Whispers
Whispers
Chirac's watered down trip: Air Flosse One is how cynical French Polynesians have dubbed the new ATR-42 turbo-prop the French Polynesian government bought recently to be President Gaston Flosse's official transport plane. The plane arrived at Suva empty just before the South Pacific Games so that President Flosse, who with the French Polynesian team in one of Air Tahiti Nui's big Airbus 340 crates, could impress his Fijian hosts by giving them a few joy rides. Flosse returned to Papeete to agonise over whether or not France's president, Jacques Chirac, would front up there on July 28 as more or less promised for a meeting with the Forum's Pacific Islands government leaders.
At the time Islands Business went to press the certainty of that happening was still uncertain, so informal French Polynesia intelligence had it. Chirac's daughter had already been in town to instruct local authorities to hugely water down their lavish plans for entertaining Chirac. It was explained that the French leader, grappling with strikes, state pension curtailment plans and a horribly long list of other horrid domestic difficulties, was desperate to avoid the flak that hit him when it was reported that a recent visit to Mauritius had cost a US$4500 daily hotel bill. Apparently, Papeete's preparation included the US$4.5 million construction of a boulevard to be named after Chirac, and a US$150,000 bungalow at Maupiti, 44 kilometres west of Bora Bora, should the visitor desire to take a dip in the seclusion of a lonely lagoon. A scheduled trip to Bora Bora had to be savagely curtailed to just a quick look-see and lunch.
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Still on French Polynesia...Its tourism ministry is making it a habit. Tourism arrival figures have been so lousy of late that it doesn't want to publish them.
Forum plotting: Plotting for the filling of the Forum Secretary-General's job intensified in July with the looming at Auckland in August of the Pacific Islands Forum summit at which the appointment will be decided. At the Forum Secretariat in Suva considerable interest was focused on the capable deputy secretary-general, Maiava Iosefa Maiava, a Samoan and thus an obstacle to Samoa's hope of landing lands minister, Tuala Sale Tagaloa, in the seat as successor to Papua New Guinea's outgoing Noel Levi.
A Samoan SG and deputy SG? That thought caused other Forum delegations to fume. Maiava was said to be under strong Samoan Government pressure to resign. But the enticement offered a job looking after Samoan students in New Zealand wasn't exactly viewed as being very enticing.
Where to now for Levi? And talking about the outgoing Forum secretary-general Noel Levi, well, the former Papua New Guinea deputy prime minister is now being considered by his government for another overseas stint. He is tipped to be the next PNG head of mission in Brussels. The position has been vacant for the last six months after the incumbent refused to take up the appointment. Sources in PNG said the incumbent, a former top civil servant who retired from the civil service and got a big payout, wanted more money for the position.
Solomons' 2011 SPG bid: If the Solomon Islands loses out to New Caledonia in the bid to host the 2011 South Pacific Games, then there are two people the nation should not demand answers from. Definitely not from the minister responsible for sports, and the first citizen of Honiara. Apparently the two men accompanied the country's National Olympic Committee president to the recent SPG Council assembly in Suva.
By the time the chair invited the Solomons delegation to declare its interest to host the 2011 Games, both the minister and mayor were soundly snoring away in their chairs. The pretty humid Suva weather obviously didn't help, and of course, the rather over hospitable nightlife in the Fijian capital city. The story goes that a number of athletes were offloaded when one of the VIPs accompanying the country's contingent to the Games decided to bring along his family!
And still on the Games: The Suva Games, it appears, not only offered lessons to other islands countries on how not to organise the game, but also on what a free press can and does do. The chef de mission of New Caledonia became irritated by the persistence of local scribes wanting to know the number of indigenous Kanaks that made up his contingent. Vanuatu was not amused when its threat to pull out of the Games over a dispute with the Solomon Islands was reported by the games' official newspaper, Drumbeat. Samoa's new SPG Authority CEO was disturbed that in quoting him as claiming that the 2007 Games would be ready "ahead" of time, Drumbeat added by way of background that Fiji's preparation was hampered by the coup of 2000. His explanation was that the reporter (a Samoan university student) could face the wrath of coup supporters. Outgoing SPG Council President Ric Blas, of Guam, had time in his farewell address to complain about the "unrelenting" bad press during the Games.
