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Locals ask why road roller was not driven by somebody familiar with Vava‘u’s roads

By
Kalino Latu
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Vava’u residents are asking why the Ministry of Infrastructure did not use an experienced local driver to operate the road roller which went into the sea yesterday.

As Kaniva news reported yesterday, the road roller overturned and fell into the sea at Vaipua bridge in Neiafu yesterday morning.

The driver was unharmed.

Questions have emerged about whether the driver, who was sent from Tongatapu by the Ministry of Infrastructure to operate the road roller, was familiar with the area’s steep roads.

Neiafu Town Officer Vāvā Lapota said there were also allegations the roller’s brakes were unsafe.

He said about nine Ministry employees, including the driver, arrived from Tongatapu on Tuesday.

Lapota said he was surprised when he found out the roller went to Kauvai Talau through the Vaipua bridge.

He said that route included a very steep street to Hihifo and if the driver was from Vava’u he would have taken the route through Leimātu’a and Tefisi instead.

Social media

A video taken at the scene has been posted to Facebook.

Some Facebook users expressed confusion about how the incident could have happened.

Critics of the government’s multi-million roading project used the incident to criticise the government.

“What goes around comes around,” one critic wrote in Tongan.

Critics of the roading project claim it was engineered by politicians who defected and voted for the Tu’i’onetoa government.  They argue the multi-million budget should have been spent on something more important.

The Minister of Infrastructure has been contacted for comment.

Mia Kami, Tupou College choir feature in concert to unite Islands in fight against virus

By
Kaniva Staff
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Tonga’s massed Tupou College Choir and Mia Kami featured in Saturday’s Pacific wide concert to promote the fight against Covid-19.

The concert featured contributions from 12 Pacific island countries, including musical performances from the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Kiribati and New Zealand.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohamed said that working together was the only way to overcome COVID-19.

“Much remains to be done and no one person, island or country can do it alone,” Mohamed said.

The UN deputy chief said the global community had a responsibility to ensure fair access to vital medical equipment, supplies and – when they become available – vaccines.

She said the global community must also help the hard-hit economies of small island developing States through debt relief and rapid support that stimulates inclusive and resilient growth.

The Covid-19 pandemic has increased levels of domestic violence, unemployment, food security and mental health issues.

Pacific leaders said that while the region faced numerous challenges brought on by Covid-19, it was important not to lose focus on combating climate change.

“This new normal should not be the same old story, but with face masks,” said the President of Palau, Tommy E. Remengesau Jr.

“The Pacific has been pushing for big changes in travel, in tourism, in fishing, in plastic use and in energy production. In a strange way, Covid-19 has cleared paths to those objectives.

“If we manage this challenge the right way, we can build a stronger system than we had before.”

Saturday night’s concert was broadcast on local television networks and streamed online.

The concert featured video messages of support from international leaders and celebrities, including Britain’s Prince Charles, Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

The concert was supported by the Auckland-based Pacific Cooperation Foundation.

The main points

  • Tonga’s massed Tupou College Choir and Mia Kami featured in Saturday’s Pacific wide concert to promote the fight against Covid-19.
  • The concert featured contributions from 12 Pacific island countries, including musical performances from the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Kiribati and New Zealand.

Government’s only road roller in Vava‘u falls into sea

By
Kalino Latu
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A road roller overturned and fell into the sea at Vaipua bridge in Neiafu this morning.

The driver was unharmed and made his own way to shore, Neiafu town officer Vāvā Lapota said.

The cause of the incident is not yet known.

it is understood the roller was on its way from Neiafu to Taoa, Hihifo.

No reports of attempts to recover the equipment but apparently it will remain there overnight and will be covered by another high tide.

It is also understood this was the only road roller in Vava’u owned by the government and its loss could delay the current government’s new roading project scheduled for the islands.

Jnr Fa, Joseph Parker fight could finally be on cards as managers edge towards financial deal

By
Kaniva Staff
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Junior Fa and Joseph Parker could meet in the ring as early as November or December.

According to Newshub, Parker’s management has offered $500,000 plus a share of the income.

However, last month the New Zealand Herald reported that Fa had turned down the same amount for a fight.

Media reports said Fa had previously been offered $300,000 and a share of pay-per-view earnings.

The two heavyweights have been haggling over the fee for months.

Parker’s promoter David Higgins said the offer was serious.

“We know the numbers,” Newshub quoted Higgins as saying.

“We’ve done the biggest shows in New Zealand and we know the values. The offer on the table is better than fair, and if they run the time down we’ll take the offer on the table again.

“There really is no excuse now other than to step up and bank the money.

“It is the final offer. It’s over the odds. It’s probably 20 times Junior Fa’s biggest ever pay day.”

