University of the South Pacific students walk to the AusAID lecture theatre to begin the candlelight memorial service for disaster victims in Australia, Japan and New Zealand. Photo: USP Journalism

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Minnie Edmanley and Zhiyad Khan in Suva

A candlelight memorial service to remember the victims of the recent disasters in Australia, New Zealand and Japan was held at the University of the South Pacific’s Laucala campus in Suva last night.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra said the university was deeply saddened about the devastating loss of lives in Queensland, Christchurch and Japan.

“USP feels the pain and suffering in these three countries,” he said. Read more »

The Greater Sunrise oil field in the Timor Gap between the Timorese coastline and Australia. (Map: Timor Hau Nian Daben.)

East Timor has been standing up to the Australian oil company Woodside Petroleum over development of gas and oil fields in the Timor Sea. But the stakes are high for the country’s viability.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Nicholas Jones.

East Timor will lose more than revenue if a dispute with Woodside Petroleum over where gas from the Greater Sunrise field will be processed is not resolved, says an academic researching politics in the country.

“This is going to be seen internationally as a marker of East Timor’s capacity to engage with international investment,” says Damien Kingsbury, a professor at Deakin University’s School of International and Political Studies. Read more »

Press Release:
Pacific Islands Forum, Australia and New Zealand.

International election observers from the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Australia and New Zealand congratulate the people of Solomon Islands, the Solomon Islands Government and the Office of the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission on the orderly, peaceful and friendly conduct of the national elections on 4 August 2010.

Members of the delegations from the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Australia and New Zealand were part of an international observer effort coordinated by the United Nations Electoral Assistance Division (UNEAD). The international delegates observed polling in 330 polling stations in 29 of 50 constituencies. Read more »

Kopassus: The elite Indonesian commando force used against indigenous peoples of Timor Leste and West Papua. (Photo by Kopassus.)

Report – By PMC Newsdesk.

The United States has decided to re-engage with Indonesia’s elite commandos the Kopassus at a time when the special force is allegedly committing oppression, human rights abuses, and killings against West Papua’s indigenous peoples.

The Obama Administration this week agreed to “gradual and limited” engagement with Kopassus ending a ten year moratorium that prevented the US from giving assistance to the organisation. Read more »

Fiji's military leader and Prime Minister, Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama. (Photo by Selwyn Manning.)

Editorial – By Selwyn Manning.

UPDATED: Events this week in Fiji have seen a new pact forming where leaders of some Pacific island states have engaged with the military government of Fiji with Australia and New Zealand absent and outside the fold.

This week in Fiji, Pacific Islands leaders who gathered at the invitation of Fiji’s military government were urged to look outside the cabal of old traditional friends and seek new trade agreements and associations with economies further afield. Read more »

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum (pictured) is the Fiji military regime's Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Electoral Reform, Public Enterprises & Anti-Corruption, Industry, Tourism, Trade and Communications. (Photo courtesy of the Government of Fiji.)

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Roland Koroi.

Australia and New Zealand media organizations are practicing ‘gutter journalism’ says Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

Sayed-Khaiyum made the comments after articles were published in Australia and New Zealand over the weekend claiming the ‘recent’ removal of five Fiji Magistrates.

The Attorney General says this is not true and is typical of the negative campaign currently being waged by foreign media against Fiji.

“The word news means something that is new and you are trying to relay that information. What they are talking about is definitely not news. It’s something that happened over a period of time. It obviously is an example of how biased and partisan the Australian and NZ media organizations are. Read more »

Refuge? What Refuge? In 2002 56 Sri Lankans (pictured above) were believed to be sailing for New Zealand where they intended to claim asylum. (Photo issued by the New Zealand Government, and courtesy of Scoop.co.nz.)

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Josephine Latu.

The Timor Leste parliament has voted against any proposal to build a refugee processing centre on its shores for asylum seekers heading to Australia.

AFP reports that the 34 parliamentarians (out of a 66 seat House) voted unanimously on Monday to “firmly reject any plan to set up a refugee detention centre in East Timor”. Read more »

More Co-operative Times: An Australian Defence and a Fijian recon soldier keep a lookout in East Timor. (Photo courtesy of Australian Defence. By WO2 Gary Ramage.)

Pacific Scoop:
Report by Thakur Ranjit Singh.

The Fiji military government has raised concerns about the standard of reporting on Fiji in the New Zealand and Australian media, which have been accused of publishing wrong, incorrect, misleading and malicious news on Fiji.

Speaking to the Fiji Sun newspaper yesterday (7 July), Military leader and Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, called on the Australian Government not to interfere with the internal affairs of Fiji. This comes in the wake of a reported comment by an Australian Foreign Affairs official whose statements were published in the News Limited owned newspaper The Australian. Read more »

Flash-Back: In July 2003 in Townsville, Australia, leaders of the Pacific's largest states signed a non-agression pact that paved the way for Australia and Pacific troops to enter Solomon Islands to restore security and democratic order. RAMSI became the child of this pact. (Photo by Selwyn Manning, courtesy of Scoop.)

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By PMC Newsdesk.

Tonga and Samoa have been officially thanked by the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) for the two nations’ commitment toward rebuilding the Solomon Islands since 2003.

RAMSI issued a statement this week noting the hundreds of Samoans and Tongans who have helped make the Solomons more stable since civil unrest, murder and violence between sectarian inter-island groups and militia drove the Melanesian state to its knees in the years leading up to 2003. Read more »

Ousted Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was once heralded as the savior of the Australian Labor Party. The coup to oust him by his 'friends' was swift, ruthless, effective. (Photo by Selwyn Manning, courtesy of Scoop.co.nz.)

Pacific Scoop:
Opinion – By Thakur Ranjit Singh.

Australia’s bloodless ‘democratic’ coup: Lessons for Fiji Labour Party and other third world democracies.

One thing Australia’s politicians have proved – as descendants of the former British penal colony that Australia was – that they can be heartless and ruthless. But kudos to those involved in the Brutus Coup in Australia who swiftly stabbed their “Julius Caesar” to save “Rome”.

It is such a pity similar action could not be undertaken in Fiji where a timely change in leadership by a democratic coup within the Fiji Labour Party may have averted political uprising, consequent George Speight’s treasonous coup and subsequent chain of political instability plaguing the country since 2000. Read more »