| Whispers |
UN BLUNDER OR Pacific rivalry; MSG BOSS: Who is it? COOKING UP the heat...
Talking about Wong: Cook Islands tourism chief Chris Wong raised speculation in Rarotonga when he was apparently spotted back home in Fiji. Was Wong going after the vacant CEO’s job at the Fiji Visitors Bureau? it was asked. Wong is respected in regional tourism circles and credited with doing much to boost Cook Islands tourism. But in the Cooks he has recently come under attack, some of it rather personal, over the way he used his official credit card.
Bush/Bainimarama friends? Talking about Fiji and how it is being off-the-radar, so to speak, with some of its ‘friends’, one political analyst offered a solution. He says that if Fiji wants to get back immediately on the good books of the international community, it must do a Mushraff! A Mushraff? Well, self-made President Mushraff of Pakistan, despite executing a coup in his own country is still considered a very good friend of the US, after he told them he will help them track down terrorist Osama bin Laden. What does that mean for Fiji? According to the analyst, Interim PM Voreqe Bainimarama can also be a friend of the US, by telling President Bush that he (Fiji) can provide at least 5000 men to prop up the American-led Coalition of the Willing now fighting in Iraq. A number of countries of the coalition have withdrawn or are considering withdrawing from Iraq. Bush is also under pressure from American people calling for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. If Bainimarama gets the nod from the Americans, then Fiji does not have to worry about Australia, America’s deputy sheriff in the region, and New Zealand. Food for thought eh!
Who’s MSG boss? The suspense can almost be fatal. Months after the interviews were done, the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) brotherhood has still yet to announce its new director-general. Its Beijing-funded headquarters in downtown Port Vila is about to be opened, yet the committee given the task to select its new head is yet to make an appointment. WHISPERS understands the job is going to one of Papua New Guinea’s most abled trade experts who is currently working with a regional organisation.
Blunder or rivalry? Was it a United Nations blunder or Pacific rivalry? Fiji’s Poseci Bune found himself in an embarrassing situation at the 7th UN-sponsored Global Forum on Reinventing Government in Vienna late June, when he stood up to deliver a regional statement on governance on behalf of the Pacific, someone else—a fellow colleague from the Pacific—was already at the podium to deliver the same.
Solomons success: Whatever people might say about past political, governance and ethnic problems in the Solomon Islands, you can’t underestimate its people, say some who know the country. Just look around the regional organisations, they say. At the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Secretariat of the Pacific Community and Forum Fisheries Agency, you will find talented Solomon Islanders succeeding at the highest levels.
Popular Bai: How popular is Fiji’s military’s strongman in the region? Vanuatu visitors, who were eager to meet Commodore Frank Bainimarama during their recent visit to Suva, said the military man is so popular in the Melanesian country that his pin-up posters are everywhere in most nakamals in the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila.
Room at the games: Whisper this. If you’re amongst those struggling to find accommodation in Apia for this month’s South Pacific Games, here’s news you might be able to use. If you’re quick. The Eden’s Edge Hotel has quietly opened for business close to town. But be quick. There’s only 12 rooms open.
Cooking up heat: The simmering pot of discontent in the Cook Islands cabinet seems near boiling over, according to reports in Rarotonga’s busy news media. Hostilities broke out between Deputy Prime Minister Sir Terepai Maoate and the highly regarded Foreign Minister Wilkie Rasmussen. It’s an open secret the veteran Maoate hankers for another term in the Prime Minister’s chair. He believes this should rightly be his as elected leader of the Democratic Party and according to the party’s constitution. Problem for the increasingly grumpy doctor is that Prime Minister Jim Marurai—who became PM in the last parliamentary term before becoming a Demo—has much public support. Some believe the former college principal’s popularity won the Democrats last year’s election. The Maoate-Rasmussen spat illustrates the rising temperature, Rarotongans say. Rasmussen is firmly in the Marurai camp.
