The Heilala Festival 2020 is expected to officially begin on May 11 in Vava’u.
The national event which included beauty pageant contest, cultural competitions, and celebrating the Royal Birthday of His Majesty King Tupou VI, will then move to Lifuka, Ha’apai on May 15 – 22.
On May 25 – 29 the event was expected to be celebrated in ‘Eua before the final events in Tongatapu on June 22 – July 4.
“In bringing Tonga Tourism Industry to actively
engage in working hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Tourism, we wish to invite
you to join and celebrate with us on this significant and colourful event,”
Tourism CEO Sione Mafi said in a statement.
“Governors
of Vava’u and Ha’apai as well as the Government Representative of ‘Eua, are absolutely
supportive and totally ebullient and happy to brace the National Event.
“The
Ministry wishes to acknowledge every Heilala Festival‘s major sponsor, Fiji
Airways, in which it’ll be again this year’s major sponsor.”
Last year the traditional event ended in bitter controversy after 2018 – 2019 Tongan beauty queen Kalo Funganitao’s title was stripped off after she spoke of alleged mistreatment and bullying by organisers.
2018 runner up, Lupe Vete, was
then recognised as Miss Heilala for the 2018 to 2019 period.
‘Emaloni ‘Iongi, one of the widely known musicians and electric band drummers in Tonga died last week in Fiji.
He was in that country for about four years undergoing kidney dialysis treatment, his daughter Lillian ‘Iongi Fifita told Kaniva news.
His body was welcomed in Tonga on Tuesday and was laid to rest this afternoon Friday 28 at ‘Ahomatavaka cemetery in Tokomololo.
Lillian has shared a video clip on Facebook early this week.
In that video, ‘Emaloni and his brother Sitiveni ‘Iongi were interviewed by what appeared to the former OBN Television in Tonga, and is believed to have been recorded a decade ago.
The interview was part of a programme organised to launch a number of music albums produced by the ‘Iongi brothers to celebrate the 61th birthday of their eldest brother and founder of the ‘Iongi Brothers’ Electric Music group, Siale ‘Iongi.
Siale
was one of Tonga’s most popular acoustic and electric band guitarists
and composers.
It is believed Siale has recorded more songs ever than any Tongan composers and players, according to an interview with him published on Kaniva website in December last year.
‘Emaloni was asked during the interview to say something he could remember that may still remind him of his brother Siale.
In his response, ‘Emaloni said Siale had always welcomed and admired any Tongan composers and musicians who he had happened to listen to their music.
According to the video clip, ‘Emaloni thanked Siale for his talents which greatly inspired him and their other siblings.
‘Emaloni later embarked on his own music business in which he successfully created his own electric group band by which her eldest daughter Lillan joined.
A Samoan community leader has praised the Auckland High Court for acknowledging a traditional ceremony apology in sentencing a Tongan man who had pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Joseph Antonio
Halaholo Larson appeared before the High Court in Auckland charged with manslaughter.
Larson’s appearance was made after punching Jerico Telea in the face in Easter last year. He pleaded guilty on November 15.
Telea remained in
a coma until Easter Monday when life support was switched off.
Larson’s Tongan
family negotiated with Telea’s Samoan relatives to make a traditional apology
through the Samoan custom known as ifoga.
The New
Zealand Herald reported that Larson’s lawyer, Emma Priest, said his family had done everything possible
to make amends and Larson was “held accountable culturally” through
ifoga.
She thanked Telea’s family for their “incredible strength of character” in deciding to forgive Larson.
Samoan community leader Papaliitele Lafulafu Peo described ifoga as an action of remorse by a wrongdoer’s family performed before the wronged family, Stuff reported.
He said it was a
serious and very emotional event.
“We prepare fine mats and a member from the wrongdoing side has to bow down and cover his or her body with a fine mat,” Peo reportedly said.
“Then the
rest will just sit silently behind that person. Then we have to wait for a
member of the other side. If they want to accept our ifoga, they will come and
uncover this person.
“For a court
to value ifoga, I credit the court because it’s part of our culture.”
