Pacific News Briefs

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Cook Islands police have called off the search for 22-year-old Luke Vakayawa who fell overboard from an inter- island ferry over the weekend.

Luke, from Fiji, was a crew member on Lady Moana, which was returning to Rarotonga from Mangaia.

Police spokesperson Trevor Pitt said the lifesaver ring that had been deployed when Vakayawa went overboard was found on Tuesday.

"The search and rescue operation was assessed this morning in discussions between the maritime commander and the commissioner and it was agreed that the search and rescue be stood down given that the patrol boat conducted quite a comprehensive search of the location area where the man was missing," Pitt said.

The police patrol boat was dispatched searching for Luke since Sunday morning, local time, and continued searching until Monday night, local time.

On Sunday at around 3.43am, police patrol boat Te Kukupa II received a distress call reporting a man overboard from the cargo vessel.

The crew was mobilized and dispatched early Sunday morning and at 8.45am, Te Kukupa II reached the location of Lady Moana, which had no success in recovering the man, after nine hours.

"It was decided the patrol boat has done as much as it could."

Pitt said police will now reach out to the father and it is up to the coroner to decide what the next steps will be.

He said he did not know what the ocean conditions were like during the voyage.

The father of Luke, Vuli Vakayawa, is also the captain of the inter-island ferry Lady Moana.

VANUATU LAWYER SHORTAGE

Vanuatu's Legal Offices say they are battling on despite a lawyer shortage.

The Vanuatu Daily Post reported the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Office of the Public Prosecutor (PP), and Public Solicitor's (PS) Office are all in need of more lawyers.

Attorney General, Arnold Kiel Loughman, says his office has several vacant positions, including a Principal State Counsel, a Junior State Counsel, a Senior State Counsel, and an Assistant Senior State Counsel.

Lawyers who have jobs say the workload has become overwhelming.

"The number of cases they are dealing with daily is just too much," the Attorney-General said.

SOLOMONS VISA ARRANGEMENT

The Solomon Islands prime minister is seeking to establish reciprocal visa arrangements with Japan.

Jeremiah Manele expressed his interest in the immigration arrangement to his counterpart Kishida Fumio in Tokyo at the recent PALM leaders summit.

The Solomon Star reported Prime Minister Kishida acknowledging Manele's request, saying they would consider the proposal.

Solomon Islands passport holders are currently able to travel to more than 140 destinations without a visa most of which are in Asia, Africa and Europe.

In recent years, Australia and New Zealand have come under increasing pressure from Pacific leaders to consider reciprocal visa arrangements with Pacific Island countries.

ILLICIT DRUG TRADE

Fiji police are reiterating calls for an all of country effort to curb the illicit drug trade in the country.

The Fiji Times reported this comes after school children in the north of the country were caught with drugs in their possession.

Divisional police commander Kemueili Baledrokadroka told the paper a 14-year-old student who was recently apprehended told officers he had been using drugs for a long time.

Baledrokadroka said marijuana is more prevalent in the north than methamphetamine.

He called on the government and leaders to work together to help address the "serious issue" saying police cannot do it on their own.

FIJI TOURISM

Arrival numbers from Fiji Bureau of Statistics show an increase by 2.3 percent for this June compared to a year earlier.

There were more than 92,000 visitors this year compared to 90,000 in 2023.

The June figures show that post-pandemic visitor arrival numbers have now fully recovered and even surpassed pre-COVID-19 numbers by 8.1 percent.

Over 91,000 of last month’s visitors came by air, while 1200 came by sea.

Most of those arriving by sea were fisherman, while around 500 were yachties.

VETTING INVESTORS

The President of the autonomous Papua New Guinea region of Bougainville, Ishmael Toroama, says landowners need to engage with credible investors.

He said some exploration licenses had been granted to various local joint venture companies but these projects have come to nothing because the landowners were aligned with non-genuine investors.

Toroama said the government is always ready to help landowners vet investors, using the Bougainville Inward Investment Act.

He also said circumventing the government means landowners and their investors can have problems meeting the administration's compliance standards.

SEASONAL WORKER NUMBERS INCREASE

Numbers in Australia's expanded labour mobility scheme have grown by 450 percent in the past five years.

In June 2019, there were just under 6000 Pacific Australian Labor Mobility (PALM) scheme visa holders in Australia and as of May this year there are over 32,000.

The Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University said "rapid growth" of the scheme has resulted in "a big shake-up".

It puts this down to several factors, including the preference given to PALM workers during the Covid pandemic and the expansion of the scheme from only seasonal to multi-year work.

The Center also points to very high growth by some of the countries supplying the workers.

According to data from the Department of Home Affairs, Fiji has become the biggest supplier, now up to 6,379 after being at just 266 in 2019.

Vanuatu is close behind at 6217 but it was at 2215 in 2019.

There are also significant numbers from Solomon Islands, Tonga and Timor Leste.

"The massive growth over the last five years has undermined the benefit gained from being a first-mover, and given other countries a second chance. Negative publicity around PALM in some of the early big senders, especially Samoa and Vanuatu, has encouraged employers to look elsewhere," Devpolicy's Richard Cain and Stephen Howes wrote.

"And the introduction of entirely new industries into PALM has reduced the advantage that early movers had in horticulture via their experienced return workers."

(Source: RNZ Pacific)