Pacific News In Brief For 17 July
A dengue fever outbreak in Samoa has claimed the life of a second child.
The Sāmoa Observer reports Faith Melchior, 8, died in hospital on Monday night.
She is the second child to die from dengue in Sāmoa this year - 12-year-old Misiafa Lene died in April.
Fiji, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Tonga, French Polynesia and American Sāmoa have also declared outbreaks.
Tuvalu and Nauru are on alert for the disease.
Pacific - trade
A meeting of trade ministers from the Pacific Island Forum's African, Caribbean and Pacific States is underway in Suva.
New Zealand's Nicola Grigg said it is a timely opportunity to discuss the importance of the rules-based trading system, with the World Trade Organisation at its core.
She said the structure is vital for small Pacific island nations, including New Zealand.
Vanuatu/France - cable
France is committing around US$20 to new undersea technology linking Vanuatu and New Caledonia, which will better prepare the Pacific for natural disasters.
SMART will be the world's first Science Monitoring And Reliable Telecommunications submarine cable.
French Ambassador to Vanuatu Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer said the cable will be fitted with sensors to measure sea temperature and seismic activity.
He said it will help monitor climate change and - crucially - provide early warnings for tsunamis.
The Vanutu Daily Post reported that the cable is expected to be in operation sometime next year.
It will link Port Vila with Lifou Island in New Caledonia's Loyalty Islands group, traversing the seismically active New Hebrides Trench.
Vanuatu - election
Vanuatu's Electoral Commission says the verification of ballot boxes for the recent Provincial and By-Elections should be completed later today.
According to the Vanuatu Daily Post, once that is done, the Commission can officially announce final results.
The election was held on 8 July and attracted good voter turnout.
The Commission has thanked all who participated - describing the election process as smooth and peaceful.
Political parties have already begun lobbying to form new provincial governments.
Fiji - HIV
Fiji's HIV prevention taskforce says the country's law enforcement is actively hindering public health efforts.
The United Nations reports a massive surge in HIV cases last year - numbers are up 284 percent.
Around half of all cases were caused by intravenous drug use.
Taskforce chair Dr Jason Mitchell told Pasifika TV there is a concerning lack of cooperation between the health sector and police.
Northern Marianas - cuts
Schools in the Northern Marianas are bracing for a possible fiscal cliff, according to the Board of Education.
Governor Arnold Palacios is planning substantial cuts to the education budget allocation.
The government is proposing a US$40 million dollar grant but the Public School System has requested just over 49 million dollars.
Board of Education has testified that if the government's proposal is implemented they could be forced to declare a state of emergency in education.
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NZ Herald
28 minutes ago
- NZ Herald
Economies race to avoid steeper tariffs before Friday, US and China hold talks tomorrow in Sweden
Where do other US trade talks stand? South Korea: Extra pressure Seoul is racing to reach a deal with Washington, as Tokyo's success in landing an agreement has 'amped up the pressure for South Korea', a government source told AFP. Local media reported that Seoul was preparing to propose more than US$100 billion in investment as part of a broader agreement, with expected participation by major firms such as Samsung and Hyundai Motor. The South Korean Government did not confirm this. South Korean officials have outlined proposals to deepen collaboration in sectors like shipbuilding, semiconductors, and batteries. National Security Adviser Wi Sung Lak has told reporters that the two countries are in 'the final and most crucial phase of negotiations' to avert Trump's proposed 25% duty. India: Cautious optimism Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal told Bloomberg Television last week that he was optimistic his country could reach an agreement with the US to avert Washington's 26% tariff threat. Goyal insisted there were not any sticking points in the US-India relationship or in trade talks and clarified that immigration rules - including those around H-1B visas for skilled workers - had not come up in negotiations. Despite Goyal's remarks, local media reported the prospects of an interim deal before August 1 had dimmed. Taiwan: Working hard Taiwanese Premier Cho Jung Tai said last week that officials are 'working hard' on negotiations, amid worries that an unfavourable tariff level could hit the self-ruled island's economy. Vice-President Hsiao Bi Khim said Taipei's negotiating team was 'working almost 24 hours a day to achieve trade balance and Taiwan's industrial interests, and even to further deepen co-operation'. Canada, Mexico: Deal unclear Although Canada and Mexico were spared from Trump's 'reciprocal' tariffs announced in April, goods from both countries entering the US generally face a separate 25% duty if they fall outside a North American trade pact. This figure stands to jump to 30% for Mexico come August 1, while the level for Canada was set at 35%. