A charity pro wrestling event will be held in Auckland on November 12.
On the Mat will feature Ashley Tonga vs Princess of Flowers, WWE Legend King Haku and God of Destiny (Haku Dynasty)
The event is being organised by Simitaitoko Fale (Bad Luck Fale) in conjunction with Grace Foundation (NZ) and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Sakura Events vice president Melvin Leavasa said the event would feature wrestlers from New Zealand and Japan and Auckland media personalities.
Contestants will include Boxing’s bad boy “Brown Butter Bean™”, Mai FM radio host “Nasty Nate™” Nauer, social media heavyweight “Princess of Flowers™”, X Factor NZ contestant “Ashley Tonga™”, Niu FM radio host “MC Mantis™” and “MC Petrina™”, presenters DJ Niko™ (Niu FM), Ravinder Singh (Sisters Singh™) and Sheena Singh (Sisters Singh™).
A New Zealand Pro Wrestler is to be confirmed to take on American wrestler RJ Brewer™ (USA).
Wrestlers from the New Japan Professional Wrestling stable include seven time IWGP Champion “Hiroshi Tanahashi™”, three time IWGP Champion “The Rainmaker Kazuchika Okada™”, WWF Hall of Famer “King Haku™”, IWGP Tag Team Champion “Yugiro Takahashi™”, IWGP Tag Team Champion “Tama Tonga™”, IWGP Tag Team Champion “Tanga Roa™” and New Zealander IWGP Intercontinental Champion “The Underboss™”.
For more information
Japanese and New Zealand wrestlers and celebrity guests will feature in a charity wrestling match on November.
‘On the Mat’ is being organised by Sakura Events and will feature members of the New Japan Professional Wrestling stable.
The so-called “inside man” who helped smuggle 250kg of drugs into New Zealand said he was paid $60,000, a court has heard.
Mosese Laumanu Uele was the final Crown witness to give evidence against Yixin “Lonna” Gan, who is on trial for three counts of importing a Class-B drug and one of possession for supply, following a covert police investigation dubbed Operation Ghost.
The case is about pseudoephedrine, once the active ingredient in New Zealanders’ favourite cold and flu medicines, but now banned as it’s the main ingredient needed to cook methamphetamine.
Pseudoephedrine can be extracted from a cold and flu medicine widely available in China called ContacNT.
A packet costs just a “few dollars” but a “set” of 223g of pink granules sells for around $9000 on the black market in New Zealand.
In opening the Crown case, prosecutor Scott McColgan alleged Gan, a 35-year-old mother of three, had discovered an “almost perfect way” of importing drugs into New Zealand.
She ran a legitimate business shipping food from China to the Pacific Islands, with a short stop in New Zealand.
Mosese Laumanu Uele
But because the shipments were shown as goods in transit – and therefore not technically coming through the border – the consignments were not inspected by Customs.
Instead, the shipments were sent to the secure Customs-controlled area at Auckland Airport until they were freighted to the final destination.
Uele – who pleaded guilty and was convicted of importing a Class-B drug for his role – allegedly acted as the “inside man” for Gan through his freight-forwarding company Ezi World Cargo on one occasion.
Uele told the jury he first met Gan in his homeland of Tonga more than 10 years ago.
She was a customer of Ezi World Cargo and Uele explained how he legitimately shipped food produce to the Pacific island kingdom on her behalf.
Asked about three different companies associated with Gan, Uele confirmed he only ever dealt with her directly.
Gan later came to work for him at Ezi World as Uele tried to build business ties with the Chinese community in Tonga.
Yixin Gan at an earlier court appearance. She is on trial for importing pseudoephedrine into New Zealand. Photo / Jason Oxenham.
For one shipment in October 2013, Uele explained how he swapped 20 boxes labelled “starch” inside his Customs-controlled warehouse.
These were put in a van, which he said was supplied by Gan, which he drove to a nearby carpark and left there.
Uele said Gan gave him a SIM card for his phone to make all the arrangements with. He later threw the SIM card away.
Uele denied knowing what was inside the boxes of “starch”. He said he was paid $60,000 in a large brown envelope.
