Fiji’s Health Minister Dr Ratu Antonio Lalabalavu has defended the government’s handling of the country’s HIV crisis.

HIV is surging in Fiji with at least 9000 people — or nearly one percent of the population — reported to be now infected.

There are concerns that the real figure could be significantly higher, with global health experts saying HIV is historically under-reported.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) believes the country has been gripped by an “escalating HIV outbreak”.

The island nation declared an HIV outbreak in January last year, with the government calling it “a national crisis” and regional health experts warning that it could spread across the region.

Dr Lalabalavu told Pacific Waves that despite the rising tide of infection the government’s response to the crisis had been “responsible”.

“Look at the [HIV] trend and how it started, it goes way back to 2017, 2018. We are the government that recognised it and now we are doing something about it.”

Budget allocation
The government allocated FJ$10 million (US$4.4 million) in last year’s Budget towards initiatives designed to tackle the problem, he said.

“From last year there have been government initiatives put in place to ensure that we do try and get this under control.”

“In 2025, Fiji recorded 2003 new diagnoses, up from 1583 in 2024, with the national rate diagnosis rising to 226 per 100,000, up from 13 per 100,000 in 2019 — a 17-fold increase,” he said.

“Men remain more affected, but the gap is narrowing, showing that infection is increasingly affecting women and families.”

On top of that, a new trend has emerged showing that the number of HIV-positive newborns is on the rise, according to the head of Fiji’s National HIV Outbreak and Cluster Response team, Dr Jason Mitchell.

Sixty babies were born with HIV last year, up from 31 cases in 2024 and more than 3 percent of women attending antenatal care in Fiji were testing positive for HIV, with the number slightly higher in the capital, Suva, Dr Mitchell said.

One baby is being diagnosed with HIV every week due to mother-to-child transmission, and one child is dying every month from advanced HIV disease.

Mother-to-child transmission
Mother-to-baby transmission is a growing concern, according to treatment support worker Dashika Balak.

“They (the mothers) test negatively initially but over the course of the pregnancy they acquire HIV,” Balak said.

“This is a new trend that we are seeing, because these women may not have risky behaviours but most of the partners are injecting drug users and in pregnancy people do have sex.”

Testing during pregnancy is now underway to reduce the risk of transmission to babies, she said.

Dr Lalabalavu has admitted that sexual promiscuity and drug use among youth in particular are huge contributing factors in the HIV epidemic.

Asked exactly how the government planned to address this, he said “a behavioural change programme” was needed to ensure that happens.

“It is part of the plan, you need good planning and a programme to ensure that is implemented across the board,” he said.

“It is not just something for the Ministry of Health, it’s for the various ministries, important stakeholders, the vanua, the church and the family in general.”

“We will have to tread carefully in terms of how it is accepted within the community, and also we need to look into the legal aspect of it. So we are in the final stages of ensuring that the programme is endorsed.”

Cultural and religious beliefs played a part in the sensitivity around the issue in Fiji, he said.

“First of all, you need to create awareness that by doing this we are not advocating for drug use. That is the challenge and the narrative that we need the general public are aware of,” he said.

“Right now we are looking at avenues to ensure that we get the message to important stakeholders such as the community, the vanua, and religious-based organisations that are here.”

“We want to tap into their capabilities so they can, together with the ministry, pass this message along to their congregations and to the public at large,” he said.

Echoing this, Mitchell told Fiji’s state broadcaster that introducing the programme would not be easy, given the negative reactions in the past when condom use and family planning were phased in.

He said health officials were accused of promoting promiscuity among youth, when they were responding to public health needs.

However, he stressed that the needle and syringe programme was crucial to reducing HIV and Hepatitis C infections in the country.

Needle sharing is described as widespread in group settings, leading to infection clusters within families and communities.

The Health Minister said he expected that by the time the programme went public, it would be well accepted by the people.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

TVNZ’s 1News Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver has released a new memoir looking back at over 30 years of reporting in the region.

The book, titled Be Brave, details moments in Dreaver’s career in the Pacific from covering natural disasters to coups and personal tragedies.

Speaking to Pacific Waves, Dreaver said she wanted readers to see the Pacific through her eyes.

