Whispers
Whispers
Intelligence from Tarawa: Some opponents of the Chinese tracking station there fear it makes Tarawa a target for obliteration ordered by Mr George Bush or his successors should Americans embark on regime changing in China.
There's a belief that the atoll could cop a North Korean rocket also if its Great Leader runs into strife with the Chinese. If Kiribati's next president is Harry Tong, which now seems quite likely, then the tracking station's demise is quite likely.
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Race for the top job: How goes the race for the Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General's job? While some sources say the Australians have privately given up hope of sliding retired diplomat and Pacific Islands specialist Greg Urwin into the job, others insist that Canberra believes it still can. Confused?
Reliable rumours hath it that in Port Moresby mates of retiring Secretary-General Noel Levi appear to believe that there's no reason why the conventional bar on more than two consecutive terms in the job should bar him now for a third, a fate he doesn't appear to object to.
At the Forum Secretariat in Suva the word is that if candidates for the job were restricted to countries up-to-date financially with their Forum dues, then by the end of March, there would have been only, er, two. Urwin has been working around Suva in a role with the United Nations funded Governance for Livelihoods and Development in the South Pacific.
Water fiasco: On that endless international summit junket round; yet again regional officials are wondering how is it that some of the region's cabinet ministers can appear on the eve of a party like the recent Tokyo water works meeting, consume a 40-ounce bottle of quality whisky at the cost of the taxpayers back home, and then sit through the watery proceedings in a condition in no way competent to comprehend what's going on. This, by the way, is a very typical feature of the Pacific Way. The word is that at the Tokyo water works most of the Pacific's ministerial contingents were right out of their depth.
Sope's fit as fiddle again: At a function in April celebrating the 30th anniversary of Port Vila's L'Houstalet restaurant, veteran politicians sentimentally recalled the days of yore, also 30 years past, when they forged strategies for Vanuatu's independence. One veteran, former prime minister Barak Sope, was asked about his health.
When last year he was sprung from jail by a kind president after serving practically no time at all of a three-year sentence for fraud, it was explained that there was alarm about the onset of a diabetes-related disease. Sope is now feeling much better.
The cause of his physical decline in jail, the L'Houstalet gathering heard, was a kava-inflamed liver. Forsaking kava had fixed him up fine, reported Sope, who is fighting a 10-year legal ban on his ability to resume his forfeited parliamentary seat.
New wheels for new envoy: In Port Moresby, when one rises to becomes a leader, or some other positions in society with access to "state/government funds", a reliable indicator of such an arrival is the acquisition of a Toyota VX Turbo Charged Diesel Landcruiser purchased with those aforesaid funds.
A recently arrived diplomat has complied with local custom by fitting out with a brand new such vehicle, maroon in colour and with the mandatory blackened windows, said reliably to have cost K166,000. That's cheap compared with the full duty paid price.
Local belief is that blackened windows signify a rejection of fashionable transparency. The resident British High Commissioner travels in a Ford Fairlane, coloured British racing green, with clear glass. Australia's representative transparently moves about in a white Ford Fairlane, as does also New Zealand's, in a metallic grey one.
What is puzzling about the darkened four-wheel drive is there are a few long road journeys out from Port Moresby for which one needs one.
Qarase's 'Optimist of the Year': Fiji's Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, whose lament it is that the only news local scribes want to report is the bad kind, is in the running for designation as the 'Pacific Optimist of the Year'.
"I enjoy Fiji mornings when everything is fresh and the day is full of promise," he declared at a function in April. The PM was launching an anti-litter drive to be executed by the nation's youth who, the PM remarked, "intend to settle for nothing less than a clean, healthy and happy Fiji."
The youth litter brigade has a massive and probably eternal job on its hand. By the end of any fresh and promising day, Fiji does tend to be well littered. And in Suva, most fine mornings later giving way to gloomy grey skies, drizzle, cloudbursts and thunderstorms.
Majuro's water fiasco: Aaagggggh! Oh, no. Meaning oh, yes! That howl of despair and disbelief is familiar to all inhabitants of the Pacific, followed by "It could only happen in (*#+%)!" This time it could only have happened in the Marshall Islands' capital, Majuro, where at the end of March the worst fire in the island's history reduced a big department store and numerous other business offices and residential apartments to blackened ruins. Firefighters fronted up to do their bit but without water in their fire engines or the local hydrant, which carries salt water, since a power cut had deprived these vital water works of any pressure. A portable pump filled a water tanker that ferried water to the fire all through the night as buildings burned, and burned, and burned. Meanwhile, local kids moved in for a spot of looting. It could have been Baghdad!