“Did you ask why she paid $60,000 to swap 20 boxes of starch?” asked McColgan.
“It wasn’t my business. My role was to swap boxes and get money. That was my only concern,” Uele replied.
“It was too great…[I was] too greedy.”
Under cross-examination by Gan’s defence lawyer Graeme Newell, Uele denied lying.
“I did get instructions from Lonna to swap boxes.”
Newell asked Uele whether a man called Da Wen Shao – not his client Gan – gave Uele the SIM card and told him to swap the boxes of starch.
Uele said he had never met Shao.
“Are you scared of Da Wen Shao?” asked Newell.
Uele replied: “I don’t know Shao”.
The Operation Ghost detectives followed the van packed by Uele to two Auckland addresses, where they later found 250kg of ContacNT granules.
The trial before Justice Mathew Downs and a jury of six women and six men is expected to end this week.
The Tongan government hopes to increase the number of workers from the kingdom being allowed into Australia each year.
Tongan Minister for Internal Affairs, Sosefo Fe’ao Vakata, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation today that more than 1000 applicants hoped to find work placement in Australia under the country’s Pacific Harvest Scheme.
“There is some work [back in Tonga], but not as good an income as what they get in Australia,” the Minister said.
And the Minister said he hoped the scheme would help solve the kingdom’s unemployment problem by creating opportunities for school leavers.
A total of 2179 Tongan workers are in Australia under the Pacific Harvest Scheme’s seasonal worker programme which sends workers to rural areas.
The programme allows workers from Pacific Island nations to work in Australia for up to six months a year.
Hon. Vakata acknowledged that some workers employed under the scheme had been ripped off, with one group of Pacific Islanders workers in Victoria earning a pittance for their labour.
The ABC reported earlier this year that the workers were paid as little as a $9 a week after deductions to pick fruit and vegetables on Australian farms by a company that sponsored their visas under the seasonal workers’ programme.
“I’m worried, but Fair Work Australia is there, the ombudsman, and the department of employment,” the Minister said.
“If the employer is not doing the right thing, they will penalise the employer.”
Hon. Vakata told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he hoped every Tongan worker wanting to go to Australia would be able to go.
“A lot of our students don’t have jobs in Tonga, so we’ll be looking to Australia.
“There are a lot of opportunities in Australia for students who have already left school, also the workers that have registered in our list.”
Countries taking part in the seasonal workers’ scheme include Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
According to the Australian National University’s DevPolicy blog, New Zealand has a far more successful seasonal workers’ scheme because it is focussed on an export market that has far tougher legal requirements for workers’ rights.
The main points
The Tongan government hopes to increase the number of workers from the kingdom being allowed into Australia each year.
Tongan Minister for Internal Affairs, Sosefo Fe’ao Vakata, said more than 1000 applicants hoped to find a work placement in Australia.
A total of 2179 Tongan workers are in Australia under Australia’s seasonal worker programme for Pacific countries.
However, Hon. Vakata acknowledged that some workers had been ripped off, with one group of Pacific Islanders workers in Victoria earning less than $10 a week.
The king of Tonga has officially visited Singapore and was expected to talk and seek helps on training opportunity for the kingdom’s health services.
Kaniva News understands the Health Minister Dr Saia Piukala and Health Director Dr Siale ‘Akau’ola accompanied the king.
An opportunity to train Tonga’s health staff on Non Communicable Disease and Public Health will be discussed while His Majesty is at Singapore.
Singapore has an efficient and widespread system of healthcare and was ranked 6th in the World Health Organisation’s ranking of the world’s health systems in the year 2000.
Bloomberg ranked Singapore’s healthcare system the 1st most efficient in the world in 2014
Applause erupted in St. Peter’s Square even before he finished pronouncing the rite of canonization at the start of the Mass.
Hundreds of Missionaries of Charity sisters in their trademark blue-trimmed saris had front-row seats at the Mass, alongside 1,500 homeless people and 13 heads of state or government, including Queen Sofia of Spain.
Pope Francis’s predecessor Pope John Paul II bent Vatican rules to fast-track Mother Teresa to sainthood – a process which usually does not start until five years after the candidate’s death – two years after she died in 1997.