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her Administration was 'doing everything' possible to avert the duties and that she would speak with Trump if necessary to try to reach a pact. Trump told reporters at the weekend there was no deal with Canada so far. Brazil: Political nature Brazil is girding for a virtual trade embargo on its planes, grains, and other goods if Trump's threatened 50% tariff on its exports takes effect on August 1. The US runs a trade surplus with Latin America's biggest economy, which was not originally expected to face steeper tariffs under Trump's 'reciprocal' duties plan. Trump has not attempted to hide the political motivation in targeting Brazil, citing a judicial 'witch hunt' against his right-wing ally, former president Jair Bolsonaro, when he unveiled the tariff rate. The political nature of the spat makes a last-minute deal appear less likely. Tariff categories Here is a summary of duties Trump has introduced in his second term. Global tariffs US 'reciprocal' tariffs - imposed under legally contentious emergency powers - are due to jump from 10% to various steeper levels for a list of dozens of economies. The hikes were to take effect on July 9 but Trump postponed them days before imposition, marking a second delay since their shock unveiling in April. A 10% 'baseline' levy on most partners, which Trump imposed in April, remains in place. Certain products like pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber are excluded from Trump's 'reciprocal' tariffs but may face separate action under different authorities. This has been the case for steel, aluminium, and soon copper. Gold and silver, alongside energy commodities, are also exempted. Canada, Mexico Canadian and Mexican products were hit by 25% US tariffs shortly after Trump returned to office, with a lower rate for Canadian energy. Trump targeted both neighbours over illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking, also invoking emergency powers. Products entering the United States under the USMCA North American free trade pact, covering large swathes of goods, are expected to remain exempt - with Canadian energy resources and potash, used as fertiliser, to still face lower rates. China focus Trump has also taken special aim at China. The world's two biggest economies engaged in an escalating tariffs war this year before their temporary pullback. The countries imposed triple-digit duties on each other at one point, a level described as a trade embargo. After high level talks, Washington lowered its levies on Chinese goods to 30% and Beijing slashed its own to 10%. This pause is set to expire on August 12, and officials will meet for further talks tomorrow in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. The US level is higher as it includes a 20% tariff over China's alleged role in the global fentanyl trade. Beyond expansive tariffs on Chinese products, Trump ordered the closure of a duty-free exemption for low-value parcels from the country. This adds to the cost of importing items like clothing and small electronics. Autos, metals Trump has targeted individual business sectors too, under more conventional national security grounds, imposing a 25% levy on steel and aluminium imports which he later doubled to 50%. The US President has unveiled plans for a 50% tariff on copper imports starting August 1 as well and rolled out a 25% tariff on imported autos, although those entering under the USMCA can qualify for a lower rate. Trump's auto tariffs impact vehicle parts too, but new rules ensure automakers paying vehicle tariffs will not also be charged for certain other duties. He has ongoing investigations into imports of lumber, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and critical minerals that could trigger further duties. Legal challenges Several legal challenges have been filed against the tariffs Trump invoked citing emergencies. The US Court of International Trade ruled in May that the President had overstepped his authority, but a federal appeals court has allowed the duties to remain while it considers the case. If these tariffs are ultimately ruled illegal, companies could possibly seek reimbursements. -Agence France-Presse
NZ Herald
8 hours ago
- NZ Herald
US farmers fear Trump immigration crackdown threatens food security
