Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi has achieved another first for his country.
As of early today, he has become the first leader of the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) to lead the party to a complete demolition of the Opposition in the General Elections.
Only two members of the Tautua Samoa Party survived the HRPP onslaught, giving Tuilaepa’s party nearly all the seats in Parliament.
The unofficial count stands at 47 to the HRPP and 2 to the Tautua Samoa Party. The only remaining Tautua MP is deputy leader, Aeau Dr Peniamina. He is joined by new MP, Ili Setefano Ta’ateo.
Three of more than 20 women candidates won seats with Fiame Naomi Mata’afa making up four women in Parliament. It means one more woman will be added, taking the number of seats in Parliament to 50.
In his victory speech last night, Tuilaepa was one proud leader.
“As leader, and on behalf of the Human Rights Protection Party, I would like to extend my gratitude to all of Samoa for the support, and the overwhelming vote of confidence in our vision for this country,” he said in a statement issued by his office.
‘Not easy journey’ “I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge and commend the leadership of the Opposition, the Tautua Party. This has not been an easy journey, and I congratulate you for the commitment and effort to representing your constituency and your party with such dedication.”
Interestingly, while the HRPP secured the majority of seats, most of them will be filled by new members. Among the casualties are Cabinet Ministers and some long serving MPs.
“My sympathy goes out to the Members of Parliament, especially the Cabinet Ministers who have been unsuccessful in retaining their seats,” Tuilaepa said.
“They deserve our thanks for their commitment and hard work to meet the needs of their constituents, as well as fulfilling their duties and service as Cabinet Ministers.
“But that is the nature of elections. You can only do your best, and hope that voters will choose you again. But as we see time and again, it’s often unpredictable.
“Looking at the results, about half of Parliament’s seats are going to change. This is democracy at work.”
Tuilaepa said the support shown for the HRPP proves that the country trusted their leadership.
‘Many developments’ “HRPP has been leading Samoa for a very long time and there are many developments done during that time. The country is mindful of it.”
The Prime Minister said he knew the results way before they were announced.
The HRPP will hold its ava ceremony today to greet and congratulate all the winners. The special voting booths will also be counted today.
All the attention will now turn to the make up of the HRPP leadership, especially in terms of who will become the Deputy Prime Minister.
Lanuola Tupufia and Sarafina Sanerivi are journalists with the Samoa Observer covering the general election.
The numbers are favouring a landslide win for the ruling Human Rights Protection Party in the Samoan general election with 21 or 43 percent of the 49 seats in Parliament already assured in provisional results today.
A Newsline analysis of the election in the remaining 28 constituencies left to be contested on polling day, may see the HRPP claim a further 21 seats for an overall tally of 42 seats or 86 percent.
The final tally, however, will depend on how the allocation is made of the five seats assured for women in Parliament .
The Minister of Justice, Fiame Naomi Mataafa is already in, so that leaves 4 seats to be decided either by outright win in the constituencies, or on the count of the highest votes won.
The opposition Tautua Samoa Party has only 9 current sitting members in the running to retain their seats.
Party leader Palusalue Fa’apo II is locked up in a tight three-way battle for the Safata West constituency with the Minister of Works, Manu’alesagalala Enokati.
MP Lefau Harry Schuster has two HRPP candidates coming after his Vaimauga i Sisifo Tautua seat.
Fierce challenge HRPP candidate Faaolesa Katopau Ainuu is mounting a fierce challenge to win the seat away from the Tautua incumbent.
Faleata Sasa’e MP Aveau Niko Palamo is the lone Tautua trying to fight off the challenge to his seat by three other candidates, all bearing the HRPP banner.
A’ana Alofi No. 3 Constituency is a Tautua seat firmly in the hands of Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster. But he has two HRPP candidates gunning for his place.
The Tautua current sitting MPs in Savai’i are clinging to the constituencies of Fa’asaleleaga No.2, Vaisigano No. 2, Falealupo, Salega East and Salega West.
Fa’asaleleaga No.2 MP Papali’i Taeu Masipau is flanked on both sides by two HRPP candidates.
Motuopua’a Aisoli Vaai, is brush off for the third consecutive time the designs of his lone opponent, and HRPP candidate, Tapusatele Mauteni Esera.
The Tautua deputy leader, Aeau Peniamina, is squared up once again against the same two HRPP candidates who were after his Falealupo seat in 2011.
The two seats for Salega East and Salega West are held respectively by Tapuai Toese Ah Sam and Afualo Wood Salele.
Tapuai is up again two HRPP candidates and his former Tautua party colleague but now running as an Independent, Levaopolo Talatonu, who has assumed a new title, Olo Fiti Vaai.
Tautua Samoa registered 24 The Tautua Samoa officially registered 24 candidates for the general elections, including two who were disqualified in court.
The HRPP assured seats include the unopposed seats won in court by the Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Justice Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa and Aleipata Itupa I Luga current sitting member, Amituanai Fagaivalu Samu.
The court upheld candidate challenges they brought against their respective election opponents.
The Minister of State Enterprises, Lautafi Lafi Purcell, was registered as an unopposed candidate for his Satupaitea Constituency.
The HRPP assured seats are where the only candidates in each of the constituencies are running under the party banner.
Around half of Fiji’s houses will have to be rebuilt after the devastation caused by Cyclone Winston, damage assessors say.
In the worst-hit areas, villages have been destroyed, and tens of thousands of people are still in evacuation centres as they wait for long term shelters to be set up.
Teams of builders and engineers say they will submit reports saying many ruined houses were simply not built to standard.
In the Lau Group, just off the coast of Vanua Balavu, the Fiji government ship MV Cagivou carried aid and damage assessment teams representing almost every ministry, from energy to education.
A supply boat from New Zealand’s multi-role HMNZS Wellington also arrived with a load of 10-litre water containers.
Lieutenant Leroy Judge, the man in charge of the initial deployment, said the Wellington had a desalination plant “so it can keep producing as much water really as required until it essentially runs out of diesel.”
The day before it had produced about 3000 litres and that day it gave some 2000 litres to the closer islands.
The Cagivou was running late. Crew members started to fill containers from the ship’s own water tank but the browner shade was a sign it would need to be boiled, and the message was sent out to the island.
Rebulding in Fiji after Cyclone Winston. Image: Alex Perrrottet/Radio NZI
Destroyed homes Lomaloma school had become the military post. Out front, the almost compulsory game of one-touch football was underway.
But next door, in Lomaloma village, no one was playing football. People were cutting up dead trees and burning them along with ruined possessions.
Titoka Nakavulevu, the turanga ni koro (chief), explained that 52 of the village’s 60 houses had been destroyed.
Hundreds of tents were at the command post, and Titoka Nakavulevu was grateful they had arrived – but they had not quite been dispatched to the villagers yet.
Jesse Delailomaloma has set up a tiny tarpaulin on a small slab so his wife and grandson can sleep above the ground. Next to it is a pile of wood and tin that used to be their house.
He was waiting for the tent supplies and was not sure when they would get them. However, the first thing he needed was his house.
“Never mind the food or what, just the house to cover me from the sun and the rain.”
A destroyed village on Vanua Balavu. Image: Neil Covert
‘Six months to two years’ in tents Commander Humphrey Tawake is in charge of the mission and said there was a reason for the delay.
“That was supposed to be done yesterday but we had a bit of difficulties,” he said.
“All the vehicles here are privately owned, so you have to have some sort of understanding.
“They pay for their own fuel and we have to make some sort of arrangements that is a balanced approach so that they get their money’s worth and the assistance is given. Having said that, those will be gone by this morning.”
But the commander said they would not be enough. He needed more than 800, immediately, and they had to be good enough to house people until their homes were rebuilt.
“The tarpaulins are not good enough, because the houses I’ve seen here, we need tents that will accommodate from six [months] to two years. People can live in them, because some of the reconstruction material and some of the tarpaulins won’t last.”
Building techniques exposed Savenaca Volau is an elderly man who crawled with his wife under the floorboards after half his house was ripped away by the storm and the furniture was blown out.
He argued Fijians would be better off building their traditional bures, made from coconut palms and bamboo, as most people died from corrugated iron and glass cuts or crushing concrete.
“The young people now, they don’t know how to do that kind of Fijian roof. Only the people, those old people, but we people. I can make it, I can make the thatch.”
Mr Volau agreed it was important to teach the next generation how to build the thatches.
“But this people here, the new generation, they don’t like the old one, I don’t know why.”
Engineers on board the Cagivou said they had seen multiple building errors in the ruined houses. Incorrect strapping methods and cost-cutting short cuts in the foundations were evident on the islands, far away from from the scope of government regulators.
The chief, Titoka Nakavulevu, saw the whole experience as having served as a lesson.
“It really teach us to safe, to build a proper house preparing for the hurricane, for the long term, for our families.”
Titoka said he would take his lead from the government, and the engineers agreed. They said the government needed to put out rebuild tenders to private companies who could bear the burden of compliance.
HMNZS Wellington being loaded with aid in Fiji post-Cyclone Winston. Image: NZ Defence Force
Unprecedented cyclone But everyone agreed with Commander Tawake that this cyclone was unprecedented.
“You have storm surge, you had the cyclone and the wind, then you have … tornadoes.”
“Prior to that, for a couple of days we were having tremors, earthquake tremors, and it was like they were swimming in a swimming pool with tornadoes flying, roofing irons flying everywhere.”
He felt that with that combination the traditional bure would not survive.
“And the one thing that we must be, that we are, thankful of is that those who lost their lives [were not as many] as we would have expected with the level of devastation that is here.”
Commander Tawake said whatever the building style, it had to meet standards and be kept small. Bigger houses with greater surface area were more vulnerable to strong winds.
He said that at least 50 percent of Fiji had to be rebuilt, house by house, and that was going to take some time to finish.
Alex Perrottet, a reporter of Radio NZ International, has spent the past two weeks in Fiji reporting on the aftermath of TC Winston, often venturing to the most devastated remote parts of the country. He is a former Pacific Media Watch contributing editor at the AUT Pacific Media Centre and a Masters in Communication Studies graduate.
[caption id="attachment_183" align="alignleft" width="150"] Selwyn Manning, editor.[/caption]
Editorial by Selwyn Manning.Respected New Zealand Herald journalist Phil Taylor’s reportage this week has again raised concerns about poor Government transparency.
I also spoke on the issues raised in Phil Taylor’s report, on Radio New Zealand’s The Panel with Jim Mora.
Phil Taylor’s latest report (in what is shaping up to be a series) is titled ‘Witness said no to video link‘. It is about the New Zealand Defence Force and its attempt to avoid paying damages to a journalist, Jon Stephenson, who claimed it defamed him after
[caption id="attachment_7548" align="alignright" width="150"] Metro – Eyes Wide Shut, May 2011.[/caption]
his Metro magazine expose titled Eyes Wide Shut was published.The Herald began digging in to this issue after the National-led Government was forced by the Court to pay Jon Stephenson an undisclosed sum. The settlement came with conditions where both parties were not to discuss the proportioned values of that settlement. It is important to point out, those conditions do not prevent the Government from facing up to its public interest responsibilities, to enquire and speak out on what went on up in Afghanistan and why it attempted to shut this issue down through shoot-the-messenger tactics.Phil Taylor’s reportage shows the stonewalling continues and details how:
1) The Government spent $1 million on failing to defend itself after it apparently defamed journalist Jon Stephenson, after he exposed potential breaches of international law by New Zealand Defence personnel in Afghanistan.
2) The Government’s star witness, an Afghani security unit commander, refused to testify via video link from Afghanistan, but insisted he be brought to New Zealand.
3) Once here, the commander’s testimony was found to be untrue.
4) Despite this he was left to wander off around New Zealand without supervision.
5) He failed to take his return flight to Afghanistan, but has since claimed asylum and is seeking to stay here permanently.
When the Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee was asked by Phil Taylor:
Would there be an inquiry into whether or not the commander committed perjury, and whether the Defence Force was gamed?
Gerry Brownlee answered “no”. Frankly, such a response fails to serve the public interest, and leaves one wondering: what has the Government got to hide. This is serious stuff.The public deserves to know:
1) What really happened up there in Afghanistan
2) Why the Government appears to be shying away from revealing the facts and context of this affair
3) Why it appears the NZ Defence Force permitted its Afghani commander witness to wander off without supervision, especially after he may have committed perjury
4) And ultimately, who is possibly culpable or entangled in what may have been a significant breach of international law during the time New Zealand Defence personnel were operational in Afghanistan.
This sordid affair underscores how, under recent governments, how difficult it is to advance or compel our elected representatives to initiate a thorough formal inquiry on any matter that may be contrary to their political interests.Considering how this Government’s politicians appear determined to keep the facts hidden, in my view, it is now reasonable to question their motives.
–]]>
[caption id="attachment_4808" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr Bryce Edwards.[/caption]
Is Pharmac’s decision not to prioritise funding melanoma drug Keytruda a case of “putting money before people”, or is it the inevitable outcome of making rational choices with limited resources? Yesterday, in part one, Bryce Edwards looked at The case for Keytruda. In part two he looks at the case for Pharmac’s independence, and therefore against the immediate funding of Keytruda.
Who among us could refuse desperate cancer patients begging to have access to a potentially life saving drug? Not their families and friends, not the wider public and certainly not politicians. Politicians can be all of those things – cancer patient, family, friend – and they must also contend with intense public pressure and the siren call of votes.
That’s precisely why Pharmac is so important, say its supporters. It’s seen as a useful mechanism to rationally make good public health medicine funding decisions without the influence of emotion or even populism contaminating a good process.
Back in December Kevin Hague summed it up by saying: “There is always more demand on the health dollar than there is dollars to spend. That is why we have a system, reasonably free of political interference, that buys the most drugs at the best price to provide to the most number of New Zealanders. It is a system that by and large works and we support keeping it that way” – see: In defence of Pharmac. He says the main problem is “the pharmaceutical budget simply isn’t big enough, and is declining in real terms because of the underfunding of DHBs.”
In Hague’s view, the alternative is that we have dishonest debates where politicians are happy to ride in on their white horse but will not take responsibility for the repercussions of their actions. He says that’s what’s happening in the Keytruda debate and what’s missing is the acknowledgement that “If $30Mn is spent every year on Keytruda, it won’t be available for other people with different conditions, on drugs for which it says it has better evidence of health gain.”
It’s a point echoed by James Dann earlier this week: “the people who aren’t in this equation are the people whose treatment would have to be defunded. This is a zero sum game, and to fund one treatment, you have to defund another… To pitch one group with disease A versus a group with disease B would be an horrific spectacle, if we did have to watch it play out in public. So we don’t. We trust that a group of medical and pharmacological experts will weigh up all of the evidence, and come to conclusions for us” – see: Keytruda, Pharmac, and the zero sum game of drug funding. Dann argues “The political debate around this should focus on the amount we spend on drugs, not which specific drugs are funded.”
Writing in this week’s Listener, Jane Clifton says we are faced with the “dismaying prospect of reducing drug funding to a beauty parade. If politicians keep acceding to public campaigns by groups of particular patients, the health system could degenerate into a sick parody of X-Factor, with one illness lobby competing on the steps of Parliament to be more appealing than another.”
Labour has been on the receiving end of a wave of criticism this week for it’s pledge to overrule Pharmac and fund Keytruda if elected. Hague is strongly critical of Labour’s proposal saying “we have been there before” with National’s 2008 campaign to increase funding of Herceptin. He argues that “political interference almost always ends up in less health gain, not more.”
In his column today in the NBR Matthew Hooton writes: “Against much competition, opposition leader John Key’s intervention in 2008 on behalf of Herceptin ranks as perhaps the most disgracefully cynical stunt in recent political history but opposition leader Andrew Little may have trumped him with Keytruda.”
In his column, King tarnishes reputation over Keytruda at end of career (paywalled) (http://bit.ly/HootonKeytruda), Hooton takes special aim at Labour’s health spokesperson Annette King who he believes is selling a new stance that she doesn’t actually believe in. He also argues that if Pharmac’s decision on Herceptin and Keytruda were flawed then a different approach is necessary: “a sensible policy response would be either to dramatically increase the funding or reform the model.”
Tracy Watkins also says that Cancer sufferers should not be used as a political football. Watkins decries the “political point scoring” and says science is being overrun by “naked politics”. She declares that “No one’s hands are clean in the Keytruda row – not Labour’s, for coat tailing the plight of vulnerable cancer patients to attack the Government. Not the drug companies, for which the political heat is useful leverage for driving up the price in their negotiations with Pharmac. And not National, for preaching the moral high ground despite creating an uneven playing field in the first place by running similar interference in Opposition over breast cancer drug Herceptin.”
A further condemnation of Labour’s “extreme new policy” is provided by Newstalk ZB’s Larry Williams, who says “This is deceitful. Labour have never funded drugs on that basis. Never. Now, all of a sudden, after a secret meeting with Big Pharma, they’re going to fund the latest state-of-the art drugs. Cost is no longer an issue, seemingly. Political interference in drug selection is clearly foolish” – see: Cancer drug debate not solved by wild spending.