Fa’s American promoter Lou Di Bella told the media in July he was after a split percentage deal, conceding that Parker’s global profile would warrant a higher cut.

However, Newshub reports Di Bella as saying the two sides are finally on the same page and that a deal was close.

A fight with Parker has been a long time coming.

In 2018 Fa said a bout with heavyweight champion Joseph Parker was inevitable and something he wanted to happen sooner rather than later.

However, Fa’s manager, Mark Keddell, said there were no immediate plans for Fa to fight Parker.

Fa became New Zealand heavyweight champion in 2017.

The former WBO champion Parker (27-2) is currently ranked No 2 in that organisation, No 7 with the IBF and No 6 with the WBA and has on a three fight winning streak after losing his belt in 2018.

Fa has risen to No 6 with the WBO and also sits at No 14 with the IBF after building up an unbeaten 19-0 record.

The main points

  • Junior Fa and Joseph Parker could meet in the ring as early as November of December.
  • According to Newshub, Parker’s management has offered $500,000 plus a share of the income.

 

Barbara Dreaver: Should we identify the first covid family as Pasifika? Yes we should, and here’s why

By
Kaniva Staff
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By Barbara Dreaver, 1 NEWS Pacific correspondent

Pasifika family or just an Auckland family?

There has been much debate over whether it was wrong to identify the family at the centre of New Zealand’s covid-cluster as a “Pasifika family”.

As Pacific correspondent let me make this clear – it would have been the absolute peak of irresponsibility not to.

READ MORE: Covid spread could ‘decimate’ Pasifika, Māori communities, warns Tukuitonga

And here’s why.

Pasifika live and breathe community – we interact widely with each other, we share, we are big churchgoers, we live in intergenerational homes – and 40 percent in overcrowded conditions.

Unlike most other communities, Pacific families do not live in isolation.

To not share the information that the affected family was one of our own and interacting in our community circles for days before being tested was unfathomable.

My business is not to keep information hidden or censored because people might be upset or feel targeted. People’s lives are at risk, there is too much on the line for tippy toeing around people’s sensitivities.


Barbara Dreaver reports. Video TVNZ

Keeping Pasifika families safe
The information was given not to victimise Pasifika – but to give our vulnerable community crucial information they were entitled to to keep them safe. It is about helping people living near a new covid-cluster to make life-saving decisions.

And it was important that information be given as quickly as possible so Pasifika could be extra vigilant and be aware that unlike the first wave, covid-19 is being transmitted within our circles.

In the first wave, Pasifika had low infection rates – only 85 cases, five percent of the total number. They were easily traceable.

This situation is not. It is different and unless immediate action is taken we are looking at an unfolding tragedy in our community.

We hear about how covid-19 does not discriminate. Well it doesn’t in terms that anyone can be infected.

But it is the Pacific community who are most at risk because of the way we live, interact, work on the frontline and have high rates of underlying health issues contributing to covid-19 deaths.

In the US, Pasifika are infected at ten times the rate of white Americans in many states and we are not pretending otherwise. The people there are facing an unravelling situation for many reasons – we do not want to be in that place.


The family of six have connections all around the locked-down city – and outside of it. Video: TVNZ

It was not their fault
It was important to me not to reveal the ethnicity of the affected family despite knowing it from the get go as it would have likely identified them. It was not their fault, they didn’t magically contract covid-19 from Tinkerbell. It came from somewhere and any of us could have been in that same position.

Their ethnicity is not relevant as they had no overseas travel, but the fact they interacted in the Pasifika community, in ways which are just now becoming clear is.

It is unfortunate that the government of the island country the family originated from put out a media release confirming their ethnicity and that information was put to air in that country, is all over social media and other media outlets.

That island government got its information from the New Zealand Ministry of Health.

Despite this 1 NEWS chose not to reveal the family’s ethnicity and will continue not to despite it being public information.

South Auckland community ‘hugely disappointed’ after local family contracts Covid-19

The very thing – community interaction – which makes Pasifika vulnerable to covid is also a huge strength. Pasifika know how to look after each other and work together.

Leaders inspiring hope
Add to that a team of leaders who have been working on the frontline such as Dr Collin Tukuitonga, Pakilau Manase Lua from the Pacific Response Coordination Team, Taleiai Edwin Puni from the Pacific Leadership Forum, Auckland counsellor Efeso Collins and the many outstanding health professionals, church, community and political leaders who inspire hope.

But make no mistake… there are grim times ahead. If you feel upset over “Pasifika” being used as being the centre of this covid cluster, it’s time to have a long think and work out what’s more important.

Pacific lives matter.

Barbara Dreaver is of Kiribati and Cook Islands descent. This TVNZ News column has been republished by Pacific Media Centre with permission. Kaniva News has a shared content agreement with Pacific Media Centre. 