Larson was
sentenced to one year of home detention and ordered to obtain treatment for alcohol
abuse.
The man who killed Tongan teenage drug dealer Siosiua Helotu Ula has been sentenced to five years and one month imprisonment for manslaughter and other charges.
He was also disqualified
from driving for three years and six months after his release from prison.
Wade Edward Niania , of Titahi Bay, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, kidnapping, disqualified driving, and having methamphetamine intending to supply it, Stuff reported.
Ula, 19, died in hospital two days after an incident in
which Niania tried to ripped him off when Ula of Wiri, Auckland tried to sell
him methamphetamine which might have been worth $40,000 if bought
in bulk.
A disagreement ensued after it became clear Niania only had $300 to buy the bulk.
The court was told Ula
fell from Niania’s Mercedes on Warspite Ave, Waitangirua,
Porirua, just after 4pm on October 7, 2018, after he pulled himself free while he was being grapped
by another man in the car.
Niania was a patched Mongrel Mob member and he was already in debt to several criminal gangs, Stuff reported.
Justice Jan-Marie Doogue
while sentencing Niania said: “ I accept that you did not intent to kill Mr Ula but you did
intent to seize the methamphetamine and kidnapped him in order to do so.
“Your action
created the situation where Mr Ula endeavoured to escape from a moving car.
“You deliberately
continue to drive and in evidently dangerous manner even after Mr Ula was
outside the vehicle holding to it.”
Niania’s lawyer, Mike Antunovic, said “that since Niania had been in custody he had resolved to turn his life around and had done courses already that would help with that and he wanted to do more.”
Another traveler has
been refused entry to Tonga in the fourth week of travel restrictions
introduced by the Government to stop the spread of coronavirus.
In response to a question from Kaniva News this morning regarding the traveler, the Minster of Health said she “was informed that traveller had past travel history to Hong Kong and within the past 14days-Tonga Travel Advisory Num 3: still stands…”
It is understood the passenger arrived in Tonga last night on Air New Zealand flight number 974. They failed to show a health declaration card to health authorities at the airport.
“The passenger originated from Belgium transiting through Hong Kong to NZ and from there to Tonga with no self-quarantine taken as clearly stated in the Advisory, or provision of any medical clearance,” Dr ‘Ofa Sanft Tukia from Vaiola hospital told Kaniva news.
On
February 2 “His Majesty’s Government has issued a travel advisory requiring the
need for self-quarantine for all foreign travellers originating from or
transiting through China and may be denied entry into Tonga, with the exception
of Tongans. The Tongan nationals who qualify under this will need to undergo
quarantine with the Ministry of Health.”
New
Zealand will block travellers who have been through mainland China in a bid to
stop the deadly coronavirus reaching our shores, NZHerald reported.
“It is placing temporary entry restrictions into New Zealand on all foreign nationals travelling from, or transiting through, mainland China to assist with the containment of the novel coronavirus and to protect New Zealand and the Pacific Islands from the disease.”
Meanwhile, Chinese authorities have reported that 406 new cases were confirmed on Tuesday, a drop on Monday’s 508, bringing the total number of cases in mainland China to 78,064, and 2,715 dead, the Guardian reported.
Of the 406, 401 were in Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak. The previous day saw 499.
52 people died from Covid-19 in Hubei province on Tuesday, fewer than the 68 reported on Monday.
There was one new confirmed case in the province of Shandong, two in Sichuan, one in Heibei, as well as four new confirmed cases in Hong Kong and one in Taiwan, according to Tencent.
A 16-year-old boy has been
spared jail after being convicted of indecent assaults.
Lord Chief Justice Whitten sentenced the teenager to 12 months imprisonment, but suspended the entirety of the sentence for two years on a number of strict conditions.
Uikelotu Afeaki pleaded guilty
to two counts of serious indecent assaults.
The offence carries a
maximum of five years imprisonment.
The sexual assault occurred on December 6, 2019 at around
9am, while the woman was jogging along Hihifo Rd.
As she was running northward the defendant drove southward past her in a white van.
The van made a U-turn and followed the woman.
