Extraordinary insights in Scott doco about Fiji

Author Owen Scott and filmmaker Annie Goldson should be congratulated for An Island Calling, their compelling yet sensitive portrayal of the tragic double murder of John Scott and Greg Scrivener in Fiji in 2001 in the wake of the George Speight coup. This is a very courageous film and is likely to have very low-key screenings in Fiji. It was deeply shocking at the time and just as disturbing seven years on. Goldson and Scott have conveyed some extraordinary insights into Fiji's coup culture, the fundamentalist Christianity that has taken hold since Rabuka's first coups in 1987 and the cultural complexities of a troubled nation. Prime Minister Helen Clark was at the premiere at the weekend. For an account of the film and the debate around it, check out AUT student journalist Claire Rorke's piece. She writes:
One of the film’s central ideas is that Sitiveni Rabuka’s coups of 1987 ignited a wave of religious extremism and anti-democratic politics.
These have played out as coercive and repressive agents in Fijian society in the years since.
Rabuka was a Methodist preacher and regularly invoked God as being the hand that guided him to oust the Fiji Labour Party-led government with strong Indo-Fijian support in favour of indigenous Fijian interests.
Asia Downunder journalist Bharat Jamnadas says many Fijians are ardent churchgoers and evangelical influence extends from the pulpit through to Parliament.

• Double murder tragedy
• An Island Calling

New light on Fiji's John Scott political tragedy

Annie Goldson's new film on Fiji's coup number three and imprisoned frontman George Speight premieres next weekend during the World Cinema Showcase in Auckland. It will be watched with interest. Associate Professor Goldson, from the University of Auckland’s Department of Film, Television and Media Studies, has produced a feature-length documentary, An Island Calling, which traces the 2001 killings in Suva of Fiji Red Cross director-general John Scott and his partner Greg Scrivener. Goldson's media release says:
"The murder of this openly gay couple is still clouded in rumour and political mystery. Scott, a fourth-generation, Fiji-born European, was the repatriated prodigal son of a powerful colonial family. As the Director-General of the Fiji Red Cross, he had gained international attention during the coup of 2000 when he went to the assistance of hostages trapped in Parliament for 56 days. Guided by John Scott’s brother, Owen, the film features friends of the couple, lawyers, Fijian gay activists, and seasoned Fiji observers. The film also includes interviews with the family of 22-year-old Apete Kaisau, who was ultimately charged with the killings."

Bill Gosden, director of the NZ Film Festival Trust, which organises the World Cinema, describes the film as "excellent and level-headed". He sees the film as placing this tragedy within Fiji’s volatile heritage of colonial privilege, evangelical Christianity, immigrant work force and indigenous entitlement.
Shortly after the festival release, a shorter (44-minute) broadcast version of the film, entitled Murder in the Pacific, will air on New Zealand’s TV3 and Australia’s SBS-TV.
Pictured: Speight's gunmen "escort" Fiji Red Cross director-general John Scott from Fiji's Parliament building in 2000.

• An Island Calling
• Matt Ackersten's view on Gay NZ

Horror from the past - a new twist on My Lai

As Economist picture editor Celina Dunlop writes, the name My Lai has become synonymous with "massacre" and atrocity. Contemporary US military atrocities are compared with what happened in the little Vietnames hamlet four decades ago and are often billed as a "modern-day My Lai". As Dunlop says: "The name is shorthand for slaughter of the defenceless, the benchmark of American wartime atrocity. The murders of 504 men, women, children and babies happened in a northerly province of South Vietnam on 16 March 1968. It proved to be a turning point for public opinion about the Vietnam War."
For me, there is a tragic sense of deja vu also for publication of photographs of that massacre in an Australian weekly newspaper, the Melbourne Sunday Observer - the same week as Life magazine in 1969. At the time I was chief subeditor. The editor, myself and the newspaper were prosecuted for "obscenity" (the case was eventually dropped) for publishing the horrendeous images. Yet for all of us working on that paper during a prevailing newspaper climate supportive of Australian involvement in the US colonial war, it was an "obscenity" that US, Australian and NZ troops were in Vietnam at all.
Dunlop writes about the so-called Peers Inquiry (chaired chaired by Lt Gen William 'Ray' Peers) that interviewed some 400 witnesses and tape-recorded their testimony: "In 1987, [the tapes] were shipped to the US National Archives, as one small portion of a massive group of records of US Army activities in Vietnam. There they remained hidden, never catalogued, never investigated, never uncovered - until last year.
I spent many months trying to track down the tapes.
Again and again, I was told they did not exist, but after much persistence, 48 hours of recordings from the key witnesses were declassified and made available to me."
The Peers findings set the benchmark for future guidelines for the US military in dealing with civilians.