Woman appointed to Tonga Supreme Court

By
Kalino Latu
-

‘Elisapeti Lavakei’aho Makoni Langi has become the first Tongan woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court of the kingdom.

The Nepituno webpage reported the king’s Judicial Appointments and Discipline Panel  has recommended Langi to be appointed as a Supreme Court Judge.

Langi was first appointed as a senior magistrate on March 29 2018.

She also served as an Assistant Senior Crown Counsel at the Attorney General’s Office.

Langi’s appointment last week came after another woman, Loupua Kiola Kulī was appointed senior magistrate of Tonga’s lower courts early this year.

Langi was the second woman to be appointed to the magistrate position.

Vusenga Helu was the first Tongan woman magistrate.

 

International sporting body will hear TRNL appeal against expulsion on September 22

By
Philip Cass
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The Tongan National Rugby League continues to claim its expulsion from the International Rugby League was illegal as it heads towards a hearing before the  Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The CAS will meet in Lausanne, Switzerland, on September 22.

Tonga was suspended from the IRL following a tumultuous period that began in September last year with a player revolt over the sacking of national coach Kristian Woolf.

The TRNL was expelled in February this year.

As Kaniva News reported earlier this month the Asia-Pacific Rugby League Confederation recommended that Tonga Ma’a Tonga Rugby League be considered for full membership of the International Rugby League.

The TNRL appeal is separate from any approval of Tonga Ma’a Tonga as a member of the IRL.

The TNRL is appealing its expulsion, arguing that the IRL investigation was flawed, based on dubious grounds, and did not follow its own rules.

TNRL secretary William Edwards said the expulsion was triggered by a complaint from the –that it was concerned that the mismanagement of Tongan Rugby League could damage the commercial success of the British Rugby League Lions tour of New Zealand in late 2019.

Edwards was appointed to the TRNL board in March last year following the removal of the previous board by the Tongan Supreme Court,

Edwards argued that the complaint was invalid because it was about an anticipated breach, not something that had actually happened.

TNRL officials have complained that while their appeal is underway the IRL was working to help establish a new governing body for Tonga.

They claimed this is outside of the international body’s constitutional mandate.

The TRNL initially co-operated with the IRL, but this stopped after its lawyers wrote to the IRL last November claiming the international body had no power to suspend a member pending an investigation.

The IRL said it had been working with members of the Tongan rugby league community who it deemed to be acting in the best interests of Tongan rugby league.

“IRL has not imposed nor tried to impose structural reform on one of our members.”

Tonga has qualified for next year’s Rugby League World Cup (RLWC) by making the semi-finals at the 2017 World Cup. It has to regain membership of the IRL before it can compete in the UK in 2021.

Stay safe, be sensible; ignore the crazy talk on social media and let’s get through this together

By
Philip Cass
-

Kaniva commentary 

New Zealand went back into lockdown again this week after the discovery of a new cluster of Covid-19 infections.

Nobody yet knows where the virus came from or how it got into the country.

As a result, the government has put Auckland back  into level three and the rest of the country into level two.

Unfortunately, the reappearance of the virus also led to the reappearance of something just as bad – stupidity.

Swarms of shoppers nearly overwhelmed some supermarkets.

There have been reports of supermarket staff being abused and people panic buying because of rumours they had heard or things they had seen posted on the internet.

At Countdown in Henderson on Wednesday morning one woman approached the counter with a trolley piled high. When asked why she had so much, she replied that her husband had told her that he had heard that Countdown was going to close on Wednesday  and not re-open.

That wasn’t true.

Nor was the story – believed by some other shoppers – that Countdown was going to close at midday on Wednesday.

Fortunately we haven’t seen the mass idiocy that happened when we went into level four. This time, nobody is trying to buy a year’s supply of toilet paper.

Unfortunately, crazy rumours have still been spread on the internet.

Now there have been reports of online abuse aimed at people who tested positive in the new outbreak.

Health Minister Chris Hipkins has rightly  described the abuse as “disappointing and dangerous.”

He said people needed to be able to come forward for testing without worrying about  being attacked.

The Minister said people should not believe everything they read on social media. His comments came as rumours swirled online about where the Auckland cluster originated.

Nobody wants to be back at level three or, if you are outside Auckland, level two.

It means restrictions.

Tomorrow we cannot go to church in Auckland.

In Dunedin, which is now under level two, the super rugby clash between the Hurricanes and the Highlanders will go ahead in front of an empty stadium.

But let’s remind ourselves that when the new infections were discovered, we were still at level one, which  meant that we weren’t completely clear.

We had also been warned that the virus could come back.

And now it has.

Nobody wanted this, but now we have to get through it again and hope that with all the experience and knowledge that has been gained the virus will be  brought back under control.