In 2002, the Vatican ruled that an Indian woman’s stomach tumour had been miraculously cured after she prayed to Mother Teresa, leading to her beatification – the first stage towards sainthood – in 2003.
Pope Francis attributed a second miracle to her after a man with a bacterial infection in his brain purportedly recovered after praying to Mother Teresa.
Despite being widely revered as one of the holiest women of the 20th century, Mother Teresa’s legacy has been called into question by several critics.
In a 2003 essay for Slate, the late journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote: “MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God.
“She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.”
In his pamphlet The Missionary Position, he also criticised her for accepting money from dictators, such as the Duvalier family in Haiti, and running a “cult of suffering”.
In 1994, Mr Hitchens and the British Pakistani journalist Tariq Ali produced an extremely critical documentary on Mother Theresa titled “Hell’s Angel“.
He also said the order’s claims of the assistance it gave to the city’s poor were exaggerated.
Mother Theresa’s writings were also problematic for her entry into sainthood, with entries apparently suggesting a wavering faith in God.
Born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu to Albanian parents, Mother Teresa grew up in the then Macedonian capital Skopje, which used to be part of the Ottoman Empire.
When she was 19, she joined the Irish order of Loreto and later was sent to India, where she first taught and then tended to orphans and the sick.
She founded the Missionaries of Charity religious order in 1950. The mission started with 12 nuns and has expanded across the globe.
Mother Theresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She died in 1997.
Pope Francis praised Mother Teresa as the merciful saint who defended the lives of the unborn, sick and abandoned — and who shamed world leaders for the “crimes of poverty they themselves created.”
Speaking from the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis said Saint Teresa spent her life “bowing down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity.”
He added: “She made her voice heard before the powers of the world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crimes of poverty they themselves created.”
As if to emphasize the point, Pope Francis repeated the line “the crimes of poverty they themselves created.”
Catholic Health Australia (CHA) has honored Calvary Mater Newcastle Clinical Nurse Specialist, Fane Falemaka, with the highly coveted national Nurse of the Year Award.
The award honours an outstanding nurse, midwife or nursing team working in Catholic health and aged care to serve patient and clients with respect and dignity while acknowledging their individual uniqueness. Nominees are evaluated through a research project, innovative program or a significant contribution to a new or existing body of knowledge that contributes to the promotion and celebration of a Catholic understanding of care within a changing environment.
For over 29 years, Fane has been a leader and role model at Calvary Mater Newcastle. She shares her extensive knowledge and experience graciously with colleagues and is an outstanding mentor to new and junior colleagues. When the ward was undergoing some internal change, she calmly guided her colleagues through this process supporting colleagues and management at every step.
Fane trained to be a nurse at Royal Brisbane Hospital in 1968. Learning and furthering herself in her nursing career has played an important part in Fane’s life and she has a large amount of qualifications that have taken her to different parts of the world.
But yet despite her immense talent and dedication, Fane remains humble. Following on from her nursing training in Brisbane, Fane completed further training in midwifery and then maternal and child welfare nursing. She then went on to complete her post graduate certificate in ward management at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
During Fane’s time at Calvary Mater Newcastle hospital she has spread much joy and wisdom, and has continued to stay true to her value of lifelong learning including being one of the hospital’s first nurses to be awarded as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in medical nursing.
Throughout Fane’s nursing career, both in Tonga and Australia, she has put the patient first and foremost. She is an outstanding role model to her colleagues and she exemplifies all the traits that make an outstanding nurse. Fane has also contributed to the profession through her many roles as a trainer, including designing a Tongan Curriculum.
For a lady that flies quietly under the radar, this national recognition was overwhelming. Fane says, “Throughout all my years of nursing I’ve always tried to do my very best. I work with passion, love and respect. I try my best to look after people and am so grateful for being recognised with this award.”
Greg Flint, CEO, Calvary Mater Newcastle, says, “It is fantastic to see the dedication and talent of Fane recognised in this manner. Fane is a truly inspirational nurse, who deserves this accolade wholeheartedly.”
“Throughout all my years of nursing I’ve always tried to do my very best. I work with passion, love and respect. I try my best to look after people.”