• My Lai: Legacy of a massacre
• My Lai massacre hero dies at 62
• 'Something dark and bloody'

Niu FM in the hot seat over its news credibility

Sadly, Pacific Radio News - which seemed a hot new prospect on the media scene in New Zealand last year, culminating with a commended recognition at the annual NZ Media Peace Awards event for its coverage of the Fiji and Tonga upheavals - is now itself embroiled in a crisis. PR stalwart Vienna Richards is now in charge and the PRN news service was dumped for a week while being "reviewed" - unheard of in the Kiwi media scene (although a RadioLIVE news package filled the gap). Some news staff are unhappy and worried about the future of the station's news credibility and survival. Pacific Radio News was back on air this week, but skipped a few bulletins. Listeners have commented on the drop in standards.
Parent company Niu FM was itself in the news last night with a Barbara Dreaver TVOne report angled on the station's "political appointment". The brother of Richards is William Sio, Labour Party candidate contesting the crucial South Auckland seat of Mangere for this year's general election. Political columnist Chris Trotter said: "The Labour government is funding this station, and they've just moved the news director aside to put in the candidate's sister in an election year. I think they really will have to reverse this decision."
Jason Brown filed a report for Pacific Media Watch, which gave a comprehensive coverage of Niu FM's chief executive Sina Moore's defence - but Sina was hardly convincing.

ALSO, congratulations to Jason and Courtenay Brooking who have won the AUT/PIMA Pasifika Communication Scholarships for this year. Courtenay is starting a three-year Bachelor of Communication Studies and Jason is launching into a Master of Communication Studies degree. Cafe Pacific wishes them both well.
Pictured by AUT student journalist Dominika White at the AUT awards last night are Courtenay and Jason, backed by PIMA chair Aaron Taouma (left), Courtenay's mum and dad, and PIMA deputy chair Chris Lakatani.

• Radio Australia on the Niu FM row
• News director's appointment 'political'
• Niu FM denies bid for political influence
• Pacific Media Watch on the Niu FM issue
• On Scoop
• Cultural diversity on NiuFM

Fiji Times 'voice of the people'

One of my Fiji journo colleagues has brought to Cafe Pacific's attention a few interesting letters on the Fiji Times Online website. An extract from one, headed Media bias, contrasted the lack of zeal in the investigative stakes when Qarase was in power compared with the Chaudhry expose:
"Yet here we have our deposed Prime Minister (Laisenia Qarase) charged with crimes during his tenure with FHL.
Why does the media not investigate Mr Qarase's case further?
It's been discussed in all sectors in the House of Representatives since early 1990s yet the media has done little to report this to the public.
I challenge the media to show what investigative reporting they have done so far with Mr Qarase's case or other cases such as Fiji Water."

Signed by Robert Rounds, of Lautoka.

An editorial response from the FT: "Mr Qarase's case is before the courts and we cannot report on it at this stage. We welcome information from the public which will help us with our investigations."

A bit more investigative probing at the time would have been helpful!

Another reader took a blast at ther local reporting and wondered why the coverage of the commission against corruption wasn't getting a better run.

Responsible media

"I NOTE the call for more responsibility in the media.
On a visit to Fiji, I must say I was shocked to see the newspapers taking an obvious bias against the interim Government.
Of course this administration has made mistakes (what government hasn't?) but it faces a constant chipping away by the press in particular
Surely the good things to come out of the interim Government such as the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) are worthy enough to note.
Responsibility in the media must include the exercise of discretion when to print and when not to print a story.
Just one week's reading of this long-time journal's output provides irrefutable evidence that your editorial board has never read the book on discretion."
Paul K. Madigan
Hong Kong

National crisis
"YOUR FrontPage headline (FT 12/2) alleges that the National Council for Building a Better Fiji is in a crisis.
We have many crisis in Fiji serious crime, poverty where more than one third of the population are struggling to survive below the poverty line, in schools with 10 per cent of our children not attending classes, lack of confidence in an economy on the decline and many others on the same scale of seriousness.
A difference of views between two national council members, even if expressed very robustly, will not register on the same scale. This is by comparison, a crisis in a tea cup.
The national council, from the outset when it first met on January 16, encourages robust debate.
Its members will not be frightened by a bit of honest emotion over a matter that may, in the end, be easily resolved by a quiet conversation and constructive dialogue.
They keep a sense of proportion in their discussions about what is really important and what is not.
The national council, at the least, deserves a sense of proportion and fair reporting from journalists and the mainstream media.
In the report, the headline and contents of your first paragraph [don't] show any relationship to the rest of the news.
The story was about a certain business deal and had nothing to do with the national council."
John Samy

Head of TASS

• Media bias
• Responsible media
• National crisis
  

Fairness and the Fiji media

"Anonymous" has taken me to task by claiming that my recent quickfire criticisms of the James Anthony report (and the Fiji media) were "typical" in that that "the racist part was overemphasized by [me] and the media elite. What is racist about the term 'white'?"
Actually, I would have been just as critical if such a "detached" report was addressed in such extreme emotive terms relating to any race.
"Should fairness in the media also mean proportionate representation?"
We're under no illusions, there is little fairness in the media in Fiji. There never has been as long as I have been writing about Fiji, and I also lived in Fiji for five years. After 40 years in the news media and having lived and worked in some 15 countries, my experience of the Fiji media is that it is the least fair and balanced of any media that I have encountered. Much of this has to do with the lack of basic training and education compared with many other countries. This is being gradually addressed by the two j-schools at USP and FIT but there is also a constant drain of experienced people. Still there are many outstanding journalists in Fiji.
This leads me to the next criticism from the reader:
"Seems you have turned on a dime, comparing your views on the Fiji Times post-2000 coup. I wonder why the media, including you have not commented on the glass ceiling of the Fiji media."
No, Mr Anonymous, I haven't turned at all. My criticisms stand and many others have echoed that analysis. A far fuller and documented case is made in my 306-page book Mekim Nius: South Pacific media, politics and education, published by the University of the South Pacific in 2004. It is available at Amazon.com. But that isn't the point. In my blog posting, I was addressing some of the flaws of the Anthony report.
"Anonymous" makes a few other points too - read them.

