Islands Business - WHISPERS

NOVEMBER 2009

Diplomatic stoush: WHISPERS has heard of a diplomatic stoush between New Zealand and Niue, as the larger country attempts to recover more than $10,000 from one of Niue’s leaders. Foreign ministry officials privately allege the leader improperly obtained the funds in travel expenses, which New Zealand had already covered. The stand-off is believed to be behind the frosty diplomatic relations between that leader and the New Zealand diplomatic office in Niue. One senior foreign affairs official claims the minister is not fit for the protection afforded by his New Zealand diplomatic passport. Meanwhile, the alleged offender is making no bones about turning elsewhere for aid.

Ministerial notoriety: Ministers from the Pacific Islands Forum countries gathered in Brisbane in October for one of these never-ending conferences on trade. By protocol, it is the responsibility of the host country to allocate hotels. It did in this case. But one minister had decided against the up-market hotel he was booked in. In his view, it was too close for comfort. The minister, notorious for over-spending his US$250-a-night allowance and Imprest in the thousands, instead asked his staff to book him in another hotel, about a kilometre away from the hotel where the conference was being held. His staff did. “I don’t want those guys to be watching me,” he was heard to have told his staff. The same minister, WHISPERS was told, never told his High Commissioner in Canberra that he was in Brisbane. The High Commissioner only found out when Australian officials telephoned him to make an appointment for the minister to meet Simon Crean, Australia’s Trade Minister. Given that even the High Commissioner in Canberra was kept in the dark, the minister sure had some issues on his mind.

Heads up: What's going on in the regional organisations? Would we be seeing the new structure falling into place from January 1, 2010? Well, if the SOPAC governing council meeting in Vanuatu is anything to go by, that might not be the case. WHISPERS' informants say there was a heated debate at the meeting and it was said that because SOPAC is a legal entity like other regional organisations, it had to be "de-legalised) before it can come under SPC as agreed to. This would see SPREP going through the same motion. So we might be seeing a bit of a delauy.

Trademark trouble: Start-ups take heed. Two Fijian breweries: one David, the other Goliath, both holding trademarks to the same name. How could this be? Within mere days of a new boutique brewery soft-launching their specialty beer in Fiji, they were informed of a trademark infringement by their much bigger rival. It turns out the Fijian trademark office approved the new brewery’s application without thoroughly checking its books for a pre-existing registration. This led to the new brewery having to change the name of its beer, packaging and all marketing collateral well after it had launched. No word yet on whether the brewery is suing its lawyers or the trademark office to recoup costs.

Michael Jackson in Funafuti? First, it was Barack Obama on the face of a coin in Vanuatu, now the late King of Pop has turned up in commemoration stamps in the tiny island state of Tuvalu. Issued in July by Tuvalu’s Philatelic Bureau, the stamps came in two different sheets comprising six different stamps of Michael Jackson in concert. Acknowledging that Jackson might not have heard of the island nation in the central Pacific, the superstar, said the bureau, still had a large following in the atolls of Tuvalu. “In the 1980s, the young islanders on Funafuti would dance to his music during weekend “twists” held at various venues in the capital,” declared the bureau. It did admit the commemorative stamps have already attracted the attention of bounty hunters, some of them adding markups of 200 to 300%!

Chicken wardens: Still on the island nation, a story making the coconut wireless is about a new job description for wardens at Funafuti’s only penitentiary. There are three wardens on duty in any given day, charged with supervising prisoners in the capital. One day, they received a telephone call from a very important resident of the atoll, demanding their immediate presence at his mansion. He had apparently summoned them to shoo away his neighbour's chickens who had raided and done damage to his garden. Talk about call of duty.

‘Look, it’s me with Obama’: The powers that be in the region turned up in full force in New York for last month’s opening of the UN General Assembly. Presidents and prime ministers have a lot to share with their counterparts from around the world, especially on the urgent need for a credible deal on carbon emission reduction targets in Copenhagen in December. A lot of good copies were generated around the islands about the leaders’ address at the world body. The most unusual publicity, however, has to go to the Solomon Islands’ representative at the world summit, for all that was published in Honiara about his address was a full colour photo of him standing next to President Barack Obama and America’s First Lady!

Islands’ snubbing game: Is it really true that two leaders in the Pacific were treated to a chilly welcome at the New York summit of the world’s small islands states? A whisper from the Big Apple says the big man from Land Down Under and the current chair of the Pacific’s boys club, the Forum, put out words that he would not mind an invitation to address the summit. The offer was vigorously ignored. The chair’s secretary-general did turn up though and alas, sitting was not even provided. The fact that he was chair of the alliance for a long time was forgotten. Small islands states were still reeling from the Forum’s decision in August to side with the polluting industrialised states like Australia and New Zealand over the debate on carbon emission reductions!

