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FIJIAN TIPPED for top MSG job? BUCKLE UP on E170 jet; MILLENNIUM Challenge fiasco; VATUKOULA twist continues
Fijian tipped for top job? The race to Port Vila is heating up, it has been whispered. In the running for the top job of the newly created position of Director-General of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) secretariat, are one or two Fijians and a few others from the three other member nations. A name will be finalised very soon. With the massive sacking of CEOs after the political upheaval in Fiji, one or two had their names appearing in the final shortlist. Thanks to China, the position carries a base salary of US$100,000, plus other trappings and incentives. Beijing is also paying for the new MSG headquarters to be built on a piece of land kindly provided by the host—Vanuatu. Australia, in particular, is whispered to be pretty ‘nervous’ about the development as MSG is most probably the only body it has yet to place an influence on lately!
Buckle up on the E170: Solomon Airlines is leading the way with the introduction of a Brazilian jet, the 76-seat Embraer 170 (pictured), on regional flights. This modern jet could be the way of the future. It is able to operate quickly, frequently and economically on routes where airlines struggle using bigger Boeing 737-type planes. Passengers on early Solomon Airlines E170 flights between Honiara and Nadi and Brisbane reported struggling to get used to the smaller size of this regional jet. But islands travellers better get used to the EJets. Low-cost carrier Pacific Blue is expected to be next to introduce them on Pacific Islands flights. Its parent, Virgin Blue, has ordered a fleet of new EJets from Embraer, including for flights to the islands. Solomon Airlines, is whispered to be eyeing its second but bigger Embraer EJet (E190) sometime in the new year.
Still on aviation... the word is that Solomon Airlines could be codesharing with Air Pacific to fly to Papua New Guinea using Solomon Airlines’ EJet—flying all the way from Nadi to Honiara and then on to Port Moresby and vice versa. At the moment PNG’s Air Niugini flies to Nadi via Honiara for fuel stop. This means it can not pick up passengers bound for Nadi from Honiara. Air Niugini is also looking at acquiring a bigger B737 jet from Royal Brunei for its international services.
Vatukoula twist continues... WHISPERS recently established that the so-called gold production from Fiji’s estranged Emperor Gold Mine (EGM) may not happen in the near future as some, including the central bank, had envisaged. The interim government had apparently been toying with the idea of giving new owner Westech Gold Pty Ltd the flick and then calling for an international tender for interested operators. It was however knocked back into place by Westech lawyers who sternly reminded the Fiji party that Westech had bought out the Australian companies that own Emperor Gold Mines, which clearly puts ownership of Vatukoula outside of Fiji’s tinkering fingers. It remains to be seen if Fiji’s interim administration will allow Westech to operate Vatukoula or revoke EGM’s mining licence. The latter, which had been put forward as a possibility, would launch the Vatukoula twist to another dimension of legal complications and curious questions, starting with: where will we get F$250,000 a week to keep the mine dry while we look for an interested operator?
May day for media freedom? With all the pressure on journalists in Fiji and Tonga you might have thought there would be plenty of rousing regional declarations on World Press Freedom Day, May 3. If you did, think again. The organisations which normally partner leading the regional way each year, the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and UNESCO’s regional office in Apia, were both unusually quiet. UNESCO’s representative was also strangely missing from the action when the situation in Fiji and Tonga was discussed at the PINA convention in Honiara last month. This was even though he was in Honiara.
Travelling knight: Some head scratching in Rarotonga over the cost to the public of the recent royal travels of Cook Islands’ Deputy PM Sir Terepai Maoate and his accompanying party. The group was in London so the new knight and veteran politician could receive his honour—personally from the Queen—at Buckingham Palace. One travel industry source said the cost of it all mounted with various changes of tickets.