Tonga’s new inter-island ferry , the MV Maggie Cat has been forced to head back to Neiafu port this morning because of bad weather, the Friendly Islands Shipping Agency CEO Mosese Fakatou has confirmed this to Kaniva News this afternoon.
He said the ship is currently docking at Puatalefusi and was expected to leave for Ha’apai and Tongatapu on Monday.
As we reported previously, the Friendly Islands Shipping Agency (FISA) has introduced a catamaran to run passenger-only services to the kingdom’s outer islands.
The new ferry is expected to cut the travel time to Vava’u and the outer islands from 24 hours to nine hours. It will begin operations this week.
The new ferry was commissioned in a ceremony at the Queen Salote Wharf No. 3 yesterday by Crown Prince Tupouto’a ‘Ulukalala.
The ceremony was attended by the Minister-in-Charge, Lord Ma’afu, Cabinet Ministers and Government officials including the shared Board of Directors for Transport Sector, FISA and Ports Authority Tonga.
In his speech, the Crown Prince said the safety and security of people had to take precedence before any other economic considerations.
His Royal Highness thanked the Government of Tonga, for ensuring that the transportation needs for the people has been made a priority.
He also welcomed the vessel’s Australian owner, Captain Cook Cruises for sharing their expertise with the people of Tonga.
The government is paying TP$10,000 a day to hire the Australian catamaran.
The shipping agency’s CEO, Mr Mosese Fakatou said the MV Magggie Cat would provide a temporary service to fill in for the MV ‘Otuanga’ofa which is undergoing service and repair in Fiji.
M.V. ‘Otuanga’ofa has been out of action for four months.
The Fijian authorities were concerned that a cargo ship from Tonga which ran aground near one of its islands last week still poses a threat to the archipelago’s ecosystem.
They said the ship is currently holding 20,000 litres of fuel after it was left stranded in Kadavu near Kabariki village.
“We are patrolling this area to make sure there are no oil spills or anything of that sort,” Fiji Times reported.
The MV Sitka was sold to a Solomon Islands company but it suffered a mechanical failure while its six Tongan crewmen including the captain were on their way to the islands to hand over the ship.
The Tongan men have returned to Tonga, it has been reported.
The 200 tonnes inter-island cargo vessel was initially brought to Tonga from Australia by a local company South Seas Shipping.
Following its arrival in Nuku’alofa in March 2010 and it transported cargo between Nuku’alofa, Ha’afeva, Pangai and Neiafu.
Real Tonga Domestic airlines CEO Tevita Palu said today his company had received no help from the government to get its MA60 aircraft back into the air.
Palu told Kaniva News he had asked the government for help, but nothing had happened.
He said it cost the airline $TP400,000 to prepare the aircraft.
The MA60 was meant to resume services this month, but remains grounded.
The aircraft was supposed to be properly certified to meet the requirements of New Zealand and international air safety regulations.
The MA60 had been grounded after pressure from the New Zealand government after concerns over its safety record.
It is understood Real Tonga had signed a four-year contract with the Tongan government to operate the 56-seater MA60 aircraft.
The Civil Aviation Division of Tonga’s Ministry of Infrastructure issued an Air Operator Certificate (AOC) for the Chinese-built MA60.
According to a recent report in the American newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, there has been a pattern of safety problems with the MA60 involving landing-gear malfunctions, braking failures and steering loss.
One accident involving the aircraft killed 25 people.
The newspaper said less than half of the 57 MA60s exported from China in the past 11 years were still flying.
According to the Journal, at least 26 of the aircraft were in storage because of safety concerns, maintenance problems or other performance issues.
A total of six others had been damaged beyond repair
Palu told the Journal Chinese Civil aviation authorities had told him the plane was safe.
He said officials told him accidents involving the MA60 were “only caused by pilot error.”
The main points
Real Tonga Domestic airlines CEO Tevita Palu said today his company had received no help from the government to get its MA60 aircraft back into the air.
Palu told Kaniva News he had asked the government for help, but nothing had happened.
He said it cost the airline $TP400,000 to prepare the aircraft.
The MA60 had been grounded after pressure from the New Zealand government.
