Dunn hopes it strikes a chord with young people.

Having lost their opening two matches of the tournament, Samoa won three straight to join Fiji and the Cook Islands as the top three teams in the Pacific.

Cook Islands position has been helped in part by rivals Tonga and Samoa playing out a 1-1 draw to claim just one of the three available points in their encounter.

Following their opener on Monday Cook Islands coach Richard Anderson spoke of his team’s need to show their best selves on the pitch and he says today’s first half was reminiscent of that nervy first match.

“I certainly wasn’t elated with the first half,” he says.

The government is set to sign a deal with the EU that would allow Spanish vessels to fish in its exclusive economic zone for at least eight years.

About 4,000 people have signed a petition against the move.

The opposition's finance and economy spokesman, James Beer, has written to Sweden's minister for International Development Cooperation, Isabella Lovin, to lobby the EU.

Ms Lovin is a former member of the EU parliament and experienced in fisheries.

Not only was PNG once our colony while the Cook Islands belonged to New Zealand, but the population of the Cook Islands is 430 times smaller than PNG.

As Jonathan Pryke of the Lowy Institute for International Policy has pointed out, it is simply because New Zealand allows Cook Islanders to live in New Zealand. And then they flood across the Tasman.

It is the same with Samoans and Tongans. New Zealand welcomes them. And then they can come to Australia.

Australians don't welcome Papua New Guineans despite PNG having been our colony.

Radio Cook Islands talkback host and interviewer Tony Hakahoro says HOMs “absolutely have a duty to the public, they are working  for government voted by the people and are working on behalf of the people – they should be responding to matters of public concern”.

He says ever since starting his radio programme almost a year ago, it’s become “so clear senior government officials are very, very reluctant to be interviewed”.

In confirming the complaint against the DPM, FIU director Bob Williams said he was not in a position to disclose the nature of the complaint.

Williams did acknowledge that the investigation involves allegations made against minister Heather, who is also minister of Infrastructure and planning, cultural development, police and House of Ariki. The allegations, if substantiated, could constitute corruption, including fraud and conflicts of interest.

Meantime the Opposition Democratic Party is demanding that the DPM stand down from his ministerial posts.

Our girls are leading group B with a three-point buffer and a goal difference advantage over Fiji and Vanuatu.

PNG’s nine goals so far gives them the second-best attacking record in the competition, behind only New Zealand.

PNG coach Margeret Aka says she wants to see her team become more economical with the ball and improve their work in attack.

“We are going to really have to step up in the way we attack.