The National Government’s political interference
Indications are that National is buckling under public pressure over Keytruda. Previously steadfast Health Minister Jonathan Coleman pledged earlier this week to “make the case” for extra funding for Pharmac in the May budget. See his interview with Paul Henry: Labour pushing Govt to fund life-saving drug.
RNZ’s health correspondent Karen Brown later said it’s “not usually a promise you hear out loud from a government ahead of a budget” – listen to Brown’s interesting five minute discussion with Guyon Espiner: Funding of cancer drug Keytruda. She believes that Coleman’s admission that National was “wrong” to overrule Pharmac over Herceptin was more an admission of a “political mistake” as “once against they’re under pressure and this time they’re on the other side of the equation.”
Yesterday the Government continued to tie itself in knots with Edwin Mitson reporting Coleman told a conference of GPs, pharmacy professionals and consumers that funding for melanoma treatment is “not too far away”, while simultaneously insisting the decision is up to Pharmac – see: Health Minister: Melanoma treatment funding not far off.
Vernon Small says oh to be a “fly on the wall” when those discussions take place, as with no “directive from the Government, Pharmac may not in the end choose Keytruda – or for that matter any other drug to treat late stage melanoma – if it has higher priorities. However, you can be fairly certain that the Government will be moving heaven and earth to ensure it does” – see: Labour may not like it, but private dinners with drug lobbyists is a valid news story.
In fact, National appears to have been leaving themselves wiggle room to repeat their Herceptin performance for some time. Back in December, before her reinstatement to cabinet, Judith Collins dropped hints on the Paul Henry show that the Government may yet fund Keytruda. Key himself has admitted their current hands-off Pharmac stance could be seen as “hypocritical”, while at the same time repeatedly refusing to rule out funding Keytruda.
The politics of “big pharma”
In the words of Vernon Small, opening the door of political meddling with Pharmac “merely invites in the lobbyists.” Gareth Morgan agrees, saying with customary bluntness “We need to bear in mind that Pharmac are negotiating with profit seeking companies here. The more politicians meddle with that, the more the drug companies will milk it. In other words if we keep throwing money at this problem, they will keep putting their prices up” – see: Pharmac and the Crazies: John Key admits mistake, Andrew Little looks to repeat it.
Morgan also argues that “our drugs bill will explode” if politicians “keep running interference in order to covet special interest votes”. He concludes: “Unless taxpayers are happy to fund every drug on earth at any price, politicians need to get back in their cages, let Pharmac do its job of allocating the budget. The only political decision should be the size of their budget.” See also Gareth Morgan’s A letter to Annette.
David Farrar pointed out last year that the actions of National over Herceptin and Labour over Keytruda “both play into the hands of large multinational pharmaceutical companies who learn that whipping up public support for a drug is a better method than convincing scientists and doctors that the benefits of a drug outweigh the costs” – see: Hague is right.
On Tuesday the Greens’ Kevin Hague was under attack for suggesting that political interference based on public pressure “sets up pharmaceutical companies to fund marketing campaigns which potentially could exploit people who are already the victims of these diseases to become lobbying pawns for industry” – see Simon Wong and Laura Macdonald’s Hague slated for ‘despicable’ drug lobbying comment. Lisa Renwick called Hague’s comments “despicable”, rejecting any suggestion she is involved with drug companies.
In his column, Big Pharma winners from Keytruda stoush, Barry Soper says Renwick “doesn’t see herself as a guinea pig but as a survivor, and who can blame her?” but he says by virtue of her dependence on Keytruda to stay alive, she is essentially forced into assisting the drug company.
Kirk points out that Labour’s stance is a “u-turn on its position during the widely publicised Herceptin debate in 2008.” But Little rejects any suggestion that Labour’s decision was influenced by drug companies, or notion of political donations being a factor. Kirk’s report also noted rumours that there are “significant ructions” forming within Labour over its political interference with Pharmac.
Following up on this, Vernon Small says “Labour’s reaction to Fairfax reports of a private dinner leader Andrew Little hosted with Medicines NZ (the lobby group set up and peopled with senior figures from the pharmaceutical industry) and of disquiet in the party, was visceral.” Well, Small says, Labour may not like it, but private dinners with drug lobbyists is a valid news story.
Blogger No Right Turn says FFS Labour, arguing that meeting with the pharmaceutical industry inevitably taints the party and gives the impression of “corporate shilling.”
Finally, Danyl Mclauchlan argues National’s strategic acumen is largely based on a “willingness to break with political conventions when it is tactically advantageous to do so.” In doing so National has unleashed an arms race scenario and Mclauchlan argues no one should be surprised to see Labour now doing the same over Keytruda because: “Having opposition parties that are constrained by conventions but a government that breaks them whenever its convenient isn’t a thing” – see: Drug funding and political conventions.
Today’s edition of NewsRoom_Digest features 2 resourceful links of the day and the politics pulse from Friday 4th of March. It is best viewed on a desktop screen.
NEWSROOM_MONITOR
Noteworthy stories in the current news cycle include: Government books recording a $934 million surplus, before investment gains and losses, for the seven months to January 31; the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee rejecting a bid to have the deadline for public submissions on the TPP extended by a month to 11 April; and Police rejecting claims from young Africans living in New Zealand who say they have been racially profiled, harassed and beaten by officers.
POLITICS PULSE
Media releases issued from Parliament by political parties today
included:
Government: $450m ACC transformation programme underway; First stage of 5-year ACC programme benefits businesses; Speech: Jonathan Coleman – National Stakeholder Forum for Integrated Pharmacist Services in the Community;World-leading expert to headline Open Data Day; Children’s Day starts Foster Care Awareness week; Nine Nelson Special Housing Areas approved; Over 100,000 Kiwis are using patient portals; Government Books Well-Balanced
Greens: Green Party Calls For Investigation Into Toxic Mill; Ditch the photo ops Minister, and deliver on electric cars
Labour: National’s failed education plans leave $120m unspent; 21st century ICT race is on and needs capital
Māori Party: Whāngai children to benefit from changes to paid parental leave
New Zealand First: TPPA Debate Being Muzzled
NZ National Party: Hutt Valley domestic tourism doubles since 2008
INTERNATIONAL OPEN DATA DAY: For the first time ever, New Zealanders will have the chance to talk open data and innovation with world-renowned US expert on open government Beth Noveck, who will talk to a New Zealand audience online to mark International Open Data Day on 5 March. Information on how to participate in the google hangouts is available on the LINZ website athttp://www.linz.govt.nz/open-data-hangouts
And that’s our sampling of “news you can use” for Friday 4th March.
Websites belonging to the Republic of Fiji Military Force (RFMF), Fiji Police Force and the Immigration Department were today “defaced” apparently by a Kurdish hacker known for his anti-ISIS views.
In the attack, MuhmadEmad uploaded a picture of the Kurdish flag along with the words, “KurDish HaCkerS WaS Here” and “HaCKeD by MuhmadEmad, Long Live to peshmarga.” This was a reference to the Kurdish army of Peshmerga, which has been fighting to defend its homeland from the so-called Islamic State force based in Iraq.
Fiji police spokesperson Inspector Josaia Weicavu said the force was aware of the hack and was working to rectify it.
An RFMF spokesperson was unaware of the incident when contacted, but said he would look into the issue.
Director of Immigration Nemani Vuniwaqa also said he was unaware of the hack, but would look into it urgently.
MuhmadEmad has reportedly hacked numerous US and Turkey government websites over the past two years.
Website defacement:
Website defacement is an attack on a website that changes the visual appearance of the site or a webpage. These are typically the work of system crackers, who break into a web server and replace the hosted website with one of their own.
Water Authority of Fiji says it was well prepared before tropical cyclone Winston devastated areas around the country – but damage to water systems around the country will run into millions of dollars.
WAF chief executive officer Opetaia Ravai said in a press conference yesterday that investment in the F$4 million of Gensets generators helped to keep water supply consistent around the country during and after TC Winston.
Since the warning came when Tropical Cyclone Winston was approaching Fiji, our team — and we have a team of disaster risk committee here at WAF — started to mobilise and prepare for what was termed at that time a very big cyclone.
we now know that it was one of the biggest to hit the southern hemisphere.
Ravai said a lot of Fiji’s systems nationwide were affected.
“There are 227 pumping stations around the country and all these pumping stations require electricity and as you would know there was a huge damage to the electricity infrastructure and in the previous cyclones if you recall whenever there would be a cyclone people would be without water.
“This cyclone we were better prepared, we invested a lot in standby generators to the tune of $4 million and this year we will continue with that investment and other generators in key establishments so that when power outages do occur we can still supply water to the people of Fiji.”
Ravai thanked the wisdom of the board and management of WAF in investing in the Gensets to stand by for disasters like Winston.
He said WAF would continue to invest in generators so that in any situation consistent water supply was made available.
“And you would have experienced that in most of the towns and cities. We were able to do this because we had installed Gensets, had it not been for these Gensets, which were very big … and very expensive …
“For example, in Suva over 300,000 people would have been without water and that power was almost off for the week so you can imagine the inconvenience that would have caused and the amount of water carting we would have been going 24 hours 7 days a week and it would have been inconvenient to people.”
Running on Gensets Ravai said water systems in the west from Tavua to Ba and Rakiraki were running on Gensets at the moment due to the delay in power restoration in the area because of the amount of damage that were caused to the power lines in Kings Road and the surrounding areas.
“There are just certain areas in the high areas of Tacirua, the high areas of Caubati, Khalsa road, Colo-i-Suva which are being supplied through trucks because of the power fluctuations that are happening now and again, causing our systems to depressurise.
“Then we have to recover again and that is why the high elevated areas will get affected the most.
A Water Authority of Fiji, plumber repairing a broken water pipe along Thurston Street in Suva yesterday. Image: Peni Shute/Newswire
Ravai said WAF had isolated the area and was servicing them through water carting with trucks.
About six water trucks were being used by WAF to cart water to the surrounding areas of South Taveuni. “In the North, the biggest damage I think occurred in the south of Taveuni where the desalination plants were damaged by TC Winston and it was quiet sometime before we were able to get to the southern end of Taveuni because of the damage to the roads.
“But our people are now there on the ground and starting to repair the desalination plant of the south of Taveuni.
47 water trucks Ravai said there were about 47 water trucks carting water nationwide to supplement water coming through pipes; Ravai said each truck costs the Water Authority $1000 a day to hire and so far had supplied 6.5 million litres of water.
A team was leaving for Vanua Balavu to assess the area this afternoon, Ravai said.
“The areas in the Lau Group in Vanua Balavu and Lakeba have recovered from what we’ve gathered so far but nevertheless our teams are going out there with the assistance of the Australian and New Zealand Navy to fully assess the system and start with some repairs.”
Ravai said WAF would be hiring more project workers next week to repair systems in the 233 villages in rural areas around the country that were on the path of TC Winston.
So far, WAF had restored water systems in 87 villages.
Report by David Robie. This article was first published on Café Pacific
SIX hours after this hacking was reported by Newswire Fiji, Café Pacific checked and found these Fiji websites still “defaced, offline or under repair …”
By Allison Penjueli of Newswire Fiji
Websites belonging to the Republic of Fiji Military Force (RFMF),
Fiji Police Force and the Immigration Department were today “defaced”
apparently by a Kurdish hacker known for his anti-ISIS views.
In the attack, MuhmadEmad uploaded a picture of the Kurdish flag
along with the words, “KurDish HaCkerS WaS Here” and “HaCKeD by
MuhmadEmad, Long Live to peshmarga.” This was a reference to the Kurdish
army of Peshmerga, which has been fighting to defend its homeland from
the so-called Islamic State force based in Iraq.
Fiji police spokesperson Inspector Josaia Weicavu said the force was aware of the hack and was working to rectify it.
An RFMF spokesperson was unaware of the incident when contacted, but said he would look into the issue.
Director of Immigration Nemani Vuniwaqa also said he was unaware of the hack, but would look into it urgently.
MuhmadEmad has reportedly hacked numerous US and Turkey government websites over the past two years.
Website defacement:
Website defacement is an attack on a website that changes
the visual appearance of the site or a webpage. These are typically the
work of system crackers, who break into a web server and replace the
hosted website with one of their own.
When checking later in the day – more than 6 hours later, Café Pacific found this for the Fiji militarysite from a university firewall:
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Indonesia’s National Intelligence Agency (BIN) plans to spend Rp700 billion (US$54 million) to recruit more agents in response to concerns over personnel constraints, a lawmaker has said.
BIN currently has 3000 agents, which is considered insufficient to cover such a huge and problematic country.
“We need 2000 more spies,” House of Representatives member Tubagus Hasanuddin told reporters after the House’s budget hearing with the BIN chairman.
The additional BIN personnel are to be dispatched to provincial intelligence bureaus (Binda) in accordance to the threat level, population and size of the respective region.
The intelligence body would also try to improve the qualifications of its human resources through more training, Tubagus said.
“The agents’ capacity must be equal or even greater than the threat,” he asserted.
BIN chairman Sutiyoso has asked for extended powers to arrest suspected terrorists following the recent terrorist attack in the heart of Jakarta that left eight people dead.
BIN has been criticised for failing to prevent the attack, which has been attributed to the radical Islamic State group.
“The point is, we are asking for more authority to extract information from suspected terrorists and complete the investigation,” said Sutiyoso.
National’s majority on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade committee has refused to extend the deadline for submissions on the 30-chapter Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) past the 15 sitting days set out in the Cabinet manual, despite provision to do so if the government agrees, reports Auckland University law professor Jane Kelsey.
‘The government claims this is the most important agreement New Zealand has ever entered into and has promised ad nauseam that people can have their say (after the fact) before the select committee. Now they are refusing to give any extensions in advance and telling people if they make their submission later than the 11 March they risk not having it accepted’, she said.
In addition to the massive TPPA text, the same cut off applies to submissions on New Zealand’s accession to four important intellectual property treaties consequent on the TPPA.
Professor Kelsey sought an extension on the grounds that she is the claimants’ expert witness for the Waitangi Tribunal hearing on the TPPA that runs for the week of 14th March and will not be able to finalise a detailed and considered submission until after that date.
She and others who sought an extension received an email this morning saying: ‘At its meeting on Thursday, 3 March 2016 the committee resolved not to extend the closing date for the receipt of submissions. The closing date is Friday, 11 March 2016. The committee did agree to consider any substantive submissions received after that date on a case by case basis.’
‘That puts me and others in an impossible position of preparing a submission and having it rejected for being out of time’, Professor Kelsey said.
‘I have been working with others night and day since the secret text was released analysing the content and its implications for New Zealand. We have produced the kind of detailed analyses that the government should have done, instead of its farcical National Interest Analysis. But I haven’t even got to several important issues, such as impacts on public services and financial regulation, and clearly won’t have any chance to do so before the submissions close. These are not addressed in the implementing legislation so there is no chance to address them formally at all.’
‘Presumably this deadline is intended allow the government to fast track the treaty consideration and the implementing legislation through the House, and limit the evidence of public disquiet about the deal,’ Professor Kelsey said.
‘The government’s behaviour simply confirms that the select committee process is a farce and that there is not even a pretence of democracy when it comes to the TPPA.’
The month of February has experienced a whopping temperature rise not seen before in the history of record-keeping, according to just-released global satellite data, claims Greenpeace.
Greenpeace executive director Russel Norman said temperatures around the planet — including in New Zealand — had experienced such a spike that the world would be “crazy” not to act immediately.
“Based on the data that’s just been put out it’s pretty clear that February has obliterated our previous record-setting month. It’s completely unusual, even taking El Niño into consideration,” he said.
“Doing something about this right away is a matter of life and death. We can’t afford to muck around.
“Even the climate deniers, who ironically have used this very satellite data in the past to further their own agendas, have gone very quiet.”
Action here in New Zealand needed to start with calling it quits on any future oil exploration, said Norman.
But on the back of the #COP21 Paris Climate Conference in January, Prime Minister John Key said he had no intention of scaling back any search for fossil fuels.
Facing floods, droughts “Key is doing less than bugger all when it comes to climate change. And this means we’re facing floods in our homes, and droughts on our farms. We need to make the call now that enough is enough,” said Norman.
“I think this will be the year of peaceful protest in New Zealand. We’ve seen it with the TPPA [Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement], and we’re going to see it with the oil industry. Next on the agenda is Greenpeace’s day of peaceful civil disobedience in three weeks at the annual petroleum conference at SkyCity.”
Last month, Greenpeace launched the campaign, pegged as an “an escalation of protest tactics”, and called on members of the public to take part in a co-ordinated demonstration of civil disobedience at the conference in Auckland on March 21.
“Everyone who is concerned about news like February’s overwhelming temperature record should come and join us at the oil conference. We need real climate action,” said Norman.
[caption id="attachment_4808" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr Bryce Edwards.[/caption]
Is Pharmac’s decision not to prioritise funding melanoma drug Keytruda a case of “putting money before people”, or is it the inevitable outcome of making rational choices with limited resources? In part one of a two-part political roundup this column outlines the case for the urgent funding of Pembrolizumab, better known by the brand name Keytruda.
