By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer The polarizing politics of climate change have forced companies to choose between supporting the Trump administration’s deregulation policies that could boost profits or opposing them to win over environmentally conscious consumers. That dynamic played out again Thursday when President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency sought to revoke regulations on […]
Category: Pacific News
Posted inPacific News
White powder in the blue continent
Lost shipments of cocaine drift through Pacific islands region, cast ashore on white sandy beaches and falling into the hands of unsuspecting locals. HAGATNA (PACIFIC ISLAND TIMES)—In March last year, local authorities seized 35 lbs of cocaine from the home of Robert Afaisen in Inarajan. The cocaine contained in a plastic barrel marooned into Afaisen’s […]
Posted inPacific News
NZ and Australia plan to lower remittances costs in Pacific
WELLINGTON, 09 SEPTEMBER 2019 (RNZ PACIFIC) —New Zealand is in talks with Australia to lower hefty money transfer fees in several Pacific Island countries, as “stubbornly high” costs strain the region’s economies and hamper UN targets. Remittances are a key source of earnings for many Pacific families who have relatives working abroad and the intervention […]
Posted inPacific News
Pacific’s plastic problem 20 times the global average
APIA, 09 SEPTEMBER 2019 (SAMOA OBSERVER)—The Pacific Islands may be generating 20 times the global average of the plastic waste that ends up in our oceans, new research has found. A report released by Japanese experts last month reveals mismanagement of plastic waste from the region accounts for 2.7 of the 12.12 million tonnes of […]
Posted inPacific News
Samoa media group calls for rethink of proposed law to criminalise Government leakers
APIA, 09 SEPTEMBER 2019 (SAMOA OBSERVER) —The President of the Journalists Association of (Western)) Samoa (JAWS) Rudy Bartley, has called on the Government to dump its proposal to criminalise the leaking of Government documents with punishments of up to seven years’ jail. Bartley said the Association is concerned by the planned amendment to the Crimes […]
Posted inPacific News
Measles: ‘We should expect the worst’
RAROTONGA, 09 SEPTEMBER 2019 (COOK ISLANDS NEWS)—Health officials charged with preventing a measles outbreak say they are “expecting the worst”. There have been no cases of the highly infectious disease reported yet, but Health Secretary Dr Josephine Aumea Herman says she can’t rule out undiagnosed cases. “It would be naive to believe the island is […]