Tongan player fined

Tongan international Addin-Fonua Blake has been fined Aus$20,000 for abusing referee Grant Atkins after his team lost to Newcastle.

NRL acting CEO Andrew Abdo said he would recommend that all abuse and intimidation of match officials be referred to the games’ judiciary committee.

The Manly prop Fonua-Blake has already been handed a two-match suspension for bad behaviour.

The NRL said that during his tirade against Atkins he used “a derogatory term for the disabled community.”

The money from the fine will be used by Wheelchair Rugby League Australia to buy new wheelchairs.

E-waste

Tongans produce 3.1 kg of e-waste per year according to a new report.

The UN’s Global E-waste Monitor 2020 said people in Samoa and Tonga produced 3.1 kilograms per person, while in Fiji and PNG, the figure was just 1.5 kilograms.

Common e-waste items include old mobile phones, batteries, TVs, computers and tablets.

The report said that Australia and other donor partners may contribute to some of the e-waste in Pacific nations, with equipment such as computers donated when they had reached their end-of-life there.

The UN report ranked Oceania as the second highest region, per capita, of e-waste,

New rugby bid

A second group has applied to be recognised as Tonga’s recognized national rugby league governing body, the Fiji Times has reported.

The Suva-based newspaper the group, which has not been named, has applied for full membership of the International Rugby League (IRL).

The Asia Pacific Rugby League said it would review the application.

The second application was announced the day after Tonga Ma’a Tonga Rugby League applied for IRL membership last week.

The former governing body of rugby league, Tonga National Rugby League (TNRL), which was expelled from the IRL membership in March 2020, has lodged an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

American yacht

An American family have been denied to Tonga  after they left New Zealand, apparently because it was too cold.

The Whitaker family have been trying to circumnavigate their world, but are now held at Minerva Reef, watched by a Tongan patrol boat.

The family left New Zealand on June 29, apparently complaining that it was too cold.

As Kaniva News reported last week, the Tongan patrol boat Neiafu is patrolling the reef.

Vaccine

The absence of COVID 19 in large parts of the Pacific has been largely down to luck, according to an Australian academic.

Deputy Director of the Burnet Medical Research Institute, Associate Professor David Anderson, said that when a Covi-19 vaccine was available the World Health Organisation planned to distribute it countries with fragile health systems like the Pacific islands.

Dr Anderson said vaccination was vital, as last year’s measles outbreak in Samoa showed.

“The spread of measles in Somalia when their vaccine coverage dropped, showed dramatically that there is no reason why a respiratory infection won’t take hold in Pacific communities,” he said.

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