Melanoma patients and their advocates were understandably dismayed when New Zealand’s drug buying agency Pharmac announced in December it deemed funding Keytruda a “low priority.”
The agency said it acknowledged the high incidence of melanoma and current lack of effective funded treatments for advanced melanoma in New Zealand, but had reservations about the “magnitude and long-term durability” of any benefits, “together with the extremely high cost of Keytruda.” It stated it would work with the “pharmaceutical company to see if the issues can be resolved through further data provision or through commercial means.” For more on Pharmac’s decision it’s worth reading the summary of advice to Pharmac on Keytruda.
“How can you put money before people?” asks Jeff Paterson who was diagnosed with stage four melanoma and whose next phase of treatment will likely depend upon Keytruda – see Audrey Young’s Student’s cancer battle: Melanoma drugs not funded by Pharmac.
Paterson, along with Leisa Renwick – whose own cancer is in remission thanks to Keytruda – and other melanoma patients and supporters presented a petition at Parliament on Tuesday calling on the Government to fund the drug.
Thwarted by what many believe is a lack of accountability on the part of Pharmac, petition organiser Renwick said the only option was a public campaign: “There’s nothing else we can do but stand on the steps of parliament and ask the government to hear us. There are no other avenues of appeal.” You can listen to Leisa Renwick and the follow-up interview with Health Minister Jonathan Coleman on Tuesday’s Morning Report: Will the Health Minister front up to melanoma sufferers?
Coleman initially declined to meet with petitioners – a decision that an appalled Duncan Garner labelled “uncaring. Not to mention bloody hypocritical” – see: Govt hypocritical to not talk with cancer patients. Garner complains, “His time is precious, apparently. Well so is theirs – many of them are dying, Minister, and they desperately need help, hope and the ear of someone in charge. That’s you, Sir.”
Garner makes no bones about his position on the debate: “This Keytruda melanoma drug is saving lives and you know within a short space of time if it works. Trials need to start immediately. The road blocks and public service speak looks like petty politics. On this issue the Government has lost its touch.”
A lack of fairness and consistency
In another heartfelt piece, Duncan Garner says “this really is about the rich and the poor and it shouldn’t be. Access to medicines in this country should be access for all”. He “calls out” the Prime Minister for being happy to override Pharmac when it suits him, such as National’s 2008 opposition campaign to fund a longer course of breast cancer drug Herceptin against Pharmac’s advice. Garner says it’s not good enough to now tell melanoma patients “oh we can’t get involved in Pharmac decisions” and labels the Government’s stance on Keytruda ‘rubbish’.
If it ends in a public relations disaster then, according to Audrey Young, National only has itself to blame. Like Garner, Young says National is now paying the price for its actions over Herceptin, as the party appears “hollow, hypocritical and heartless” for its unwillingness to do the same for melanoma patients. In Govt’s hands-off stance is fine – if people aren’t dying she says when it comes to Keytruda the arms-length decision-making process is “not working” and “not fair” and politicians should intervene.
Amidst emotional scenes outside Parliament, Renwick told those gathered it absolutely comes down to money: “Only those with the means to pay can access medicines that can save our lives. The wealthy are offered treatment and the poor are sent home to die – and that’s a fact” – see Nicholas Jones’ Life-saving melanoma drug: ‘People are dying’ Health Minister Jonathan Coleman told.
Back in December Jane Phare reported Rich-lister turns to unfunded Keytruda. Former beer baron Douglas Myers, now “under the care of a private London oncology clinic”, was reported to be spending “tens of thousands of dollars every month on chemotherapy drugs, including the new wonder drug Keytruda, to help keep him alive for a little longer.”
For most patients with advanced melanoma, though, it’s a tale of Givealittle pages, sausage sizzles, galas, cake stalls and raffles. And that’s the ‘lucky’ ones who have support and can fundraise, or are able to remortgage houses and cash in superannuation funds. Jeff Paterson and his family remind us that fighting cancer is harrowing enough without the terrible stress of continual fundraising.
The call to urgently fund Keytruda has the support of some of New Zealand’s leading cancer specialists. Probably the most outspoken critic of Pharmac’s decision on the melanoma drug is oncologist and medical director of the Cancer Society, Chris Jackson.
Paul Henry, who has also campaigned hard for some time against Pharmac’s decision on Keytruda, recently interviewed Jackson – see: Cancer Society calling for life-saving drug. Jackson describes drugs like Keytruda as “truly transformative” and “light years” ahead of anything we have previously had available for treating patients with melanoma. Yet, he says, he has “to sit with patients every single week and say to them there are treatments that could benefit you that you can’t have.”
Jackson says it is accepted that chemotherapy is not an effective treatment for melanoma but, by virtue of deciding alternative drugs are not good enough, Pharmac has arrived at a position where they have “effectively made the decision that chemotherapy is an acceptable standard of care for melanoma in NZ… and it’s not… It’s just not credible to have that position.”
He says that the claims we can’t afford the drug are “not true”, and it’s “a political decision” not to return the savings that Pharmac hands back to the government every year to the pharmaceutical budget. While absolute costings are not clear, as we are not privy to the price that Merck Sharp and Dohme is offering to Pharmac, he points out that costings cannot be based on an assumption that every single patient with advanced melanoma is appropriate for this drug. He says the effectiveness of Keytruda is established very quickly and “you are only paying for people who benefit after a period of around 3 months.”
In a must-read Herald opinion piece, Jackson elaborates on his arguments – see: Cancer sufferers in dark over drug, Jackson. He says the “answer is not politicians deciding what drugs to fund”, and instead he lays out other solutions to a situation that “offends our Kiwi sense of fairness.”
In the wake of the petition yesterday, Jackson posted on Facebook and on Tuesday he was interviewed on Newstalk ZB where he pointed out that, in contrast to New Zealand with “zero” available options, “Australia, England and Canada…each have “three funded, effective and readily available” melanoma drugs. He points out New Zealand invests less in cancer drugs than comparable countries and says greater funding would mean decisions more in line with those countries – Cancer Society: NZers deserve access to melanoma treatment.
Oncologist and Melanoma New Zealand board member, Rosalie Fisher, shares Jackson’s views and says she in “no doubt Keytruda is a breakthrough drug” and finds it hard to understand why Pharmac would not fund it. She too disagrees “with the idea that the data isn’t good enough… It’s certainly been good enough for Australia and the UK” – see Alex Ashton’s Cancer survivor ‘shattered’ at Pharmac funding call.
American cancer specialist Dr Antoni Ribas told John Campbell that he was among a group of specialists who “urged Dr Coleman to provide an effective funded treatment in November when he was here for a summit” – see: Melanoma patients deliver petition to parliament. Ribas says “I was appalled by the country with the highest incidence of melanoma being stuck with a chemotherapy drug, a four year old drug, when there’s many others that have been proven to be superior.”
Martin Johnson says of course “the size of the drugs budget is at the heart of the Keytruda debate” – see his useful report, Pharmac’s focus: getting best value. So does New Zealand spend enough on medicine? Johnston reports that “Pharmac was created to constrain growth in spending on non-hospital medicines, which was 20 per cent in some years in the 1980s, and more recently its role has expanded into hospitals. Although New Zealand is slightly above average among the OECD club of developed countries for overall health spending as a proportion of the national income, we are ranked 29th out of 33 countries for our spending per capita on medicines.”
The Labour Party is making the most of National’s new-found respect for Pharmac’s independence by promising to override Pharmac and fund Keytruda if elected. Andrew Little repeated that promise this week on Morning Report, saying “in the end it’s the politicians that set the rules for Pharmac.” You can listen to his four minute interview with Susie Ferguson which provides a good summary of Labour’s position: Health Minister needs to step up to responsibilities.
Little says while Pharmac generally does a good job, “Politicians can get our own advice and make our own considerations. Sometimes you come across a situation where you say actually in the public interest it is right that this drug should be available and Pharmac should be required to fund it.”
Labour has adopted Chris Jackson’s suggestion that Pharmac follow Britain’s lead and establish an early-access funding scheme where, in areas of high unmet need, drugs that show early but compelling promise can at least be made temporarily available, ensuring people who are currently affected do not miss out while further data is collected.
Labour has also been critical of savings from Pharmac’s budget being diverted to other parts of the health system, saying rather than papering over underfunding in other areas they should be spent on drug purchases – see: Sam Sachdeva’s $40m in Pharmac savings should be moved into new drug purchases – Labour.
Economic Analysis by Tony Alexander.
[caption id="attachment_3709" align="alignleft" width="150"] Tony Alexander, BNZ economist.[/caption]
This week I discuss the recent reduction in business confidence but how the spread between winners and losers across sectors in NZ at the moment is amazingly wide. If tourists could be encouraged to spend a day frolicking with cows that would be great. Exchange rates have moved little while some retail interest rates have been lifted in response to bank funding costs rising offshore as the world gets concerned about offshore bank exposure to the likes of the energy sector and we Australasian banks get caught in the backwash.
The Overview isn’t a must read this time around in my opinion.
For the full analysis, continue reading below or Download document (pdf 360kb).
Business Slightly More Cautious – But The Averages Hide Wide Disparities
We received evidence this week that the spike in concerns about world growth, wobbly sharemarkets, and renewed decline in dairy prices has dented the sentiment of the country’s business sector. A net 7% of respondents in the latest ANZ Business Outlook survey say that they feel optimistic about the economy in a year’s time. This is down from a net 23% in December and slightly below the ten year average reading for this measure of +10%. Thus caution prevails out there. Is it much denting intentions of hiring and investing however?
A net 12% of businesses say they plan hiring more people. This is down from 20% in December so a sizeable drop. But it is still twice the average February reading of just +6% so we remain prepared to say that jobs growth will be reasonable going forward. Though it depends of course upon what sector you are thinking about. Hiring intentions are well above average in retailing, manufacturing and services. But at -8.7% agricultural intentions are below the net 2% positive average and at 0% the construction sector reading is below the 10% average and December’s 30% reading. That is probably the most interesting of the employment readings and worth keeping an eye on because it will probably not stay that weak given the volume of work coming up.
Intentions of investing in new plant and machinery etc. have not changed much in recent months and sit now at 14% from 15% in December and an average of 12%.
To put more flesh on the bones of these numerical surveys run by the likes of ANZ and NZIER we run our quarterly BNZ Confidence Survey the results of which were distributed to everyone on the Weekly Overview emailing list on Wednesday. In the dairying sector deep pessimism prevails and it would be quite bold to extrapolate this week’s 1.4% rise in average prices at the Global Dairy Trade auction into an upward trend as yet.
The dairying pain is being felt more and more amongst firms supporting the sector with an extra aggravating factor being new weakness showing up in sheep and beef. But outside of those primary sectors most others are doing quite well. This includes honey, venison, kiwifruit, pipfruit, horticulture and forestry. Wine sales and production are also going well. Then there are the sectors which are booming. Top of the list is tourism with huge rises in visitor numbers and spending spread throughout the country. Construction is also very firm with a noticeable lift in positive comments from the regions backing up the growth apparent in monthly consent issuance data.
The survey basically shows strong offset to the dairy sector weakness which leaves fairly much all of us forecasters continuing to speak in terms of 2% – 3% growth over each the next couple of years. For most of us the outlook also translates into the absence of any expectation of much weakness in the NZD. Regarding monetary policy views are more mixed. We don’t think the RB will cut again but others who perhaps have failed to factor in the global development of monetary policy easings consistently failing to lift inflation rates still expect two more decreases. Possible but not probable.
Housing
Construction of dwellings in New Zealand is rising with consents for 27,124 dwellings issued in the year to January ahead 9.9% from a year earlier and 95% higher than in the year to January 2012. But there are big variations around the country. In Canterbury consents have fallen by 13% this past year to sit at 6,311 from 7,255 a year ago. This is still well above the 23 year average of 3,700 but in the three months to January numbers were 25% down from a year ago. So things are falling away quite quickly now that a lot of the postearthquake construction is done.
In Auckland there is in contrast good growth – though not enough to make many people think that the shortage is going to radically improve let alone disappear in the next few years. In the year to January in Auckland consents for the construction of 9,275 dwellings were issued. This makes for a 22% rise from a year before but in the three months to January growth was less than that at 16.4% from a year ago. So maybe growth is slowing a tad. Average consents issued per annum for the past 23 years total 7,400.
It is in the rest of the country however where things are getting interesting. In a traditional lagged response to a lift in sales and prices construction is rising with consents issued in NZ excluding Auckland and Canterbury ahead 39% in the three months to January from a year ago. Average consent issuance outside our two biggest cities has been 11,200 these past 23 years and the latest total is only just above that at 11,538.
What does it all mean? As the construction boom fades in Christchurch tail-end companies which might have over-traded will be caught out. Everyone knew this would be coming. In Auckland supply is not rising fast enough even to meet the needs of migration-driven population growth. Growth in building outside of Auckland will make it even harder for people to find builders in Auckland. Tradies are going to quit Auckland for work elsewhere. History tells us to watch out for over-optimistic building in some parts of the country which seem flavour of the month to investors currently and perhaps draw some media exposure, but which have fairly low population growth which in the end will generate a price impact down the track.
In other words, if you are an Aucklander in panic mode because you missed out on some cheap place in Huntly or elsewhere, watch what the locals may soon be trying to sell you and for most though not all locations don’t blindly extrapolate the construction of houses on a new subdivision into a multi-year boom in construction in that area for which it would be a good idea to prepare for by snapping up sections in the next development. The one you see underway could soak up all that town’s population growth if any for the next decade.
Speaking of Auckland, there was weakness apparent in the Barfoot and Thompson monthly numbers released this morning. Their sales in Auckland in February were down by 17% from a year ago and off a seasonally adjusted pace near 20% from January. The average sales price lifted to $822,000 from $812,000 in January to lie 10% ahead of a year ago. But this annual gain reflects rises earlier in the 12 month period and over the past three months prices have fallen on average by 1.9%. This change from +3.2% in the three months to November and +3% in the three months to August is largely a seasonal thing. Nonetheless the result still shows a market taking a decent summer pause.
The stock of listings at the end of the month was ahead 1.8% from a year ago but of greater interest is the strong lift in new listings received during the month to 2,060 from 1,771 a year ago. This is the greatest number of new listings in February for at least the past 15 years so price restraint is likely to continue in the near future as buyers focus their attention on the regions. But before anyone starts thinking that sellers are rushing agents it pays to note that in the middle of last year for a while new listings were running 88% ahead of the same month a year earlier.
NZ Dollar
This has been a week in which investors have smiled a bit more because the People’s Bank of China cut reserve requirements for Chinese banks thus injecting more money into their banking system, the US Treasury reduced their worries about a Chinese currency devaluation, economic data in the United States came in better than expected, and the Reserve Bank of Australia left monetary policy unchanged feeling slightly less worried about their economy.
The improvement in risk tolerance has caused sharemarkets to rise, the Yen to weaken slightly, and we have lost ground slightly against a marginally firmer Aussie dollar boosted by the no-change stance from the RBA and better than expected 0.6% growth in Australia’s GDP during the December quarter. Full year growth was a good 2.5%.
Yet no decisive blows have been struck against the many factors which since the start of the year have been occupying the minds of people. These include weak energy and commodity prices, the ineffectiveness of monetary policy and limited ability of central banks to respond if something new and nasty hits world growth, the rising probability that the UK will exit the EU, deepening divisions between EU members over the projects appalling floundering on the refugee crises, the militarisation of the South China seas by China and rising rhetoric against such expansionism by the US and directly affected countries who are boosting military spending in response, the Middle East crisis in its many forms, the unpredictability of financial and economic variables as the GFC has changed relationships between things, and to top it all off the now rising prevalence of questions regarding what a United States led by Donald Trump might look like and do.
Late today the NZD was buying the same USDs as a week ago near 66.5, more Yen of about 75.5 from 74.3, fewer pounds near 47.3 from 47.8, more Euros near 61.3 from 60.4, and fewer AUDs near 91.2 cents from 92.4. This is about as low as the NZD has been against the Aussie dollar since early December so for the many people out there holding AUDs wanting them in NZDs one wonders if this might not be an opportune time to transact some – whilst realistically having no idea personally about where the rate will be in a week, month, year, or decades time.
You will find current spot rates here. http://www.xe.com/currency/nzd-new-zealand-dollarIf I Were A Borrower What Would I Do?
US bond yields have risen this week amidst a mild rise in expectations of more Fed tightening this year. But more easing remains likely in other parts of the world like Japan and Europe, and wariness of banks in Europe has blown out NZ bank offshore funding costs which you might notice have been passed on slightly this past week in the form of higher fixed lending rates. Would I still fix three years now that our rate has been lifted from 4.49% to 4.64%. Yes. I would be great security for a low price as compared with October last year when I fixed two years near 4.4% but the three year rate was a tad out of reach at 5.19%.
