Back again aged 81 … Gaston Flosse, political supremo in Tahiti for more than two decades. Photo: PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By Charles Richardson

Veteran anti-independence leader Gaston Flosse is back in charge in French Polynesia, but ongoing corruption charges mean that his tenure is far from assured.

The second round of French Polynesia’s territorial election last Sunday produced very much the expected result. The three parties that had met the 12.5 percent threshold in the first round shared out the vote in pretty much the same proportions they had a fortnight earlier: Tahoeraa Huiraatira on 45.1 percent, the Union for Democracy 29.3 percent and A Ti’a Porinetia 25.6 percent. (Official results here.)

In recent years, that sort of three-way split has led to chronic instability, as shifting alliances among the three parties brought first one and then another to the top. Read more »

Former Kompas regional editor for Papua and peace negotiator Octovianus Mote at the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day lecture in Auckland. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By the Pacific Media Centre news desk

The Papua Peace Negotiator Team has condemned the deadly shootings of Papuans who marked the 50th anniversary of the transfer of administration of West Papua (previously West New Guinea) from United Nations responsibility to Indonesian rule 50 years ago.

The Indonesian government’s celebration of the integration of Papua anniversary on May 1 was overshadowed by pro-independence flags being raised across the region and reports of deadly shootings of pro-independence activists by police.

Police allegedly killed two activists and arrested six others after reporters witnessed them raising the banned Free Papua Organisation’s Morning Star flag on Jalan Raya Adibay, Biak, on Wednesday morning. Some unconfirmed reports said up to 10 people had been killed in incidents across the region of West Papua. Read more »

Scoop editor and general manager Alastair Thompson (left) and Pacific Media Centre’s director Professor David Robie at the Scoop Foundation launch last night. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

An address by Scoop editor and general manager Alastair Thompson for the launch of the Scoop Foundation project and Pacific Scoop Internship at AUT’s Pacific Media Centre last night.

Pacific Scoop:
Speech – By Alastair Thompson

The name for Scoop’s “Scoop Foundation Project” plays on the associated ideas of “foundation” and “construction”. It is clear that we now need to build a new journalism.

The one that we have has been struggling for some time, and a key component of it – print – is now on life support.

And to build a new journalism we need to start by (re)constructing some foundations. And that is what the Scoop Foundation project will do. Read more »

The Danish newspaper BT featured Marie Krarup’s criticisms about Māori traditions as one of its top stories yesterday. The BT headline reads: ‘Doubts cast on Māori-Marie’s penis story’, referring to Marie Krarup’s comment on traditional carvings in the navy’s Te Taua Moana Marae. Image: BT.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Daniel Drageset of the Pacific Media Centre

Several New Zealanders have sent hate mail to Danish politician Marie Krarup after she characterised a traditional Māori powhiri at Devonport Naval Base in unflattering terms.

And she has now apologised on a New Zealand television show after the controversy erupted yesterday.

In early March, Krarup, who is the defence spokesperson for the far-right Danish People’s Party, witnessed the Māori welcoming ceremony as one of six MPs from the Danish Committee on Defence. Read more »

Photographers John Miller and Gil Hanly chat at the nuclear-free Pacific photographic seminar at AUT University. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Daniel Drageset

Social justice photographer John Miller believes his work brings alive issues for young people today and is a critical historical record.

Outlining the origins of the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement, he spoke at a public seminar about the 1985 Rainbow Warrior bombing, the hikoi and how the NFIP song Ngā Iwi E became a popular waiata in New Zealand.

Ngā Iwi E was written originally for the Fourth Pacific Festival of Arts in New Caledonia, but that was called off in solidarity with Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) protests against French colonial rule. Read more »

The free West Papua concert in Port Moresby marking Benny Wenda’s global tour. Image: Masalai blog

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By Airi Ingram and Jason MacLeod in Port Moresby

Melanesian support for a free West Papua has always been high. Travel throughout Papua New Guinea and you will often hear people say that West Papua and Papua New Guinea is ‘wanpela graun’ – one land – and that West Papuans on the other side of the border are family and kin.

In the Solomon Islands, Kanaky, Fiji and especially Vanuatu, people will tell you that “Melanesia is not free until West Papua is free”. This was the promise that the late Father Walter Lini, Vanuatu’s first prime minister made.

Ordinary people in this part of the Pacific are painfully aware that the West Papuan people continue to live under the gun. It is the politicians in Melanesia who have been slow to take up the cause. Read more »

Living in Fiji’s North … a “better future” under development. Image: Graham Davis/Grubsheet

Pacific Scoop:
Special Report – by Graham Davis in Nabouwalu, Fiji

The Fiji government’s Look North policy in global affairs is well known – the change of axis forced on it by the uncompromising stance of its neighbours, Australia and New Zealand, in the wake of Voreqe Bainimarama’s 2006 takeover.

What’s not widely appreciated is that the government is also pursuing a Look North policy of a different kind – a domestic one. It’s engaged in a concerted effort to develop the Northern Division of the country in a broad arc from the western tip of Vanua Levu across the second biggest island to the third, Taveuni, and some of the islands in between.

It’s one of the government’s most ambitious projects but one that largely passes under the radar amid the day-to-day obsession with political events – the difficult birth of the new constitution and who will or won’t be allowed to contest next year’s election. Read more »

Recaptured Fiji prisoner … battered, taunted and kicked. Shocking but a symptom of a wider problem? Image: Pacific Media Watch

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By Grubsheet columnist Graham Davis in Suva

Few people with access to the internet can have failed to be shocked and distressed at the extraordinary video that emerged this week of two recaptured Fijian prison escapees being ill-treated by their captors.

The clip that has appeared on local television is a sanitised version of the original, which at the time of writing has been viewed almost 60,000 times on YouTube.

It isn’t just the violence unleashed on the escapees and the degrading treatment to which they were subjected. Many people have been equally disturbed that their captors were taunting them, laughing at them and recording their ordeal on their mobile phones. Read more »

Nautilus Minerals plans a controversial Solwara 1 deep sea mining project in Papua New Guinea. Image: Deepseaworldnews.com

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By the Pacific Media Centre news desk

A Papuan New Guinea environmental advocacy group has accused Prime Minister Peter O’Neill of “falling silent” on the controversial  Solwara 1 deep sea mining venture planned off the coast of Madang.

“Why has our Prime Minister fallen silent on this core issue?” asked Wence Magun, national coordinator for the Madang-based Mas Kagin Tapani and also a steering cvommittee member of the Deep Sea Mining (DSM) Campaign.

The campaign wrote to O’Neill last December about its environmental concerns about the Solwara 1 mine and asked for documents relating to the approvals process of Nautilus Minerals Solwara 1 deep sea mine be made publicly available. Read more »

Fiji Times editor-in-chief Fred Wesley … suspended jail sentence for contempt of court. Image: Freeze frame from the USP documentary Media Freedom in the Pacific/Cafe Pacific

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By Grubsheet columnist Graham Davis

Scandalising the judicial system has come at a heavy price for the venerable Fiji Times, its former publisher, Brian O’Flaherty, and the current publisher and editor, Fred Wesley.

Sentence was passed on the paper yesterday after it was found guilty of contempt for republishing comments about Fiji’s judiciary made to the New Zealand newspaper Sunday Star*Times media by Tai Nicholas, secretary of the Oceania Football Confederation.

The comments appeared in the sports pages of the Fiji Times and the paper claimed, in mitigation, that it had fallen through the usual editorial checks. That lapse has come at a huge cost. Read more »