New PMC media freedom video complements the Pacific Media Watch report. Image: PMC YouTube channel

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Pacific Media Watch

Brutal repression of journalists and civil rights in Indonesian-ruled West Papua, censorship and self-censorship in Fiji and abuses of a free press in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu have been highlighted in a Pacific media freedom report being published tomorrow.

The 41-page report by the Pacific Media Centre’s freedom project Pacific Media Watch is a harrowing indictment of the “fragile” state of the media in the region.

Marking the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) – observed globally on May 3 each year – the report is also accompanied by an eight minute video about the media made by a School of Communication Studies crew at the Auckland University of Technology. Read more »

NZ Foreign Minister Murray McCully answers the media with Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr. Photo: Alex Perrottet/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Alex Perrottet in Suva

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully and his Australian counterpart Bob Carr have received strong assurances that Fiji is well on its way to democracy and have acknowledged that Fiji “is in a state of transition”.

McCully, who is Chair of the Forum Ministerial Contact Group visiting Fiji, today  said the outlook was “very positive” but there was still concern over basic freedoms being observed.

“We were encouraged by the reports we received today about the firm intention to hold elections in 2014 and the reports about the machinery put in place to make those elections possible,” he said. Read more »

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr ... looking into "progress" in Fiji. Photo: FBC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Ritika Pratap and Dev Narayan in Suva

The visiting Pacific Islands Forum Ministerial Contact Group is optimistic that talks progressing in the next two days will be positive, reports Fiji Broadcasting News.

MCG chair and New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully, who arrived in Fiji earlier today, thanked the government for accepting to meet the MCG as part of “engagement”.

The meeting is an opportunity for members of the Ministerial Contact Group to see first hand the reforms being undertaken by the Bainimarama government as the country prepares for a new constitution next year and elections in 2014. Read more »

Thirteen PICs ... ""delusion of sovereignty". Photo: Dev Policy

Pacific Scoop:
Analysis – By Professor Wadan Narsey

Everyone knows that PACER Plus negotiations, if successfully conducted by Office of Chief Trading Adviser (OCTA), have the potential for offering major development benefits to Forum Island Country peoples.

The most important benefit should be generous access for unskilled guest workers to Australia and New Zealand, to assist in employment of unskilled FIVC people, and the strengthening of remittance flows of valuable foreign exchange, in return for trade liberalisation.

However, Forum Island Countries (FICs) allege that Australia and NZ are dragging their feet when it comes to the funding of the (OCTA) which is supposed to be the secretariat for PACER Plus negotiations. Read more »

PasiMA's "peacemaker" deputy chair Kalafi Moala of Tonga (from right) with Michael Jackson of Niue (elected the new vice-president of PINA) and Radio Djiido's Magalie Tingal. Photo: Wansolwara/USP

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Pacific Media Watch

An award-winning Fiji-born investigative journalist has attacked a Radio Australia news item about last month’s PINA Pacific Media Summit in Fiji, describing it as the “biggest crack at revisionism in recent Pacific media history”.

Australian-based Graham Davis, who publishes the independent blog Grubsheet, challenged RA’s Pacific Beat reporter Bruce Hill and the University of the South Pacific head of journalism, Dr Marc Edge, a Canadian, over their version of events given a month after the event.

Davis and other commentators had earlier described the summit – controversially held in Fiji in spite of the military-backed regime’s pressure on news media – as “peaceful” and a contrast with past stormy Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) conventions, especially the last one in Port Vila, Vanuatu, in 2009. Read more »

David Ward ... a wider Pacific focus planned for donated teaching resources programme. Photo: Jessi Mee/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Jessi Mee

A volunteer group providing donated teaching resources for Tonga is responding to a growing need for resources in other Pacific nations by changing its name to Island Resources.

It is also now making plans to help other countries, such as Fiji.

Private school manager David Ward established the organisation as Resources4Tonga and started to gather quality second hand education goods from New Zealand schools, businesses and local communities. Read more »

Papua New Guinea gold ... vast mineral wealth changing Pacific politics. Photo: Kiridaresources

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By economist Professor Wadan Narsey

If this was a news release by a geologist, alarm bells would be ringing around the Pacific and international scientific community.

But retitle it “Pacific politics tilting to PNG” and the alarm bells would be ringing in Samoa, Tonga and the Cooks (as I am sure they already are).

However, if Papua New Guinea ever decides to flex its burgeoning muscles, encouraged by a belligerent Fiji, the alarm bells would be ringing loudest in Canberra and Wellington. Read more »

Flashback to Christchurch 2011 ... Canterbury University student Troy Scott, now with the University of the South Pacific journalism programme on a HOPE Scholarship in Fiji, recalls life in quake city. Image: PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By Troy Scott in Suva

I am from Christchurch, New Zealand. I am studying at the University of the South Pacific for the first semester of 2012, after being incredibly lucky enough to be granted a scholarship through USP’s HOPE programme in Fiji.

Along with two others from New Zealand and joining two students from Japan, we all share one thing. We have all survived massive natural disasters.

The disruptions we have all suffered are now consigned to history but the memories remain vivid. This is my story of the Christchurch earthquakes. Read more »

Women miners wade through heavy metal laden effluent at Porgera, Papua New Guinea, in search of gold. Photo: Brent Stirton/Reportage/Human Rights Watch

Pacific Scoop:
Analysis – By Helen Hughes

The villagers of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, together with those of Fiji’s military dictatorship where living standards have been dropping precipitously, make up most of the population of the Melanesian Spearhead Group. They are now among the very poorest people in the world.

Women and their babies die in childbirth in the bush. Children are wracked by diarrhoea and chest catarrhs. HIV/AIDS in PNG compares with Mali and Burkina Faso. Illnesses no longer evident in most of the world plague adults.

Cholera outbreaks in Madang and Lae threaten Australian travellers. Drug-resistant tuberculosis has crossed to Australia’s Sabai and other Torres Strait islands. Read more »

Flashback to when Ro Teimumu Kepa (centre), one of Fiji's three confederacy paramount chiefs, was charged with violating the regime's Public Emergency Regulation in 2009. The PER has now been lifted. Photo: Fiji Times

Pacific Scoop:
Analysis – By Graham Davis

A titanic struggle looms between the old and new orders in Fiji for the hearts and minds of the indigenous majority – the i’taukei.

It’s a struggle that will determine the future for all Fiji citizens and on present indications, the portents don’t look good.

Because the old order – the i’taukei chiefs – seem determined to make race the centerpiece of their campaign, to mine all the old prejudices that have retarded independent Fiji’s development right from the start. Read more »