A new book about the state of the media in the Pacific today should be out by May. Co-edited by Evangelia Papoutsaki (formerly of the Divine Word University, and now of Unitec, NZ) and a former Fiji journalist, now media academic, Usha Sundar Harris, South Pacific Islands Communication: Regional Perspectives, Local Issues, it is jointly published by the Asian Media, Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) in Singapore, University of the South Pacific and AUT University's Pacific Media Centre. More information about this at the PMC.

• Republic in turmoil with future unclear
• Assault on press stepped up in Fiji

Fiji's 'how to gag the media' report

It is ironic that Jim Anthony's flawed report for the Fiji Human Rights Commission should be dubbed with an Orwellian title "Freedom and Independence of the Media in Fiji". It is far more like a "How to gag and shackle the media" report. It's the sort of report that gives even military-backed regimes bad reputations. A great pity. A constructive, well-researched and useful - but genuinely independent - examination of the Fiji media is long overdue. A 2007 review of the NZ Press Council is an example of the sort of thing that can be done. But the Anthony report doesn't show any interest in "free media" models that work well - he has been seduced by authoritarian straitjackets. Perhaps he isn't even aware of the M*A*S* work of the late Professor Claude-Jean Bertrand, the pioneer of global media accountability systems. A report as racist, provocative and ill-informed as this - with not even elementary referencing or sourcing - is rather embarrassing.
However, much of the media response in Fiji is also extraordinarily defensive and hypocritical, even bordering on hysterical. Why do they even bother to take such a report seriously? Surely the Anthony report deserved to quietly fade into oblivion - hardly worthy of any serious response. Yet some of the over-the-top reactions have ensured the Anthony report has gained far more international attention than it ever warranted. And certainly the spotlight is on foreign influence in media ownership. But the public deserves more than the defensive bleatings from self-interested media and political voices - where are the independent commentators and analysts for balance? The Fiji Times is one of the few to publish the odd independent reaction, such as from the Ecumenical Centre for Research Education and Advocacy (ECREA), which criticised the media for being the 'mouthpiece of the elite' and also for poor journalism standards. We also wonder about the timing of the report's release, given that it was made available hurriedly just three days after the arbitrary deportation of Fiji Times publisher Russell Hunter. Ousted Opposition leader Mick Beddoes described Dr Anthony as "paranoid", saying some of his "accusations and conclusions are not worth the paper they're printed on". A former deputy PM in Mahendra Chaudhry's People's Coalition government deposed by George Speight in 2000, Dr Tupeni Baba, dismissed the report as biased.
Dr Anthony told Radio New Zealand International that media and government relations had broken down, and for years the media had poured venom into Fiji's body politic: "Playing crybaby over this report isn't really going to wash. The media representatives, the media barons, were invited to participate in this report; they chose to boycott the inquiry. In my opinion, that was a fatally flawed decision."
Pictured: Fiji's Interim Minister for Labour and Tourism Bernadette Rounds-Ganilau is interviewed by Dr James Anthony during the media "inquiry". Source: Fiji Human Rights Commission website.
A quick summary of the report's recommendations:

• Expatriate journalists living in Fiji would be banned from working in the country under recommendations by the country's human rights commission.
• A media tribunal would be established independent of government control.
• A Fiji media development authority would be established based on a system in Singapore to monitor media organisations and train journalists.
• A 7 percent tax on media advertising and license fees would be imposed to fund the tribunal and authority.
• New sedition laws would be introduced.

Too many whites in media, says academic - audio - Anthony's defence of his report on Radio Australia's Pacific Beat
Fiji should ban expat journos: report
Media report calls for training authority
A Fiji Times breakdown of the FHRC media report into handy pdf morsels - and a summary of media reactions
The Ecumenical Centre for Research Education and Advocacy (ECREA) response
Report author condemns failure of media to take part
Fiji should ban expat journos: report
Fiji media walks the fine line
Freedom and Independence of the Media in Fiji - The Anthony report (FHRC website)
David Robie on Pacific media freedom under siege

Timor's top security man apologises over attack on Timor Post staffer

Timor Leste's Secretary of State for Security Francisco Guterres has now apologised for the “unwarranted use of force” against Timor Post reporter Agustinho da Costa on the night of 22 February. He promised that the security forces would ensure that this kind of incident did not recur. Military police seized Da Costa while he was delivering last weekend's edition of the paper to the printery in Dili. The police held him for 11 hours and beat him several times, leaving him with extensive bruising to the face.

