Pacific News Briefs

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Three children have returned to Samoa after undergoing life-saving heart surgeries in Suva, Fiji.

Supported by Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Children’s Hospital Gift of Life surgical mission, the children all received free heart surgeries.

The surgeries were performed by the Hearts 4 Kids team from New Zealand and Australia, led by top Auckland surgeon, Dr Kirsten Finucane, a former head of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac Surgery at Starship and Auckland Hospitals.

They carried out the surgeries during the hospital’s surgical mission held from 19 to 30 July 2025.

His Excellency, Ali’ioaiga Feturi Elisaia, High Commissioner of Samoa to Fiji was invited as special guest speaker at the ceremony hosted for the first group of discharge patients including baby Pesei Tauuso from Samoa.

Baby Pesei Tauuso is only 9 months old. The other two children from Samoa blessed with heart surgeries were Kiana Mata 3 years old and Uaita Tavita 10 years old.

Deputy High Commissioner Ms Belinda Filo-Tafunai provided morale support to the children who underwent sugeries and also their parents especially their moms who had travelled from Samoa.

After the successful operations on all three children from Samoa, H.E Aliioaiga Feturi Elsiaia together with his staff from the Samoa High Commission visited Island Accommodation where the children were staying with their parents.

The High Commissioner and his team presented gifts and monetary cards to the families.

They congratulated the parents on the children’s full recovery and wished them well on their return to Samoa.

In total, 15 surgeries were carried out during the Hearts 4 Kids team who were on their third mission to Fiji.

This was the 21st surgical mission conducted at the hospital which continues to bring hope to families across the Pacific.

The Sai Sanjeevani Children’s Hospital is the only facility in the region offering completely free pediatric cardiac surgeries, giving children a second chance at life.

(Samoa High Commission to Fiji)

UNREASONABLE FORCE

A former Maui Police Department officer pleaded guilty Friday to one count of using unreasonable force against an arrestee. According to the plea agreement, on Jan. 6, 2024, Carlos Frate, 40, repeatedly tased the arrestee, even though the arrestee was not resisting or posing any threat. Frate admitted that he knew that his force was unjustified, but he nonetheless continued to tase the arrestee despite the arrestee’s pleas for him to stop.

“Officers who abuse their position of authority to inflict excessive force must be held accountable,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Civil Rights Division will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to investigate — and where appropriate, prosecute — alleged police misconduct.”

Frate faces a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. His final sentence will be determined at a hearing scheduled for Jan. 6, 2026 by U.S. District Judge Micah W. J. Smith based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the case based on a referral from the Maui Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael F. Albanese for the District of Hawaii and Trial Attorney Julia White of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section.

(U.S. Dept. of Justice)

COOK ISLANDS CONSIDERS EXTENDING DEEP SEA MINING LICENSES

The Cook Islands government is considering extending its deep sea mining exploration licenses.

The Cook Islands is three-and-a-half years into its five-year exploration phase.

After the exploration phase is the potential for mining, or as the Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority (SBMA) calls it "harvesting", but mining can only happen if companies can prove to the government, it can take place without causing serious environmental harm.

SBMA partnerships and cooperation director Edward Herman said an extension of the exploration phase is being looked at.

"There is a likelihood of [the exploration license] being extended because if we cannot get the data within the next year and a half it's very likely that we'll need to extend it," Herman said.

"Sometimes license holders can perform a lot of work within a year and a half but at the moment it's tough. It's very challenging, not only for our license holders, but for us as an agency, as a regulator."

Herman said more information is needed before a decision is made on whether mining can proceed.

"We need baseline data to make an ethical, informed, science-based decision, so if the data is not available, we will require more data."

Hans Smit, the chief executive officer of deep sea mining company Moana Minerals said an extension of an exploration license is "definitely" needed for his company.

"If you just look at the time it takes for the Cook Islands to assess and evaluate our environmental permit application and our mining license application, there's not enough time. If I were to submit tomorrow, I wouldn't have an answer before my exploration license expired."

But Smit is bullish about the industry. If everything goes to plan, which he said is a big if, mining could start in 2028/2029.

"It's not a question of if we go mining, it's a question of when we go mining," he said.

"We certainly haven't run into any massive abundance of animals that could create a problem. We are also seeing that the animals that we are seeing are reasonably dispersed across the greater Cook Islands area… as far as the biodata is concerned, we can show that we won't do significant harm.

"Everywhere we're looking, we are yet to find something that we feel is a potential roadblock that's going to stop us from moving forward."

Smit said he felt there was enough data to start mining but not enough to underpin a mining application.

He said more data is needed over a period of time to show the conclusions reached are not outliers.

Environmental NGO Te Ipukarea Society president June Hosking thinks exploration is a good but worries the focus is on how commercially viable the industry is, not so much on what the environmental implications of mining would be.

"I personally think if they do honest exploration they would discover it's not a good idea to mine that it's going to do too much damage to the environment and the only way to prove that is to do the exploration," she said.

"It would be nice if people just left the whole thing alone, but humans aren't like that."

Smit said Moana Minerals had mapped 15 percent of the Cook Islands exclusive economic zone and had more than 100 hours of sea floor nodules.

He said the Moana Minerals mining system design is complete and the vessel that would be used for mining had been identified.

"What we are waiting for is at what point do we decide to pull the trigger and start doing that work, to convert this ship into the mining vessel."

On the processing side, Smit said the company had developed its own metal extraction process, which has been proven in a laboratory scale.

He said the company is now testing if nodules could be processed at a higher capacity.

(RNZ Pacific)

GROWING DEBATE' ON LGBTQIA+ ISSUES

Vanuatu's government denies it is trying to marginalize LGBTQIA+ people with the "two sexes law".

"Everybody has the right to have access to whatever services the government has, or employment," government spokesperson Kiery Manassah said.

He also rejected comments that people with diverse genders had always been part of Vanuatu society.

"These are influences that are coming from outside," Manassah said.

"When you talk about LGBT … those things are completely foreign to our communities.

"As far as the government is concerned, we want to draw the line so that when people come into the country, we expect them to respect our country, just as when we go to their countries, we respect [them]."

LGBTQIA+ people face violence, marginalization and discrimination across the region, and many Pacific countries still have anti-LGBTQIA+ laws.

(Hawaii News Now)