Pacific Notes
Pacific Notes
Region
Unmanned Typhoon Chaser Tested
A team of evaluators from the U.S. Air Force and Aerosonde Pty. Ltd of Australia spent 40 days in Guam in October and November testing the Weatherscout unmanned aerial vehicle, which may become the next tool for predicting typhoon behavior in Micronesia. Aerosonde manufactures the Weatherscout. It is designed to fly into typhoons to gather storm data not otherwise available. It weighs 30 pounds, has a nine-foot wingspan and can fly for 30 hours on less than two gallons of premium-unleaded gasoline, giving it a range of about 2,000 miles, says Aerosonde operations engineer Dan Fowler.
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The Weatherscout
air vehicle may change typhoon responses in Micronesia. - ADVERTISEMENT -
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The plane is launched from a platform on the roof of a standard passenger vehicle traveling at about 50 miles-per-hour and belly-skids to a stop after landing.
In flight, it navigates according to pre-loaded GPS way points and is controlled by Iridium satellite data link.
If the Weatherscout is adopted by the Air Force, it has important advantages. Currently, forecasters rely on satellite images but lack critical data from the surface of the ocean. The Weatherscout flies into storms at about 1,200 feet, costs a relatively low $100,000 per vehicle and without a crew, there is no risk to human life. The aircraft is able to locate the center of the storm more accurately than satellites, which are often blocked by clouds. Satellites determine lower wind speeds only; the Weatherscout will provide accurate readings from the periphery to the storm center as it flies through.
"This will give us a much better idea of the intensity of the storms," says Chip Guard, warning coordinator meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Guam.
The purpose of recent testing was to determine how operations might be affected by local conditions and regulations. "We need to test in the environment where it's going to be deployed," says Capt. Robert LoMonaco of the Air Force Operational Testing and Evaluation Center out of Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, in the United States. During the testing period, the aircraft flew for more than 285 hours during 16 flights. Most flights lasted more than 20 hours.
A crew flew the Weatherscout into three weather disturbances, which later developed into typhoons. "We had been involved in investigating the areas that subsequently turned into typhoons in Asia," says Fowler. "We all find that kind of exciting. We knew them before they were famous."
The next step will be to review the data with the weather experts. "We'll work with the Joint Typhoon Warning Center and the Air Force Weather Agency; they actually will look at the raw weather data and they'll crunch that all up," says LoMonaco. -- Frank Whitman
Bougainville
Fiji Ex-Soldiers Unwelcome On Bougainville
Fiji became locked in a delicate diplomatic standoff with Papua New Guinea in late 2005 when it emerged several former Fiji soldiers were on the autonomous island of Bougainville allegedly training the last of the rebels there to use firearms. The eight men had spent at least four weeks on the island before two were persuaded to leave the rebel-held no-go settlement of Tonu and explain themselves. The remaining six were given an 18-day deadline until Dec. 20 to leave the area or face prosecution.
The Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABD) labeled the men "mercenaries." They were linked with Noah Misungku, an understudy of the late separatist leader Francis Ona. Misungku is wanted by Papua New Guinea authorities for his failed fast-money scheme that scammed many islanders, including some Fijians.
Initial reports said the ex-Fiji Military Forces servicemen were there to help Misungku train his militia to use high-powered weapons. But later it emerged the men were linked with the denomination Every Home for Christ in both Fiji and Papua New Guinea and had obtained visas by claiming they were going to carry out missionary work in Bougainville.
While Fiji Foreign Affairs Minister Kaliopate Tavola was careful not to label them mercenaries, an angered PNG Deputy Prime Minister Sir Moi Avei says there had been "serious breaches of our immigration policies." Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase responded that the government would not intervene if PNG authorities brought criminal charges.
Fiji's Second Secretary in Port Moresby, Emosi Rakai was dispatched to Bougainville's main town, Buka, to persuade the men to return with him to the capital. Eventually two of the eight, Fereti Rokodi and Semi Baroi, came out of the no-go zone. Ex-serviceman Rokodi said his church members were trying to recover the investments they made in Misungku's failed scheme in 1999 and there was nothing sinister going on.
"I believe with all my heart that there is nothing that is happening out there to create attention. The people that are training people out there are not with the intention of mustering people to fight against the autonomous government," Rokadi says.