Meanwhile, Fretilin MP and former cabinet minister Jose Teixeira has complained to SBS TV over a recent report which he claims is defamatory.
His open letter:
Friday, February 22, 2008,
To: Complaints, SBS Australia
Yesterday your national news bulletin carried a report from a reporter in Timor-Leste, Maria Gabriela Carrascalao (pictured), wherein my character was seriously defamed by both Ms Carrascalao and SBS. The report imputed my involvement with the contemptible and abhorrent criminal attacks on the President and Prime Minister of Timor-Leste.
Your report and the imputations regarding me in the report are false and misleading. I have denied in a press release of the 20th of February 2008 that would have been accessible denied any involvement with these events. A press conference was also held by the FRETILIN parliamentary group on my behalf making it clear that this was based on nothing more than a political witch hunt of me and FRETILIN.
Facts would also have been available to your reporter yesterday that on February 20, the day after I was the subject of the police action, the prosecutor general himself stated that the police had acted "outside procedures", and that I was not and have never been a person named in a list provided by the prosecutor general to the police for questioning.
After being taken into the Dili Police Headquarters without either a warrant or another lawful reason, and in total disregard of my immunity as a member of the Timor-Leste National Parliament, I was informed by the commander of the National Investigations Division, a joint Timor-Leste Police and UN Police unit, that they did not have any requirement for my presence for questioning. However, given the lateness of the night and after interventions on my part by some of the FRETILIN leadership, I was allowed to and in fact driven to a friend's residence where I stayed for the evening.
The fact that I was taken in 45 minutes before the commencement of the nightly curfew period is significant, as I was informed the following day by many police that many people were picked under similar circumstances to myself who were detained overnight at the police station but released in the morning for want of any basis of evidence whatsoever.
I presented the following morning as agreed with the commander of the National Investigation Division and gave a short statement. However, the police who took my statement did not have any facts to put to me because they had not been involved in bringing me in and other than a general knowledge of being brought in as a witness, knew nothing else. After giving a short statement I was allowed to leave unimpeded and without further requirements from the police.
However, prior to leaving, the senior UN Police officer requested to speak with me and reiterated what had been told to me by the Timorese National Investigation Division Commander, that being that I was not named or known to them on any list provided by the Prosecutor General's Office from whom they took their instructions during the investigation of the events of 11th February 2008.
On the evening of my being subject to police action, a senior FRETILIN leader spoke to the Deputy Commander of the Timor-Leste National Police Operations who informed him that he was aware of the operation against me and ordered it. Though asked, he declined to comment on who gave him orders to order the operation against me. It is known that the prosecutor general's office was not aware or involved with the operation and nor was the National Investigations Division.
The fact is that orders were given and FRETILIN and I are demanding in Parliament to know, as was demanded in the media conference on February 20, exactly who ordered that I be taken in for questioning.
All these facts were readily ascertainable by your Dili reporter had she bothered to seek information or even a comment from myself or other FRETILIN spokespersons, so as to report in a more balanced and truthful manner.
I have consistently denied knowing any of the persons suspected of being involved, including the deceased Reinado or of in any way having any involvement whatsoever with them or any of their activities whatsoever.
It is our firm belief that the police action against me was a politically motivated action with the knowledge of the government, aimed at tarnishing me good name and to undermine the effectiveness of my role as a FRETILIN media spokesperson and liaison officer. FRETILIN has and will continue to insist on an answer as to who gave the orders to the police to take the action they did against me.
I am currently taking legal advice and intended to commence all relevant legal proceedings in whichever jurisdiction may be necessary to seek to remedy the extensive damage that has already been sustained by my previously good name and character as a result of your defamatory report and other reports as well.
In the interim, I hereby demand that you broadcast a retraction taking into account the facts that were already available to your reporter and your network when the story ran last night. This will only go a small way to remedying the damage already sustained by my hitherto good name and character.
Jose Teixeira MP
Dili, Timor Leste

Media protest over Hunter expulsion from Fiji

Still smarting from last week's embarrassing allegations by the Fiji Sun, Fiji TV and - particularly Netani Rika's Saturday expose in the Fiji Times accusing and naming interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry over his tax affairs, the regime hasn't wasted much time in turning its rage onto the messenger. In this case, Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter (pictured) was on a one-way plane ride from Fiji to Oz today after eight years in the country (plus a previous spell when he was forced out by Chaudhry when he was PM before the Speight coup in 2000). Chaudhry declared he was filing defamation writs against both the Sun and the Fiji Times. Media organisations have vented their outrage at the arbitrary move, claimed to be because Hunter was deemed a 'security risk'. The Fiji Media Council said it was shocked by the seizure then expulsion of Hunter, especially as he still had a further 18 months to run on his work permit. Chairman Daryl Tarte protested in a statement:
The action by the Immigration Department, with the approval of the Minister, was taken without due process being followed, without regard for is fundamental rights, without him having access to legal advice, nor any consideration for the plight of his family. He was taken from his home at 8.30 at night and transported to Nadi airport. Furthermore, the deportation took place despite an order from the High Court in Suva restraining the Director of Immigration from deporting Mr Hunter. The Minister’s justification for the deportation is that he is a prohibited immigrant under the new immigration act that came into force on January 3, 2008. No specific details of what Mr Hunter is supposed to have done were given.
Hunter said on arrival in Australia the Fiji media should carry on undeterred. Asked why he had been declared a 'prohibited immigrant', he said: "In my view, the fact that we revealed Mahendra Chaudhry's tax evasion and secret overseas bank accounts."
Interviewed on Radio NZ International, I warned of a new crackdown on Fiji media, adding: "The regime thinks the media should perform a parrot-like role but there is a long tradition of vigorous and free journalism in Fiji. The current media are upholding that tradition very well."