Khan’s a winner: The appointment of former Fiji assistant commissioner Jahir Khan as Solomon Islands Police Commissioner attracted flak from some politicians and civil society groups. But in one area, Khan is an unquestioned winner in the soccer-mad Happy Isles. Khan, long prominent in Fiji soccer, quickly boosted the game in his new police force. His plans include a Commissioner’s Cup tournament. He also heads (to use a soccer term) a Police team, known as Delta Force, in Honiara’s active veterans soccer scene.
FEMM report: The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat forks out lots of money each year to take a group of regional journalists to the Forum Economic Ministers Meeting (FEMM). This year’s effort was especially expensive, with the meeting in Palau. It also attracted some adverse comment—like one from a finance minister who complained on his return about the journalist from his country. He said his countryman seemed to spend more time drinking than reporting.
Mr Groper? What about the high flying regional civil servant now dubbed Mr Gropping Hands for the tendency of his hands to wander all over the place when flight crew go past his business class seat? Crew of the fairer sex especially shudder whenever they spy Mr Groping Hands’ name on the plane manifest. They can almost predict how the journey will go; rapid orders of glasses of red at the start of flight, before the hands start to wander. Nowadays, airline crews have struck back. They make sure a colleague of the not- so-fairer-sex is among them each time a flight takes off. This seems to be working for now, as the hands stopped wandering once the not-so fairer-crew walks by!
For a cuppa: Someone in the scribe industry in Fiji is counting the days. The whisper in town is that the chief scribe has been making unusual visits to an unusual office, somewhere near the building that houses the top man on the land. A lot of cups of tea have been shared, and no one knows whether a lot of red too have passed hands at the scribe’s favourite watering hole. But the word from those in charge is that the scribe should not have high hopes. No matter how many cups of tea or reds are shared, the scribe should be booking his airline ticket for home, once the piece of paper he holds expires.
Egg in the face: There were some eggs in the faces of aides to Palau’s long serving president at the opening last month of the annual hobnob of economic ministers of the Forum club. He spoke at great lengths about how the Forum is introducing free trade into the region the wrong way. Do your impact study first before you invite us to join. Alas, Forum officials say he was badly advised. The only invitation offered has been for members to join in negotiating a free trade pact, and the impact study was about a proposed free trade agreement that has yet to be implemented.
Missing the deadline? Is it true that African members of the ACP club have thrown in the towel, and have told Brussels, that Africa won’t be ready with an EPA by the December 31 deadline?
The whisper of course is what it means for their poorer cousins in the Pacific? Trade ministers of the Forum club are discussing this very point at their meetings in Vanuatu this month. At least they would know of one thing: that they were given adequate notice. Whispers repeatedly speak of the absence of a Plan B in the Pacific team’s negotiations with Brussels. Now they better have one!
DID YOU KNOW?
In Norfolk Island, most inhabitants share the same surnames and because of that most are listed in the local telephone books by their nicknames for identification purposes. Among these nicknames are Lettuce Leaf, Spuddy, Bubby, Diddles, Loppy, Cane Toad, Dar Bizziebee, Kik Kik, Mutty, Oot, Paw Paw, Snoop, Tarzan, and Wiggy...
The island country is among the smallest in the Pacific, located north, north-west of New Zealand and is home to descendants of the mutineers on HMS Bounty, the famous ship commandeered by Captain Cook in the late 1700s.
According to www.norfolkisland.com.au , the country’s official tourism industry website, Norfolk today has just over 1800 people, most of them descendants of the 194 people from Pitcairn Island that settled on the island in 1856. These early settlers were descendants of the Bounty mutineers. They and their Tahitian wives travelled to Norfolk and settled there. They also took their own language, now known as ‘Norfolk’, said the website. ‘Norfolk’ is a unique mixture of 18th century English and Polynesian. English is the most commonly used language on the island, however, you will hear the islanders talk to one another in ‘Norfolk’, said the website.
Here’s a taste of the local lingo:
Norfolk English
Watawieh Yorlye? How are you?
Si Yorlye Morla See you tomorrow
Kushu Good
Hili Lethargic
We baut yu gwen? Where are you going?
Fut nort? Why not?
Daaset That’s it
Daa letl salan waili ap in aa pain. That little child is stuck in that pine.
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