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Rate to be set at $90 per week

SUVA, Fiji (Fijilive, Feb. 26, 2010) - The chairman of Fiji’s Wages Council Father Kevin Barr is expecting a wage increase in mid 2010.

Speaking to FijiLive, Fr. Barr said all the wages councils met and resolved that there be an increase from July 1.

"We are trying to be fair to the employers but at the same time, we want to be just to the workers," he said.

He highlighted that according to the current poverty line, the minimum wage rate has to be FJ$175 [US$90] per week.

"It’s a disgrace that 60 percent of workers covered by the wages council are earning below that," Father Barr said. "With the 20 percent devaluation that took place last year, the purchasing power went down as well."

He added the People’s Charter for Change stated the need for a National Minimum wage in accordance to the poverty line.

"Our job is to see workers get a gradual increase until the National Minimum income comes into effect...

New resolve after government opts for competition

By Helen Greig RAROTONGA, Cook Islands (Cook Islands News, Feb. 18, 2010) - Telecom Cook Islands (TCI) has publicly pledged to become the number one Telco in the South Pacific, admitting it has ‘lost sight of the ball’ over the past decade.

This undertaking comes just months after government recommitted to plans to open the telecommunications industry to competition.

Telecom New Zealand general manager international, Anthony Briscoe, says Telecom is of like-mind with the government and the people who want telecommunications that are good value, great service and quality second to none.

"We understand government’s decision to introduce competition. We have made a commitment to cooperate with government’s plan – Telecom New Zealand will support it 100 percent," says Briscoe.

But Briscoe says government is being urged to consider carefully the risks and implications of opening the market.

He...

Agreement seeks increased cooperation

PAPEÉTE, Tahiti (Tahitipresse, Feb. 26, 2010) - Assemblies from the three French territories in the Pacific have signed an agreement for more cooperation Friday in New Caledonia. French Polynesia Assembly Speaker Philip Schyle was in Noumea, New Caledonia, for the event, with New Caledonia Congress Speaker Harold Martin and Wallis and Futuna Assembly Speaker Victor Brial.

"This could have been done twenty years ago but, unfortunately, some political leaders were not ready for it", Brial said.

Schyle led a tahitian delegation to New Caledonia during one week. Most of the political groups having seats in the French Polynesian Assembly were in this delegation.

The main purpose of this trip was to have closer ties between Assemblies in three French territories in the Pacific - French Polynesia, New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna.

Schyle has been working on this issue for several months.

He claims the idea...

To be modeled after OPEC

MELBOURNE, Australia (Radio Australia, Feb. 25, 2009) – Leaders from eight Pacific island nations, whose waters provide a quarter of the world's tuna, have announced plans to form a regional tuna cartel to increase their share of the profits from the big fish.

Cartel signatories Papua New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and Palau say increased controls will also help sustain the world's last bastion of plentiful tuna.

The cartel would be loosely modeled after the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.

The move by the mostly-poor nations - with little land but a controlling stretch of equatorial ocean - is intended to increase their share of the US$2 billion generated annually from tuna caught in their waters.

More than 85 per cent of revenues currently go to fishing companies and others based in the US, Japan, Taiwan and other Asian...