If I Were An Investor
The text at this link explains why I do not include a section discussing what I would do if I were an investor. http://tonyalexander.co.nz/regular-publications/bnz-weekly-overview/if-i-were-an-investor/For Noting
The Weekly Overview is written by Tony Alexander, Chief Economist at the Bank of New Zealand. The views expressed are my own and do not purport to represent the views of the BNZ. To receive the Weekly Overview each Thursday night please sign up at www.tonyalexander.co.nz To change your address or unsubscribe please click the link at the bottom of your email. Tony.alexander@bnz.co.nz
NewsroomPlus.com
Today’s edition of NewsRoom_Digest features 4 resourceful links of the day and the politics pulse from Thursday 3rd of March. It is best viewed on a desktop screen.
NEWSROOM_MONITOR
Noteworthy stories in the current news cycle include: asking prices for properties in Auckland have risen to a record high, with data from realestate.co.nz showing the average asking price in the country’s biggest city jumped 13.3%, or $101,656, to $866,080 in the year to February; voting in the final referendum on New Zealand’s flag starts today; and the New Zealand Rugby Union says it has no plans to remove contact rugby from schools, despite calls from British doctors to ban it there.
POLITICS PULSE
Media releases issued from Parliament by political parties today
included:
Government: New Zealand’s constitutional treasures to be more accessible; Services and investment boosted under TPP; Second phase ETS Review documents released;Youth in court down 61 per cent since 2007/08;Road crashes cost us all — Foss; Speech: Amy Adams – Opening address to Media Technology-Pacific Conference, Auckland; Beetles help wage War on Weeds; New Zealand welcomes UN Security Council resolution on North Korea; Targets to provide direction for our energy future; Speech: Simon Bridges – New Zealand’s renewable advantage – moving beyond electricity; Ture Whenua Māori Bill strengthens retention of Māori land; Callaghan Innovation Board appointments announced; Youth Justice success in Wellington; PM Acknowledges Passing Of Martin Crowe
ACT Party: Seymour assists Collins with reading the law; Seymour challenges Dom Post editorial writer to name themselves and visit a Partnership School
Greens: Green Party Calls For Investigation Of Clean Alternatives To Huntly Coal;Condolences for Martin Crowe; Nick Smith misleads the House and the public over rentals Bill
Labour: Nat MPs block call for NZTE to return to committee; Workers need more family time, not less; Don’t ask, don’t tell on illegal school fees
Māori Party: Māori Party Supports Greater Trustee Control Over Wairarapa Whenua; Have your say on the flag referendum
New Zealand First: Crowe’s Courage And Class Will Be Remembered – Peters
NZ National Party: Technology Valley Awards will help showcase the Hutt; Bishop urges family violence conversation to continue
United Future Party: Flag Referendum Needs To Look Out For Future Generations; Dunne Speaks – The Student Loan Debt Monster Rampages On
LINKS OF THE DAYBUILDING ACTIVITY: Building activity reached a record high in the December 2015 quarter, with an increase from the previous quarter in Auckland but a decrease in Canterbury, according to Statistics New Zealand. More details at:http://bit.ly/1ORHrnqETS REVIEW DOCUMENTS: Two technical documents were released today to help New Zealanders engage with the second phase of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) review. The two reports are available at:
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/climate-change/forestry-technical-notehttp://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/climate-change/operational-matters-technical-noteLIFE TABLES: New Zealand cohort life tables track the mortality experience of people born in each year from 1876. These complement the more common period life tables, which show the mortality experience in a specific time period. The tables were released by Statistics New Zealand. Read more: http://bit.ly/1QML67lROAD CRASHES COST: The Ministry of Transport’s annual Social Cost of Road Crashes and Injuries report estimated the total social cost of fatal and injury crashes in 2014 was $3.47 billion (in June 2015 prices). The latest report is available on the Ministry of Transport’s website: www.transport.govt.nz/socialcost
And that’s our sampling of “news you can use” for Thursday 3rd March.
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MIL OSI – Source: BNZ Economist Tony Alexander – Analysis:
Our first quarterly BNZ Confidence Survey for 2016 has unsurprisingly shown that the dairying sector is extremely pessimistic and experiencing hard times while record optimism prevails in tourism where visitor numbers and spending are booming. The weakness in dairying is starting to spread out but construction around the country is very strong, regional housing markets are lifting, and in Auckland while real estate comments are highly mixed it is interesting to note some respondents observing more Chinese buyers recently.
Download the entire document here 513kb (pdf)
Dairy Woe But Tourism & Construction Booms Underway
Our first quarterly survey for 2016 in which we ask Weekly Overview readers to comment on their sectors has produced some stark results. At the negative end understandably is the dairy sector with high pessimism and also some reduced confidence in sheep and beef. However in horticulture sentiment is very positive.
At the other end of the spectrum are regional housing markets now benefitting from Aucklanders seeking assets and locals jumping on this cyclical bandwagon, and tourism. Strong growth in visitor numbers and their spending has produced the most positive set of comments on tourism or potentially any sector that we have seen in the 11 year history of this survey. The construction and engineering sectors are also very buoyant and forestry positive. Retailing is also generally though not completely positive and with margins under pressure.
In the middle is the Auckland residential property market with a mixture of negative comments but also continuing listings shortages in some areas and one or two comments that Chinese buyers appear to be returning.
With regard to specific sectors the following broad comments can be made.
Accountancy
Lots of compliance work, tightening in rural areas.
Advertising and Marketing
Generally good activity. No indication of either fresh caution amongst clients or surge in spending.
Construction
Most obvious development is a lift in activity in the regions. Auckland as busy as ever, costs rising.
Engineering
Extremely busy
Farming
Very negative comments regarding dairying, sheep and beef less positive than before, venison good. Weakness in dairying is sharply affecting farm servicing companies.
Forestry
Quite positive comments including for sawmilling.
Horticulture
Nothing but positive comments spread across kiwifruit, avocadoes, blueberries, flowers and vegetables.
Manufacturing
Flat to good but with dairying weakness starting to come through for some.
Property Development
Strong growth apparent but slowing in Christchurch.
Property Management/Investment
Good tenant demand, rents rising typically less than 5% but one example of more, investors paying high prices to get stock.
Recruitment
Very busy but often with shortages of potential staff.
Residential Real Estate
Very strong outside Auckland and Christchurch. Some signs that Chinese buyers are returning to the market in Auckland but overall quite mixed comments for Auckland.
Retail
Margins squeezed but sales good overall.
Tourism
Absolutely booming. Never before have we received such an abundance of positive tourism sector comments.
Eight groups plan to file a lawsuit against the US Department of the Navy and the US Fish and Wildlife Service for failure to comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Notice of the lawsuit was received by the US Department of Defense, the US Department of the Interior, the Secretary of the Navy at the Pentagon and the Director of US Fish and Wildlife Service on February 25.
It is expected that the Navy will respond by the end of this month. The ESA requires a 60-day period before litigation can begin – the earliest to file suit is 26 April 2016.
Pågan Island … 23 new plant and animal species threatened or endangered. Image: Sylvia Plait
On 1 October 2015, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced 23 new plant and animal species in the Northern Marianas and Guam as threatened or endangered.
Following this declaration, the Navy has failed to comply with ESA Section 7, which requires a reassessment of the Navy’s ongoing Mariana Island Training and Testing (MITT) programme.
The Navy, along with the service, must ensure that any action authorised, funded, or carried out by the Navy such as the MITT program is not likely to jeopardise the continued existence of the newly listed threatened or endangered species (16 U.S. C. § 1536(a)(2)).
The Navy must request from the service whether any listed or proposed species may be present in the area and if so, the Navy must prepare a “biological assessment” to determine if the species may be affected by the proposed action.
Critical habitat If the action may affect any listed species or critical habitat, the Navy must consult with the service. The Navy has also failed to commit resources to find reasonable and prudent alternatives for training and testing.
Earthjustice attorney David Henkin uses the service’s own words from the final rule extending ESA protection to the Mariana Islands species:
“The MITT area opens up every island within the Mariana Archipelago as a potential training site…which subsequently may result in negative impacts to any number of the 23 species addressed.”
Marianas Island Training and Testing (MITT) In August 2015, the Navy authorised the expansion of Mariana Island Range Complex (MIRC), a project that earned “A Finding of No Significant Harm” (FONSH) status, according to the Navy’s Environmental Assessment.
The 500,000 sq-nautical-mile training and testing area around the Mariana Islands was doubled and now includes nearly a billion square-miles; an area larger than the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, and New Mexico combined.
This training area also overlaps the area protected by Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, also administrated by the service.
Live fire training troubles the people of the Marianas. Image: Stars and Stripes
The training and testing within the MITT area includes the use of explosive bombs from the air, sea and land and amphibious, anti-surface, electronic, anti-submarine, and mine warfare. It also includes undersea ordnance training — with a roughly 300 percent increase of bombing on Farallon De Medinilla, or No’os island.
The Navy also approved state-of-the-art high frequency undersea sonar systems to be operated from Navy vessels — similar to that linked to causing death among whales and dolphins.
In March 2015, a federal court ruled that these sonar exercises and underwater detonations in the waters surrounding Hawai‘i and off the coast of California violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.
Community Organisations The ESA process is the only legal framework in which to challenge the Navy’s activities. The Mayor of the Northern Mariana Islands (Gani Islands), Jerome Aldan, supports the potential lawsuit, along with the eight organisations: Alternative Zero Coalition, Center for Biological Diversity, Fanacho Marianas, Guardians of Gani, Oceania Resistance, PåganWatch, Tinian Premier Football Club, and Tinian Women’s Association.
“The American citizens who live here — who have said ‘NO’ in a strong and clear voice—are also being disregarded,” says Peter J. Perez, co-founder of PåganWatch. “A department of the federal government, not the leadership of the United States, not the President and the Congress, but a department, somehow has the right to unilaterally decide to turn a state’s territory into the world’s largest live-fire training range.”
In 2013, the late CNMI governor Eloy Songao Inos requested that the Navy conduct more in-depth assessments of their activities, respect marine protection areas, and refrain from undersea training occurring in areas with high levels of marine life.
The Navy responded in May 2015, stating that they could not impose these “geographic limitations on training and testing activities,” calling it an “impractical burden” to implement and an “unacceptable impact to the effectiveness” of their training.
Pacific Pivot
Saipan’s Peace Park. Image: Sylvia Frain
The potential lawsuit is only a small element of the resistance to the American foreign policy “Pacific Pivot,” that calls for additional militarisation of the region. The Department of Defense has released numerous documents outlining military projects in the Mariana Archipelago.
The largest project, approved in August 2015, includes the relocation of 5000 Marines and their dependents from Okinawa to Guam, the construction of housing containments and a live-fire training range complex adjacent to the only National Wildlife Refuge on the island.
Additional proposed projects include housing artillery, mortar, grenade ranges on the island of Tinian, and to use the entire island of Pågan for bombing and range training purposes.
While the local community continues to show resistance to the militarisation of their sacred and scarce islands, the Navy only emphasises the need for servicemen to train in the land, sea, and air of the Marianas in the name of “national security”.
Sylvia C. Frain is a doctoral candidate with Te Tari Kōrero Nehe me te Mahi Toi Onamata/The Department of History and Art History, Te Ao O Rongomaraeroa/The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, at Te Whare Wānanga/Otāgo University of Otago and a research associate with the Richard Flores Taitano Micronesia Area Research Center (MARC), Unibetsedåt Guåhan University of Guam in the Marianas, Micronesia. She founded Oceania Resistance to share her autoethnographical research relating to decolonisation and demilitarisation efforts across the region.
The Australian Governor-General, Peter Cosgrove, has turned down a request by a Timor Sea protest movement to meet during his short tour of Timor-Leste seeking a “frank and open” discussion about the maritime boundary dispute.
The Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea (Movimentu Kontra Okupasaun Tasi Timor/MKOTT) has sent an open letter to Cosgrove, saying that “occupation and exploitation” had continued in the country after independence from Indonesia.
“This occupation has, to our dismay and disappointment, been continued by the government of Australia, the country of which you are Governor-General, a wealthy and prosperous country,” the letter said.
Spokespeople for MKOTT said the Australian Embassy had rejected the meeting, quoting Deputy Ambassador Angela Robinson as saying Cosgrove had a “very full program during his short time” in the country.
The open letter from MKOTT, dated March 2, said:
His Excellency, Mr Peter Cosgrove, Governor-General of Australia
Welcome to Timor-Leste.
The Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea (Movimentu Kontra Okupasaun Tasi Timor/MKOTT) is a social movement composed of activists, students, individuals, former resistance and civil society organisations. Since its creation in 2004, this moment has advocated for legal, judicial and diplomatic processes between the Australian and Timor-Leste governments to find a maritime boundaries solution which is fair to both countries.
As a movement of people from Timor-Leste, we deeply appreciate your actions as a commander of the international force which came to Timor-Leste seventeen years ago, saving the lives of many Timorese from the brutal violence of the Indonesian military after we won our independence.
Even though we were informed by the Australian embassy in Dili that you were unable to meet with us during your visit to Timor-Leste because your schedule was full, and also because your role in the Australian government does not relate to the question of the maritime boundary between Timor-Leste and Australia, we still see you as an important person in the relationship between our two countries.
Today, as a good friend of the people of Timor-Leste, you visit our land once again, where seventeen years ago you offered you solidarity and assistance. We believe that you understand very well how the people of this nation have suffered as a result of war and conflict, and have been kept poor for centuries of colonial occupation and domination.
Unfortunately, however, this occupation and exploitation has continued after Timor-Leste achieved independence. This occupation has, to our dismay and disappointment, been continued by the government of Australia, the country of which you are Governor-General, a wealthy and prosperous country. Therefore, by means of this letter, MKOTT would like to use the occasion of your visit to Timor-Leste to beseech you, as a historical friend of the people of Timor-Leste, to use your influence and ask the Australian Government to:
1. Respect the sovereignty and dignity of the people and nation of Timor-Leste as they do and have done with other nations. 2. Revert to the maritime boundary dispute resolution mechanisms under the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. 3. Focus negotiation “Frank and Open” on maritime boundary and do not turn the subject in to broader bilateral relationship. 4. Discontinue their use of now discredited “Continental Shelf” argument. 5. Stop using their considerable political and economic power to continue to rob Timor-Leste’s people of their current and future wealth.
We would like to once again express our deep gratitude for your solidarity with the Timorese people, and thank you very much for your attention.
Sincerely,
Juvinal Dias and Faustino Soares (Spokesperson of the Movement)
The stage is set for the Tour de Flores, a world cycling event that aims to boost tourism on Flores, an island in Indonesia blessed with rich and unique marine life.
The event, which will run over 10 days from May 16 to 26, is being jointly held by the Tourism Ministry and the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Ministry, with support from several other ministries, including the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry and the Youth and Sports Ministry.
East Nusa Tenggara Legislative Council member Bonifasius Jebarus said the East Nusa Tenggara administration and regency administrations in the province should work to ensure that the Tour de Flores would boost the tourism sector and economy on the island.
He hoped the event would not be only ceremonial, bringing no lasting impact to local communities.
“We should take an important lesson from the last event held by the East Nusa Tenggara administration, the Tour de Timor, during which tourism stakeholders were not involved optimally. A ceremonial event means nothing to us,” the lawmaker said.
Bonifasius added that the upcoming Tour de Flores event should involve more culturally aware activities, in line with the local wisdom of the island.
“I also hope that the Tour de Flores won’t only aim to politicise the tourism sector. It is hoped that the event can push forward social movements, in which local wisdom can synergise with and support the development of modern life in the island. We should no longer work against our local wisdom but instead begin to work with the society?s prosperity in mind,” said Bonifasius.
Tourist attractions Flores Community Development chairman Ferdinandus Watu, who is also involved in tourism in Ende regency, said the Tour de Flores cycling event was a key event expected to successfully boost tourism on the island. Flores has many special tourist attractions, he said, including unique natural tourism and ecotourism sites.
Currently, people in Flores are facing various challenges, including poor infrastructure, and this event could help improve the economy, he said.
Flores Island … tourist and cultural attractions. Image: Wikipedia
Ahead of the event, Ferdinandus said, local administrations had started to tackle piles of garbage scattered in areas along the Trans-Flores road, starting from East Flores to Labuan Bajo. Garbage is one of the most critical problems in Flores.
“Each regency administration must clean up garbage that has piled up in areas along the Trans-Flores road, so that, hopefully, Tour de Flores participants can remember this island for its cleanliness,” he said.
West Manggarai senior guide Gabriel Pampur said the Tour de Flores formed part of the island’s tourism promotions.
“Maybe it will not have a immediate impact on the economy; but after this cycling tour, it is hoped that more tourists will come to the island, improving the economy [over time],” he said.
Official data obtained by The Jakarta Post reveals that the East Nusa Tenggara administration allocated Rp 3 billion (US$225,000) to the Tour de Flores 2016. Nine regencies in Flores will also contribute Rp 750 million each, totaling Rp 6.54 billion. It is predicted that overall the Tour de Flores will cost more than Rp 8 billion.
Twenty countries are expected to participate in the cycling tour, with a total race length of 661 kilometers, starting from the capital city of East Flores regency, Larantuka, making its way to Labuan Bajo, the capital of West Manggarai regency.