UNSURPRISINGLY, Dr Jim Anthony, who made headlines last year as the controversial choice to head an "inquiry" into the media organised by the Fiji Human Rights Commission, fired off a salvo to the Fiji Times : "... Good riddance to bad rubbish. All other foreign journalists on work permits in Fiji ought to be put on notice: all their permits will not be renewed. Fiji ought to get its act together and train and promote its own people to report the news fairly, accurately and in a balanced way right across the board ... Australia and New Zealand are not necessarily the only beacons of hope or measures of decency in the world." Among other major flaws, Anthony's media report was astoundingly flimsy about the degree of training and education that does go on in Fiji, ie the long-established University of the South Pacific journalism and diploma degree programmes and also the fledgling FIT course. (Netani Rika's view of the report? "Malicious, full of conjecture and untruths" ).
In an editorial headed WE ARE NO THREAT, the Fiji Times said: "The deportation of Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter as a security risk to this nation is deplorable. And his treatment as a human being was reprehensible. Taken from his home under the cover of darkness, he was driven to Nadi without being given time to change or say a word of farewell to his wife Martha and their daughter ... Even convicted fraudster Peter Foster was treated better than Mr Hunter."

• Fiji Times names Chaudhry - Netani Rika's article
• Russell Hunter's account of his 'abduction' in The Australian
• Hunter deemed a 'security risk'
• Carry on, Hunter tells Fiji media
• Fiji Media Council statement
• Pacific Radio News coverage
• Fiji Sun website
• IPS/Pacific Media Centre report - Shailendra Singh
• Pacific Media Watch reports
• The Jim Anthony media report

Fiji court 'intimidation' over criticism of judges rapped by RSF

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned what it describes as the Fiji Appeal Court's harassment of Leone Cabenatabua, editor of the Fiji Sun, and Virisila Buadromo, head of the Fiji Women's Rights Movement (and former journalist), who were summoned and warned by the court on 12 February 2008 because of an article quoting Buadromo in that day's issue criticising the military-led government's appointment of new judges to the court.
"The judges exceeded their prerogatives by trying to intimidate a newspaper editor who just published an activist's views on a violation of the rule of law," the press freedom organisation said.
Questioning the independence of the Fijian judicial system, Buadromo's article described the appointments as illegal and said they were an attempt by the military to legitimise their December 2006 coup. It was the three judges named in the article - Daniel Gounder, Nazhat Shameem and Jocelyn Scutt - who summoned Cabenatabua and Buadromo. No charges have been brought against them.
The Sun's editor-in-chief, Russell Hunter, clarified his newspaper's position in an interview with Radio Australia's Pacific Beat reporter Bruce Hill, whose interview was partially carried by Radio Fiji: "You have to listen to what the Court of Appeal tells you - but at the same time you have to exercise editorial judgement. I guess you'll try and fall in the middle somewhere."
Meanwhile, the decade-old Sydney-based Pacific Media Watch is being reestablished as a digital research repository at AUT University's Pacific Media Centre and will be available soon in its new format as a public domain searchable media resource. In Timor-Leste, the case of a beaten up AFP journalist is being investigated and censorship by the Australian-led military authorities is a growing concern.

• RSF criticism on IFEX
• Fiji Sun clarifies stand on its reporting
• Background on Virisila Buadromo
• Reporters Sans Frontieres - www.rsf.org
• Pacific Media Centre - www.pmc.aut.ac.nz

Mining hustlers court Bougainville

In spite of the devastating decade long civil war over Panguna copper mine, Bougainville under reconstruction is again the target of global mining (and petroleum) interests courting the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) for a lucrative share. The Post-Courier has waxed lyrically over the state of Bougainville, using a custom allegory in its latest Focus page:
BOUGAINVILLE is re-emerging from the long shadows of its armed struggles and is discarding her dreadlocks to sport a new look of a young maid just entering womanhood. In doing so, she is quickly catching the attention of every eligible bachelor in the region, most of whom want her hand in a marriage of convenience attracted by the vast richness of her mineral wealth and natural resources.
But like all good girls brought up to observe the strict protocols of custom but educated in the ways of the Western civilisation, she is leaving the final decision to her uncles and aunties in the ABG house of representatives because not only is her marriage the question but who the potential groom could be and more importantly the bride price and its beneficiaries.
The stepfather who brought her up is somewhere in Waigani and he also has made it known that her future is also his business ...
... The only company that has made a tangible investment on the island is Invincible Resources, a company that not many people, even Bougainvilleans, come to know of but according to company executives, Invincible Resources’ K20 million given to Bougainville is for capacity building so that "Bougainville gets out of the mess quickly".
The PNG government is still negotiating with the ABG over powers to regulate mining, petroleum and gas resources on the island. During the last meeting in Buka, Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare and his deputy Dr Puka Temu requested that while mining, petroleum and gas powers were transferred to the ABG, mineral rights over Bougainville should remain with the PNG government. ABG President Joseph Kabui has rejected their request.

