{"id":3473,"date":"2023-03-01T15:52:11","date_gmt":"2023-03-01T02:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=3473"},"modified":"2023-03-01T15:52:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T02:52:11","slug":"pacific-news-in-brief-for-february-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=3473","title":{"rendered":"Pacific news in brief for February 28"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fiji and New Caledonia have signed a memorandum of understanding.<\/p>\n<p>New Caledonia&#8217;s president Louis Mapou met with Fiji&#8217;s prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka during the Forum leaders&#8217; retreat in Fiji.<\/p>\n<p>The accord covered tourism, the environment, sustainability, trade, investment, agriculture and the fishing sector.<\/p>\n<p>Rabuka said that through regional solidarity, together we will be able to build a stronger future for our Pacific family.<\/p>\n<p>He said Pacific Island Forum member states must continue to look for opportunities to strengthen relations through frequent face-to-face interactions, as is the Pacific Way.<\/p>\n<p><b>Australia\/Pacific<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Australia is to fund health-care programmes across the Indo-Pacific under a $US422 million boost.<\/p>\n<p>Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who has been in Fiji for the Pacific Islands Forum leaders&#8217; retreat, announced the new five-year commitment for countries in the Pacific and South-East Asia.<\/p>\n<p><i>AAP\u00a0<\/i>reports the bulk of the programme will support disease prevention and control, from vaccine research and development, to the prevention of non-communicable diseases, including diabetes and cancer, over the next five years.<\/p>\n<p><b>Niue&#8217;s Premier visits NZ<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Niue&#8217;s Premier Dalton Tagelagi met with the New Zealand prime minister in Wellington on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Chris Hipkins said the pair touched on many issues, including climate change and economic development.<\/p>\n<p><b>Guam<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Guam has become the second US territory to join the US Climate Alliance.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<i>Guam Daily Post\u00a0<\/i>reports governor Lou Leon Guerrero said she believes islands like Guam are uniquely positioned to talk about climate impacts.<\/p>\n<p>Her reasons include the island&#8217;s susceptibility to hotter weather and risks to freshwater supplies.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, the governor participated in the Micronesian Presidents&#8217; Summit and Micronesian Islands Forum, where they discussed regional security; infrastructure; and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.<\/p>\n<p><b>Samoa<\/b><\/p>\n<p>A new multi-million-dollar project will help Samoa&#8217;s transport systems move away from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n<p>The project &#8211; part of a Japanese-funded regional climate programme &#8211; is looking at increasing the use of electric vehicles and exploring propulsion systems that use cleaner energy.<\/p>\n<p>The $US36.8 million regional projects, with an allocation of $US15.5 million for Samoa, are scheduled for completion in March 2025.<\/p>\n<p>According to Samoa&#8217;s latest National Greenhouse Gas Inventory in 2020, the road transport sector, largely dependent on fossil fuels, is the country&#8217;s largest emitter of carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n<p><b>Vanuatu<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The United States is looking to increase its presence in Vanuatu.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<i>Daily Post<\/i>\u00a0reports the interest was confirmed by the US Embassy in Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n<p>It said there are rumours a local consultant was scouting out potential properties for an embassy.<\/p>\n<p>It follows the US ramping up its presence in the Pacific and officially opening an embassy in the Solomon Islands earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fiji and New Caledonia have signed a memorandum of understanding. New Caledonia&#8217;s president Louis Mapou met with Fiji&#8217;s prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka during the Forum leaders&#8217; retreat in Fiji. The accord covered tourism, the environment, sustainability, trade, investment, agriculture and the fishing sector. Rabuka said that through regional solidarity, together we will be able to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiji-news","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3475,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473\/revisions\/3475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}