But the admission that arms-training was taking place was enough to prompt an apology from the High Commission to the Bougainville Autonomous Government President Joseph Kabui. -- Ricardo Morris
Region
Moon Encounters Problems On Pacific Tour
Controversial religious figure Dr. Sun Myung Moon completed an island-hop through the Pacific in December as part of his 100-city tour to promote world peace and the founding of his new global organization, the Universal Peace Federation. His schedule included Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands and American Samoa. But Vanuatu and Fiji blocked his entry.
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Rev. Sun
Myung Moon was welcomed warmly in Marshall Islands, but barred
from Vanuatu and Fiji. |
After submissions from individuals and churches, Fiji's Chief Executive Officer Dr. Lesi Korovavala said, "Dr. Sun Moon's doctrines are considered misleading, repugnant and divisive and would affect the peace, good order, public safety and public morality of the Fiji Islands. On that premise, Dr. Sun Moon is considered as not a fit and proper person to enter the country." In response, Dr. Moon says he was disappointed in the Fiji and Vanuatu governments.
A spokesman for Dr. Moon's Universal Peace Federation, Enrique Ledesma, says there is no reason why Dr. Moon should be treated differently from another preacher, Benny Hinn, for whom the Fiji government will provide security when he arrives in January. -- Giff Johnson/Samantha Magick
Fiji
Methodists Target Gay Community
Fiji's gay community found itself at the rough end of an anti-homosexual campaign by the powerful Methodist Church late 2005.
Some members of the church's Nausori circuit had staged an anti-gay march earlier in the year but church elders indicated they wanted to mobilize at least 3000 of its more than 200,000 members in a second series of simultaneous demonstrations against homosexuality.
The church applied twice for a permit in November and sparked off a high-profile debate over the right of the gay community to live without fear and discrimination and the right of the Methodist Church to demonstrate and express opinions.
Officials rejected the church's second and subsequent applications and the Fiji Human Rights Commission warned such marches would be deemed "hate speech." The Methodist Church finally decided it would no longer try to actively protest against gays, instead saying they would hold dialogue at grassroots level to raise awareness against what they described as "ungodly" acts.
The Human Rights Commission had warned it would prosecute both government officials and demonstrators if further marches were held. Commission director Dr Shaista Shameem said the first march counted as freedom of expression but if there were further demonstrations it would be seen as encouraging discrimination.
Methodist Reverend Iliesa Naivalu said, "Through these public demonstrations, the church wishes to peacefully and freely express its opposition to the elevation of homosexuality as a civil right." But Commissioner Central Inoke Devo said the Methodist views on homosexuality were widely known.
As the debate intensified, the Sexual Minorities Project stopped issuing public statements on the matter citing "community safety", referring all queries to the Citizens Constitutional Forum (CCF), which is the secretariat of the NGO Coalition on Human Rights.
CCF's Reverend Akuila Yabaki said the church was trying to use its power "to campaign against the law of the land which amounts to instilling fear and hatred in neighbors." -- Ricardo Morris
Samoa
Making A Major Dent In Poverty
2005 was a big year for micro-credit in Samoa. The designation of 2005 as International Year of Micro Credit coincided with the fifth anniversary of the South Pacific Business Development [SPBD], the largest micro credit institution in the Pacific.
SPBD is the brainchild of Greg Casagrande, a former U.S. business executive turned philanthropist. In 2000, Casagrande started up SPBD using the experience he had acquired from the many years spent in international business finance. He chose Samoa as the location, but said he had always hoped that the concept would soon be replicated elsewhere in the region. It has, for similar micro credit initiatives now operate in Vanuatu, PNG and Fiji.
SPBD's philosophy, its founder said is to "instigate hope, provide opportunity, and make a lasting impression." So, SPBD works with families at the bottom end of the economic heap with not much hope, and with even less access to banking or credit services. It focuses on women at this level of want, providing them with unsecured credit, training, and ongoing guidance and support to help them start income generating micro businesses.
The SPBD lending method and support system requires women to work in cells or small groups in order to fully mobilize peer group strength and pressure for maximum support and motivation for the individual borrower. Working in groups in this manner facilitates as well the clustering of activities, reduces costs and achieves what economies of scale as might exist at this level. Since 2000, SPBD has helped over 5000 families set up businesses, improve their standard of housing, and ensure their children go to school. Some 9000 loans with a value of T$8 million (approximately US$3.5 million) have been disbursed.
