A Fijian court has granted an order to prevent a luxury vessel owned by a Russian oligarch from leaving the country.
Suleiman Kerimov Photo: Wikipedia
The High Court in Suva has allowed an application by the public prosecutor to stop the superyacht Amadea belonging to Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov from leaving its waters.
Kerimov, who was not on board, is facing sanctions from the United States, Britain and the European Union over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Fiji’s Director of Public Prosecutions Christopher Pryde filed the application on Tuesday – a week after the yacht moored at the Lautoka Wharf without customs clearance.
Mr Pryde confirmed that the US is seeking to seize the vessel.
In his application, he requested that: “Amadea be restrained from leaving Fijian waters until the finalisation of an application to register a warrant to seize the property and that a US warrant to seize the Amadea be registered.”
The court is yet to hear the application.
FBC reports says a second application for the United States to seize the yacht will be heard on Thursday.
New Zealand High Commissioner to Tonga Tiffany Babington formally handed over 13,5000 doses of Pfizer COVID-19 Paediatric Vaccines to the Tonga Minister of Health Hon Saia Piukala. Photo/ New Zealand High Commission Tonga
Tonga has approved the Pfizer vaccine for children aged five to 11, clearing the way for thousands of young Tongans to get vaccinated.
The decision by Tongan authorities comes before New Zealand High Commissioner to Tonga Tiffany Babington formally handed over 13,5000 doses of Pfizer COVID-19 Paediatric Vaccines to the Tonga Minister of Health Hon Saia Piukala this week.
“The shipment is a part-delivery of 35,000 doses that Aotearoa New Zealand is donating to Tonga through the Polynesian Health Corridors Program”, a statement by the New Zealand High Commission in Tonga said.
“The remaining doses will be delivered in instalment as Tonga needs them. The Ministry of Health is started the program for the COVID-19 vaccination of children aged 5 – 11 years this morning, working together with the Ministry of Education to deliver the program to children through primary school networks.
“Tatou Tatou – all of us together – we can overcome the adverse impacts of COVID-19. Aotearoa New Zealand continues to stand with the Ministry of Health, and its partners, to support the Ministry’s goal of Universal Health Coverage, to leave no one behind, including through COVID-19 vaccination.
“Tonga’s vaccination result for adults target population to date is very good at 98% Dose 1, 90% Dose 2, 55% Booster. On the basis of those results there is a high expectation that the hard working vaccination teams will do the same again with our children, who are our future”.
Police on Tuesday April 12 conducted a search warrant at a Hā’utu residence for stolen property where they arrested a 38-year-old male with drug utensils.
A couple, man, 57 and a woman, 49, were arrested from their residence at Ma’ufanga on Thursday April 14 with nine packs of methamphetamine (0.29 grams), $300 pa’anga, over 300 unused packs and drug utensils.
A 21-year-old Kolonga man and two Lapaha women aged in their 30s were arrested at Lapaha for breaching curfew and for possession of drug utensils on Friday, April 15.
The offenders are due to appear in court at a later date.
Anyone with information on drug related activities to contact Police on 740-1660 or 922.
(The Daily Journal) Two men suspected in the 2020 shooting death of Ueta Savelio Muasika Jr. in front of his San Mateo home that also seriously injured his 2-year-old son were arrested Monday in different states.
John Paasi (L), ‘Isileli Mahe
John Paasi, 29, was arrested at his home in Charlotte, NC and Isileli Mahe, 30 was arrested in Honolulu, Hawaii, according to San Mateo police officials.
Both were arrested on suspicion of homicide and assault with a firearm, police officials said.
The men are suspected of ambushing Muasika Jr. in his driveway on Oct. 30, 2020 on the 1600 block of Eleanor Drive.
Muasika Jr. was shot several times and died at the scene and his two-year-old son was shot in the face but survived, police said.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Sgt. Paul Pak at (650) 522-7660 or pak@cityofsanmateo.org.
Anonymous tips can be submitted to http://tinyurl.com/SMPDTips or (650) 522-7676.
To make the arrests, San Mateo police worked with their counterparts at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and the FBI’s Honolulu Division Criminal Enterprise Squad.