An arrest of a university student for sedition and subsequent attacks against journalists covering the story in India sparked international attention last month, drawing criticism from scholars and observers worldwide in defence of freedom of expression.
Jawaharlal Nehru University student union president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on charges of sedition and “anti-national” activities over “sloganeering” on 12 February, igniting widespread protests and debates on free speech.
Media personnel covering courts in Delhi were threatened, manhandled and beaten by lawyers on 15 February as they were trying to cover Kanhaiya Kumar’s hearing.
Kanhaiya Kumar … arrested for “sedition”. Image: TheWeek.in
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed its concern over the worsening state of press freedom in India following the incident, while the International Federation of Journalists also condemned the attacks.
According to media reports, hundreds of local journalists marched to the Supreme Court on 16 February to protest the alleged police inaction during the attacks, and called on the government to launch an inquiry into the incident.
Safety of journalists is a serious issue in India, as killings take place with impunity. On 13 February, three gunmen on motorcycles fatally shot journalist Karun Misra in the state of Uttar Pradesh, making it the third case in the state since June 2015, according to the CPJ.
While the motive was not immediately clear, the CPJ said the killing of Misra, who was Ambedkarnagar bureau chief of the Hindi daily Jan Sandesh Times, showed “India was becoming a more dangerous place to practice journalism and that Uttar Pradesh, in particular, has emerged as a dangerous place to be a journalist”.
The Philippines saw the first journalist killing for the year in February, when radio broadcaster Elvis Oradniza of the Pagadian City-based dxWO Power 99 FM, south of Manila, was shot dead by an unidentified assailant on 16 February.
According to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, Oradniza was said to have been reporting and commenting on illegal drugs and illegal gambling in Pitogo town before he was killed. CMFR said that if proven work-related, his killing would be the 151st case of journalist killed in the line of duty since 1986 and 30th under the current government of President Benigno Aquino III.
In response to the attacks against journalists in Afghanistan, President Ashraf Ghani issued a decree on 31 January to facilitate media activity and fight against impunity for crimes of violence against journalists.
Reporters Without Borders (RWB) welcomed the decree, which came after a series attacks against journalists, including the fatal shooting of senior Afghan broadcast journalist Mohammad Zubair Khaksar and the beating of freelance reporter Yahya Jawahari.
The CPJ said that while the government has made promises to address the situation, it should find an effective method of reversing the hostile environment for the media.
Digital rights Signalling a victory for net neutrality in India, the Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) decided against a plan for differential data pricing for content by telecommunication companies and other providers, earlier in the month.
The zero rating plan, of which Facebook’s Free Basics is an example, is aimed at offering access to some websites for free. The plan was widely criticised by activists, who mounted a campaign for net neutrality. Among those who welcomed the announcement were technology lawyer, Mishi Choudhary:
On the downside, netizens in the Asia and Pacific region continued to face criminal charges or restricted access to the internet as governments crack down on its critics. The Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) said in its report that between August 2015 and February 2016, at least seven people have been arrested for authoring posts or commenting online, while 24 others have been publicly threatened on the basis of their comments. CCHR says the incidents happened against a backdrop of an increasingly hostile environment for freedom of expression.
Also experiencing similar trends is Malaysia, where the Internet regulatory body has been blocking access to news websites while the police have begun to monitor social media users.
Among the sites blocked include the blogging platform Medium.com, which the government targeted as it was used by an investigative news outlet critical of the government, the Sarawak Report, also banned in Malaysia. Groups commenting on the issue included the Electronic Frontier Foundation and RWB, while the Malaysian Centre for Independent Journalism expects that online expression and access to information will only worsen as plans to tighten online laws are expected to be tabled in Parliament soon.
In Tibet, a popular blogger, Druklo was sentenced to three years in jail, a move that was criticised by the CPJ. According to news reports, Druklo had been in custody since March 2015 believed to be over his blog and social media posts about Tibet including political repression by Chinese authorities.
Media freedom laws Media policies and laws are being considered in various countries with varying implications. In Pakistan, the government has begun a consultation with various groups to draft the Media Workers Safety and Welfare Bill 2016, in response to demands for better protections for journalists in the country.
A joint submission by organisations like the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Media Matters for Democracy and the Pakistan Coalition on Media Safety, among others, calls on the government to set up mechanisms to monitor attacks against journalists and to create special prosecutor’s offices to initiate and expedite investigations and prosecutions in cases of threats against the media.
The government of Nepal has formed a committee to study a new media policy, in light of the new constitution that was adopted in 2015. A draft policy was introduced in 2012 but the government was criticised for not consulting key stakeholders.
IFEX member Freedom Forum welcomed the announcement and offered its expertise and inputs to the committee.
In Thailand, the junta’s draft constitution is expected to set back the democratic gains in media freedom and freedom of expression by at least 20 years. In its analysis of the draft, the Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance commented that the current draft neglects the guarantees for human rights that was contained in previous constitutions, broadens the scope for media violations, and does away with independent regulatory bodies, all of which could restrict political communication.
Honouring killed blogger A year on since the brutal killing of Bangladeshi-American secular blogger Avijit Roy, free expression advocates, friends and family commemorate the incident and call for justice. Avijit was stabbed to death by suspected militants after attending a premier book festival on 26 February 2015 in Dhaka.
Avijit’s stepdaughter, Trisha Ahmed, shares her memories in a piece in CNN while his friend, Shabnam Nadiya, writes an open letter to him, available here on PEN America’s website. Booksellers in Bangladesh said they have had to drop Avijit’s works fearing that they could suffer the same fate as his.
On the University of Indonesia campus in Depok, south of Jakarta, there is a group that gets together twice a month over a “pot-luck” dinner to discuss topics generally considered taboo in Indonesia.
The group is not involved in organised crime or murder, as wild rumours percolating in late January suggested, nor is it planning to take over the university with its “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender propaganda”.
An anti-LGBT pamphlet posted on a street in West Java. Image: Michael Neilson
Set up by a group of students and teachers, the Support Group and Resource Centre on Sexuality Studies is merely a place to meet and discuss sexuality and gender issues.
But the group became the lightning rod for a debate about being queer in Indonesia, after the University of Indonesia objected to a brochure it had disseminated about its “LGBT Peer Support Network”, which featured three gay men and a pansexual woman discussing the benefits of counselling.
An image of the brochure went viral online gaining a lot of attention – some of it positive, but most of it condemning the group.
The university distanced itself from the group, issuing a statement saying it was not responsible for its activities as it had not asked for a permit. The statement said:
People negotiate the traffic past a banner put up by the hardline Islamic Defenders Front calling for gay people to leave the Cigondewah Kaler area in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. Image: Antara Foto
“[University of Indonesia] strongly states that the Sexuality Group and Resource Centre has no rights to use the name and logo of the [University of Indonesia] in its activities.”
Conservative Islamic newspaper Republika soon picked up on the story with a front-page article titled “LGBT poses serious threat”, and what support group member Luna Siagian describes as a “witch-hunt” began
People gather at Baiturrahman Grand Mosque at dusk in Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia. A local law that makes gay sex punishable by public caning took effect in October last year. Image: AP
Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir joined in the debate, initially stating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students on campus corrupt the nation’s morals, before later clarifying he meant only those that were publicly “affectionate”.
An MP from the Prosperous Justice Party, Muhammad Nasir Djamil, also commented, saying “LGBT groups cannot thrive and be given space. Especially given they have entered campus through academic space.”
Speculative articles were written about the group’s members, including a profile piece in Republika about co-founder Firmansyah’s sexual orientation.
A collection of gay emojis that were made unavailable in Indonesia.
Members were cyber-bullied, and wild rumours circulated online linking them to criminal activities. Siagian received multiple messages daily criticising her about her sexuality.
The media exposure of the group led some members to be interrogated by their parents. One of the co-founders was kicked out of home, says Siagian.
“They treated us like we have a mental illness, prone to instability… even psychopaths,” she says.
“I want people to be more sexually knowledgeable. People are very hesitant about even calling things penis and vagina – it makes sexuality a taboo thing. I want people to be able to talk more openly about these things.”
There are no national laws prohibiting homosexuality in Indonesia, but the local government of Aceh has implemented Sharia law and criminalised homosexuality. Across Indonesia discrimination is common.
“Indonesian society generally sees lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex as ‘sakit’ or not normal,” says Professor Baden Offord, who teaches human rights at Curtin University.
“Discrimination … is mainly because of religious, social, cultural and state sanctioned attitudes … that are in some places based on tradition, on proscriptions against homosexuals by Imams and Islamic law, or simply by the state’s focus on the family as the basic unit of society.”
In March 2015, Indonesia’s top Muslim clerical body, MUI, issued a fatwa proposing same-sex behaviour be punished by caning or even the death penalty, and labelling it a “disease” that can be cured.
It also issued a fatwa prohibiting Muslims from joining any groups that promote LGBT rights.
The Islamic Defenders Front is regularly involved in shutting down such advocacy groups and the events they run.
Lini Zurlia, who describes herself as a queer feminist, is a member of Arus Pelangi, one of more than 120 LGBT advocacy groups based in Indonesia.
Gay workshop shut down Zurlia was present when members of the Islamic Defenders Front, accompanied by police, turned up at an Arus Pelangi workshop in Jakarta, and ordered them to shut it down.
She says they have learnt to expect such things can happen, yet they still try to keep the community together.
Originally from a small village in South Sumatra, Zurlia has not yet come out to her conservative Islamic family, and does not know how to do so. “If they knew, they would reject me, as an adulterer, as a member of the family.”
Zurlia says it is quite easy for her to hide her identity, but transgender people are easily identified and often prevented from getting jobs. Many end up homeless and/or working as prostitutes.
Chusnul Chasanah, from the Jakarta-based Centre of Law and Policy Study, says the discrimination is based on a misinterpretation of the country’s morals, laws and religions.
She says respect for differences is one of the most important moral teachings in the Koran. The 1945 Constitution also provides for respect of all Indonesians based on difference, which includes people of different gender and sexual orientations, she says.
Along with the non-governmental organisations, there is increasing support from the Human Rights Commission.
Commissioner Muhammad Nurkhoiron says lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are guaranteed protection under the Constitution and President Joko Widodo’s “Nawa Cita” – the President’s nine point agenda.
“One of the priorities [of the commission] is to ensure the state … conduct their duty to respect, protect and fulfil lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.”
First Minority Rights report The commission is compiling its first Minority Rights report, that will make recommendations to the government on the state of minority rights, including those of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
He says it will become an annual report, monitoring the progress and setbacks of fulfilling those rights.
Despite having their groups and events regularly targeted by authorities, LGBT groups say Jakarta and Bali are “heaven” in comparison to the smaller villages around the archipelago.
They say they are able to go about their daily lives, as long as they are not publicly affectionate.
“There is a vast gap between the norms and opinions that Indonesians express in public and the way they behave in their daily lives,” says Elizabeth Pisani, a journalist and epidemiologist who has spent more than 28 years in Indonesia.
“Whatever the moral panic of the day, most Indonesians are extremely ‘live and let live’ in their daily lives. They don’t want to be forced into taking a position, they don’t want to have things stuck in their face,” she says.
Tegar Ramadan was one of the gay men pictured in the LGBT Peer Support Network brochure. He believes as people become more aware of different sexual orientations and gender identities, they will become more accepting.
“I was afraid before I decided I would fight for my rights. I was afraid of being visible, political for this matter because that would attract attention,” he says.
“But if it’s not me then who, and if it’s not now then when? Because the change will not happen unless we fight for it.”
Today’s edition of NewsRoom_Digest features 4 resourceful link of the day and the politics pulse from Wednesday 2nd of March. It is best viewed on a desktop screen.
NEWSROOM_MONITOR
Noteworthy stories in the current news cycle include: student groups around the country calling for action as student loan debt reaches $15 billion; further signs the housing market is cooling with new QV data showing national house values were flat last month when compared with January; and the Government announcing details of its plans for more emergency housing in Auckland.
POLITICS PULSE
Media releases issued from Parliament by political parties today included:
Government: Encouraging response to family violence law review; $2 million boost to help homeless Aucklanders; New Standards Approval Board appointed; Oamaru Courthouse to be re-opened; European Parliament supports start to FTA; High Commissioner to Tuvalu announced; All New Zealanders should have a say on future flag; Good uptake of first year midwifery programme; $2.1m pay increase for lead maternity carers; Applications open for $2m Māori Innovation Fund;Appointments to the new Waiariki Bay of Plenty Polytechnic Council; First Dubai – Auckland flights take off
Greens: Nick Smith must explain why he won’t save lives & add a WoF to rental housing bill; Government’s sneaky moves push students into $15 billion debt;Govt can help victims of domestic violence stay in work
Labour: Student debt time bomb clocks $15 billion; Support for inquiry into $40 million Dam decision; Labour Calls For One Month Extension To TPP Deadline; Minister must fast track family law review; Out of touch Minister blasé over missed KiwiSaver payments
New Zealand First: Kaikoura Cheese Factory Closure Shows Govt’s Indifference; Northland Under Attack As Rail Run Down; Ban Gangs From State Houses
LINKS OF THE DAY
FAMILY VIOLENCE LAW REVIEW: A summary of the submissions received during a public consultation about the Government’s comprehensive review of family violence laws was released today. The summary of submissions is available at: https://consultations.justice.govt.nz/policy/family-violence-law
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS: New Zealand earned $2.5 billion more from exports than we spent on imports during the year ended December 2015, according to Statistics New Zealand. More details at: http://bit.ly/1L49WDA
STANDARDS APPROVAL BOARD: New Zealand’s first Standards Approval Board, an independent statutory board set up under the Standards and Accreditation Act 2015 was announced today. More information about the new Board together with other changes under the new Standards and Accreditation Act is available here:https://www.standards.govt.nz/about-us/who-we-are/approval-board
And that’s our sampling of “news you can use” for Wednesday 2nd March.
Fiji’s Attorney-General and Minister for Finance Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has welcomed the relaxation of requirements for Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) members to receive natural disaster assistance.
In a statement released yesterday, Sayed-Khaiyum said this was a positive step towards alleviating the urgent needs of affected Fijians. He said:
“In the areas I’ve visited in the Western Division, these new requirements have brought a sense of relief as they make it much easier for FNPF members to recover quickly from this crisis.”
The FNPF announced it had relaxed the requirements for Natural Disaster Assistance based on initial assessments and feedback from its members.
In a meeting on Monday, the board approved the relaxation of the requirements as listed below:
All members affected by Tropical Cyclone Winston can apply for the $1000 assistance and Quick Repairs housing assistance of $5000
In addition, members, who wish to help their immediate family in affected areas, are also eligible for the assistance.
FNPF teams will no longer inspect or visit villages/settlement or members’ houses to verify members’ residential addresses
The $1000 assistance is available to members regardless of the classification of their dwelling (eg. agricultural lease, squatter, village, agreement for lease, instrument of tenancy such as titles etc.).
This facility would be open for the next 60 days and would be reviewed at the end of this period.
Castle BRAVO, detonated on 1 March 1954, symbolises the grim realities of the thermonuclear age. Alex Wellerstein reflects on the greatest single radiological disaster in US history.
No single nuclear weapons test did more to establish the grim realities of the thermonuclear age than Castle BRAVO. On 1 March 1954, it was the highest yield test in the United States’ highest-yield nuclear test series, exploding with a force of 15 million tons of TNT.
It was also the greatest single radiological disaster in American history.
Among BRAVO’s salient points:
– It was the first “dry fuel” hydrogen bomb test by the United States, validating that lithium-deuteride would work fine as a fusion fuel and making thermonuclear weapons relatively easy to deploy.
– It had a maximum predicted yield of only 6 megatons — so it was 250% as explosive than was expected.
– And, of course, it became famous for raining nuclear fallout down on inhabited islands over a hundred miles downwind, and exposing a crew of Japanese fishermen to fatal levels of radiation.
It was this latter event that made BRAVO famous — so famous that the United States had to admit publicly it had a hydrogen bomb. And accidentally exposing the Japanese fishing supply to radiation, less than a decade after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has a way of making the Japanese people understandably upset.
So the shot led to some almost frank discussion about what fallout meant — that being out of the direct line of fire wasn’t actually good enough.
I say “almost frank” because there was some distinct lack of frankness about it. Lewis Strauss, the secrecy-prone AEC chairman at the time and an all-around awful guy, gave some rather misleading statements about the reasons for the accident and its probable effects on the exposed native populations.
His goal was reassurance, not truth. But, as with so many things in the nuclear age, the narrative got out of his control pretty quickly, and the fear of fallout was intensified whether he wanted it to be or not.
We now know that the Marshallese suffered quite a lot of long-term harm from the exposures, and that the contaminated areas were contaminated for a lot longer than the AEC guessed they would be. Some of this discrepancy comes from honest ignorance — the AEC didn’t know what they didn’t know about fallout. But a lot of it also came from a willingness to appear on top of the situation, when the AEC was anything but.