• Changing face of Bougainville

APN shortlisted for 'worst transnational' award

A news media group - APN News & Media (ANM) - has been nominated as a "finalist" in the annual Roger Award for New Zealand's worst transnational corporation.
The 2007 finalists are:
ANZ
APN News & Media (ANM)
British American Tobacco (BAT)
GlaxoSmithKline
Independent Liquor
Pike River Coal
Spotless
Telecom
The criteria for judging is by assessing the transnational (a corporation which is 25% or more foreign-owned) that has the most negative impact in each or all of the following categories:
Economic Dominance - Monopoly, profiteering, tax dodging, cultural
imperialism.
People - Unemployment, impact on tangata whenua, impact on women, impact on children, abuse of workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public, cultural imperialism. Environment - Environmental damage, abuse of animals.
Political interference - Cultural imperialism, running an ideological crusade
The judges are: Laila Harre, from Auckland, national secretary of the National Distribution Union and former Cabinet Minister; Anton Oliver, of France, former All Black and environmentalist; Geoff Bertram, from Wellington, Victoria University economist; Brian Turner, from Christchurch, president of the Methodist Church and social justice activist; Paul Corliss, from Christchurch, a life member of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union and Cee Payne-Harker, from Dunedin, industrial services manager for the NZ Nurses' Organisation and health issues activist.
To celebrate the fact it is 10 years since the first Roger Award event (also held in Christchurch) and that 2008 is election year, CAFCA is holding a conference - Privatisation By Stealth: Why This Discredited Practice Is Still On The Political Agenda - on that same day (March 16), to precede the Roger Award event.
The Roger Award is organised by CAFCA and GATT Watchdog and is supported by Christian World Service.

• Inquiries - Murray Horton, Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA): cafca@chch.planet.org.nz
• CAFCA website: http://www.cafca.org.nz/

Timor on edge after failed double assassination attempt

A state of emergency has been declared in East Timor as authorities try to work out whether yesterday's assassination attempt on the Prime Minister and President was the work of a few or many. As ABC's AM reports: President Jose Ramos-Horta is still gravely ill in Royal Darwin Hospital after being shot three times by a group of heavily armed men. The Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao, was luckier. He managed to escape unhurt when more gunmen opened fire on his motorcade.

• Ramos-Horta remains in serious condition - ABC AM transcript
• Timor's prayers for president

Assassination attempts jeopardise Timorese peace efforts

Australia now rues the botched bid to arrest renegade Major Alfredo Reinado in a violent raid on his mountain hideout last year that saw five of the rebel's men killed. According to The Age, Australian and other forces (including from New Zealand) are bracing for possible reprisal attacks following the death of Reinado, who had been charged with murder. He was shot in return fire when gunmen led by Reinado wounded President Jose Ramos-Horta in a dawn assassination attempt. Ramos-Horta had last year waived an arrest warrant for Reinado, deciding instead to seek talks and a peaceful resolution. But meaningful negotiations never eventuated. While Dili is reported to be calm, the attack jeopardises the efforts to normalise the country. The Age's account:

East Timor has been plunged into a new crisis by failed assassination attempts on its two top leaders and the killing of a rebel military leader.
East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta was shot and wounded in a dawn attack on his Dili home by gunmen led by rebel soldier Major Alfredo Reinado, who was killed in return fire, the government said.
A presidential guard was injured.
Timorese Foreign Minister Zacarias da Costa said Ramos-Horta had undergone exploratory surgery at the Australian military hospital in Dili. Da Costa described the president's condition as "stable".
"He underwent surgery to locate bullets. One had hit him in the back and passed through to the stomach," he said.
It is understood Ramos-Horta will be flown to Darwin for further treatment. Royal Darwin Hospital is on standby.
"He will survive, and this country will survive", said Deputy Prime Minister Jose Luis Guterres. Ninety minutes after the first attack, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped unhurt when his car was ambushed and shot at as he drove to his offices to deal with the crisis.
Gusmao's home was also attacked, bodyguards said.
Pictured: A election poster during last year's election campaign that swept Ramos-Horta to the presidency.

• East Timor's top leaders survive 'coup'
• Rudd pledged more troops for East Timor
• Fretilin questions security breach
• NZ troops put on standby for East Timor
• NZ troops guard East Timor leaders' homes
• MP accuses diggers over Reinado fracas
  

Eye-opening Jakarta media experience

Dylan Quinnell, one of AUT's crop of graduating young journos, has had an eye-opening experience in his Jakarta sojourn for international reporting. He has filed stories, pix and a video - an ultra brief one - on Suharto's death (see outside Suharto's house below). He has also been keeping us up-to-date with a regular blog at the Pacific Media Centre.