However, an updated post on the Givealittle page said the family won’t go ahead with the repatriation plan.
“Sadly we have discovered we will be unable to get Rochelle and Ben home. While this is difficult to accept, the local people have created a beautiful space for them to be at rest,” the post said.
“The families still need help with a memorial for some piece of mind and trying to get their personal effects home. This is still going to be expensive and our hope is that everyone is happy for their donations to go toward this.”
The fundraiser had already amassed more than $6300 in donations at the time of writing.
After January’s volcanic eruption, Tonga is faced with a tidal wave of plastic bottles.
Photo / Global Environment Facility – Small Grants Programme Tonga (Facebook)
In the wake of the disaster there was a desperate need for clean drinking water.
The kingdom was sent 200 shipping containers of aid, including 114,600 litres of water.
The water came in 86,000 1.5 litre bottles. Those bottles are empty and now need to be dealt with.
However, the kingdom’s plastic recycling scheme is not fully resourced, so the only place the bottles can be put is into rubbish bins and then as landfill.
According to a report in the Guardian, the country’s only rubbish tip, which opened at Tapuhia in 2006, has just four cells for storing rubbish. Each cell is meant to be large enough to house at least 20 years’ worth of waste from across the country. The second one is already filling up.
However, the problem is not just plastic bottles.
Last month, volunteers from the No Pelesitiki (plastic) campaign spent two Saturdays collecting plastic waste from more than 1500 households. The rubbish was wrapped into plastic bales and loaded on the HMAS Canberra for disposal in Australia.
The founder of the No Pelesitiki Campaign, Eleni Leveni Tevi, told the Guardian people responded strongly to the collection.
As well as plastic rubbish from relief efforts, the tsunami produced huge quantities of rubbish from household furniture and inorganic waste.
In the worst-affected village of Kanokupolu, located on the west end of Tongatapu, five truckloads of rubbish – including aluminium sheets, wood and drenched suitcases full of clothes – were collected.
No Pelesitiki does not have the means to do regular plastic recycling collection, without the money to pay for labour or a dedicated vehicle.
This discouraged people from separating their plastic from the rest of the rubbish.
“All these plastic wastes end up at Tapuhia landfill,” Tevi told the Guardian.
“We have a plan on how to tackle Tonga’s plastic issue, we have the passion, but we can just do so much. We are all volunteers with full-time jobs or attending schools with only the weekends to attend to No Pelesitiki activities,” he said.
“There’s quite [a lot] of logistics around this work that needs daily commitment.”
Australia has donated two balers for compressing rubbish to Tonga’s Waste Authority. They are based at the Tapuhia recycling centre, which also houses a plastic shredder and two glass crushers.
The Waste Authority said it would be rolling out a new recycling service to collect plastic bottles and glass bottles, as well as training people to use the balers.
By Guyon Espiner, of Rnz.co.nz and is republished with permission.
Māngere Budgeting Service chief executive Darryl Evans has resigned and the board of the high-profile charity has appointed a Queen’s Counsel to oversee an inquiry into allegations former staff have made against him.
On its website, Māngere Budgeting Service describes Darryl Evans as “often the first port of call by mainstream media”. Photo: Scrrenshot/Newshub
Evans’ resignation comes after RNZ put detailed allegations made by six former staff about his management style to him and to the board of the budgeting service, chaired by former lawyer Alistaire Hall.
Evans refused to respond to the allegations but Hall said Evans had now stepped down as chief executive because of poor health.
Hall said the charity had appointed QC Simon Mount to oversee an inquiry into the allegations made by staff.
Evans, who joined the Māngere Budgeting Service in 2004 and spent many of the intervening years as chief executive, is a high-profile advocate for people in poverty and is politically well-connected. The patron of the budgeting service is the former Prime Minister and Labour leader Helen Clark.
One former staff member told RNZ staff had been reluctant to speak out because of Evans’ profile and political connections.
Public Service Association organiser Simon Oosterman said staff had approached the union about pay and conditions at the budgeting service.