“Be Brave” – Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver reflects   Video: RNZ Pacific Waves

“The Pacific is so important to the world, it is important to New Zealand and Australia and I thought, if I show it like the real stories . . .  what happens behind the scenes that it just might provide, you know, share that joy really of the Pacific with people.

“I’m really concerned about the way the region is going at the moment, and I think there’s volatile times ahead and so I really decided some time ago that I wanted to record it and record, for my family as well.”

The Kiribati-born journalist also encourages up and coming Pacific journalists to report “without fear or favour”.

“When people say to you, as a Pacific journalist ‘you’re not being culturally aware’ . . .  we know what’s culturally aware.

“We do and quite often people in power use it as a means of stopping you reporting.

“So you have to be really aware of the boundaries on that.”

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New Zealand’s police commissioner says he understands the potential impact the country’s criminal deportees have on smaller Pacific Island nations.

Commissioner Richard Chambers’ comments on RNZ Pacific Waves come as the region’s police bosses gathered for the annual Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police conference in Waitangi.

The meeting, which is closed to media, began yesterday.

Chambers said a range of issues were on the agenda, including transnational organised crime and the training of police forces.

Across the Pacific, the prevalence of methamphetamine and its role in driving social, criminal and health crises have thrust the problem of organised crime into the spotlight.

Commissioner Chambers said New Zealand had offered support to its fellow Pacific nations to combat transnational organised crime, in particular around the narcotics trade.

Deportation policies
However, the country’s own transnational crime advisory group also identified the country’s deportation policies as a “significant contributor to the rise of organised crime in the Pacific”.

In 2022, a research report showed that New Zealand returned 400 criminal deportees to Pacific nations between 2013 and 2018.

The report from the Lowy Institute also said criminal deportees from New Zealand, as well as Australia and the US, were a significant contributor to transnational crime in the Pacific.

When Chambers was asked about the issue and whether New Zealand’s criminal deportation policy undermined work against organised crime across the region, he said it had not been raised with him directly.

“The criminal networks that we are dealing with, in particular those such as the cartels out of South America, the CJNG [cartels] and Sinaloa cartels, who really do control a lot of the cocaine and also methamphetamine trades, also parts of Asia with the Triads,” Commissioner Chambers said.

“I know that the Pacific commissioners that I work with are very, very focused on what we can do to combat and disrupt a lot of that activity at source, in both Asia and South America.

“So that’s where our focus has been, and that’s what the commissioners have been asking me for in terms of support.”

Pacific nation difficulties
He said he understood the difficulties law enforcement in Pacific nations faced regarding criminal deportees, as New Zealand faced similar challenges under Australia’s deportation policy.

In New Zealand, the country’s returned nationals from Australia are known as 501 deportations, named after the section of the Australian Migration Act which permits their deportation due to criminal convictions.

These individuals have often spent the majority of their lives in Australia and have no family or ties to New Zealand but are forced to return due to Australia’s immigration laws.

New Zealand’s authorities have tracked how these deportees — who number in the hundreds — have contributed significantly to the country’s increasingly sophisticated and established organised crime networks over the past decade.

Chambers said that because police dealt with the real impacts of Australia’s 501 law, he could relate to what his Pacific counterparts faced.

“I understand from the New Zealand perspective [which is] the impact that New Zealand nationals returning to our country have on New Zealand, and the reality is, they’re offending, they’re re-offending.

“I suspect it’s no different from our Pacific colleagues in their own countries. And it may be something that we can talk about.”

This week’s conference was scheduled to finish tomorrow. Speakers due to appear included Interpol Secretary-General Valdecy Urquiza and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

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The Fiji government looks set to pay around NZ$1.5 million in damages to the disgraced former head of the country’s anti-corruption agency FICAC.

The state is offering Barbara Malimali an out-of-court settlement after her lawyer lodged a judicial review of her sacking in the High Court in Suva.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka suspended Malimali from her role on May 29, following a damning Commission of Inquiry into her appointment.

Malimali was described as “universally corrupt” by Justice David Ashton-Lewis, the commissioner of the nine-week investigation, which involved 35 witnesses.