Future plans by SPBD include expansion of services to the island of Savaii especially. Casagrande says that SPBD works on the principle that 'all are bankable,' so what is needed is the development of an inclusive financial system, which can be replicated anywhere else, especially in the Pacific region. With similar micro credit centers now operating in other Pacific island countries, Casagrande says the next step for micro credit in the region is to set up Micro Credit Pacifica, a network of sustainable and low cost micro credit systems with funding initially from aid donors such as AusAid and the UN Capital Development Fund.
As a member of the 16-strong Advisors Board for the International Year of Microcredit, Casagrande worked last year with celebrities such as Bill Clinton and Richard Branson to create awareness of the potential value of micro credit as a tool against poverty. There has also been work to fill the data gap on micro credit in Central Bank reporting, and to commit governments and commercial banks to supporting and developing micro credit systems and use.
In a State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report issued in Ottawa, Canada in November this year, Casagrande is reported as saying that "SPBD provides the proverbial hand-up and not a hand-out. Then our women go out and pursue their hopes and dreams each day with exuberance and determination." That exuberance and determination was fully seen fully when some 500 women, almost all clients of SPBD, and businesswomen in their own right, gathered for the center's 4th Annual Businesswomen of the Year Award in Apia in November. -- Afamasaga Toleafoa
Region
Pacific HIVAIDS Warning
Pacific Island health authorities need to step up preventative efforts as HIV infections has spread its tentacles to every country and territory within the region, UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have warned.
Sounding the alarm bells in their December 2005 AIDS Epidemic Update report, the two UN agencies said an estimated 74,000 people in Oceania were living with HIV. Although less than 4000 people are believed to have died of AIDS in 2005, about 8200 are thought to have become newly infected with HIV.
Among young people 15-24 years of age, an estimated 1.2 percent of women and 0.4 percent of men were living with HIV in 2005. HIV infections have now been reported in every country or territory in Oceania, barring Niue and Tokelau.
More than 90 percent of the 11,200 HIV infections reported across the 21 Pacific Islands countries and territories by end-2004 were recorded in Papua New Guinea, where an AIDS epidemic is now in full swing.
UNAIDS and WHO said HIV diagnoses have increased by about 30 percent each year in PNG since the discovery of the first case in 1987. Approximately 10,000 HIV cases had been diagnosed by the end of 2004, but the actual number of people living with HIV could be five times as high.
"To prevent a worsening epidemic, HIV prevention programs need to be scaled up and such underlying factors as wide-scale migration, extreme poverty and inequality between men and women (including high levels of sexual violence against women) need to be addressed," the UNAIDS and WHO report stated.
In Australia the annual number of new HIV diagnoses has increased and reached 820 in 2004. An estimated 14,800 people living with HIV resided in Australia in 2004. The bulk of HIV transmission in Australia still occurs through sex between men, which accounts for 68 percent of all HIV infections recorded since the epidemic began. However, the proportion of total HIV infections attributed to heterosexual intercourse has grown from 7 percent before 1996 to over 23 percent of new diagnoses by 2004.
The report said New Zealand's epidemic was small but new HIV cases have doubled in recent years-from fewer than 80 in 1999 to 157 in 2004. Sex between men accounted for about half the new diagnoses. Similar to Australia, more than 90 percent of people with heterosexually-acquired HIV diagnosed in 2004 were infected abroad.
HIV-infection levels are very low in the rest of Oceania, with the total number of reported HIV cases exceeding 150 only in New Caledonia (246), Guam (173), French Polynesia (220) and Fiji (171).
"Given the high levels of other sexually transmitted infections that have been recorded in some Pacific islands, none of these countries and territories can afford to be complacent," the report warned. -- Alex Rheeney
Guam
Bank Of Guam Appoints New President
The Bank of Guam announced on Dec. 6 that its board of directors had unanimously selected Lourdes A. Leon Guerrero as its new president, chief executive officer and board chairwoman. She is the daughter of the bank's founder, Jesus Leon Guerrero, and the sister of Anthony Leon Guerrero who held the same positions until his death on October 19.
Lourdes Leon Guerrero has been a senator in the Guam Legislature for 12 years, and will resign from that office when she assumes her new position with the bank on March 31. Leon Guerrero served as a board member from 1991 to 1998 and was reappointed in 2002. She has been vice chairwoman of the bank's board since September 2002. Recently she has served as acting chairwoman of the board and acting chairwoman of the bank's executive and loan committees. -- Frank Whitman
