Pacific leaders

US to hold high-level talks with Pacific leaders

According to the U.S State Department, Mr Blinken will be in Fiji on Friday to discuss a range of issues, including "the climate crisis, ending the Covid-19 pandemic, [and] disaster assistance".

The talks will also include America and the Pacific's "shared commitment to democracy, regional solidarity, and prosperity in the Pacific."

Fiji's acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said the country is looking forward to welcoming the Secretary of State.

High Level Dialogue between Pacific ACP States and the European Union

The High-Level Dialogue between Pacific States of the African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) Group and the EU Commissioner for International Development and Cooperation, Neven Mimica, was held in Apia, Samoa, on 26 February 2019. The Dialogue was the first EU high-level engagement with the ACP regions since the launch of the post-Cotonou negotiations in September 2018.

Pacific leaders call out Indonesia at UN over West Papua

Vanuatu's prime minister Charlot Salwai, a longtime supporter of West Papuan self-determination, told the General Assembly in New York that decolonisation must remain on the UN agenda.

He said the Human Rights Council must investigate human rights abuses in the Indonesian provinces.

The Marshall Islands president, Hilda Heine, told the assembly's 73rd session that the Pacific Islands Forum supported "constructive engagement" with Indonesia on the issue.

While Tuvalu's prime minister Enele Sopoaga continued his call for recognition of the indigenous people.

Pacific leaders to gather for climate change conference

Pacific leaders, climate scientists, academics and civil society leaders are among 240 delegates attending this month's Climate Change Conference in Wellington.

Aupito William Sio, along with Climate Change Minister James Shaw, will address the three day summit which has the theme "Pacific Oceans, Pacific Climate". 

"For our part in New Zealand, we've already set a goal that New Zealand becomes carbon-free by the year 2050," he says. "That's sending a very strong signal to the rest of the world that as small as we are, we're prepared to do our part."

Japan to host PALM8

Japanese ambassador to Fiji Masahiro Omura said the meeting was held once in every three years since 1997.

“This is an important meeting where leaders of 14 Pacific Island countries get together and we are hoping they all will participate again come next year,” he said.

Omura said Japan was also promoting various forms of exchange programmes for Fiji.

Pacific leaders in Paris for climate summit

Two years after the Paris agreement France's president has called together the world's financial and political leaders to come up with action to meet its goals.

Pacific leaders have long called for more financial commitment and innovation to avoid catastrophe.

Emmanuel Macron's main focus for the One Planet Summit is to determine how the financial sector can better support climate action.

The changes necessary will not pay for themselves and innovation is needed.

Pacific leaders honoured in Pō Fiefia

Former All Black Sir La'auli Michael Jones and Dame Valerie Adams were among the 40 Pacific leaders honoured for their services to their communities over the last three years.

Minister for Pacific Peoples Alfred Ngaro says leaders like La'auli Sir Michael Jones and Dame Valerie Adams pave the way for the future of Pacific success.

"We're breaking ceiling. We're achieving things to show that not only we can be great in Pacific but we can be great in mainstream as well," he says.

Pacific states pressure G20 on climate change

Following this week's Climate Action Pacific Partnership (CAPP) event in Fiji, 12 Pacific states called for action from the world's most powerful nations attending this weekend's G20 summit in Germany.

Describing themselves as being on the front line of climate change, the Pacific states expressed deep concern that the United States government had indicated its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and urged the US to reconsider.

Climate action needs to be accelerated - Pacific leaders

And that would be one of the critical issues that the Pacific would push for through Fiji's presidency of COP23 in Bonn, Germany in November.

The Fiji Times said the agreement was reached by leaders at the end of the two-day Climate Action Pacific Partnership conference in Suva yesterday.

The draft action document that would shape the global action at COP23 was not released at the close of the conference on Tuesday as it needed to be sent back to all stakeholders for their feedback in the next 14 days.

Pacific leaders raise climate change issue at Leaders Summit

The conference began on Thursday, Sept 1, with Prime Minister Peter O’Neill Chairing a Special Meeting Of The Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders Standing Committee where key issues on the agenda were finalised.

The number one issue on the minds of Pacific Leaders is climate change,” O’Neill said.

“People and communities in the Pacific are in grave danger and countless lives threatened by extreme weather brought about by climate change and our Leaders are demanding action,” O’Neill said, as the Chair of the Conference.