“She was a pawn in the hands of devious members of government, who wanted any allegations against them or other government members thrown out,” Ashton-Lewis told RNZ Pacific Waves earlier this month.

Tanya Waqanika, who acts for Malimali, told RNZ Pacific that her client was seeking a “substantial” payout for damages and unpaid dues.

Waqanika met lawyers from the Attorney-General’s Office in the capital, Suva, on Tuesday after earlier negotiations failed.

Expected to hear in writing
She declined to say exactly what was discussed, but said she expected to hear back in writing from the other party the same day.

A High Court judge has given the government until 3pm on Friday to reach a settlement, otherwise he will rule on the application on Monday.

“We’ll see what they come up with, that’s the beauty of negotiations, but NZ$1.5 million would be a good amount to play with after your career has been ruined,” Waqanika said.

“[Malimali’s] career spans over 27 years, but it is now down the drain thanks to Ashton-Lewis and the damage the inquiry report has done.”

She said Malimali also wanted a public apology, as she was being defamed every day in social media.

“I don’t expect we’ll get one out of Ashton-Lewis,” she said.

Adjournment sought
During a hearing in the High Court on Monday, lawyers for the state sought an adjournment to discuss a settlement with Waqanika.

However, she opposed this, saying that the government’s legal team had vast resources and they should have been prepared for the hearing.

Malimali filed a case against President Naiqama Lalabalavu, Rabuka and the Attorney-General on June 13 on the grounds that her suspension was unconstitutional.

Waqanika said the President suspended her on the advice of the Prime Minister instead of consulting the Judicial Services Commission.

Government lawyers approached Waqanika offering a compensation deal the same day she lodged a judicial review in the High Court.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

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Fiji cannot compete with Australia and New Zealand to retain its teachers, the man in charge of the country’s finances says.

The Fijian education system is facing major challenges as the Sitiveni Rabuka-led coalition struggles to address a teacher shortage.

While the education sector receives a significant chunk of the budget (about NZ$587 million), it has not been sufficient, as global demand for skilled teachers is pulling qualified Fijian educators toward greener pastures.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Biman Prasad said that the government was training more teachers.

“The government has put in measures, we are training enough teachers, but we are also losing teachers to Australia and New Zealand,” he told RNZ Pacific Waves on the sidelines of the University of the South Pacific Council meeting in Auckland last week.

“We are happy that Australia and New Zealand gain those skills, particularly in the area of maths and science, where you have a shortage. And obviously, Fiji cannot match the salaries that teachers get in Australia and New Zealand.

According to the Education Ministry’s Strategic Development Plan (2023-2026), the shortage of teachers is one of the key challenges, alongside limited resources and inadequate infrastructure, particularly for primary schools.

Hundreds of vacancies
Reports in local media in August last year said there were hundreds of teacher vacancies that needed to be filled.

However, Professor Prasad said there were a lot of teachers who were staying in Fiji as the government was taking steps to keep teachers in the country.

“We are training more teachers. We are putting additional funding, in terms of making sure that we provide the right environment, right support to our teachers,” he said.

“In the last two years, we have increased the salaries of the civil service right across the board, and those salaries and wages range from between 10 to 20 percent.

“We are again going to look at how we can rationalise some of the positions within the Education Ministry, right from preschool up to high school.”

Meanwhile, the Fiji government is currently undertaking a review of the Education Act 1966.

Education Minister Aseri Radrodro said in Parliament last month that a draft bill was expected to be submitted to Cabinet in July.

“The Education Act 1966, the foundational law for pre-tertiary education in Fiji, has only been amended a few times since its promulgation, and has not undergone a comprehensive review,” he said.

“It is imperative that this legislation be updated to reflect modern standards and address current issues within the education system.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

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The doors of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican have now been closed and the coffin sealed, ahead of preparations for tonight’s funeral of Pope Francis.

The Vatican says a quarter of a million people have paid respects to Pope Francis in the last three days.

Sister Susana Vaifale of the Missionaries of Faith has lived in Rome for more than 10 years and worked at the Vatican’s St Peter’s parish office.

She told RNZ Pacific Waves that when she met the Pope in 2022 for an “ad limina” (obligatory visit) with the bishops from Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, she was lost for words.