A Forum poem and book? New Zealand's lavish preparation for the Auckland August Pacific Islands Forum meeting includes the commissioning of a Forum poem and book. Our Auckland spy says perhaps the hostess will recite the poem, which would be quite a giggle, given the airy fairy content picturing the Pacific Islands as they were a good many years ago before any Pacific Islander arrived to begin mucking them up.
The sleeping pigeons: Still making the rounds in Suva is the story about the sleeping beauties...the white pigeons that were supposed to be released during the opening ceremony of the Games, symbolising the peaceful attributes of an event that binds people of many islands living in a wide span of ocean together. Since the ceremony went on late into the wet Suva night, by the time the games mascot, the bright green and yellow lizard Tau, pulled the tag to open the cage and let the pigeons out, none emerged. It was 11pm by then and the pigeons were doing exactly what pigeons do at 11pm...sleeping.
Poor Tau had to crawl into the cage and literally throw the birds into the air to rudely bring them out of their slumber. Tau's quick thinking nearly worked, although an Australian-based singer halfway through the games' official song had to take evasive action as the doping birds came crashing down.
There's a new twist to that hilarious story...since there are no white pigeons in Fiji and since there has been no public record of white pigeons being imported specifically for the games, the birds must have been caught from the main Suva bus terminal and painted white by the very innovative and highly imaginative organisers!
Kiribati's extramarital affairs: Remember the tale last October of a troubled cabinet minister in the Solomons who ended a meeting with colleagues by praying about the need to get rid of all the seconds, thirds and fourths from their lives? He was referring to the extramarital affairs of his colleagues, the seconds, thirds and fourths being mistresses in addition to their first, their legal wives.
We did say then that this was an in-thing in the region, particularly amongst senior public servants and politicians. In the latest presidential poll in Kiribati, the second this year, the extramarital affairs of one candidate took centre stage during the campaign with a rival questioning the wisdom of having an "illegal" first lady and of electing a president who bore "illegitimate children".
Intelligence from Tonga: Crown Prince Tupouto'a is whispered to be urging his father, King Taufa'ahau Tupou, to drop the controversial legislation aimed at gagging newspapers, specifically the New Zealand-published Times of Tonga, judged to be too hostile to Tonga's reigning political establishment. He pointed out that in these terribly transparency and democratic-minded times, the umbrage aid donors will display if the legislation is enforced is something that Tonga just can't afford.
Ruby back to haunt Sope: It's nothing to do with me, asserted Vanuatu's former Prime Minister, Barak Sope, after the Ombudsman said he should have reported the US$20,000 paid into his wife's bank account by Asian conman Amandra Nath Gosh. He accused the Ombudsman of trying to wreck his political career prior to a by-election for the parliament seat he forfeited after being convicted of fraud and jailed briefly until being given a surprise pardon by Vanuatu president, somewhat short of the three years he got. Gosh conned Sope into believing that an 80-kilo plus lump of rock was the world's biggest ruby, worth US$175 million, and thus something that could be used as security for a loan. Why Mrs Sope got US$20,000 from Gosh isn't clear.
B757 debate continues: Efforts continue in Tonga, so far unsuccessfully, to persuade the government to immediately close down Royal Tongan Airlines' Boeing 757 jet service so as to end the two million pa'anga monthly loss it is making; or should that be losing. Actually, spies in Nuku'alofa report, most in government would like nothing more than to get rid of the jet instantly. But in Tonga majorities don't really count.
News from the Cooks: Could parliamentarian Norman George, a past cabinet minister and deputy prime minister, lose his parliamentary seat? The Cook Islands Audit Office said George's appointment as a consultant for the Environment Office at a rate of $3750 a month was illegal. It reckons this made him a government employee while being a sitting member of parliament, which was also illegal. The office wants a legal opinion on whether George's parliamentary seat should be declared to have been vacated.
Domestic fares flying high: A groan around the islands nowadays is that domestic air fares are now flying too high. So it's back to the discomfort of a slow, smelly, filthy and quite likely unsafe boat ride to Honiara, Port Vila, Suva or wherever. The news from Hawaii ain't no different. The locals snarl that it's better value for them to take a package trip to the United States mainland than being winged from Oahu to Maui, or Hawaii, or Kaui. Two years ago, the two-way fares were under US$100. Now they begin at US$144 and fly to US$212. Both the main airlines, Aloha and Hawaiian, are losing heaps of money and Hawaii's future is in doubt.
