CHINESE CHECKERS grips the region; JACKSON'S private retreat?; DROWNED in rubbish; SOLOMONS' own jet?



Chinese checkers: A game gripping the Pacific Islands nowadays is a version of the Chinese Checkers. The latest round of it happened in May when after appearing briefly in Kiribati and Tuvalu, two of Taiwan's well rewarded PIC friends, President Shui-bian left for home via what was apparently a last second decision to transit through Fiji, a well rewarded friend of China. How suddenly the diversion was decided is a matter for speculation since a crowd of local ratus gave him a big reception at the Nadi pub where he put up for the night.

Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase was in the vicinity, but swears he didn't go near the visitor and had nothing to do with the reception since its Fiji official policy is to swallow the One-China policy while of course plucking what it can from Taiwan via the “trade office” the Taiwanese are allowed to run in Suva. Nevertheless, the Chinese ambassador in Suva sped to Nadi to deliver angry protests against any recognition at all being given to the rival friendship mob. Not long afterwards, the Fiji foreign affairs office was infuriated, not to mention also embarrassed, by a personal decision by health minister Solomone Naivalu, attending a World Health Organisation, to disobey orders and support an unsuccessful Taiwan application for WHO membership. He thought that bringing Taiwan into the world health scene, especially in these times of chicken flu fears, was much more important than sucking up to Beijing. More protest screeches were heard. Next thing, on the way home from a friendship trip to Latin American, a big Chinese ratu, Jia Qinglan, drops in to “strengthen relations” and to promise “huge potential” for trade pay-offs for little places prepared to stick to the One China line. Meanwhile, a Chinese resident ambassador was reportedly rushing to intercept a transiting jet carrying Nauru's president to Taiwan to ask for money needed to keep Air Nauru going. Last year one of Nauru's former governments (it's hard to remember which) switched allegiance from Taiwan, which had been helping Air Nauru financially, to China. It seems the present government doesn't feel the One China rewards are adequate. Those intercepting ambassadors are said to have assailed the Taiwan-bound teams with threats of retaliation for treachery.

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Drowned in rubbish: Pacific Islanders are at last waking up to the peril of being overwhelmed by mountains of imported rubbish. Samoa has just made the first shipment of crushed cans to Singapore. Four tonnes were compacted by a recycling plant supplied under Japanese aid and operated by the Planning, Urban and Management Agency, which plans to also recycle steel and plastics. Kiribati, now nearly completely carpeted by flattened beer cans, had a can crusher operating some years ago. But that venture seems to have folded, possibly crushed by the hardship of retaining the interest of people needed to keep it going. Valiant Vanuatu banned plastic shopping bags some time back, despite screams of non-co-operative shoppers who complained that paper bags didn't hold together in the rain. Papua New Guinea officially banned plastic bags some months ago, but hasn't the muscle to put the law into practice. Now Tonga has leapt into the fray by imposing a plastic bag tax in the hope of persuading the king's subjects to opt for paper ones. Years ago Fiji enacted laws against billboards now littering its landscape. There is talk now of actually banning the unsightly structures, but still only talk.

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Airline cock-up: While Air New Zealand announced a double-digit growth last month in sales on its Pacific islands routes, it also had a slight hiccup on one of its services to the region late last month. Its NZ44 service on May 23 from Auckland bound for Nadi saw at least 10 passengers going without meals after they miscalculated the number of passengers on board. Sincerely apologetic about it, the airline had to offer NZ$30 worth of airpoints each to the passengers who were without meals.

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Custom revival: Waning custom is on the rebound in Vanuatu, where a current concern is the promotion of economic self-reliance based on custom currency in place of the national currency, the vatu. The council of chiefs has agreed that the standard 80,000 Vatu bride price will be abolished. Vanuatu's prospective husbands must now buy wives with pigs, mats, shells and other forms of traditional currency; they'll first have to buy those currencies with vatu. The idea is to get vatu circulating in rural areas.

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Police foul up: Papua New Guinea's police force is back to normal now that the country's court has ruled that the Australian federal police, attached to the PNG force so as to help straighten out the demoralised, corrupt, inefficient and badly equipped outfit, weren't entitled to immunity from prosecution under PNG laws. Prior to the court's judgement the Australians were prepared for the worst. Within half-an-hour of the judgement's delivery, they had withdrawn from police stations around Port Moresby to hole up in the Australian cantonment in Port Moresby. They took with them new vehicles they arrived with and all other gear that the local cops are so badly in need of. A few days later, they jetted off, leaving in uniform. Within a few hours on the day of the court order, Port Moresby's residents were ruefully relating tales of already once more being waved down by local constables who, with eagle and x-ray eyes, said they had noted serious deficiencies or ghastly breaches of traffic laws that would be overlooked for a 50 kina contribution, cash on the spot, to some worthy charity. While the Australians tried to blame the foul-up that led to the court's decision on PNG's lawyers, the PNG side is very insistent that the finer details of the fouled up agreement was very much the work of the Australians.

