A documentary honouring the last voyage of master navigator Lilo Ema Siope has won the Grand Prix du Jury at Tahiti’s FIFO (Festival International du Film Documentaire Océanien). Directed by Anna Marbrook, LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears powerfully documents Siope’s journey between Aotearoa and Samoa in search of healing, and her aiga’s reckoning with systemic abuse. […]

Facebook is partnering with Save the Children to deliver an online safety campaign in the Pacific Islands. John Pulu chats with Michel Mulipola, who is supporting this campaign to empower teens and young people so they have a safe and positive experience online.

Source: RNZ Pacific The former Cook Islands Prime Minister, Henry Puna is the new Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum after a marathon online meeting. Puna was voted in over Micronesia’s candidate Marshall Islands Ambassador to the US, Gerald Zackious by nine to eight. The outgoing secretary-general, Papua New Guinea’s Dame Meg-Taylor had been […]

Tonga is not participating in the latest iteration of the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme in New Zealand due to repatriation and quarantine difficulties. By Sela Jane Hopgood for RNZ Pacific In November, Business Central welcomed the government’s decision to allow an extra 2,000 experienced seasonal workers into New Zealand in from January to mid-March this […]

It was an unusual year for all of us with the lurking threat of Covid-19. But for our team at Tagata Pasifika, the show went on. We look back at some of the highs and lows of 2020.

New Zealand is preparing to support its Pacific neighbours to access safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines at the earliest opportunity, Foreign Affairs Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Associate Foreign Affairs Minister Aupito William Sio say. “Pacific countries have worked hard to keep COVID-19 out, or to stamp it out, and New Zealand has been committed to […]

Source: RNZ Pacific Two separate cyclones developing in the Pacific are threatening to impact several countries later this week, with Fiji in particular being warned to be alert. Cyclones Yasa and Zazu were both named by authorities on Monday, the first in the South Pacific for this summer’s cyclone season. Yasa, which had intensified into […]

The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, Mark Brown, have agreed an ‘Arrangement to Facilitate Quarantine-Free Travel between the Cook Islands and New Zealand’. Both Prime Ministers and their Cabinets have instructed officials to continue working together to put in place all measures required to safely […]

Four fishermen who had been reported missing from Kiribati have been found in the Pacific Ocean by New Zealand’s Air Force. Crew on a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) Orion found the four men 140 nautical miles west of Tarawa this morning (Tuesday, 8 December). Earlier, Fiji and New Zealand’s Rescue Coordination Centres requested […]