Law and order: RAMSI prides itself with maintaining law and order in the Solomons. But on May 21, three RAMSI police officers were themselves stopped from entering Yandina in the Russell Islands. They in fact were chased away after arriving on a helicopter to survey security, with a view to re-starting RIPEL, a coconut milling enterprise. WHISPERS was told the RAMSI police officers were chased off by union supporters, despite the Solomon Islands High Court and Court of Appeal declaring the strike illegal back in 2004. If the RAMSI officers themselves can not enter the Yandina property, how could the owners enter their own private property, yet RAMSI says: there is law and order in Solomon Islands. May be Yandina is not in the Solomon Islands!
Clearing the way: Interesting is the way the ‘path’ has been cleared all so suddenly for Fiji’s top cop to get the job for good. Two of the three officers who hold seniority over him have somewhat mysteriously got overseas postings; one is now Solomons’ top cop although a lively debate has sprung up at his workplace to be. The other has landed a lucrative job with the world body. The third officer has been sent on leave by the military and it’s been whispered the authorities aren’t in a rush to let him return to work. Just as the path is all but cleared, a spanner—it is now being whispered—has been thrown his way. One of the military’s most senior officers may just put in his application for the top cop job!
Handling Bainimarama: It will be interesting to see how the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat will handle the case of Fiji’s Interim PM. Word is that he will be attending the annual Forum Leaders meeting to be hosted by Tonga’s Prime Minister Dr Feleti Sevele in Nuku’alofa in October. Guess what? The two leaders were ex-scholars of a boys-only boarding school in Flagstaff in Suva.
Talking about leaders... when the US hosted the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders (PICL) early last month only the Secretary of State Condolezza Rice was able to see the leaders when she opened the conference. President Bush, however, was too busy hosting Queen Elizabeth during her visit there. Islanders who were there when she opened the conference, believed it was the shortest ever address she has ever made. Those who timed it said—the stopwatch stopped at 4 minutes and 40 seconds—and out she went to the White House to meet the British Queen. Well, does that say so much about how it (US) regards the Pacific?
And still on PICL... Islands leaders were a bit annoyed that US keeps moving the goalpost in relation to the Millennium Challenge Fund. Some of the leaders were hoping to make it on the list of countries waiting to tap the fund. But islands sources say it would be difficult because the Americans keep changing the requirements and it would be some years before any island country can qualify. The only Pacific country that has managed to get funding under this programme is Vanuatu—a cool US$65 million.
MASI’s exit strategy: Solomon Islands’ media body MASI has shed some new light on the role of scribes in nation building. Asked to submit its views on a review of the role of RAMSI—the regional rescue mission of the island nation following an ethnic war—MASI said RAMSI ought not to stay beyond 10 years from the date it arrived. Journalists in the Solomon Islands in other words want the largely Australian funded peace-making initiative to pack up and leave by 2013. Such is the power of the press.
Sugar talks: That information is power was brought to bear upon some members of Fiji’s interim regime in no uncertain terms at a conference on sugar it hosted recently. As countries of the 18 ACP sugar producing nations entered into intricate and highly technical discussions on an EPA with Europe that retains the traps and trimmings of the old sugar protocol, some interim ministers—sitting in as observers—called for a time-out and asked for a special briefing from sugar officials. Their enthusiasm evaporated when their counterpart responsible for sugar killed the idea. “You need not understand what’s going on. Just concentrate on your bilaterals with visiting counterparts,” they were reportedly told.
Relief-in-kind: Someone or some people are sponging off the misery of others. Word is that random relief-in-kind intended for tsunami victims in the Solomon Islands are being stolen even before distribution.
Ryder’s Solomons’ links: Along the Gizo promenade, one Gizo youth asked a reporter whether she knew Fiji Rugby 7’s sensation William Ryder. The reporter replied, yes and asked why. She received a brief history lesson. Beaming with pride, the youth explained that Ryder’s roots were in the Solomons and that the 7’s player has family in a village in the Solomon Islands. Through the narration, the amused reporter imagined Ryder chewing betelnut as a substitute to Fijian kava. The Fiji-born player does indeed have cross-cultural ties. Ryder is definitely guaranteed star treatment should he goose-step into Fiji’s Melanesian neighbour country.
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