Senior transport and energy officials meet in Nadi ahead of ministers’ meeting

Senior officials responsible for energy and transport in Pacific Island countries and territories gathered in Nadi, Fiji on Monday to participate in two days of meetings ahead of the Pacific Regional Energy and Transport (Aviation and Maritime) Ministers’ Meeting, which starts today. The officials’ meeting, organised by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) in…

Simberi mine promotes safety among communities

ST Barbara’s Simberi operations in New Ireland has focused on community involvement to promote the national safety week which ended last Friday. Health and Safety superintendent Daan Van Pletzen said the company was putting more stress on schools around the island. Activities on Simberi began the previous Sunday, which saw nine different departments in the…

Japan joins Pacific infrastructure body

Usually when you are talking of billions of dollars of investment in the Pacific you are talking about countries like Papua New Guinea or East Timor. But, in terms of infrastructure, there is an organisation that has a budget of well over one billion dollars to invest in small Pacific countries.  The Pacifc Regional Infrastrucutre…

No firepower

VODAFONE Fiji 7s coach Ben Ryan says lethargic play resulted in the poor performance of the national side in the final day of the Hong Kong 7s tournament at the Hong Kong Stadium on Sunday. Fiji lost in the Cup semi-final to England 7-17 Sunday night. Earlier the side struggled to beat United States in…

AFL season swings into action

The Solomon Islands AFL season got underway last week with old and new rivalries igniting some fierce competition and exciting football. The stage was set on Thursday evening for the opening match with old rivals: White River and KG Sharks both keen to start the season off with a win. The Demons took full advantage…

Sports bring changes

Bethany community in North Guadalcanal has seen the impact of engaging youths in sports activities. Since male youths from the community formed their own football club (FC) sometimes ago, it brought the youths together, get busy while engaging in organised football competition that have been organised in North Guadalcanal. Bethany is located in the Ngalimbiu…

Women soccer here dormant?

CONCERNS have been raised over the inactiveness of the Solomon Islands Football Federation (SIFF) governing body in not promptly finding sponsorship to help revive the women’s soccer league here in the country. Speaking to this paper, several former national women soccer players said that they standard and level of women’s soccer in the country was…

Shipping commission meets

On 1 January this year, the Central Pacific Shipping Commission (CPSC) became operational. Work to achieve this began after the governments of Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru and Tuvalu signed a regional agreement on international commercial shipping in 2010. CPSC is an initiative born out of the call of leaders in Pacific small island states to…

Internet speed plans

LIKE mobile phones, the internet is a need for many ordinary consumers in today’s modern technology-driven society. Internet service providers (ISPs) understand the demand and have tried to attract consumers with promotions highlighting how faster their speeds are or how generous they are with data. The fact is that consumers are hooked on to their…

CBSI on monetary policy stance

The Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) board has decided in its meeting on Thursday 27th March 2014 to move away from the moderate contractionary monetary policy stance that prevailed in the recent six months to a neutral monetary policy stance over the next six months. The decision reflects current inflation trends and expected macroeconomic…