Pacific Press Release – Pacific Media Watch

Opinion:
ON ABUSE OF POWER AND INFLUENCE IN A DEMOCRACY – NZ’S DOMINION POST

By Crosbie Walsh

HOROWHENUA (CW’s Fiji blog/Pacific Media Watch):  I’ve always thought  there’s something more than a little undemocratic and cowardly that  those writing editorials do not reveal their identity, especially in a
proudly democratic country like New Zealand. Read more »

Pacific Press Release – Pacific Media Watch

Dominion Post opinion:
DICTATORS MUST NOT HOLD SWAY IN THE PACIFIC

A Dominion Post editorial on New Zealand policy towards Fiji has been condemned by former University of the South Pacific professor Crosbie Walsh on his blog and also on Café Pacific. Walsh calls for greater transparency of newspaper editorial writers – who are they and what are their credentials? The full text of the editorial: Read more »

Logo: Clean up Fiji - Fiji Times

Pacific.Scoop
Opinion – By Crosbie Walsh

All acts have consequences. In Professor Brij Lal’s case, from one act (and a history of previous acts) there were three consequences in Fiji and more, in happier circumstances, in Australia.

The act? Giving interviews to foreign media when on a visitor’s visa to Fiji where emergency regulations are in place expressly forbidding such activities.
Read more »

Ratu Epeli Nailatikau ... sworn in as Fiji President. Photo: Radio Fiji

Pacific.Scoop
Opinion – By Crosbie Walsh

As diplomatic relations with Australia and New Zealand continue to deteriorate, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau has been inducted  President of Fiji for the next three years.

No vice-president is to be appointed.
Read more »

Sir Michael Somare. Photo: Fiji Times

Pacific.Scoop
Opinion – By Crosbie Walsh

Following the meeting of Melanesian leaders in Fiji last week, veteran Papua New Guinea prime minister Sir Michael Somare was reported to have said the Fiji economy was picking up, foreign reserves were up dramatically, and everything was slowly returning to normal.

Fiji’s “dictatorship” was different, he said, as he called on the Pacific Islands Forum countries – particularly Australia and New Zealand – to treat Fiji more leniently and accept Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama.
Read more »

Censorship in Fiji - curbed stories in the Fiji Times. Photo: TVNZ

Pacific.Scoop
Opinion – By Crosbie Walsh

The Amnesty International report on human rights abuses in Fiji is a disappointment. These abuses, and there have been several despite interim government assurances to the contrary, would have been better reported and exposed in an unemotional, objective manner, leaving readers to judge their causation, extent and seriousness.

Unfortunately, the report is anything but unemotional and objective; it is far more a lopsided polemic.
Read more »

Mahendra Chaudhry ... political enigma. Photo: Radio Fiji

Pacific.Scoop
Opinion – By Crosbie Walsh

Ousted Fiji Labour-led government prime minister. Brave and defiant prisoner of the George Speight coup.

Opponent then colleague in the Laisenia Qarase’s SDL-led government. Fierce advocate for cane farmers or obstructionist in the sugar industry?

Banker for displaced Indo-Fijian refugees, or tax evader and shady banker for himself? Supporter of Voreqe Bainimarama’s People’s Charter, briefly minister in the Bainimarama government, and now – apparently – compatriot of Qarase (two people who once were barely civil to each other). Once denied entry to Australia and now mysteriously admitted, with no explanation.
Read more »