Oosterman said Māngere Budgeting Service was a “go to voice in the media for poverty and inequality” but the board itself had not committed to paying all staff at least the living wage.
“That is ironic in the saddest possible way,” he said. “We need those who speak out against inequality to be walking the talk.”
The board did not respond to RNZ questions about staff wages.
On the Māngere Budgeting Service website Evans is described as having “built a strong reputation fighting for people’s rights” and “is often the first port of call by mainstream media”.
It says that in 2020 he received the ASB Good as Gold award for his service to the south Auckland community and was also voted Westfield Manukau ‘Local Hero of The Year’ in 2020.
Māngere Budgeting Service board chairman Alistaire Hall, who has been with the charity since 1994, told RNZ Evans had stepped down for health reasons.
“He has tendered his resignation from the position on health grounds and our board has accepted it.”
The board was looking for a replacement for Evans and the claims against him would be investigated.
“After reviewing the matters you raised and obtaining advice we are initiating the appointment of a suitable person to conduct an independent inquiry into them,” Hall said.
“We do not intend to make any further public statements until it is completed.”
(Reuters) Russia has warned the United States of “unpredictable consequences” should US President Joe Biden’s administration continue to transfer weapons to Ukraine, The Washington Post reported.
Ukrainian servicemen load a truck with the FGM-148 Javelin, a US man-portable anti-tank missile provided by the US to Ukraine, in Kyiv, February 11, 2022 [Sergei Supinsky/AFP]
The Post said on Friday that it had reviewed a copy of a diplomatic note that Russia sent the US this week, which warned that US and NATO shipments of the “most sensitive” weapons systems to Ukraine could bring “unpredictable consequences”.
“We call on the United States and its allies to stop the irresponsible militarization of Ukraine, which implies unpredictable consequences for regional and international security,” said the note, which was dated Tuesday.
The shipments were “adding fuel” to the conflict, the note also said, according to the newspaper.
The report comes days after the Biden administration announced an additional $800m in military assistance to Ukraine, which has been fighting Russian forces since Moscow launched its invasion of the country on February 24.
The military aid package included artillery systems, artillery rounds, armoured personnel carriers and helicopters – and brought the total tally of US aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began to more than $2.4bn.https://www.youtube.com/embed/VAYia84NxwQ?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent
“This new package of assistance will contain many of the highly effective weapons systems we have already provided and new capabilities tailored to the wider assault we expect Russia to launch in eastern Ukraine,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The steady supply of weapons the United States and its Allies and partners have provided to Ukraine has been critical in sustaining its fight against the Russian invasion.”
Some of the new equipment will require training for Ukrainian forces, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters, including the 155mm howitzer cannon. This is the first time Washington will send the cannon to Ukraine.
“The systems that will probably require some additional training for Ukrainian forces are the howitzers [and] … the counter artillery radar, not a very difficult system to operate, but it’s not one that they have in their inventory,” Kirby said on Wednesday.
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington, DC, said “Biden has been persistent and consistent in insisting that any US military aid being sent to Ukraine is for defensive purposes, to help the Ukrainians defend themselves against Russian aggression”.
Military aid, delivered as part of US security assistance to Ukraine, is unloaded from a plane at Boryspil International Airport outside Kyiv, February 13, 2022 [File: Serhiy Takhmazov/Reuters]
“There are some who could make the argument that these could all be used in an offensive capacity, and that certainly seems to be something that concerns the Russians,” Fisher said.
Citing two unidentified officials, the New York Times and CBS News also reported on Friday that Moscow had warned Washington against further weapons shipments to Kyiv. CBS said the note was sent to the US Department of State, which said it could not “confirm any private diplomatic correspondence”.
“What we can confirm is that, along with allies and partners, we are providing Ukraine with billions of dollars worth of security assistance, which our Ukrainian partners are using to extraordinary effect to defend their country against Russia’s unprovoked aggression and horrific acts of violence,” the department said in a statement to CBS.
A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman confirmed Russia had sent diplomatic notes to the US and other nations about supplying weapons to Ukraine but did not say what the messages contained, the Interfax news agency reported later on Friday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for additional weapons to stave off an expected Russian offensive in the country’s east.
