Pacific News In Brief For 11 July
China's Ambassador to Fiji Zhou Jian has handed over a FJ$100,000 (approximately US$44,600) donation to the newly installed chief of the Lau group.
Ratu Tevita Mara received the chiefly title of Tui Nayau on Tuesday, and on Thursday the Sau ni Vanua o Lau, Na Tui Lau titles.
Solar street lights, household solar facilities, and a mini bus for the people of Lau have also been donated by China.
Zhou said with the strong relationship that Fiji has with China, China will continue to provide support and assistance to the best of its ability for Fiji's rural development.
He said China will continue to assist Fiji in responding to climate change through both bilateral and multilateral channels.
Tonga - court
A 37-year-old man has been sentenced to three years in prison for reckless driving that caused the deaths of his two children.
Matangi Tonga reported the court heard that on 22 January of this year, in an attempt to overtake a vehicle at excessive speed, he lost control of the vehicle which had defective tyres and veered off the road.
The crash caused the deaths of his two children who were in the car - the youngest was nine years old.
Justice Tupou sentenced him on 8 July at the Supreme Court in Nuku'alofa, after he pleaded guilty to the charge in May.
Samoa - death
A prominent Samoan businessman and former Samoa National Provident Fund chairman has died.
Local media reported Papali'i Panoa Moala died on Wednesday night.
He was a long-serving board member of the Fund, and also served as its chair from 2021 until earlier this year.
Papali'i was previously the Fund's chief executive and remained on the board following his resignation as chair.
Family, friends, and community leaders have been sharing tributes online.
Cook Islands - tourism
Cook Islands is projected to achieve record visitor arrivals in 2025, surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
The latest ANZ Research Pacific Insight report forecasts 180,000 tourists.
Cook Islands News reported this being due to increased air connectivity.
However there are still challenges ahead in the balance of growth with environmental and workforce sustainability.
Cook Islands - pearls
The Cook Islands marine resources ministry is exploring solutions to revive a shrinking pearl farming industry.
Local media reported that discussions around new cultivation methods and international partnerships are still underway.
Marine resources minister Tingika Elikana said there are just a few farmers on the island of Manihiki.
Opposition leader Tina Browne added that the Manihiki lagoon can no longer support the growth of pearl shells.
Because of this, she proposes a hatchery be set up to cultivate the shells before transferring them to Manihiki.
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Is the juice worth the squeeze?' Much of the criticism of Mamdani's plan comes because it risks threatening existing businesses, which have been pressured to increase prices due to rising costs. Bodega owners, for example, worry they could be undercut by city-run groceries, which under Mamdani's proposal wouldn't have to pay rent or city license fees. A spokesperson for Mamdani said the new stores would be placed in food deserts, where there isn't existing competition - but the genuine existence of true food deserts in the city is debated. Isabella Weber, an associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was one of 30 progressive economists (including Yanis Varoufakis) who signed a letter backing Mamdani's policies and sees municipally run grocery stores not as a cure-all, but as a necessary experiment amid what she calls an 'affordability crisis' engulfing food, housing and childcare. This crisis, she said, is further exacerbated by overburdened food banks amid the eroding safety net of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (Snap), which will face deep cuts under President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 'These are things where you can't say, 'I'm not in the mood of eating today,'' Weber said. 'They're necessities of life.' A public store could reduce prices by eliminating mark-ups, using public land and applying subsidies, she said. If scaled, it might also force private grocers to lower prices. 'But that's a big 'if,'' she said. An alternative use of the funds could rely on a model seen in Mexico, where the government negotiated with major grocery chains to cap prices on essential goods. India has taken a different approach too through fair price shops, which offer high-calorie foods at subsidised rates. If Mamdani is elected in November and able to enact his plan, the pilot stores will become an important case study for democratic socialists. Photo / Adam Gray, Bloomberg, via the Washington Post The Venezuela comparisons The mayoral candidate's idea has prompted sharp warnings from local supermarket operators. John Catsimatidis, owner of the Gristedes and D'Agostino grocery chains (and a former Republican candidate for New York City mayor), threatened to leave the city if Mamdani is elected and warned of 'Soviet bread lines' if the plan goes forward. 'Everything Mr Mamdani is suggesting was already done by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Fidel Castro in Cuba,' Catsimatidis wrote in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal. Comparing the plan to Venezuela, whose food crisis is a cautionary tale of state-controlled food systems gone awry due to corruption and economic collapse, is not unique to the billionaire. Francisco Rodriguez, a former economic adviser to the United Nations and longtime researcher of the Venezuelan crisis, said there are lessons to learn from the country's approach to operating city-run stores. While the Chavez government's subsidised food stores initially helped reduce hunger and shore up political support, the model unravelled when oil prices collapsed and the country could no longer foot the bill, leading to extreme hunger. 'Those stores worked while the government was riding high on oil prices. Once that revenue fell - first from market forces, then sanctions - it couldn't keep subsidising food, and the whole system collapsed,' said Rodriguez, now a public affairs professor at the University of Denver. New York, he said, would also have to contend with other problems that Venezuela faced, including exploitation of the subsidies by people who didn't need cheaper groceries and black markets that flourished as people bought products to resell. 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In his post, Small says Uber has a higher 'tax' (taking a bigger cut of the fare) but also - perhaps ironically - boosts one of the pro-Uber talking points by reiterating a point made earlier by the Herald that the tech giant's contractor-only arrangement provides new market entrants with a readymade pool of drivers. And here's one from me: Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald's business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