After talking to the
woman the defendant stopped the van in front of her.
He got out and walked over to the woman and started groping her breast outside her clothing, the court was told.
He asked her if she wanted to have sex with him but the woman declined.
He further attempted to attack the woman but she yelled for help while she was reaching out to her mobile phone.
The defendant stopped
assaulting the woman before he ran to his van and drove off.
He repeatedly told
the woman it was okay, the court judgement read.
The woman reported the assaults to police.
Police later arrested Afeaki and initially charged him with one count of attempted rape, indecent assaults, and driving without a driver’s license.
The defendant
cooperated with police and admitted to offending in his record of interview.
The defendant was
convicted and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.
Judge Whitten fully suspended it for a period of two years and on conditions that the defendant did not commit any offence punishable by imprisonment during the two-year suspension, be placed on probation and he has to perform 40 hours of community work under the direction of a probation officer.
He was also ordered to undertake and successfully complete a life skills course as directed by his probation officer during the period of his suspension.
A suppression order was made prohibiting the publication of the victim’s name.
A Tongan woman in Redwood City, US has been jailed for five years probation and 364 days in county jail after siphoning US$107,108 out of the bank account of her elderly client.
She was also ordered to pay US$107,000 restitution to her victim.
Nina Guttenbeil, 51, was sentenced Thursday after the court was told the thefts she committed using the ATM card of the 98-year-old San Carlos victim, began in 2015, San Mateo Daily Journal reported.
Guttenbeil was working for the 98-year-old elderly woman as a caretaker after the victim received a recommendation from a local church to hire her, The Journal reported.
Prosecutors charged Guttenbeil with felony theft from an elder by a caretaker, and felony identity theft.
The victim’s daughters discovered the thefts after they began looking into their mother’s finances earlier last year, authorities said.
According to the district attorney’s office, Guttenbeil admitted to the thefts when the women confronted her.
A husband and wife guilty of multiple charges of sexual assault have been sentenced to lengthy prison sentences.
As Kaniva news reported last
December, they were found guilty in the Supreme Court of several counts of rape
and serious indecent assault.
The complainant told the court she
was extremely drunk and awoke to find the couple performing a series of sexual
acts on her.
The court heard that the mother
helped her husband rape the accused.
Judge Niu found beyond any reasonable doubt that the complainant had not consented to any of the acts and therefore found the husband and wife guilty.
In handing down the sentences, Judge
Niu said the Crown had argued that the offending was pre-meditated, that neither
of the prisoners had expressed remorse and that they had instilled fear in the
complainant.
He dismissed pleas for
mitigation from the defence on the
grounds that the couple’s children would be severely affected by their parents’ imprisonment.
“A prison sentence cannot be averted by the fact that the accused is a mother with
an infant or a father with young children,” Judge Niu said.
“If that were to be so, such mothers
and fathers would freely commit offences and avoid prison by reasons of their
children.”
Judge Niu said the severity of the
case led him to impose an equally serious penalty.
He said he would fail in his duty to
uphold the laws of this country if he did not hand down a sentence that
reflected the offence they had committed upon the complainant.
He described this as “the removal and
destruction by both of you of her [the complainant‘s] sanctity, dignity and
honour as a woman.”
The husband was sentenced to a total
of 17 years imprisonment. The wife was sentenced to 15 years and six months
imprisonment.
Kiliki ‘i he ‘ōtiō ‘i ‘olunga’ ke ke fanongo ki he fakataha ‘a e ‘Eiki Palēmia’ mo e kāinga Niuafo’ou
Sponsored:
Audio of the Prime Minister’s meeting in Niuafo’ou was provided by the Prime Minister’s office and transcribed and translated into English by Kaniva News. This English version of the audio had been abridged.
The Prime Minister met with Niuafo’ou residents as part of his visit around the whole of Tonga to have a ground level view of the damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Tino which struck the kingdom last month.
Prime Minister Hon Pōhiva Tu’i’onetoa said the population was small and their concerns should be easily addressed and provided for.