Governors for sale: Guam's new, more frugally-minded airport management is wondering whether to offer for sale eleven life-size bronze statues of former governors ordered by the former much less frugally-minded management. It intends to keep a 12th statue after a veteran politician, Antonio Won Pat, after whom the airport is named. It became sales-minded after the son of one of the other governors offered to buy daddy's image. Now it's hoped families of the other 10 will buy them. The statues were ordered by the former airport manager from Korea at a cost of US$2.1 million. Won Pat's image is complete. The others are 75 to 85 percent complete. But the new management doesn't want to pay the cost of finishing them. The twelve were to have decorated the VIP Lounge, or maybe to have appeared more humbly in the passenger's departure area.
Ruby haunts Vanuatu: Shades of the Great Ruby of Port Vila! The shade of the Asian businessman who passed it off on the Vanuatu government still lurks in Port Vila. The Vanuatu Supreme Court lists Amendra Nath Ghose as being sued by a very prominent businessman and politician Dinh Van Than. The gushy Ghose persuaded the government to accept as a loan collateral an 87-kilogramme, US$174 million (his valuation) "ruby", which he claimed was the world's largest. Now he is being sued by a hurt believer in his word. Dinh reportedly gave a guarantee that a bank later asked him to meet. Ghose long ago left town.
Spotlight on NGOs: Fiji's growing news media presence on the Internet now has some powerful commentary. The increasingly-read Yellow Bucket column on http://www.fijivillage.com/ is providing informed comment that is a required reading for a growing number of websurfers. Recent example: A frank look at the proliferation of NGOs based in Fiji and who is setting the agenda for the well-paid, much-travelled islanders employed by them. According to Yellow Bucket, some have little real local input or relevance. But, said Yellow Bucket, they are set up to tap the agendas and funding of purse-string pullers in Canberra, Wellington, Geneva, New York, or Paris. And that name Yellow Bucket? It's a legendary kava bowl at the home of fijivillage.com in Suva. Around it people‹some of influence‹gather late each Friday afternoon to discuss the ways of the world.
Whatwashisname? Remember that wandering British-Australian who appointed himself an instant expert on the region's news media, and was given gushing publicity by one gullible media outlet? Seems he is gone from the scene as suddenly as he burst on it with his pontification and personal attacks. Rumour has it that this wanderer is bitten by the travel bug and has moved on. Meanwhile, leading news media locals and expats alike have a strong theory on who the wanderer was being manipulated by.
Energy wars: Across the region there's a growing interest in renewable energy. But below the surface, it seems a tussle is developing. The European Union and regional organisations are looking at the use of what they call proven technologies: such as windpower, solar power, hydropower, and hybrid systems using coconut oil. But Japan is strongly promoting Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). This taps into energy generated through different temperatures at different levels of the ocean. It also has the advantage of producing large amounts of fresh water from the sea, known as desalination. President Tommy Remengesau, of Palau, and Prime Minister Robert Woonton, of the Cook Islands, have become strong OTEC advocates. They have been enthusiastically liaising with Japanese researchers and companies who are developing OTEC technology. But sceptics wonder about OTEC's cost and its environmental impact.
Jobs for relatives? Remember that very special police constable that former Commissioner of Police of the Solomon Islands, Morton Siriheti complained about because of his marriage ties to a member of Sir Alan Kemakeza's cabinet?
Well, making the latest rounds in Honiara is the news that the same special constable is now wanting a promotion, egged on of course, by his father-in-law.
He wants to be Kemakeza's National Security Adviser, a position never heard of in that troubled nation.
The foreigner's push for the job is raising a lot of eyebrows, as is the impressive list of those jostling to be his referees‹which include another of Kemakeza's senior cabinet ministers and one of his senior aides.
Opponents, however, decry the move, believing this very special constable is only going to undo the great and impressive work of Bill Morrell, a Briton, brought in by the European Union to revamp the badly demoralised Royal Solomon Islands Police Force.