I’ve been interested in BRAVO lately because I’ve been interested in fallout. It’s no secret that I’ve been working on a big new NUKEMAP update (I expect it to go live in a month or so) and that fallout is but one of the new amazing features that I’m adding.
It’s been a long-time coming, since I had originally wanted to add a fallout model a year ago, but it turned out to be a non-trivial thing to implement. It’s not hard to throw up a few scaled curves, but coming up with a model that satisfies the aesthetic needs of the general NUKEMAP user base (that is, the people who want it to look impressive but aren’t interested in the details) and also has enough technical chops so that the informed don’t just immediately dismiss it (because I care about you, too!) involved digging up some rather ancient fallout models from the Cold War (even going out to the National Library of Medicine to get one rare one in its original paper format) and converting them all to Javascript so they can run in modern web browsers.
But I’m happy to say that, I’ve finally come up with something that I’m pleased with, and so I can now clean up my Beautiful Mind-style filing system from my office and living room.
Recently I was sent a PDF of a recent report (January 2013) by the Defense Threat Reduction Information Analysis Center (DTRIAC) that looked back on the history of BRAVO. It doesn’t seem to be easily available online (though it is unclassified), so I’ve posted it here: “Castle Bravo: Fifty Years of Legend and Lore (DTRIAC SR-12-001).” I haven’t had time to read the whole thing, but skipping around has been rewarding — it takes a close look at the questions of fallout prediction, contamination, and several “myths” that have circulated since 1954.
It notes that the above fallout contour plot, for example, was originally created by the USAF Air Research and Development Command (ARDC), and that “it is unfortunate that this illustration has been so widely distributed, since it is incorrect.” The plume, they explain, actually under-represents the extent of the fallout — the worst of the fallout went further and wider than in the above diagram.
You can get a sense of the variation by looking at some of the other plots created of the BRAVO plume:
The AFSWP diagram on the left is relatively long and narrow; the NRDL one in the middle is fat and horrible. The RAND one at the right is something of a compromise. All three, though, show the fallout going further than the ADRC model — some 50-100 miles further. On the open ocean that doesn’t matter so much, but apply that to a densely populated part of the world and that’s pretty significant!
DTRIAC SR-12-001 is also kind of amazing in that it has a lot of photographs of BRAVO and the Castle series that I’d never seen before, some of which you’ll see around this post. One of my favorites is this one, of Don Ehlher (from Los Alamos) and Herbert York (from Livermore) in General Clarkson’s briefing room on March 17, 1954, with little mockups of the devices that were tested in Operation Castle:
There’s nothing classified there — the shapes of the various devices have long been declassified — but it’s still kind of amazing to see of their bombs on the table, as it were. They look like thermoses full of coffee. (The thing at far left might be a cup of coffee, for all that I can tell — unfortunately the image quality is not great.)
It also has quite a lot of discussion of several persistent issues regarding the exposure of the Japanese crew and the Marshallese natives. I didn’t see anything especially new here, other than the suggestion that the fatality from the Fortunate Dragon fishing boat might have been at least partially because of the very aggressive-but-ineffective treatment regime prescribed by the Japanese physicians, which apparently included the very dubious procedure of repeatedly drawing his blood and then re-injecting it into muscle tissue. I don’t know enough of the details to know what to think of that, but at least they do a fairly good job of debunking the notion that BRAVO’s contamination of the Marshallese was deliberate. I’ve seen that floating around, even in some fairly serious forums and publications, and it’s just not supported by real evidence.
“This image was taken at a distance of 50 [nautical miles] north GZ from an altitude of 10,000 feet. The lines running upward to the left of the stem and below the fireball are smoke trails from small rockets. At this time the cloud stem was about 4 mi in diameter.” From DTRIAC SR-12-001.(1)
It was detonated as a surface burst, which automatically means quite a significant fallout problem. Nuclear weapons that detonate so that their fireball does not come into contact with the ground release “militarily insignificant” amounts of fallout, even if their yields are very high. (They are not necessarily “humanly insignificant” amounts, but they are far, far, far less than surface bursts — it is not a subtle difference.(2)
But even worse, it was a surface burst in a coral reef, which is just a really, really bad idea. Detonating nuclear weapons on a desert floor, like in Nevada, still presents significant fallout issues. But a coral reef is really an awful place to set them off, and not just because coral reefs are awesome and shouldn’t be blown up. They are an ideal medium for creating and spreading contamination: they break apart with no resistance, but do so in big enough chunks that they rapidly fall back to Earth. Particle size is a big deal when it comes to fallout; small particles go up with the fireball and stay aloft long enough to lose most of their radioactive energy and diffuse into the atmosphere, while heavy particles fall right back down again pretty quickly, en masse. So blowing up and irradiating something like coral is just the worst possible thing.(3)
Note that the famous 50 Mt “Tsar Bomba” lacked a final fission stage and so only 3% of its total yield — 1.5 Mt — was from fission. So despite the fact that the Tsar Bomba was 3.3 times as explosive than Castle Bravo, it had almost 7 times fewer fission products. And its fireball never touched the ground (in fact, it was reflected upwards by its own shock wave, which is kind of amazing to watch), so it was a very “clean” shot radiologically. The “full-sized,” 100 Mt Tsar Bomba would have been 52 percent fission — a very dirty bomb indeed.
In the end, what I’ve come to take away from BRAVO is that it actually was a mistake even more colossal than one might have originally thought. It was a tremendously bad idea from a human health standpoint, and turned into a public relations disaster that the Atomic Energy Commission never really could kick.
In retrospect the entire “event” seems to have been utterly avoidable as a radiological disaster, even with all of the uncertainties about yield and weather. It’s cliché to talk about nuclear weapons in terms of playing with “forces of nature beyond our comprehension,” but I’ve come to feel that BRAVO is a cautionary tale about hubris and incompetence in the nuclear age — scientists setting off a weapon whose size they did not know, whose effects they did not correctly forecast, whose legacy will not soon be outlived.
Notes 1. Chuck Hansen, Swords of Armageddon, IV-299. [↩] 2. The count difference is about three orders of magnitude or so less, judging by shots like Redwing CHEROKEE. That’s still a few rads, but the difference between 1,000 and 1 rad/hr is pretty significant. [↩] 3. Couldn’t they have foreseen this? In theory, yes — they had already blown up a high-yield, “dirty” fission hydrogen bomb on a coral reef in 1952, the MIKE test. But somewhere a number of AEC planners seem to have gotten their wires crossed, because a lot of them thought that MIKE had very little fallout, when in fact it also produced a lot of very similar contamination. Unlike BRAVO, however, MIKE’s fallout blew out over open sea. The only radiation monitoring seems to have been done on the islands, and so they don’t seem to have ever drawn up one of those cigar-shaped plumes for it.
This article was first published on 21 June 2013 yet is still a devastating critique.
On Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific Day, David Robie tells of how the ID of a mystery five-year-old girl on the cover of one of his books was revealed more than three decades later.
So the mystery is finally over. In 1983, I took this photo of a young ni-Vanuatu girl at a nuclear-free Pacific rally in Independence Park, Port Vila. She was aged about five at the time.
She was just a delightful happy painted face in the crowd that day. But her message was haunting: “Please don’t spoil my beautiful face” had quite an impact on me. When monochrome and colour versions of this photo were published in various Pacific media and magazines, a question kept tugging at my heart.
“Who is she? Where is she from and what is she doing now?”
I would have loved to have named her in the book with the cover image of her. So this spurred me onto to more determined efforts to discover her identity.
First of all I posted the photo – and a Hawai’ian solidarity video that also showed the little girl, discovered by Alistar Kata – on my blog Café Pacific last October 10. Almost 1100 people viewed the blog item, but no tip-offs.
Then it was posted on other blogs related to the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP movement.
Finally, friends at Vanuatu Daily Digest reposted my appeal on February 15 – and hey presto, there she was discovered on the southernmost island of Aneityum (traditional name “Keamu”). And curiously, my wife Del and I were on that island at the same village, Anelgauhat, where she lives, last Christmas Day – but didn’t realise who she was.
In fact, we have only recognised her as “June” our village guide that day now that we have seen her photo from the island. After all, this was 32 years after I had seen her fleetingly as a child in Port Vila.
She is June Keitadi (Warigini) daughter of Annie Weitas and Jack Keitadi, then curator of the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta with Kirk Huffman. Her sister, Shirley Loughman, says June is the assistant bursar at Teruja secondary school on Aneityum.
According to Selwyn A. Leodoro, Anglican regional secretary for Port Vila and New Caledonia, one of the many VDD readers who have responded and identified her, June was very “surprised” about the search for her and keen to meet up. Selwyn kindly forwarded these 2016 photos of June to me.
All going well, Del and I hope to visit Vanuatu again later this year, and we would love to personally give June a copy of the book with her cover photo.
Today June is married to Ruyben Warigini and they have three children and a grandchild.
Tank yu tumas to Gwen Amankwah-Toa – she was the first to contact me – and to all those who have helped piece together the puzzle.
Today’s edition of NewsRoom_Digest features 7 resourceful links of the day and the politics pulse from Tuesday 1st of March. It is best viewed on a desktop screen.
NEWSROOM_MONITOR
Noteworthy stories in the current news cycle include: the Labour Party saying it may support Government changes to employment laws, if the legislation can be altered to deal with zero-hours contracts; Health Minister Jonathan Coleman saying Pharmac has to consider the number of people who will benefit when providing money for a melanoma drug being called for by sufferers; and the Government launching a multi-pronged attack on gangs and gang culture.
POLITICS PULSE
Media releases issued from Parliament by political parties today
included:
Government: New Gang Intelligence Centre will reduce gang harm;Reducing the harm and cost of gang life; Licence suspensions net $43.5m over two years; New Food Act comes into force;NZ boosts Fiji cyclone aid to $4.7 million; Demand for UFB sees uptake hit 20 per cent;Minister meets education experts in Estonia
DELOITTE SOUTH ISLAND INDEX: All seven industry sectors achieved positive results in the quarter to 31 December 2015.The Deloitte South Island Index rebounded in the quarter ended 31 December 2015 posting a record quarterly gain after three consecutive quarters of challenging results. To see the full Deloitte South Island Index quarterly report, go to www.deloitte.com/nz/southislandindex.
TERMS OF TRADE: The merchandise (goods) terms of trade fell 2.0 percent in the December 2015 quarter, following a 3.8 percent fall in the September 2015 quarter, according to Statistics NZ. Read more: http://bit.ly/21F3EhD
And that’s our sampling of “news you can use” for Tuesday 1st March.
AsiaPacificReport.nz
Reviewed by Jeremy Agar of CAFCA and published on Nuclear Free and Independent Day.
EYES OF FIRE: The Last Voyage Of The Rainbow Warrior,
by David Robie [30 Year Memorial edition]. Auckland, Little Island Press. 2015. 196 pages, illustrated. ISBN 978-1-877484-28-5
This is an updated version of the account of the 1985 sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, first published in 1986. No New Zealander old enough to have been around then will be unaware of the incident, but this is a timely reminder for a newer generation of the day when terrorism reached Waitemata Harbour.
Terrorism is supposed to be the last resort of alienated young men from places we know nothing of, but the bomb which blew up the Rainbow Warrior in downtown Auckland was detonated by men and women employed by the Government of France.
If you didn’t know otherwise, you might suppose that some time before the attack France had suffered a traumatic event, because how else might such an odd barbarism be explained? France surely is a modern and agreeable place which merits our sympathy as the target of terrorism, not its perpetrator.
Not really. France is the same place with the same public institutions as it had in 1985, its current President being from the same party — the Socialists for heaven’s sake — as the President back then. Neither, in essence, has its global circumstances changed.
France regarded Greenpeace as ‘terrorists’
Pollution of land and sea and the degradation of habitats are even more of a problem now than they were last century and you don’t find advanced Western democracies openly calling for the globe to get ever dirtier. And when the Rainbow Warrior docked in Auckland in July 1985, it was in the middle of voyages to draw attention to all sorts of environmental issues. Greenpeace had protested nuclear tests, acid rain, whaling, attacks on dolphins and the dumping of toxic waste. It was doing great work.
Not in the eyes of the French State. Their problem was that the Rainbow Warrior was due to sail towards Tahiti and the French islands in the south-east Pacific, where they were testing nukes. If, for the rest of us, it was bad enough that the Russians and Americans were in a perpetual nuclear confrontation which had the potential to wipe us all away, that tension was at least understandable, given the circumstances at the time.
But France had as much reason to want to join the nuclear club as it would have if it started to do so now. That is, zero. It was pure folly.
Being primarily focused on environmental issues, Greenpeace was protesting the very real and obvious threat to marine life. The French of course said that their tests were clean. Which prompted the obvious response that they should, therefore, test their bombs in mainland France. Rainbow Warrior had just arrived from the Marshall Islands, where the US had long polluted (and where areas are still uninhabitable) with nuclear bombs.
By 1985, France had conducted 193 tests in the Pacific and it wasn’t done yet. France (still) pretends to believe that its overseas colonies are no different politically from Paris or Marseilles, so it felt able to treat the New Zealand government, then beginning to respond to Greenpeace’s campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific, as an ally of its activities, which France labelled terrorism.
Staked out on watch
So it was that one winter’s night on Tamaki Drive boat club members, who had been the target of thieves, were staked out on watch when a speedboat landed. Two people got out, dumped the boat’s engine in the water, and were then picked by a car driven by someone in a frogman suit. The yachties noted the car’s plate number.
A later search of the water came up with water bottles made in France. NZ’s petty criminals had enabled the police to arrest France’s state terrorists.
A Frenchwoman who joined the open activities of Greenpeace in Auckland apparently expressed hostility to the idea of independence for New Caledonia and support for France’s bombs, both opinions being the last things you’d expect to hear around Greenpeace. She advanced the rationale that nukes were needed as otherwise “we risk becoming like Finland, which is so influenced by Russia”.
Hearing this ingénue, an experienced observer who knew European history would have intuited that she had been indoctrinated by an older and nostalgic extremist as no-one else had worried about Finnish sovereignty since about 1940. She turned out later to have been a spy.
While it might not be surprising that no local NZ activist would have suspected her, it is surprising that an agent of the French secret police was so gauche.
It seems that the French didn’t know enough of their own history to have created a convincing persona for their agent, who would have been detected had she operated in a more experienced milieu.
Operationally, too, French tactics were clumsy. Twice before they had sunk ships, and both times they achieved nothing beyond discrediting the activities they were hoping to defend.
And just as its secret police have been amateurishly incompetent, so has its political class. David Robie tells us in Eyes of Fire that theories from the political elites in France included the assertion that low-tech Greenpeace was about to advance on French Polynesia with an armada so loaded with the latest gadgets to thwart the tests that the nuke programme would have to be abandoned.
It was said that Greenpeace was financed by BP to maintain its oil interests, that the UK’s MI6, the South African secret police and the Soviet’s KGB had infiltrated Greenpeace. The latter, an old favourite, was picked up a naive NZ media and across the Tasman in the Australian. This detail is significant in that, as a “quality” Tory broadsheet with sophisticated journalists, the paper must have known the claim was suspect. Ideology trumps truth every time.
The rhetoric did not often reach eloquence. One letter to the Greenpeace office after the bombing warned of the traitors ready to deliver the country to the commies. They included “pacifists, hooligans, hippies, trade unions, PLO, Khomeinists, Labour terrorists – all the same riff-raff, all KGB agents.”
No wonder the correspondent concluded with: “Revenge. Better dead than Red. No more Vietnams”. For years serious and educated people had been debating this dilemma of whether they would prefer to be crimson or expired.
Exact opposite of intended result
You’d think that the combined resources of the French elites would have come up with something better than these childish conspiracy theories, but perhaps the greatest of the many asinine calculations of the French State was its assumption that blowing up a Greenie ship in an allied country on the other side of the world would help it to carry on poisoning the South Pacific.
Instead, inevitably, international outrage raised Greenpeace’s profile enormously. It is no coincidence that the peace and environmental movements around the world became increasingly popular from the mid-1980s.
Only one man was killed, a Portuguese-born photographer, Fernando Pereira, but there could easily have been a high death toll. The frogmen who placed the bomb timed it to detonate just before midnight when normally there would have been many others in their cabins, but most happened to be on shore that night.
Robie himself had been on board when the ship docked in Auckland, having sailed from the Marshall Islands.
Even after the event, after the terrorists were caught, President Mitterrand’s France knew no shame, and the dirty tricks continued. Now perhaps there’s some resolution, some (in the irritating vernacular of the day) closure.
In 1987 – after Robie’s original account came out – the Rainbow Warrior was sunk off Matauri Bay in Northland as a likely future marine habitat for divers to explore. And in 1996 France signed the nuclear test ban treaty.
Robie’s professional life has been devoted to the peoples of the Pacific. A journalist and university teacher, he’s written a series of investigative accounts of the struggles of the island nations against big power politics.
Eyes Of Fire is an excellent production, thorough and informed with a restrained passion, with interesting photographs. French politicians, by and large, might now be behaving in a more acceptable fashion, but the global issues that Robie has analysed – of pollution and violence and the stupidity and corruption of power – still demand our witness.