In a speech during the meeting, Hon Tu’i’onetoa said that among other matters, the residents’ urgent needs were to fix their roads, repair and upgrade their wharf, build house weaving buildings, and provide internet connectivity to all remote rural areas.
The residents were also concerned at the flat charge by the only government’s sponsored vessel to the island levied when it shipped water and goods to Niuafo’ou.
The cost for the 10,000 litre tank of water was TOP$3600 and the ship company charged $1500 on top of that.
The Prime Minister said he has noted their concern.
Minister of Finance Tēvita Lavemaau said the government paid its shipping company a subsidy of TOP$45,000 so the vessel could travel to Niuafo’ou.
Hon. Lavemaau
said the Cabinet had assigned a committee to work on issues of shipping and
airline needs for the Niuas.
The Minister
was responding after the Niuafo’ouans described the ships and airline traveling
and flight charges as beyond their financial capabilities and asked the Prime
Minister to help.
The residents also told the Prime Minister they needed tree-cutting chainsaws, a vehicle for the Si’i Kae ‘Amo Association – an association created to facilitate the community’s needs – and other equipment for road maintenance.
The secretary
of the Si’i Kae ‘Amo told the Prime Minister works to process mat weaving
plants known as fanakio were very difficult.
He said men had to cut the fanakio from the cliff’s sides and take them a long distance before they reached the sea for bleaching of the plants. He said the roads were rough and it took two to three weeks for the bleaching process to be completed before they brought them back home for weaving.
A woman told the meeting their road up to the mountain was blocked by trees and she was concerned that if any tsunami or volcanic eruption occurred they could not evacuate.
The residents
also said they needed internet connectivity so they could contact their
families outside Niuafo’ou, especially when they were living overseas.
They said
only three villages were connected to the internet.
Another woman asked the Prime Minister to consider sending the government officials to hold meetings with the town officers in Niuafo’ou. She said they only have a few men on the island to rely on and when they left for meetings they had no one to depend on, especially if natural disasters hit the island.
The Niuafo’ouans also wanted to construct a runway for the aircraft. At present, the aircraft has to land on a grass runway. When it was raining it could not be able to land.
The CEO of Tonga’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, Dr Fotu Fisi’iahi, has denied widespread reports about Tongan workers living in slum conditions in Tasmania.
According
to the reports, which were carried by Kaniva news, about 77 Tongan seasonal workers were
evacuated from a five bedroom house in Shearwater due to overcrowding and
inadequate conditions.
Australian
unions said the workers’ employer, Costa, had committed what amounted to human
rights abuse.
Tongan
workers in Tasmania told the ABC they wanted to warn people in the kingdom what
they were getting themselves into by joining the Seasonal Workers’ Programme in
Australia.
“We
want them to know the truth. People just pay for the airfares and come over
here because they don’t have the information they need,” the workers told
the Australian national broadcaster.
Dr
Fisi’iahi said if there had been any problems the Tongan workers would have
reported them to Tonga’s representative in Tasmania.
“If the investigation you are talking about was true, the seasonal workers would have long complained about it,” Dr Fisi’iahi said in Tongan.
“The
Tongan seasonal workers knew what was good and what was bad.
“We all know the journalists they can twist everything to make their news popular before correcting it.”
However, he said he would raise the issue with the worker’s employer— at a meeting in Brisbane next month.
He
claimed a Tongan representative, Sione Vaka, had investigated the situation and
said the claims were not true. He described Vaka as reliable and said he was
paid by the Tongan government.
He
said Tonga was the only country that had a liaison officer in Tasmania.
Dr Fisi’iahi said Vaka denied all the workers involved were Tongans.
He did not respond when he was asked how many Tongan Seasonal Workers at Shearwater.
“Vaka reported there were three buildings in which the employees stayed. There was a five storey building in which females workers stayed and two other buildings for the male workers,” Dr Fisi’iahi said.
“There
were bunk beds in the rooms which were divided into five.
“There
was a problem between the council and the landlord over renovation to the
buildings the landlord had not done.”
Dr
Fisi’iahi said Vaka always visited and checked the accommodation of the Tongan
seasonal workers in Tasmania.
