The Fiji Times

US support shows importance of partnership

Good news for the Fiji media industry. The United States assistant secretary for Global Public Affairs William Russo is coming to Fiji to talk specifically about how the US Government can assist Fiji media after the repealing of the Media Industry Development Act. In a press release, the US Department of State said Mr Russo...

2023-2024 National Budget | Focus on rural roads

Rural roads need to be fixed. Speaking to sugar cane growers in Nadroga, who raised their concerns about the unattended cane access roads, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Professor Biman Prasad said the bad road issue was experienced throughout the country. He said Government was working closely with relevant stakeholders to address the...

White House vows an improved effort against drug overdoses

By Nandita Bose WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday pledged an improved effort to combat drug overdoses that claimed the lives of about 100,000 Americans last year, using a White House summit to tout a multifaceted approach to tackle synthetic and illicit drugs such as the powerful opioid fentanyl. “Today’s summit is...

2023-2024 National Budget | Villager raises flooding issue at consultation

Lomolomo villager Vereniki Bale hopes that the 2023-2024 National Budget addresses the ongoing issue of flooding at their village, located between Lautoka and Nadi. “Every year we are told that something will be done about it but we don’t see anything happening,” he said. “Whenever there is heavy rain, we prepare for it. It has...

2023-2024 National Budget | Plans for labour shortage

Government is determined to address Fiji’s labour shortage problem, says Minister of Finance Professor Biman Prasad. While speaking at a National Budget public consultation in Nadi, he said strategies to address labour mobility had already been put in place. “As a Government we have already put in place a decision for a government approved funding...

2023-2024 National Budget | Student hopes for more funding

Lautoka resident Christal Kapoor hopes there will be more funding to assist tertiary students and institutions. “What I want to see in the budget is more educational funding opportunities because I feel that TELS (Tertiary Educational Loan Scheme) was good because a lot of students could afford to pursue tertiary education and then pay it...

Saudi-Iranian ties: A history of ups and downs

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran reopened its embassy in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on Tuesday, Saudi media reported, months after the two regional rivals agreed to end years of antagonism under a Chinese-brokered deal. Protracted rivalry between the Middle East’s leading Shi’ite and Sunni Muslim-led powers has fuelled conflicts across the region including wars in Yemen...

Train crash incident saddens Rabuka

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says Fiji is saddened by the news of the three-way crash involving two passenger trains and a freight train causing about 300 fatalities and about 1000 injured casualties, destruction, and damage in India. The devastating multi-train crash happened in Eastern Odisha State, last Friday, June 2. In his condolence message written...

PM: Fiji recovers well

Fiji is recovering very well, says Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka. He highlighted this, while speaking to about 500 Fijians in Auckland, New Zealand on Monday night. Mr Rabuka was accorded a full traditional welcome ceremony by the Fijian community at Mahatma Gandhi Centre. He said the figures and data provided by the World Bank, the...

Indonesian scientist works with poachers to restore coral reefs

By Abd Rahman Muchtar SPERMONDE ISLANDS, Indonesia (Reuters) – For nearly two decades, Indonesian marine scientist Syafyudin Yusuf has worked with former poachers to rehabilitate coral reefs destroyed by their use of dynamite for fishing. They have restored to health 11.5 hectares (roughly 30 acres) of corals around a group of 120 islands known as...

800 vacant positions will be filled – Fong

Most of the 800 nursing posts left vacant by migrating nurses will be filled by the end of this financial year, says Ministry of Health permanent secretary Dr James Fong. He says the positions of nurses who left last year should be filled by the end of this financial year. The loss included nurses who...

Wiens content of local delicacies to air on Mai TV

World famous YouTuber, Mark Wiens video content of the local delicacies of the Tailevu and Lau provinces will soon air exclusively on Mai TV. The agreement came about during the Food Vlogger and Content Creator’s recent trip to Fiji, where he promoted the local delicacies. Mai TV Director, Stanley Simpson said this was an exciting...

Remuneration package for nurses

Health permanent secretary Dr James Fong says a working group has been set up to look at the remuneration package for nurses for the 2023-2024 National Budget submission. He said the terms of reference of the working group was to look at the remuneration package for nurses in Fiji. “The working group comprises the Ministry...

Nursing job not for the faint-hearted’

Health permanent secretary Dr James Fong told 233 newly-inducted intern nurses yesterday that their jobs were not for the faint-hearted. While officiating at an induction program in Suva, Dr Fong said entering the workforce of medicine was not a passive field. “It is a field that requires the effort of each and everyone to make...

Putting adults to shame, students clean up park

Adults should be ashamed of having kids come out and pick up after them. This was the strong sentiment shared by International School Suva (ISS) oceans and literacy division member Laisenia Ratu, after a group of about 70 Year 2 students from ISS and Veiuto Primary School organised a clean-up around My Suva Picnic Park...