This review of Eyes of Fire was first published by CAFCA’s Watchdog magazine and has been republished with permission. The publisher Little Island Press’s companion website for the book, Eyes of Fire: 30 Years On, features articles and a photo gallery by the author David Robie, an article by French journalist Pierre Gleizes, author of Rainbow Warrior Mon Amour; and more than 40 video interviews and stories featuring the protagonists by AUT University student journalists.
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Students attending schools managed by TISI Sangam, Fiji’s largest non-government organisation, in some cyclone-ravaged areas will be provided lunch for a month.
General secretary Damend Gounder said Sangam would be giving lunch to those attending school in Rakiraki and Ba.
“Coming in Rakiraki, we’re going to give them lunch as well … Sangam will provide lunch and schools in Ba as well.”
Gounder said this relief would be ongoing to assist students whose homes had been damaged severely by “monster” cyclone Winston.
Formed in Fiji in 1926, TISI Sangam is also the largest non-public provider of education with 26 schools, a nursing academy and many pre-schools. There are countless branches and temples around Fiji.
Students went back to school yesterday.
Classroom damage The Fiji Times reported that the estimated damage to schools around the country after preliminary assessment stood at at F$41.69 million (NZ$29.7 million).
National Disaster Management Office director Akapusi Tuifagalele said the amount was expected to rise as assessments were still being carried out around the country.
About 240 schools have been reported damaged or completely destroyed.
Tuifagalele said in the Eastern Division, 19 schools from Lomaiviti were affected at an estimate cost of $6.73m while damage to the 12 schools in Lau was $5.75m.
While those attending classes at Laucala Bay campus will have to wait until tomorrow before resuming classes, those enrolled for classes in Lautoka were asked to report to the Lautoka campus today. For those in Labasa, classes have already resumed.
This was confirmed by the vice-chancellor and president of USP Professor Rajesh Chandra.
A CNN report at the time of the Bento Rodrigues disaster broadcast on 6 November 2015. Source: Noticias Esporte De Hoje
ABC Four Corners investigative report three months later screening tonight.
“I ended up with nothing but the clothes I had on. I lost everything I had at home, documents, photos of my children.” — Survivor
“Of course it will affect our bottom line.” — Andrew Mackenzie, BHP CEO
The Melbourne headquarters of Australian mining giant BHP is a world away from the small Brazilian village of Bento Rodrigues, but what happened in this faraway place will cost BHP billions.
“The mud would come and drag me down, I would come up, it would take me down again…I screamed, calling my children, calling them, but nobody answered.” — Survivor
Three months ago, a horror mudslide swept through the towns and villages in the Gualaxo River Valley in Brazil, destroying homes, businesses and taking the lives of 19 people.
A tailings dam, holding back more than 50 million cubic metres of mining waste collapsed, unleashing a wave of mud several metres high. The waste in the dam came from the huge open cut Samarco iron ore mine, half owned by Australia’s BHP Billiton.
Brazil’s chief environment officer calls it the biggest environmental disaster in the country’s mining history.
“This mud wave has killed anything that was alive in these water systems.” — Marilene Ramos, Brazilian Environment Authority
Brazilian police have announced they will seek the arrest of six Samarco executives and managers on charges of negligent homicide, and offences against the environment.
“A dam doesn’t break by chance…There is repeated, continual negligence in the actions of a company owned by Vale and BHP.” — Brazilian Prosecutor
Ben Knight reporting in the ABC Four Corners investigation screening tonight.
Reporter Ben Knight arrived in Brazil within days of the dam collapse as the search for victims continued in atrocious conditions.
Now in his first report for Four Corners, he returns to Brazil to investigate whether multiple warning signs were ignored. What he finds is a catalogue of failure, where even the emergency alert system didn’t work.
BHP has distanced itself from the operations of the mine, but the company’s bottom line has taken a hit. This week BHP announced a US$5.7 billion half year loss, writing off more than a billion dollars due to the dam disaster.
And in a feature interview with the BHP CEO, Ben Knight asks if BHP is making good on the promises they have made to rebuild the lives and communities affected, and what responsibility it will take for the disaster.
“Catastrophic Failure”, reported by Ben Knight and presented by Sarah Ferguson, goes to air tonight on ABC Four Corners.
It will be replayed on Tuesday, March 1, at 10.00am and Wednesday, March 2, at 11pm.
It can also be seen on ABC News 24 on Saturday at 11.00pm, ABC iview and at abc.net.au/4corners.
Behind the Blockade, by Veronica Hatutasi. Boroko, Papua New Guinea: Word Publishing Company. 233 pages hardcover. ISBN 978-9980-89-024-5.
Reviewed by Anna Solomon
Behind the Blockade, by first time author Veronica Hatutasi, is a book recounting her personal experience in war-torn Bougainville between 1990 and 1994. It is the story of a mother who flees with her young family from their idyllic beach-front home in Toniva, to what she thought then was the safe haven of her family hamlet in Korikunu, Siwai district, in South Bougainville.
However, the turn of events beyond her control made them prisoners in their hamlet, cut off from the rest of the world and the daily struggles to survive behind the economic blockade imposed on Bougainville by the national government in Port Moresby.
They were then confronted with another crisis within the crisis, what the author describes as the Siwai sub-crisis.
When Veronica Hatutasi began the journey to Siwai for what was supposed to be just a short sojourn, little did she or other civilians know that what had started off as a disagreement on land compensation between the old executives of the Panguna Landowners Association and the younger well-educated new executive, would escalate into a civil war on Bougainville that would see the death and displacement of many innocent children, women and men.
Divided into four parts, the book begins with life in Toniva from 1989 to 1990 where the author had spent 8 years with her family. In Part Two, the laid back lifestyle is not so idyllic any more as the daily gun battle between the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) and PNG Defence Force brings home the reality that their days in Toniva are numbered.
As trouble escalated and non-Bougainvilleans left, she knew it was a matter of time before she and her husband had to make a choice of whether to travel with her sister-in-law on the last boat out of the island or to make the long trip inland to her home in Siwai. She opted for the latter.
The story starts with enjoyment of the sea and sand through the innocent eyes of her son Jonath and his young friends during the halcyon days in Toniva. It ends with a more mature Jonath now living in Port Moresby, wondering if he will ever visit this favourite beach again.
Other books written Books have already been written about the Bougainville crisis by academics, historians, political and defence analysts, overseas journalists and even some armchair experts, often focussing on the landowner issues and political decisions that led to the civil war and its aftermath.
However, there have also been publications that record personal experiences of people during that period.
A former PNGDF officer had his experiences during the crisis published, while a recent novel Mr Pip, by a New Zealand author, fictionalised events of this dark period of Bougainville’s history. It was later made into a film with local actors and scenes shot on location.
However, Behind the Blockade is unique in that this is the first book by a Bougainvillean woman and a journalist who recounts her first-hand experience of life with her children during the civil war in her part of the island.
It is not an official record of events or atrocities that may have been committed on the island during the civil war and the author does not set out to make that point or get involved in the blame game.
Instead, the author draws from events in her part of Siwai, recorded in a diary she kept throughout the blockade to tell this story. An important part of this diary is the section on the Siwai crisis in which she describes the agony of seeing families being divided in their loyalty to the militants or to let common sense prevail and surrender their arms.
It tells of kidnappings of men, women and children. This was the turning point in Siwai, which would see the revival of the chief’s power and the people’s stand to put an end to the reign of terror and the suffering of innocent people at the hands of the BRA.
Winning hearts The last part of the book comprises official events she covered as a journalist working in Port Moresby, of the peace process and the long road to winning the hearts and minds of the people and bringing normalcy to Bougainville.
The author acknowledges the role of the many strong and determined mothers of Bougainville, the peace advocates, who fearlessly entered the stronghold of the militants and started dialogue with their sons, brothers and male relatives to lay down arms and return home.
Some of them are still alive today, many more have passed on.
She also recounts the tale of loyal nurses at the Monoitu health centre and their dedication in tending to the sick and expectant mothers when medical supplies were practically non-existent.
She pays tribute to the local politicians and former senior public servants in Bougainville and at the national level who fearlessly stood up against the threats and intimidation of the militants. Again some died in their fight to save their people.
The book also describes the peacemaking efforts of the church, especially the lone Italian priest in Siwai, Fr Dario Monegatti, SVD, and his tireless trips between the militant factions as well his homilies during Sunday mass until his departure from Bougainville.
On the flip side, the civil war also caused divisions among the churches, with one faction of the BRA using their denomination to terrorise the other Christians.
Well-illustrated Written in simple English, this book with pictures, will appeal to both young and old and especially those who have heard about the Bougainville crisis but were too young to understand its consequences.
It gives a glimpse of one family’s struggle and a mother’s determination to survive and bring her children out of the war-torn island. It shows a mother’s heartache in watching her children missing out on the simple pleasures of childhood they were used to while living in town.
It shows the important role of the extended family ties and how they rally around, during the time of need.
The book also talks about the people resorting to traditional medicines and appropriate technology when the store-bought medicines and food were no longer available.
The inclusion of the Bougainville chronology and a chronology of the peace process at the end of the book, will help the reader keep track of important historical dates from 1884 until the November 11th 2007 agreement with the national government to establish an autonomous government.
A must read for the mothers and fathers of PNG, Behind the Blockade offers a glimpse of the determination to overcome blockades in order to give innocent children another chance in life.
It also captures the beginnings of a healing process between the national government and people of Papua New Guinea, and the people of Bougainville.
Author Veronica Hatutasi is a respected senior journalist in Papua New Guinea. She is now the editor of Wantok Niuspepa, the weekly Tok Pisin paper where she started work as a displaced person from Bougainville in 1993. Ordering and other information about her book is available from the author.
[caption id="attachment_4808" align="alignleft" width="150"] Dr Bryce Edwards.[/caption]
There appears to be a growing hatred of John Key, especially from the political left. Some label this phenomenon “Key Derangement Syndrome”. But is this anger toward the prime minister simply an understandable by-product of personality-driven politics and a polarised society?
Matthew Hooton has a theory that the New Zealand political left suffers from “Key Derangement Syndrome” (KDS). By this he means that political activists – especially those aligned with Labour and the Greens – tend to have an irrational hatred of John Key that is out of line with reality and with the wider public. According to Hooton, sufferers of KDS are hamstrung by their hatred of Key as their lack of perspective undermines their effectiveness as an opposition.
Or course, being a right-wing political commentator, Hooton would say that wouldn’t he? Interestingly, though, Hooton admitted last week that he is “a previous sufferer of Clark Derangement Syndrome” – an extreme dislike of prime minister Helen Clark that was unrealistic and exaggerated. He blames such syndromes on the fact that “political rhetoric can get out of hand in groupthink situations (like blogs, twitter etc).”
Is anger towards Key on the rise?
Last week Patrick Gower argued “There is no doubt the Prime Minister is experiencing a more visceral hatred than ever before this year” – see: Danger signs but never underestimate John Key. Gower points out that what Key has been through already this year – booed at the Auckland nines and the Big Gay Out and “targeted by a dangerous internal leak” – was “previously unthinkable”. He argues it’s a sign of a “new found disrespect” as Key’s detractors have been emboldened by vibrant opposition to the TPP.
Gower believes that, like Helen Clark before him, Key has become a more polarising figure over time. But he warns that calls of “it’s over for Key” are premature. For as long as Key is still capable of pulling off deals such as the citizenship concession from Australia and ruthless populist moves such as his non-attendance at Waitangi, Gower says hate won’t stop him: “The Prime Minister may have to adjust to the hate, taking it as part of the job, but as long as he keeps making gains and keeps just enough likers liking him, well – it ain’t over.”
In Business as usual Danyl Mclauchlan makes a similar point: “Opposition MPs talking about values and visionary aspirations and compromised sovereignty and the future of work and what a jerk they all think John Key is all very well, but if Key’s government is seen to be doing a good job in delivering the core government services that voters value, they’re not going to change their votes. And they shouldn’t!”
Audrey Young describes Key’s tenure as “one of the longest honeymoons in political history” and has an interesting comparison of Key’s popularity with Helen Clark’s: “In the December Herald-DigiPoll survey, Mr Key was preferred Prime Minister by 65.2 per cent of voters after seven years in office. Helen Clark had been similarly popular, too, after six years as Prime Minister, rating nearly 60 per cent, but had slid to 41.6 per cent by the time she lost office in 2008” – see: TPP protests put damper on long Key honeymoon.
Like Gower, Young notes that the TPP protests mark a shift in the political landscape and Key is “preparing to be hissed and booed at every public outing by anti-TPP protesters.”
Increased polarisation
The “increasingly desperate” anger on the far left is largely a manifestation of the failure of left parliamentary parties to offer a credible opposition, argues Geoffrey Miller in New Zealand’s increasingly dangerous level of political vitriol. Miller says the TPP certainly generated a lot of anger on the left, but “another, more deep-seated reason for anger is John Key’s continuing popularity. Anyone who has dipped into the comments section on The Standard, or who follows left-wing activists on Twitter, or reads comments on the various activist Facebook pages knows how central John Key to the discontent.” And that anger can have “a nasty underbelly.”
Danyl Mclauchlan was understandably sceptical, wondering if the comments might have been manufactured. He later concluded they were probably genuine and simply a result of a story going viral and RNZ being unaccustomed to having to moderate comments, rather than being indicative of the state of the left – see: The mysterious case of the hate speech comments on the RNZ Facebook page.
As Miller pointed out, the blogosphere can be a source of extreme opinions. In his end-of-year round up, Martyn Bradbury described John Key’s behaviour as “that of a petulant spoilt bully arsehole” and the PM as “a repugnant human being” with a “callous nature”, “dreadful and deformed”. In a final flourish he concluded: “He’s Donald Trump without the wig” – see: TDB top 5 best and worst politicians of 2015. Even allowing for Bradbury’s customary bombast and colourful turn of phrase, it’s highly emotive language and no doubt Matthew Hooton would diagnose this as a case of full-blown KDS.
Hooton also raises the frustration the left feel over Key’s continued success in the polls. Perhaps that frustration played a part in a recent speech by Green MP Gareth Hughes in which he calls the Prime Minister little more than a “derping, planking, rape-joking expert at getting us on late night American comedy shows” – you can watch the five-minute speech here.
The strongly-worded speech – which one news report called “one of the most scathing critiques of John Key’s leadership ever heard in Parliament” – has now been viewed over 36,000 times on YouTube, suggesting the criticisms resonated with a wide audience. Hughes later explained Why I said what I did about John Key.
Problems with Key’s flag referendum
It’s not only the TPP that threatens Key’s aura of invincibility – the looming flag referendum looks set to present a major defeat for the PM. According to Auckland University’s Jennifer Lees Marshment this poses a problem for Key because he has made the flag referendum all about his leadership and legacy – see her six-minute interview with Paul Henry: Key losing his charm – politics professor.
Lees Marshment says that if Key’s bid to change the flag fails, “it’s the first major sign that the public aren’t in line with his leadership.” She doesn’t think it’s a crisis but more of “a chink in his armour – a sign his brand may be starting to decline, along with a few other things that happened over the last year… it’s a sign of the relationship between the prime minister and the public deteriorating”.
Key’s personal stake in the flag referendum is also why Heather du Plessis-Allan declares I blame John Key for this…. She says: “One of the main reasons this flag is being voted down is because it’s his flag… Perhaps, we might have felt like we got what we wanted in a flag, if it felt less like the Prime Minister got exactly what he wanted in a flag.”
For more on how the referendum has become a way to express dissatisfaction with John Key, see Chris Trotter’s Flagging Our Opposition.
Personality politics
It could be that John Key is simply becoming less likeable. Certainly there’s an increasing awareness of Key’s tendency to participate in put downs and personal digs at opponents. Earlier in the month the NBR’s Rob Hosking gave Key advice in his paywalled column, What Key must do now, which amounted to: “the prime minister would be advised to keep the trolling to a minimum”. He explained that “Key is inclined to use Parliament primarily as a forum for partisan sledging”, but with increasingly polarised politics he needed to play a role in creating harmony rather than division, in which case Key “would be more prudent to emphasise gravitas”.
NBR subscribers seem to agree with Hosking. A poll showed “more than two-thirds – 69% – of respondents said they would like more substance and less snark from the prime minister while 31% don’t believe he needs to change anything about his approach” – see Nick Grant’s NBR subscribers to PM: Pull your head in (paywalled).
It is precisely the kind of personality-driven politics John Key indulges in and excels at that is the problem, argues James Robins – see: The Problem with Projectile Politics. Robins writes “Most of the Left’s attacks on the government are pernicious diatribes aimed at the PM. ‘Once a banker, always a banker’ is the catchphrase, its rhyming innuendo never far from mind.”
But, Robins asks, is it any wonder attacks on politicians are so personal when personality politics are the name of the game in New Zealand: “Politics has always been a battle of personalities, but in recent years morality and ideology have been jettisoned completely.” Robins believes personal attacks are simply following the “pattern set by our leaders” who are happy to use personality politics to get elected and stay in power.