Nobody  enjoys being in lockdown, whether it’s level two or three and nobody wants to go back to level four.

The best way for us to do that is to stay safe.

That means wearing masks, staying home and working from home if you can.

It also means not shouting at supermarket staff or anybody else trying to do their job.

It also means listening to what the government and medical authorities are saying and ignoring gossip and crazy talk on the internet.

Let’s stay safe, be sensible, ignore the rumours and get through this together.

– Kaniva News

Information in Tongan on what you can do in level three and two:

Kaniva mediawatch August 14, 2020

By
Kaniva Staff
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Warriors

Eliesa Katoa will take to the field with the Warriors for tonight’s game against the Panthers in the Central Coast stadium tonight.

Katoa, originally from Ha’apai will play in the2nd row in the 4th round of the current NRL season.

Tonight’s game comes after the Australian  media showered praise on the Warriors for the way they have followed the social distancing protocols surrounding training.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, journalist James Mathey said the Warriors’ behaviour put Australian teams to shame.

He quoted Katoa’s team-mate Chanel Harris-Tavita saying: “Our motto is ‘All In’ and as long as we stick together we will get through this.

“If we can survive this, who knows what we are capable of back in Auckland.”

Pacific Forum leadership

Tongan economist Amelia Kinahoi-Siamomua is one of five leading contenders to replace Dame Meg Taylor as next head of the Pacific Forum.

She is currently head of the Commonwealth’s Gender section and was the Regional Programme Director of the United Nations Development Fund’s (UNIFEM) Pacific Regional Office, based in Suva.

The other candidates are outgoing Cook Islands PM Henry Puna; Fiji’s former Foreign Minister Inoke Kubuabola; former Director General of the Pacific Community Dr Jimmie Rodgers and Gerald Zackios, the Marshall Islands Ambassador to the U.S.

However, according to Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat, the  leaders of the Micronesian countries have been reminding other Forum countries that they agreed last year that it was Micronesia’s turn to put their candidate forward.

Navy warning

The Head of the Touliki Masefield Naval base, Commander Taniela Tuita, has warned the public to be  better prepared when they put to sea.

His comments came after  the patrol vessel Neiafu rescued five beche de mer (sea cucumber) divers after their boat ran out of fuel.

The divers sailed to an island called Tokuu to dive, but on their way back their boat ran out of fuel and they drifted to the southern part of Fonualei.

They were rescued after calling for help on their VHF radio.

The Neiafu has been in the news lately after a series of encounters with yachts entering Tongan waters despite the kingdom’s borders being sealed.

UAE medical aid

The United Arab Emirates has sent 14 tonnes of medical supplies to Tonga and 13 other Pacific Island Countries.

The medical supplies including testing kits and person al protective equipment.

The UAE’s Charge d’Affaires in Wellington said the aid was part of the Emirates’ support for Pacific nations to cope with the Covid-19 outbreak.

Tonga opened an embassy in the UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi, in September last year.

Virus alerts

Melbourne Pacific community leader Rita Seumanuatafa has expressed concern that warnings that Stage 4 restrictions were being introduced in Melbourne were not translated into Pacific languages quickly enough.

There are about 5000 Tongans in Melbourne.

The new curfew came into effect only hours after the state government’s announcement.

Victoria’s Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Ros Spence, said  a message in English was released on the Department of Health and Human Services site and translated messages were added a few days later,

“Unfortunately it does take some time for the translated messages to go out because it’s important they are checked and double checked by accredited translators,” Ms Spence said.

China says frozen chicken wings from Brazil test positive for virus

By
Kaniva Staff
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By 

Consumers in the Chinese city of Shenzhen have been urged to exercise caution when buying imported frozen food after a surface sample of chicken wings from Brazil tested positive for coronavirus, according to a statement from the local government.

The positive sample appears to have been taken from the surface of the meat, while previously reported positive cases from other Chinese cities have been from the surface of packaging on imported frozen seafood.

The chicken came from an Aurora Alimentos plant in the southern state of Santa Catarina, according to a registration number given in the statement.

Virus tests of people who have possibly come into contact with the product, and tests of related products, all came back negative, the statement said. Consumers should be cautious when buying imported frozen foods and aquatic products, the government added.

Three packaging samples of imported frozen seafood tested positive for Covid-19 in Yantai, a northern city of Shandong province, the city government said on its official Weibo account Tuesday. State television Wednesday reported that the outside of an Ecuador frozen shrimp package tested positive for the virus in a restaurant in Wuhu, a city in China’s Anhui province. Packaging on Ecuador shrimps has also tested positive in Xi’an, state television said Thursday.

(Updates to add new report of virus on shrimp packaging in final paragraph)
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