'There's a whole food chain involved,' from field workers to truck drivers to people working in packing houses and in sales. 'It's just, everybody's scared,' she said - even a multi-generational American like her. 'I'm nervous and I'm scared, because we're feeling like we're being attacked.' Other farmers contacted by AFP declined to speak to the media, saying they feared potential reprisals from the Trump administration. Worker shortages The agricultural sector has for years been trying to find permanent solutions for its perennial labour shortages, beyond issuing temporary permits for migrant workers. 'Some of the work we have is seasonal,' Tate says. 'But really, around here, we need workers that are year-round.' The number of government-certified positions for temporary agricultural workers practically tripled between 2014 and 2024, Department of Labour statistics show, underlining just how much American agriculture depends on foreign workers. On top of that, some 42% of farm workers are not authorised to work in the United States, according to a 2022 study by the Department of Agriculture. Those numbers line up with the struggles many farmers go through to find labour. They say US citizens are not interested in the physically demanding work, with its long days under extreme temperatures, rain and sun. Against that backdrop, Tate warns that removing people who are actually doing the work will cause immeasurable damage. Not only will it harm farms and ranches, which could take years to recover, it will also send food prices soaring, and even endanger US food security, possibly requiring the country to start importing provisions that may previously have been grown at home, she says. 'What we really need is some legislation that has the type of programme that we need, and that works for both the workers, that ensures their safety, it ensures a fair playing field when it comes to international trade, as well as domestic needs,' Tate said. 'Everyone loses' Some farmworkers agreed to speak to AFP on condition of not being fully identified, for fear of being arrested. 'All we do is work,' a worker named Silvia told AFP. She saw several friends arrested in a raid in Oxnard, about 16km west of Ventura. The 32-year-old Mexican lives in constant fear that she will be the next one picked up and, in the end, separated from her two US-born daughters. 'We're between a rock and a hard place. 'If we don't work, how will we pay our bills? 'And if we go out, we run the risk of running into them,' she said, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. 'The way the government is working right now, everybody loses,' said Miguel, who has been working in the fields of southern California for three decades. The 54-year-old said that workers are losing jobs, farm owners are losing their labour, and as a result, the United States is losing its food. Miguel has worked in various agriculture sector jobs, including during the Covid-19 pandemic. All of them were 'very hard jobs,' he said. Now he feels like he has a target on his back. 'They should do a little research so they understand. The food they eat comes from the fields, right?' he said. 'So it would be good if they were more aware, and gave us an opportunity to contribute positively, and not send us into hiding.' - Agence France-Presse
NZ Herald
10 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Not only are rising seas causing people to leave, but warming waters are forcing out tuna
By morning's end, the pair had caught eight tuna - a haul far smaller than when Petaia's father taught him to fish 30 years earlier. 'We have to spend longer and go farther to get them,' the 48-year-old said as the fishermen unloaded their catch. 'I'm not sure there will be any tuna left by the time I'm my uncle's age,' added Smoliner, 22. Tuna is a pillar of life in the Pacific, where for centuries people have braved the ocean to bring back yellowfin, skipjack, bigeye and albacore for their families. In recent decades, as global demand for tuna has soared, Pacific Island nations including Tuvalu have propped up their struggling economies by selling licences to allow international fishing companies to trawl their vast exclusive economic zones. These seas provide as much as one-third of the world's tuna supply. But climate change is warming the world's oceans at an accelerating rate, threatening livelihoods. Scientists predict that climate change will push tuna away from Pacific Island nations and towards the high seas, where wealthier countries with large fishing fleets - China, Japan, South Korea and the United States - will catch them without paying licence fees. It is yet another climate danger for a country - population 10,000 - whose existence is already threatened by rising seas, increasingly powerful storms, and a potential exodus of people. 'It's ironic that the ocean, which has been the sustainer of our livelihood and economy, suddenly poses all these threats to us,' Tuvalu's Prime Minister, Feleti Teo, said in an interview here. Ranol Smoliner, right, and his uncle Kauaka Petaia fish for tuna in the Pacific Ocean near Funafuti, Tuvalu, in early April. Photo / Carolyn Van Houten, the Washington Post This low-lying atoll nation has become a premonition of climate change. Its leaders have made desperate pleas - including one delivered while thigh-deep in water - about the existential threat of rising sea levels. The potential exodus of fish threatens to strip Tuvalu and other Pacific Island nations of the very money they need to fight the impacts of global warming. About 60% of Tuvalu's locally generated government revenue comes from fees foreign countries pay to fish for tuna in its waters, Teo said. That revenue has plunged by about 40% over the past five or so years, denting the tiny nation's overall budget by almost 6%. Scientists say it's hard to know how much of that recent drop is due to climate change as opposed to natural migration linked to ocean cycles. But scientific modelling suggests Tuvalu could lose one-quarter of its tuna by 2050. Efforts are under way to help Tuvalu and 13 of its neighbours track how tuna populations are shifting and to demand remuneration. They were recently awarded more than US$100 million ($166m) from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to help adapt. 