A couple of other Kiwi journos-to-be - Aroha Treacher (AUT) and Will Robertson (Massey) - have also been busy over there. Living in rumah kos, student lodgings, Dylan has just turned in a few pars about a nearby sweatshop:
Just down the street is a place we refer to as a sweatshop. A small metal door that leads off the alley shows a small cramped room about 5m by 5m filled with desk and sewing machines, always humming. Every morning when we wander past we get followed by friendly 'salamat pagis' that carry on even when we are long gone, in the evening its 'salamat malams'. A friend that works for the Jakarta Post interviewed a few of the friendly workers one day and this is what she found. First of all it is a legitimate, to a point anyway, factory and the people are, as it seemed, happy. Full blog: Our local Jakarta sweatshop
Other items:

• The contradiction that is Indonesia
• Volcanoes and explosive soccer
• Dylan's Suharto clip on YouTube
• Pak Harto's death leaves a divided nation and media

Parochialism in NZ rugby coverage

An interlude from the Pacific with an item on rugby. Considering the passion for the game in New Zealand, it is astonishing that the media is still so parochial in its coverage. For example, the refreshing French 27-6 victory over Scotland in the Six Nations at the weekend - four debutantes and three converted tries to none - should warrant decent coverage. The country's major newspaper, the New Zealand Herald, could only find room for one line - the score in the results section (not even a breakdown of the scorers).
How bizarre, given that only three months ago, the French team was responsible for the All Blacks' humiliating exit from the World Cup. Disappointed that France didn't go on to win the cup after dispatching the favourites, new coach Marc Lièvremont's axe has been wielded heavily on Les Bleus cup team. But one of the inspirational players at the weekend was young French-Vietnamese flyhalf Francois Trinh-Duc (pictured) from Montpellier. He is certainly somebody quickly making an impression on the game. One of the leading global rugby writers is Ian Borthwick, a Kiwi writer on the French sports daily L'Equipe. Yet we rarely see pieces of his in New Zealand media. Borthwick's writing on French rugby in the Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday was far more perceptive than anything run in the NZ media since before the start of the World Cup.
Another perceptive writer is Paul Ackford who analysed the "surreal environment" for France's flyhalves leading up to 21-year-old Trinh-Duc being tossed in the deep end. Trinh-Duc is the seventh player in the last 23 games to feature in the pivot role for France:
Walk with me back to June 2006. In that month the impish Thomas Castaignede was handed the 10 jersey against Romania. Thomas, bless him, lasted a single match before making way for Damien Traille who held on to it for four. Then it was David Skrela's turn. He also played four games against Italy, Ireland, Wales and England before getting booted out in favour of Lionel Beauxis who managed one before the baton was passed to Benjamin Boyet for France's 2007 tour to New Zealand. Too much to hope that Benjy would hang on to his place against the mighty All Blacks? Yep. Boyet had two outings and was summarily dumped.
Next, Skrela and Beauxis job-shared so-to-speak for France's World Cup warm-up games against England (twice) and Wales before Freddie Michalak entered stage left for the tournament proper, whereupon the trio mixed and matched for the remainder of the competition.
And now it's poor Trinh-Duc's turn.
But Trinh-Duc played impressively against Scotland in his debut.

• Francois Trinh-Duc in at France's deep end
• Lievremont to make his marc
• Old friends, new blood
• New-look French put Scots to the sword - South African media give it the works

Crocodile tears over Suharto's death - brutality in the Pacific

Amid the crocodile tears over Suharto's death and the glossing over the appalling crimes carried out under his dictatorship, it is refreshing to read accounts calling like it was. The little Marlborough Express in NZ was scathing about Suharto's "corruption franchise" and the regime's brutality against aspirations for independence in East Timor and West Papua:

The death of former Indonesian president Suharto brings into focus again the fate of East Timor and the role of Australia and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand in that country's life.
Not that it has really been away with half a million people still displaced and sporadic unrest in that fledgling nation. It also brings to the forefront the continuing struggles in places such as West Papua which are still fighting to rid themselves of Indonesian control.
The newspaper's editorial was rather dismissive of Suharto and the bank balances of the Indonesian elite.

And as the Suharto regime, which came in on the back of a failed coup and stayed on as an illegitimate military government, exploited the country's wealth to the utmost, civil liberties were the victim.
It is thought up half a million people lost their lives during the Suharto years. And in the middle of this brutal regime was East Timor.
As the world looked on with seeming indifference in 1975 the borders of Indonesia were enlarged to include the eastern half of the island of Timor.
Jakarta felt threatened by the setting up of an independent leftist state and moved to stop it. In the next 20 years East Timor lost 200,000 people under the Indonesian fist.
It is a period which brings shame to stronger Pacific countries, notably Australia and New Zealand.
A Crickey! piece by Jeff Sparrow exposed the West's media hypocrisy over Suharto and contrasted coverage with Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, AUT Journalism has a couple of student journos on the ground in Indonesia filing actuality. Dylan Quinnell reported on how Suharto's death split opinions and the media. Read his story and see his pix - a street scene outside Suharto's house.

• Suharto's legacy
• The Oz on Suharto: At least the regime ran on time
• West Papua: Famine and neglect in a land of plenty - and more about The Australian's Bill Leak cartoon above
  

Farewell to The Bulletin!