Another 11 people have died from Covid-19, and 6242 more community cases have been detected, health authorities say.
A nurse working in an intensive care ward. (File photo). Photo: 123RF
The Ministry of Health said the seven-day rolling average of case numbers was on the decline, with today’s seven-day rolling average at 7986 – last Monday it was 10,169.
There are 553 people are currently in hospital with the virus, including 23 in intensive care.
Yesterday, there were ten new deaths reported, and 5933 new community cases reported.
Air New Zealand said it has been flooded with calls from people interested in travelling as the borders open.
Many people want to check safety precautions and what documentation and other preparations they need to make for travelling under Orange restrictions, and the airline said it had brought in extra staff to cope with the demand.
The Hu’akavameiliku government has dumped the former government’s controversial multi -million pa’anga roading project, Kaniva News has learned.
Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku
Reliable sources told Kaniva the Hu’akavameiliku government has also scrapped the Pohiva Tu’i’onetoa government’s housing project, which included weaving, tapa making and evacuation community centres.
The projects attracted a lot of criticism from the public. Many people blasted the former government for what appeared to be favouritism and nepotism involved in the way the projects were distributed. The roading project was a three-year plan set to run from 2020 until 2023. The Tu’i’onetoa government was ousted in last year’s premiership election.
The Hu’akavameiliku government has initiated new rebuilding projects including the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano and tsunami rebuilding program.
Questions are now being asked about the millions of pa’anga spent by the former government on the project. Roads in Tongatapu and Vava’u which had been repaired, renewed and constructed under the project have been badly damaged. Critics said the damage was the result of unprofessional work, lack of upkeep and lack of serious purpose.
Photos taken in Vava’u today seen by Kaniva News showed roads with large potholes and vehicles queuing on damaged roads with some having to cross to their opposite lanes in an attempt to avoid falling into the holes. Some of these roads were not constructed under the former government’s roading projects.
Neiafu Town Officer Vava Lapota previously told Kaniva News that the main roads from the capital Neiafu to Taoa and Mataika were badly damaged.
Concerns about the merit of the project have recently emerged on social media with people, including foreign expatriates in Tonga, asking what happened to the millions of pa’anga spent in the project.
“I was horrified how massive potholes are in Vavau right now. What happened to roading project money that ran into the millions?” a businesswoman asked on an Expats and Locals Facebook group.
Prime Minister Pōhiva Tu’i’onetoa. Photo/Kalino Lātū (Kaniva Tonga)
Former Opposition Leader Sēmisi Sika accused the Tu’ionetoa government of creating the roading project to benefit his friends and those who helped him win the Prime Ministership, including former Cabinet Minister ‘Etuate Lavulavu who is serving a jail term for fraud. Tu’i’onetoa had argued that the project was a public priority.
In 2020 Hon. Sika accused the Tu’i’onetoa government of designing the tendering process for its roading project so that contracts were given to three of its friends.
He made the accusation in Parliament after the Minister for Finance said the government would guarantee loans from the Tonga Development Bank to three private companies which won the bid of outsourcing road work from the government.
Prime Minister Tu’i’onetoa eventually conceded that contracts for the roading project had gone to companies with strong links to the government.
The contractors were Island Dredging Limited, City Engineering and Construction Limited and Inter-Pacific Limited.
The then Minister of Police, Lord Nuku, was a former Director of Island Dredging.
Lord Nuku’s son, Faka’osifono Valevale, was the Director of Island Dredging when the contracts were issued.
Tongan People’s Party Deputy Chairman Etuate Lavulavu was made a Director of Inter-Pacific Limited in February 2016, but was later replaced by ‘Inoke Finau Vala.
Opposition MPs claimed that other contractors involved in the bid for the contract were cheaper than the government’s favoured contractors.
Kaniva News reported in April 2020 that the government claimed it could not afford to pay the market price of between TOP$190 and TOP$220 for rocks for the project and so had lawfully cancelled the procurement process.
Hon. Tu’i’onetoa then said the government had set the price at TOP$70 for each truck load.