'Pacific Island countries are fighting hard to establish our rights to be compensated for fish that are caught in the high seas,' Teo said. 'If we are able to definitively assert that the stock that used to occur in our EEZ is now in the high seas as a result of climate change, then that will strengthen our case.' Warming waters are also bleaching local corals, depleting reef fish that Tuvaluans depend on for food. Some of the fund grant will go towards fish aggregation devices: floating structures that help lure larger ocean fish, including tuna, closer to shore for locals to catch. Coral bleaching also disrupts the natural wave protection of atolls like Tuvalu and the replenishment of their shores, said Arthur Webb, who led the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project to reclaim swathes of desperately needed land in the capital. Each day, a dredging machine in Funafuti's lagoon sucks up sand and pumps it onto reclaimed areas. Sand is also pumped into large bags that are stacked to form protective seawalls. The new land is left to settle before building, which has yet to begin. Tuvalu's ring-shaped land mass covers only 26sqkm and is less than 1.5km across at its widest point, sometimes narrowing to a mere 18m. Photo / Carolyn Van Houten, the Washington Post Tuvalu is roughly 1.5m above mean sea level. Its waters are now rising by about 2.5cm every five years - well above the global average - and estimated to reach 60 to 90cm by 2100, according to Moritz Wandres, an oceanographer with the Pacific Community. By 2060, once-in-50-year floods are predicted to occur every five years, rendering Tuvalu uninhabitable without large-scale adaptation efforts, Wandres said. King tides already routinely inundate much of Funafuti, where motorbikes splash through the water seeping up through the sandy ground. Tuvalu is preparing. It has amended its constitution to protect its statehood and maritime zones, even if it no longer has any land. And it announced a plan to clone itself in the metaverse, preserving its history and culture online. In 2023, Australia provided a more tangible escape plan when it created special visas, at least in part, to help up to 280 Tuvaluans per year escape the wrath of climate change. More than 80% of Tuvalu's population - or 8750 people - has applied for the visa, according to official Australian figures released last week. The predicted decline in tuna will only hasten the outflux. 'This is our only resource,' said Laitailiu Seono, a Fisheries Department officer, as he carved up tuna to be dried and sold. 'That's why we really want to look after them. No fish, no job.' Compounding Tuvalu's anxieties, the US Trump Administration has dealt Pacific Island nations another blow, suspending US$60m per year in South Pacific Tuna Treaty funds for the region - part of a long-standing deal to guarantee US fishing access. During his presidency, Joe Biden promised to double the tuna treaty funds in a bid to counteract China's efforts to woo Pacific Island countries. Instead, Teo said, Tuvalu had yet to receive roughly US$7m it had been counting on: 'A big hole in our projected revenue'. Children play on a seawall surrounding reclaimed land in Funafuti. Tuvalu, a low-lying island nation endangered by rising seas, is building up swathes of land for housing, even as many inhabitants contemplate leaving. Photo / Carolyn Van Houten, the Washington Post At the same time, President Donald Trump's decision to open up the 400,000-square-mile (1,100,000sqkm) Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to commercial fishing suggested he could scrap the treaty altogether. Like other Trump Administration moves - pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, cutting US Agency for International Development funding and climate financing, and potentially putting travel restrictions on some Pacific countries, including Tuvalu - abandoning the treaty would hurt America's strategic interests and boost that of its stated rival, China, said Alan Tidwell, director of the Centre for Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific Studies at Georgetown University in the US. 'If the US pulls out totally from the Pacific, then someone has to fill that role,' agreed Teo, whose nation is one of only three in the region that still recognise Taiwan instead of China. 'And we know who is eager.' A State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the department 'will continue … to align its activities and programmes with the foreign policy priorities of the president and the secretary.' When Kauaka Petaia returned to shore, his son Siuele was there to help him unload the tuna. The 27-year-old said he had no desire to follow in his father's footsteps. Instead, he would soon head to Australia to work in a meatpacking plant, where the pay is more certain. 'By 2030 or 2050,' he said, 'I don't know if tuna fishing will still be a job in Tuvalu.'
