Pacific summit to go ahead

A special Pacific Island Forum meeting to be held in Papua New Guinea will go ahead as planned, after Niue, the forum's chair, overruled Port Moresby's decision to postpone it.

PNG's prime minister, Sir Michael Somare, announced late on Friday that the meeting
would be delayed from Tuesday next week until February 10 so Fiji's interim prime
minister Frank Bainimarama could attend.
Somare offered to host the special meeting of the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum
(PIF) in Port Moresby to discuss the Fiji's membership of the group.
Australia and New Zealand, both vocal critics of Fiji's failure to restore
democratic rule, were been angered by the news that Bainimarama will not attend.
Fiji's membership of the PIF was up for discussion given Bainimarama's broken
promises on a timetable to restore democracy following his December 2006 coup.
Bainimarama on Tuesday said he would not attend because he needed to lead relief
work after recent devastating floods in Fiji that killed at least 11 people.
He called for the meeting to be deferred.
Somare's spokeswoman told AAP on Saturday the meetings are back on for the scheduled
date.
"Even though there was supposed to be a deferral, we can't move it because other PIF
countries had already left for the meeting", she said.
"Transportation is difficult for many of these countries. So the PIF chair made the
decision to put the meetings back on for Tuesday."
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's office told AAP they could not confirm that
the meeting was back on or if the prime minister would be attending.
On Friday, Mr Rudd's office announced he had cancelled his trip to India, PNG and
Switzerland.