The t-shirt that got away: Regional scribe, Alfred Sasako, went to his home village on Malaita last September. There, he was shown tags which were taken from a female turtle, which literally landed in a pot after a local fisherman caught it during a night’s snorkelling trip. The tags belonged to SPREP, the region’s premier environment organisation. It asked anyone who found these tags to report them to SPREP, which has its postal address including an email on it. A day or so later, Alfred received a response from Apia—that the turtle was indeed one of the few they tagged in a programme to monitor the sea mammal’s movement. At first, Alfred was asked about what ‘T’-shirt in terms of size would fit him. We want to reward you for reporting this to us. Their next question was about the fate of the animal. In his jovial way, Alfred responded that given turtle meat is such a delicacy in the islands, its fate was a foregone conclusion. Two months on, Alfred is still waiting for his T-shirt. All subsequent emails have never been responded to. Which prompted Alfred to ask: If SPREP expects him to lie about the fate of the turtle just for the sake of getting a ‘T’-shirt, they’re in with the wrong man.

Double dipping: In Solomon Islands a lot has happened to improve the lot of Members of Parliament in the last few years. One of these areas is when Government Ministers and MPs travel on junkets often funded by external entities. In the past when a trip is funded by an external donor, an MP’s allowance is cut by 75 percent. In other words, he or she receives only 25 percent of what he would normally get. Today, the rule has changed. MPs now get the full allowance and, in many cases an Imprest worth thousands of dollars to pay for such things as accommodation, meals, transport, telephone calls, etc. A top delegation heading to Taiwan this month has asked that all their accommodation, transport, etc, be paid for as they would not want to be carrying so much cash in hand. Talk about double dipping!

Aussies upset: It’s not the infamous rascal gangs terrorising Australian officials in Papua New Guinea but loud noise from a popular nightclub that upsets some of Canberra’s finest, according to AAP. A sound device has been used to record decibel levels from a popular Port Moresby nightclub after AusAID staff complained the Lamana club’s loud noise was affecting their sleep.

Spilling the beans: WHISPERS has learnt that in the Pacific, members of the diplomatic corps need not engage in covert intelligence work to ascertain behind-the-scenes goings-on. At a recent private dinner in an island capital hosted by a diplomatic mission, an elder statesman (who’s known to be fond of his drink) was very forthcoming with information about his boss. Needless to say, the accommodating hosts ensured his glass never ran dry the entire night.

New media baron: First it was the Cook Islands, now its Samoa, so is Vanuatu next? The whisper is about a Cook Island media company that has successfully launched a radio and television service in Apia. The company currently owns the only television service and newspaper in the Cooks. Now the word around the coconut wireless is that George, the media baron, is eyeing the former British/French condominium. With intermittent TV service, the whisper is that Vanuatu is ripe for a lean and mean commercial operator the Pitt Group is famous for.

Living large: Rumour has it that the shareholders of a fledgling television station were less than impressed when, after being asked to contribute more funds towards its running. One of them decided to charter a private helicopter to fly him to a remote island for a vacation. Meanwhile, the station’s star journalist, who’s been instrumental in the company’s start-up, is defecting to another media establishment. Interesting to know why he is moving. Ooops, the star reporter has been reported telling friends that with the money offered by the competitor, he will not require any salary raise for the next years! Wow!

Pacific’s little Macao: Fiji could very well be on its way of becoming the little Macao of the Pacific with plans by its current ruler that legislation is being drafted to make it into a casino haven. Until now, gambling and gaming machines are outlawed in the island nation. Not any more. PM Frank Bainimarama wants to ‘leap-frog’ the economy, no more should it continue to ‘plod along.’ Opening up the casino market therefore is the best way to go. The whispers is that the first casino licence is out and it’s now in the hands of a very colourful magnate, who is un-welcomed in the Asian country where he once ruled.

What’s in a name: Apparently a lot more than what you would like to think. At least that seems to be the official view of the People’s Republic of China. The world’s newest superpower was furious, it has been whispered about the constant reference by the Forum Secretariat of Taiwan as the Republic of China/Taiwan. “Its proper name is Chinese Taipei,” a red-face official envoy of PRC told the Forum’s top bureaucrat in Suva recently.

Happy, Happy Tonga: WHISPERS has been told that on the evening of the Princess Ashika tragedy in which 74 lives were lost, Television Tonga’s news programme was delayed. The gap was filled with the incessantly played song “Happy, Happy Tonga”. On the evening of the tsunami in which nine people died, the news was again delayed. And what was played in meantime? Yes, you guessed right—“Happy, Happy Tonga.”

Media trip cancelled: WHISPERS was told a high-powered media delegation was to head to our region this month. The journalists from NY Times, BBC, CNN, Time magazine—funded by AOSIS—were to head to the frontline states of Kiribati, Tuvalu and may be Samoa in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate negotiations. But there was a last minute cancellation.