It’s up to the party | Fijian Elections Office on audited reports

The ball is in their court. This was the response from Acting Supervisor of Election Ana Mataiciwa on whether FijiFirst parliamentarians would sit in Parliament next week. She said FijiFirst had to submit their audited reports by this week if its MPs wanted to sit in Parliament next week. “If they do not submit by...

Prince Harry tells court: UK government and media at ‘rock bottom’

LONDON (Reuters) – Prince Harry gave evidence on Tuesday at the High Court in London in his lawsuit against the publisher of British tabloid the Daily Mirror, which he accuses of phone-hacking and other unlawful acts. Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, has previously admitted its...

Brazil to launch grants for poor families protecting Amazon rainforest

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s government will launch a social program to pay additional grants to poor families that work in forest protection, environment minister Marina Silva said on Monday, in a bid to boost protection of the Amazon rainforest. The program, called Bolsa Verde, would be initially implemented across Brazil’s Amazon, the world’s largest tropical...

From the Editor-in-Chief’s desk: Your June 7 briefing

Bula IT is up to the FijiFirst Party to make the next move. Acting Supervisor of Elections (ASOE) Ana Mataiciwa said this when asked whether the party would participate in next week’s sitting of Parliament. She said the party would have to submit its audited reports this week if its MPs wanted to be in...

Puna welcomes opening of Pacific Fusion Centre in Vila

Forum Secretary General Henry Puna has welcomed the opening of the permanent offices housing – the Pacific Fusion Centre – in Port Vila, Vanuatu, yesterday. The Pacific Fusion Centre delivers training and strategic analysis against priorities identified by Pacific Islands Forum Leaders in the 2018 Boe Declaration on Regional Security. The centre is an outcome...

NZ electoral review recommends widespread changes including lowering voting age

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s electoral system needs significant changes such as a lower voting age of 16 to ensure democracy is more accessible, according to a draft report release on Tuesday. The report is part of an independent review commissioned by the New Zealand government in 2021 to ensure parliamentary rules remain fit for...

Lands Ministry to investigate disregard of Cabinet directive

Minister for Lands and Mineral Resources Filimoni Vosarogo says since taking office, noted a serious deliberate disregard of Cabinet directive by the previous government when it issued the lease of the said land to Tian Lun Investments Pte Ltd knowing that they had not rescinded a previous decision not to allow that land to be...

Senegalese man warned of gun violence the day he was shot dead in riots

DAKAR (Reuters) -Elhaji Cisse was busy on Friday, the day he was killed, tweeting hundreds of times as riots erupted beyond the walls of his compound in a busy suburb of Senegal’s capital Dakar. In one post, the 26-year-old student warned his 1,700 followers about security forces firing live rounds at protesters. In another, he...

Lands Ministry refuses lease extension for Tian Lun Investments

Fiji’s Ministry of Lands and Mineral Resources has refused to extend the development lease for Tian Lun Investments Pte Ltd – the company with a State land and State tiri land lease for a proposed project along Queen Elizabeth Drive in Suva. Minister Filimoni Vosarogo wrote to the legal representatives of the company stating the...

Canada on track for its worst-ever wildfire season

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada is on track for its worst-ever year of wildfire destruction as warm and dry conditions are forecast to persist through to the end of the summer after an unprecedented start to the fire season, officials said on Monday. Blazes are burning in nearly all Canadian provinces and territories, and federal government...

What’s happening today!

Bula vinaka everyone. Here is another edition of some basic information you may need to know for today. First, here is your weather forecast for today: Weather: Cloudy periods with some showers over Serua/Namosi, Suva/Nausori-Tailevu areas, Naitasiri, Vanua Levu, Lau and Lomaiviti group Showers becoming frequent later today over the Northern Division, Lau and Lomaiviti...

US senator presses for declassified report on Al Jazeera reporter’s killing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen called on Monday for declassifying a government report on the death of Al Jazeera’s Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist who was shot and killed while covering an Israeli army raid last year. One of the most recognizable journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for two decades, Abu...

Peru to extradite suspect in Alabama teen murder case within days, Interpol says

LIMA (Reuters) -A convicted killer imprisoned in Peru will be extradited within days to the U.S., where he faces extortion and fraud charges related to the disappearance and murder of an Alabama teenager nearly two decades ago, Interpol’s local head said on Monday. The extradition is the latest twist in the mystery surrounding the fate...

Drought drives economic exodus from Iraq’s rivers and marshlands

BASRA/NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) – On a sun-scorched shoreline in Iraq’s southern marshlands, fishermen stood shovelling a grim catch: tiny fish gathered dead from the water, fit only for use as animal fodder. Locals once lived self-sufficient lives in the vast freshwater areas that make up the UNESCO-recognized Iraqi Marshlands, filling their nets with varieties of...

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1000 sandalwood trees for FNU, says Acting VC