Dateline Pacific for 14 May 2019

The United Nations Secretary General has sounded a doomsday climate change warning at the start of his Pacific tour; It's 140 years today since indentured labourers - the so-called Girmitiya gear-mih-tear - first arrived in Fiji to work on colonial plantations in harsh conditions. Their legacy is bittersweet according to economist Neelesh Gounder; Friday was World Lupus Day and Pasifika people are urged to make good health decisions to reduce the risk factors of the disease, and; Samoa's Deputy Prime Minister says the country is reaching a critical time for women's representation and that traditional political constructs, which were formally defined at independence, risk being out of step with the international environment Samoa operates within.