Whispers

Regional jealousies: Fiji has sunken deeper in the mire of regional jealousy following the revelation that a second international agency is to desert Port Vila for Suva simply because Suva is a much cheaper place to do business in.

The regional Asian Development Bank office is being followed to Suva by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

A review of ESCAP's Port Vila location concluded that it was "no longer cost effective." That is a bureaucratic jargon for "more costly" than the Fiji capital.

The list of international outfits, embassies and whatnots holed up in Suva is quite a long one. It means that Fiji sucks in masses of moolah from what is spent locally on pay, booze, entertainment, buildings, rents, travel, security and a long list of other daily expenses.
The Samoans and Tongans are particularly embittered about this since they think goodies like international agency offices should be shared around, regardless of extra costs.

How long will it be before the Fijians prize the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) from Samoa and the Forum Fisheries Agency from Honiara?

That cutting out enterprise would definitely be over the dead bodies of the Samoans.

Flying leap: The presidential office in Papeete has formally announced the importation of Mymaridae Gontocerus ashmeasdi and G. triguttalus to fight the cicadelle pisseuse, otherwise known as the pissing fly, a bug that's really pissing off a lot of French Polynesians.

Jeepneys for PNG? Papua New Guinea's gearing up to shake, rattle, roll and smash, transport wise. Its Land Transport Board has okayed a company's plan to import hundreds and maybe thousands of Philippines-made jeepneys into PNG for three years and then start building the contraptions locally. The board's decision is intended as a great leap forward for cheaper transport for the masses. It may also lead to a massive amount of more noise, fumes and spectacular road smashes.

Chinese presence: Pacific Islanders can look forward to an ever-burgeoning Chinese fishing presence in their local ports, gambling joints and whorehouses. One who knows explains it this way: "Once upon a time, the tuna fishery was dominated by the Japanese and Americans, then the Koreans and then that sort of rebel ex-Chinese, the Taiwanese.

"Some years back the Chinese began venturing into Oceania's tuna fisheries with tiny clapped out wooden hulks built to fish off China's coast.

Conditions inside these floating death cells were ghastly. Rising costs pushed out the Japanese and Americans and then, their successors. Now a new class of purpose-built long range Chinese longliners are appearing in ports like Suva to displace everyone else with their vastly lower operating costs attributable in no small way for lousy pay for their crew."

Royal Tongan drama: The drama of the state of health of Tonga's national airline intensified in April. It became a suspense thriller for those with dark thoughts about the wisdom of the airline's decision to operate a big jet internationally at a cost, so far, of 20 million pa'anga (about US$10 million). A report on the island's affairs by a commission of inquiry on April 8 was okayed by the government for publication. But the trouble is, Matangi Tonga magazine wryly noted, that the report won't be published until it's printed. So far, there's no funds for printing it. Perhaps not until the airline turns profitable!

Hope for PNG: Here's some "hoping" intelligence from Papua New Guinea. One Madam Ming Hayien, a Shanghai property owner, says she wants to invest US$100 million in building a five-star resort and golf course somewhere near Rabaul. Perhaps, she's counting on a direct Shanghai/Port Moresby or Shanghai/Kokopo air service some PNG officials are hoping for.

Kokopo, near Rabaul, would need a rather large extension to cope with the type of aircraft needed for such a service. It appears that Madam Ming expects to host the PNG tourist office, Air Niugini and the PNG investment office in one of her Shanghai properties. So far, no one else has ever wanted to invest US$100 million in a PNG resort. Meanwhile, by the end of the year French Polynesia will probably have been added to the list of presently ten or so countries China's control-minded government allows its people to visit as tourists. So perhaps the Shanghai lady should be taken a little more seriously than would otherwise be warranted.

FFA feisty no more: People who know say that the once feisty Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) has gone rather quiet. Gone are the days when FFA folks were out there in front line trenches sounding the charges against all those sinister foreign distant water fishermen intent on plundering Oceania's tuna, old time observers nostalgically observe.
They theorise that many of the FFA staff members are rather more bureaucratic preferring to keep their heads down, sticking strictly to what they've been briefed to do, rather than firing from the hip at would-be plunderers assaulting the trenches.

Fiji golf fuss: Racial discrimination is a never-ending topic in Fiji.
Constitutionally illegal, it usually manifests as bitter words from the country's Indian residents about what they feel they are exposed to at the hands of non-Indians. Fijians have quite a few words to say about what they regard as discrimination against them by Indians. What about the "Others?" These are those who aren't Indian or Fijian, as they are officially referred to. At the Fiji Golf Club, there's been a fuss about an annual general meeting resolution in which James Raman, a veteran trade union boss and an Indian who has chimed the anti-discrimination bell a few times himself, proposed that membership fees paid by expatriates should be raised above those paid by locals.

That initiative drew concerned letters from some diplomatic missions. Other disgusted golfers muttered resignation. The motion flopped, which Raman said he had expected to happen. He told fellow golfers he'd been asked to put it forward by other locals.

Lobbying for top ACP post: It's interesting indeed what happens when we're competing against each other. Let's take the ACP secretary-general's position, which according to those in Brussels and those in the know it's the Pacific's turn at the ACP's helm. The Pacific has two nominations‹Dr Pa'o Luteru from Samoa and Sir John Kaputin from Papua New Guinea. The candidate from PNG with support from his government had travelled around the region lobbying for support. Apparently he was welcomed in all the Pacific ACP countries except in Samoa, where he was told in a roundabout manner that he was not welcomed. At that's not all, when the Pacific ACP trade ministers met in PNG last month, Kaputin outvoted the Samoan candidate 9-4 to be the Pacific's nominee for the ACP secretary-general position, a decision the meeting endorsed.

But now, it seems a different signal is coming out of Apia. A Samoa Observer article quoted Samoa's trade minister Hans Joachim Keil, who was one of the first people to congratulate Kaputin, as saying that Dr Luteru was still in the running for the ACP top job, despite the decision made in PNG. Keil said the "vote in PNG is just an indication of where the support is at the moment. I can't say Pa'o's chances are good or bad, but he is still one of the two candidates from the Pacific at the moment."

Taiwan, here we come: The region's premier tertiary institution, USP, is about to run into competition from the most unexpected quarters. Kiribati students seeking higher education are reportedly queuing up to join Taiwanese universities and technical institutes, thanks to one of the many new cooperation deals between the two countries. Lucrative scholarships and technical courses relevant to Kiribati's development offered at state-of-the-art educational facilities are supposedly luring students looking at arming themselves with tertiary qualifications.

Help's on the way: New Zealand nurses have pooled resources to buy a much-needed autoclave for Hurricane Heta-hit Niue's medical services. The steam pressure autoclave is a steriliser that will be invaluable for the casualty wards.

Tito ventures into media Kiribati may be one of only two countries in the world without television. But it will soon have an all-new newspaper. Former president and member of the opposition Teburoro Tito is planning to launch one, come June. He says running a newspaper is one of the best ways to serve the interests of the people and it's a dream that has been after his heart for years. He wants to make it a quality newspaper complete with web edition and all. Newspapers are expensive business, so where will the money come from? It will mostly be funded by his "retirement benefits," says the University of the South Pacific alumnus, who has some experience running the student newspaper while he was studying at the university.