So The Bulletin current affairs magazine - racist, radical and later probing in its time as an icon in Oz publishing - has been axed by its foreign equity masters. Another corporate nail in the coffin of independent journalism. The Australian, in an editorial, mused:
Surviving 128 years from provocative newspaper to colour magazine, the publication served generations of readers well, from its initial sell-out appearance in Sydney on January 31, 1880, onwards. The announcement of its demise made yesterday a sad day.
John Lyons, writing in The Australian's Media section had this to say:
An American chief executive working for a Scottish boss who represents a Hong Kong private equity fund yesterday closed an Australian institution with a 128-year-old publishing history.
Welcome to the brave, but soulless, new world.
When The Bulletin's death was announced at a 10am meeting in Sydney yesterday, it ended a tradition begun with the likes of Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson and Miles Franklin, survived through literary greats such as Donald Horne and given a new lease of life in recent years with the likes of Les Carlyon and Laurie Oakes.
Its last edition, which went on sale two days ago, features lengthy articles by Thomas Keneally, Frank Moorhouse and Richard Flanagan.
Having worked full time on The Bulletin in the late 1990s and continuing to write for it until last year, I gained a sense of what the magazine meant for both the Australian public and the Packer family. It says everything about who now controls what used to be the Packer empire - a private equity company called CVC Asia Pacific - that the matriarch of the family, Ros Packer, was not even given the courtesy of a phone call to tell her that the magazine that had been at the centre of her family's media empire had been closed. She found out, by accident, when she turned on her television at 2pm.

• Foreign buyers silence The Bulletin
• Editorial: Sad day for Australia
• It made a nation, but couldn't make a buck
• The end of an era - editor-in-chief John Lehman's last message to readers

In defence of Samoa's public radio 2AP

Jason Brown, writing in an editorial on his stirring Avaiki website, makes an impassioned plea against the sale of Samoa's public radio 2AP. Responding to the Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi - who says the sale decision has been in the pipeline for years and "there is nothing to worry about", Brown says:
"Listeners next door in the Cook Islands might disagree.
"For years, for example, residents on the atoll of Pukapuka have tuned into 2AP not just because the language is closer to their own but because the signal from their supposed capital, Rarotonga, has been too weak to pick up.
"That's because the station was privatised in the mid-1990s by an acting broadcasting minister and friend of the current owners, while the real broadcasting minister was out of the country.
"Among other things, like cutting news bulletins, the new owners dialed down the broadcast strength to save power, i.e. money.
"This had tragic consequences for the northern atoll of Manihiki.
"Fatally unaware of looming hysteria in Rarotonga over cyclone warnings of an approaching cyclone, 19 people died in Manihiki on the first day of the cyclone season, 1st November 1997.
"Not everyone could be reached by phone, local Manihiki police did not have time to travel the large lagoon warning everyone, not everyone took the warnings seriously....
"No commission of inquiry was ever held despite it being the worst loss of life in the country's history ..."

Listen to Mailbox on RNZI tomorrow (Monday, January 21) when David Ricquish of the Radio Heritage Foundation is due to explore some of the public radio issues. Visit http://www.rnzi.com/ for shortwave frequencies and times.

• Samoa should say no to sale - Avaiki editorial
• Call on Samoan government to retain Radio 2AP - Radio NZ International

Jesson critical journalism award gets revamp

New Zealand's only award for critical journalism is being revamped to link in with a growing movement for more democratic local media.
The Bruce Jesson Foundation, set up after the death of journalist-politician Bruce Jesson in 1999, has provided up to $3000 a year since 2004 for “critical, informed, analytical and creative journalism or writing which will contribute to public debate in New Zealand on an important issue or issues”. A review after its first four years has concluded that the award should continue, with a slight change in the criteria to cover publishing, as well as producing, critical journalism.
Foundation chair Professor Jane Kelsey says experience to date shows that the barrier to good journalism is not always in the actual production of the work, but in finding an outlet in our commercialised market that is willing to publish it:
"For example, freelance journalist Jon Stephenson, who won our award in 2005 for a two-part report from Iraq for Metro magazine, is so dedicated that he would have found a way to get to Iraq somehow. You might argue that Metro, as the publisher, should have paid his full costs for his trip there. But the reality of our commercial marketplace is that neither Metro nor any other New Zealand news outlet was willing to pay Stephenson's full costs for stories of marginal commercial value, so by part-funding his trip we effectively subsidised his publisher because we believed in the social value of the stories he planned to write."
Kelsey says the award is now part of a growing recognition that the commercial imperatives of our largely foreign-owned media, increasingly focused on celebrities and consumerism, need to be balanced by a deliberate community-based effort to provide journalism on public issues – issues that affect us as citizens and workers as well as consumers.
The union representing most journalists, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), is organising a public review of NZ journalism this year, seeking submissions on issues such as media ownership and commercial pressures.
A Movement for Democratic Media is also being formed to bring together journalists and other citizens who want to produce and promote public issue journalism.
Kelsey says: "Our award is more important than ever now. We hope we can support some of the other initiatives to produce more public issue journalism, and we hope that the growing recognition of this gap in our society will spur more journalists and citizens to apply for our
award."
The award covers living costs and direct costs such as phone calls and travel to enable New Zealanders to investigate and report on issues in depth. Applications for the 2008 award close on 30 June.
Past winners, criteria and applications. More information:

• Chair: Prof Jane Kelsey, 09 373 7599 x 88006 or 021 765 055
• Senior lecturer Joe Atkinson, 09 373 7599 x 88094
• Simon Collins, 09 483 5911 or 021 612 423
• Rebecca Jesson, 09 521 8118 or 0274 714 690
• A/Prof David Robie (joined 2007), 09 921 9999 x 7834 or 021 112 2079
• Jon Stephenson (joined 2007), 09 368 4689

Pictured: Dylan Horrocks cartoon for Bruce Jesson's To Build a Nation. His political cartooning web page is www.hicksville.co.nz/Politics.htm