Today’s edition of NewsRoom_Digest features 5 resourceful links of the day and the politics pulse from Monday 29th February. It is best viewed on a desktop screen.
NEWSROOM_MONITOR
Noteworthy stories in the current news cycle include: respected academic and writer on Māori issues, Dr Ranginui Walker, passing away at the age of 83; business confidence falling sharply with slumping stock markets and declining dairy prices spooking firms locally; and the minimum wage rate going to increase by 50 cents per hour to $15.25 an hour on 1 April, 2016.
POLITICS PULSE
Media releases issued from Parliament by political parties today
included:
Government: Scheme helping to staff hard to fill positions; HMNZS Canterbury’s departure for Fiji welcomed; McCully to visit Fiji post Winston; Minister to address UN Human Rights Council; $3.7m available for NZ-China research centres; Honouring a revolutionary of our time; PM acknowledges passing of Dr Ranginui Walker; Honouring a revolutionary of our time;Minimum wage to increase to $15.25; New community barbeque area for family playground
ACT Party: Greens’ hypocritical travel expenses; Leader’s speech to ACT Conference 2016; New Zealand deserves better than timidity and tinkering; Sanctuary Trust would empower non-government conservation; Speech to the 2016 ACT Conference at Orakei Basin
Greens: Taylor interview highlights desperate need for prison transparency; Green Party Encourages New Zealanders To Vote As They Like
Labour: Bonuses for charter schools, deficits for state schools; Pharmac savings not invested in new drugs; School ballot fees undermine free education; Explanation for Defence debacle demanded;Come on, clear your diary Minister; It’s Leap Day: Let’s take a leap forward in the empowerment of women
New Zealand First: Stop Outsiders Voting On the NZ Flag; Regions Miss Out As “King Kong Auckland” Bellows; Speech by New Zealand First Leader and Member of Parliament for Northland Rt Hon Winston Peters; Seymour’s Idea ‘So Old, It Has Flies On It’; Flag Flying Blues Hit Key’s Campaign
LINKS OF THE DAY
CANTERBURY BUILDING CONSENTS DOWN: Canterbury had a fall in building consents for new dwellings in January 2016, Statistics New Zealand said today. More details at: http://bit.ly/1XTTOpX
ECONOMIC INDICATORS: The February Monthly Economic Indicators (MEI) was published today on the Treasury Website.The report provides a summary of recent economic events. Read more at:http://www.treasury.govt.nz/economy/mei/feb16
OTICON FOUNDATION GRANTS: Oticon Foundation made its annual call for grant applications for projects and activities dedicated to improving the lives of Deaf and hard of hearing New Zealanders. The deadline for applications is 31 March 2016. Information on how to apply is available on the Foundation’s website: www.oticon.org.nz
VOLUNTEERING REPORT: Volunteering New Zealand announces the results of its inaugural State of the New Zealand Volunteering Sector survey today.The full State of Volunteering Report is available at:http://www.volunteeringnz.org.nz/state-volunteering/
And that’s our sampling of “news you can use” for Monday 29th February .
OPINION: Vanuatu Daily Digest has raised the issue of negligible public awareness of Radio Vanuatu (VBTC) planned developments with a Chinese company over extending television to all islands.
Such an extra dimension to media services of the state within Vanuatu should only be carried out with the approval of the population as a whole. Yet there has been no public debate on television availability at all hours – no forum of any kind.
And meanwhile the public complaint concerning Radio Vanuatu reception continued during Cyclone Pam and last week with the passage of Cyclone Winston when warnings could only be heard on South Pentecost through FM107 or seen on tiny mobile telephone screens.
People should not have to climb hills and trees to have reception of such warnings when they have been available on the household radio for over 40 years, managed by ni-Vanuatu transmission engineers, sometimes supported by foreign aid, but without the need to bring Chinese companies into the formula.
Vanuatu Daily Digest learned of the Pentecost island cyclone Winston warning problem only on Thursday night. Radio reception of the national service remains a difficulty on West Coast Santo and in the Banks and Torres where they hear their warnings from the Solomons.
The problems in VBTC are further highlighted by a post of long serving broadcaster Antoine Malsungai on Facebook on Thursday.
The VBTC claims to be taking action against certain staff for various offences and yet the staff union is bringing a case against VBTC Board and management – a case which still has to be heard. Malsungai also raised the matter of the Chinese company involvement in the corporation.
The whole matter surely needs the interest of the newly formed government.
A media project which has been given negligible public awareness is the VBTC arrangement with a private Chinese company to provide television to all the islands of Vanuatu.
The VanuaMadia [sic] Digital TV Network is reported created for this purpose by Vila Times. VT 500 million worth of equipment is said to be going to arrive, the first shipment this [last] weekend.
There has been no public discussion on the merits and disadvantages to communities and cultures of such a scheme.
Accounting at VBTC has been the subject of complaint by the Auditor-General and it is to be hoped that appropriate expertise has been sought to evaluate such a project at a time when food and water are being shipped to islands suffering the ravages of El Niño.
An early opinion of the Salwai government would be appreciated by everyone.
Eight-month-old Waseroma Rasavou survived 14 hours in an esky cooler as the savage tropical storm battered a remote Fiji village in one of the latest survival stories to emerge.
As last week’s severe tropical cyclone Winston damaged 19 properties at Nasaisaivua in Kubulau, Bua – including two church buildings and a hall – Waseroma lay sleeping soundly and safe in the esky.
The baby was covered with only a T-shirt and the esky lid above his head, keeping him away from the rain and strong winds.
When his dad, Waisake Bukaroro, saw the house shaking, he told his wife Mereani Mailekutu to take the two older children to the village hall while he prepared the esky.
At 4.25pm, Bukaroro said he put the baby into the esky, closed it and ran towards the village hall to join the other villagers who were taking shelter there.
But when they were about five metres away from the hall, the structure dropped before them and the other villagers ran out.
In this instance, he panicked with fright, caught in a dilemma to choose between saving his baby first or run towards the damaged hall to rescue his wife and other two children.
Bukaroro said it was a difficult moment but the love for his son forced him to take shelter in a roofless bathroom — about 20m away from the destroyed hall.
He said when they got to the bathroom, which was big enough for four people, the villagers were all crammed into the only safe haven at that time.
He carried the esky through the overcrowded room and stood among the villagers carrying the cooler until daybreak on Sunday.
Throughout the night, he kept opening the esky lid to see if his son was breathing.
He added his baby did not cry but slept under heavy rain and strong wind conditions.
661 schools opening today Meanwhile, Newswire Fiji reports the Fiji government was asking schools around the nation to be understanding of the challenges being faced by students as 516 primary schools and 145 secondary schools around the country opened its gates for classes today.
Residents severely affected by Winston in the north-west of the main island of Viti Levu have received needed relief supplies during a three-day tour of the region by the Attorney-General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
Local businesses CJ Patel donated 5000 food packs valued at $232,000 and Punja and Sons another 5000 valued at $129,000 to assist the relief effort. R.C Manubhai has donated kitchen utensils to the value of $15,000 and mattresses and roofing supplies worth another $20,000.
The AG along with Minister Rosy Akbar and Minister Parveen Kumar distributed a large portion of the donated food packs from CJ Patel and Punja and Sons.
The AG’s tour took in cyclone-ravaged areas of Raviravi, Karavi and Yalalevu, (Ba) on Friday, Korobuya, Nabutini, Busabusa and Veisaru (Ba) and Korovou (Tavua) on Saturday, and Nadhari, and Navia (Ba) on Sunday.
It was the first time many of those affected by Cyclone Winston had received any form of assistance. The residents expressed their gratitude to the AG and the two ministers.
One of the suspects directly involved in the bombing attacks in the Thamrin Boulevard business district in the heart of central Jakarta early last month is a still a fugitive, says Indonesia’s police chief.
“We have caught 16 people for being directly involved in the bombing but one still remains at large,” the chief, General Badrodin Haiti, said at Police Headquarters.
He said the police were now investigating two convicts for their possible involvement in the bombing attacks on January 14.
So, in all, the total number of alleged perpetrators who were directly involved in the case has reached 19, he said.
General Badrodin said these 19 people were part of five different groups and three of the groups are led by Hendro Fernando, Helmi and Romli.
He did not mention the names of the leaders of the other two groups.
“Several groups were involved and they certainly had different plans. This poses a problem that may threaten security,” he said.
The bombing on Thamrin Boulevard claimed eight lives, including four bombers and four civilians, including a foreigner – a Canadian.
It was believed the target of the attack was foreigners.
More assistance from New Zealand is expected to arrive in the country today.
This was confirmed by a representative of New Zealand to the United Nations, speaking at a briefing on “The humanitarian situation in Fiji caused by cyclone Winston” organised by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The unnamed spokesperson said:
New Zealand currently has 67 defense force personnel on the ground in Fiji with 72 more arriving on a naval vessel on Sunday, along with an engineering company of 180 personnel.
To date, New Zealand has committed more than $3.2m to the response, including immediate relief supplies and construction materials and also technical teams to help Fijian authorities assess the extent of the damage and plan a response as well as medical, engineering and water production teams to support the government of Fiji’s response.
New Zealand joins with others here today to offer our very sincere condolences to the people and government of Fiji for the terrible loss of life and economic, social and environmental devastation at the hands of Tropical Cyclone Winston.
We are very thankful for the preparedness and leadership of the Fijian Government who ensured the consequences of Cyclone Winston was less severe to what it could otherwise have been.
New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully is also expected to be in Fiji tomorrow to offer his condolences in person and show support to the people and government of Fiji.
Heartbreaking but an inspiration Fijivillage.com reported that Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said while it had been heartbreaking to witness the devastation left behind by “monster” cyclone Winston, it had also been a great inspiration for him to see the Fijian spirit alive and well.
Bainimarama said in the face of such adversity where family members had been lost or injured and many houses destroyed, he had been greeted with smiles around the country.
He said he was determined that the government would do everything it could and as quickly as possible to help those affected by Winston “get back on their feet”.
He added that the government was doing everything humanely possible to deliver water, food and shelter to everyone in affected areas.
Rakiraki town, in one of the worst cyclone Winston-ravaged areas in Fiji’s northwestern Viti Levu island, is expected to be fully operational by next week.
The Town Council has been working non-stop to clear debris in the central business district.
The town suffered major damage after its market was blown away and flood waters brought big logs and trees onto the main street.
A number of large trees in the town also fell, blocking streets.
While there is still no electricity supply in Rakiraki, shops that have generators have opened for business already.
Businesses in Rakiraki are asking government for tax incentives in order for them to survive.
George Shiu Raj, a prominent businessman in Rakiraki, said:
“They are very sad at the moment just because we are THE biggest taxpayers and my request to the government is that they give us a tax breaks and incentives for three years so that we can build up.”
By Junior Ukaha and Pisai Gumar in Lae and Michael Guba in Port Moresby
Eleven prison inmates in Papua New Guinea have been shot dead and 17 wounded and recaptured following a mass breakout from Buimo prison in the second city of Lae.
Lae Metropolitan Superintendent Anthony Wagambie Junior said the exact number of inmates who broke out of the prison after overcoming warders would be determined after a proper head count by prison officers.
“It is confirmed that 11 prisoners have been shot and killed and 17 wounded and recaptured,” Wagambie said.
“Police will await for CS [Correctional Sevice] to confirm the number and identities of the escapees before we try to locate them.”
Buimo Jail near Lae … Insets: Lae Metropolitan Superintendent Anthony Wagambie Junior (left) and Acting Correctional Service Commissioner Bernard Nepo. Image: The National
Some reports put the number of escapees at 50, but The National newspaper cited a source saying the number was more than 90.
Acting Correctional Service Commissioner Bernard Nepo said that although he was yet to receive a full report from jail commander Chief Superintendent Joe Jako, “there were a number of reported deaths and injuries”.
“The situation in Lae is sketchy at the moment. Inmates and prison officers have been injured but it is still unclear as to how many,” he said.
‘Big number’ Wagambie said “a very big number of prisoners” broke out around 2pm on Thursday, with most of them being remanded in custody to await their court cases.
Wagambie said it was likely that the inmates attacked the prison officers on duty, one of whom had already received treatment at the Angau hospital.
“I was alerted by the jail commander [Chief Superintendent Joe Jako] and police were called to assist CS officers pursuing the prisoners on foot. Police units cordoned off the escape routes,” Wagambie said.
“Police will wait for CS to confirm the number and the identities of the escapees before we try to locate them,” Wagambie said.
Yesterday’s edition of the National in Papua New Guinea. Image: The National
He said police were expecting an increase in criminal activities in Lae.
“I am warning the general public to be cautious on their movements and take necessary precautions. I am anticipating a rise in criminal activities in the city with the large number of escapees on the run,” he said.
“I am also warning people not to harbour these escapees [because] if they are caught, they will be arrested and charged.”
Jail commander administration Superintendent Judy Tara said she would not comment on the escape.
Dr Alex Peawi from the Angau Memorial Hospital accident and emergency department said that at around 6.30pm an injured prison officer had been admitted with injuries to his shoulder.
Buimo Jail near Lae … up to 90 escapees. Image: Loop PNG
Fiji’s Minister for National Disaster Management, Colonel Inia Seruiratu, has lashed out at political parties that are trying to politicise the issue of relief assistance.
At a media briefing yesterday, Seruiratu said:
It’s quite disappointing that the issue of distribution of rations or food or the other relief assistance has been politiciSed and this is not the time to politiciSe issues. We are aware that political parties are saying that certain ethnic groups are being marginaliSed or ignored, that is not so. And I wish to assure all Fijians that we’ll provide for them when we have the opportunity to come to you.
Meanwhile, the HMAS Canberra yesterday left the Port of Brisbane for Fiji to assist in the humanitarian assistance mission, transporting disaster relief supplies, equipment and personnel, including engineers and medical professionals.
The crew is expected to be in Fiji for at least a month.
Colonel Seruiratu said the government was expecting HMAS Canberra to reach Fiji by next Tuesday.
“We also received one of the aeroplanes from the French government in New Caledonia and one of the Casa planes is here with us. Today we have deployed the Casa aircraft to Vanua Levu, particularly to address the needs between Savusavu and Taveuni and there is future tasking for the same plane again in that area.”
Colonel Inia Seruiratu during a press conference yesterday. Image: Peni Shute / Newswire Fiji
Colonel Seruiratu said another plane had arrived yesterday and it would transport a water treatment plant to the people of Taveuni.
“By today we will be also receiving the second Casa plane and, of course, the priority for that plane will be in the Northern Division as well. Tomorrow the first task [that] will be allocated to that plane is to take a water treatment plant to assist in the water situation that the people in Taveuni are going through.”
The French military aircraft arrived in Fiji for humanitarian support with three tonnes of aid from the French Red Cross.
It was in Taveuni today for the first of many relief supply drops.
Newswire Fiji also reported that Colonel Seruiratu confirmed that 62,461 people were currently in evacuation centres around the country and the death toll remained at 42.
Vanuatu’s Opposition has suggested to the Head of State, President Baldwin Lonsdale, that any decision to free 14 former MPs jailed for bribery should be done in proportion to everything that concerns fairness and the country’s custom of forgiveness, reconciliation and rehabilitation.
“That way in the eyes of the people and the public they can see that there is fairness proportional to things that happened,” Opposition Leader Ishmael Kalsakau said this when a high level delegation from the Opposition made a courtesy call on the president.
“You may be aware of different feelings about some of our leaders who have gone to jail for wrongs done against our nation. We recognise your role in times like these for those affected by these sorts of situations in our nation,” Kalsalkau said.
“We have not come to tell you how you will do your job i. We are here to let you know that we recognise that there is a possibility and a potential that you can play a role in this situation.
“We understand that on the government side in their 100-day plan they state under their MOA agreement that pardoning should take place.
“But that is theirs for which they will approach you on. But we are here to say that yes, under our custom for us to move forward, we reconcile, forget difference, but everything must be in proportion.
“That is one issue we want to raise in passing by way of this courtesy call to you.”
Kalsakau said the Opposition recognised the crucial role the President played as anchor to the nation through his leadership during the political and leadership crisis of last year leading to the snap election.
He informed the president that his Opposition group had members from different political groups, but that they felt the pain of the people of the nation brought about by divisions. Hence they had decided to move together as one.
“Anyone who wants to discuss any issue for the benefit of one of us, it has to be for the benefit of all of us,” he said.
“We want to let you know that our theme that we want to move forward with is ‘forgotten people, forgotten places’.
“During our calls to the Australian and New Zealand high commissioners this week, it was a big emphasis. And we were informed by them that they want claims from Torba to come quickly so they can assist the province, and its forgotten places where ships go once in three weeks.
“All the time in the past, Members of Parliament who find themselves in Opposition, run to get into government.
“But our focus is that on forgotten people, forgotten place, we can consolidate the Office of the Opposition in such a way that members of Parliament irrespective of which side of the house they find themselves, if in the Opposition should not feel neglected.
Jonas Cullwick, a former general manager of VBTC, is now a senior journalist with the Daily Post.