“When I was there in front of him, it’s like a blur, I couldn’t say anything,” she said.

Sister Vaifale said although she was speechless, she thought of her community back home in Samoa.

“In my heart, I brought everyone, I mean my country, my people and myself. So, in that time . . .  I was just looking at him and I said, ‘my goodness’ I’m here, I’m in front of the Pope, Francis . . .  the leader of the Catholic Church.”

At Easter celebration
Sister Vaifale said she was at the Easter celebration in St Peter’s Square where Pope Francis made his last public appearance.

However, the next day it was announced that Pope Francis died.

The news shattered Sister Vaifale who was on a train when she heard what had happened.

“Oh, I cried, yeah I cried . . . until now I am very emotional, very sad.”

“He passed at 7:30 . . .  I am very sad but like we say in Samoa: ‘maliu se toa ae toe tula’i mai se toa’.. so, it’s all in God’s hands.”

Siblings pay final respects
The Leung-Wai family from South Auckland are in Rome and joined the long queue to pay their final respects to Pope Francis lying in state at St Peter’s Basilica.

Fatima Leung-Wai along with her siblings Martin and Ann-Margaret are proud of their Catholic faith and are active parishioners at St Peter Chanel church in Clover Park.

The family’s Easter trip to Rome was initially for the canonisation of Blessed Carlo Acutis — a young Italian boy who died at the age of 15 from leukemia and is touted to be the first millennial saint.

Plans changed as soon as they heard the news of the Pope’s death.

Leung-Wai said it took an hour and a half for her and her siblings to see the Pope in the basilica and the crowd numbers at St Peter’s Square got bigger each day.

Despite only seeing Pope Francis’ body for a moment, Leung-Wai said she was blessed to have met him in 2016 for World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland.

She said Pope Francis was well-engaged with the youth.

“I was blessed to have lunch with him nine years ago,” Leung-Wai said.

“Meeting him at that time he was like a grandpa, he was like very open and warm and very much interested in what the young people and what we had to say.”

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A Fijian academic believes Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s failed attempt to garner enough parliamentary support to change the country’s 2013 Constitution “is only the beginning”.

Last week, Rabuka fell short in his efforts to secure the support of three-quarters of the members of Parliament to amend sections 159 and 160 of the constitution.

The prime minister’s proposed amendments also sought to remove the need for a national referendum altogether. While the bill passed its first reading with support from several opposition MPs, it failed narrowly at the second reading.

Video: RNZ Pacific

While the bill passed its first reading with support from several opposition MPs, it failed narrowly at the second reading.

Jope Tarai, an indigenous Fijian PhD scholar and researcher at the Australian National University, told RNZ Pacific Waves that “it is quite obvious that it is not going to be the end” of Rabuka’s plans to amend the constitution.

However, he said that it was “something that might take a while” with less than a year before the 2026 elections.

“So, the repositioning towards the people’s priorities will be more important than constitutional review,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Trump administration’s decision to eliminate more than 90 percent of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) funding means “nothing’s safe right now,” a regional political analyst says.

President Donald Trump’s government has said it is slashing about US$60 billion in overall US development and humanitarian assistance around the world to further its America First policy.

Last September, the former Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said that Washington had “listened carefully” to Pacific Island nations and was making efforts to boost its diplomatic footprint in the region.

Campbell had announced that the US contributed US$25 million to the Pacific-owned and led Pacific Resilience Facility — a fund endorsed by leaders to make it easier for Forum members to access climate financing for adaptation, disaster preparedness and early disaster response projects.

However, Trump’s move has been said to have implications for the Pacific, which is one of the most aid-dependent regions in the world.

Research fellow at the Australian National University’s Development Policy Centre Dr Terence Wood told RNZ Pacific Waves that, in the Pacific, the biggest impacts of the aid cut are likley to be felt by the three island nations in a Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the US.

He said that while the compact “is safe” for three COFA states – Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Palau – “these are unprecedented times”.

“It would be unprecedented if the US just tore them up. But then again, the United States is showing very little regard for agreements that it has entered into in the past, so I would say that nothing’s safe right now.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Dr Terence Wood speaking to RNZ Pacific Waves.   Video: RNZ Pacific

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