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Jackson's private retreat? The deeply physically modified frame of one Michael Jackson, whose exhibitions of tenderness for small boys have enveloped him in unpleasantness, at least for a while, had a Pacific Islands bolt hole to escape to if he had felt a need for one. Lawyers for Marlon Brando reported that in June 2004, one month before his death, the actor was preparing to transfer half-an-acre of land on Tetiaroa, a small island he had near French Polynesia, to Jackson for use for as long as he wanted to have it . Brando's motive was “gratitude and affection” for Jackson for hosting a birthday party for Brando's daughter, Nina, now aged 15. Whether Jackson still has access to Tetiroa, about 40 kilometres north of French Polynesia, isn't clear, but developers have announced that a small eco-resort will be built on one motu there and the rest of the island kept as a private reservation.

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Gibson's island paradise: Talking of private islands, spies close to the heart of the matter say that Mel Gibson has completed the US$14 million purchase of Mago Island in Fiji after waiting through the legal period during which descendants of the island's original indigenous owners could step in to buy it back if able to come up with a matching offer. He was back at Mago in May. He plans to use the place as a mother of all private retreat for himself and his family.

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Master golfer returns: After an absence of around nine years golfer Vijay Singh appeared back home in Fiji in May to grace a carefully orchestrated appearance at Natadola Beach, 45 kilometres from Nadi Airport, where a golf course is to be built in his name. Anxiously, presumably to maintain his market value, Singh's discriminating foreign chaperons held a so-called “press conference” attended by local journalists on the condition that they took no pictures, asked only what they were told to ask, and told not to approach or even utter a “bula” to the great man. Meanwhile, five imported American journalists had free access to the master, pictures, questions, tucker and all. So much for the upholding of press freedom by local journalists who claim to be great upholders of it. Singh was hailed by the government who awarded him a diplomatic passport to go with his new role of “goodwill ambassador” for his home country.

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Peace without RAMSI? The global view of the situation in the Solomon Islands is that peace is not possible without RAMSI. That may have been the case initially, says a senior police officer attached to the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, but it isn't so anymore. His outlook may not be widely held. If they are, they are certainly not often published, with regional leaders and the media regularly pushing the concept that a Solomon Islands devoid of RAMSI is a Solomon Islands devoid of peace. It's reached a stage now that even Solomon Islanders are beginning to believe it. “But it isn't the case at all,” he says. “You can't have peace if the people don't want it. We need the people to take ownership of peace and feel as if they are contributing to it. But they can't do that if we continue to push the idea that without RAMSI peace is impossible.” Stay tuned!

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Solomons' own B737? The 2000 tension stripped away many things from the Solomon Islands, including certification necessary for the national airline to operate its own aircraft on international routes. Since then it has had to lease aircraft and sometimes crew from Air Vanuatu. But good news is in the air, so to speak: Solomon Airlines is finalising an application for its Air Operator Certificate. The requisite paperwork like aircraft manuals, qualifications and compliance statements have been put together. If things go according to plan, the airline will be operating most likely a Boeing 737 that is painted in Solomon Airlines' own livery.

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Plum Pludding Island: Advice for travellers to Gizo, a quaint little town, in the western Solomon Islands that's well worth the trouble of getting there. A few miles out on the horizon is a lump called Plum Pudding Island. By all means hire a put-put for a ride there, but your skipper may advise against landing on the once uninhabited island. A few months back, Gizo residents were complaining about what they felt was not exactly a transfer deal by which an acquaintance of the provincial premier claimed to have bought the island. When back in 1943 John F. Kennedy and his crew clambered up the beach of Plum Pudding after having their patrol boat sunk by a Japanese destroyer, they weren't confronted by a bloke leaping from out behind a bush to demand a “customary fee” as travellers who land there now may discover.

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Lawyers cleanup: Fiji's justice system usually works fairly well, even though a backlog of more than 2000 cases is cluttering up the Supreme Court. Another difficulty, admits the Fiji Law Society, is that the number of complaints about crooked lawyers has hit “epidemic” proportions. Graham Leung, the society's president, says it is determined to clean the rotters out by running them through its disciplinary committee.