A Reader Sent Me This on UK Pensions

HOW PENSION INCOME HAS FALLEN 20% IN JUST 3 YEARS

Figures show that an average retirement pot for users of its annuity service is £56,000

Monday July 4,2011 Daily Express U.K    By John Chapman

Have your say(3)

Industrial Sabotage: If it’s Good for the Goose, it’s also Good for the Gander

By Crosbie Walsh

Last Thursday FINTEL, the nation's internet gateway provider, cut telecommunications provider Telecom's access to its services, causing costly disruption to government departments, national and international airlines, banks and other business houses for up to three hours.
The Fiji Times said the action "brought the country almost to a stop [and] crippled critical services." Air Pacific, whose major shareholder is the Fiji government, had its flights to Brisbane, Sydney, Auckland, Melbourne, Honolulu and Korea delayed and its domestic carrier, Pacific Sun, had its flights disrupted.

The FDFM Agenda, the 1997 Constitution, Communal Voting … and the Great Council of Chiefs

  The Australian-based Fiji Democracy and Freedom Movement (FDFM) interim president Suliasi Daunitutu has again defended the inclusion of the Great Council of Chiefs in his organization’s solution to the Fiji situation, saying that opposition to the GCC being allowed to ‘reconvene to deliberate on the affairs of the nation because it is unelected or a colonial invention ’ is irrelevant and misplaced.’ 

The FDFM in Australia is sticking to its belief the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (GCC) must play a crucial role in its plan for a return to a fair and free Fiji.

Tea Party? Or Tea Party, Sarah Palin Style?

POLICE SHUTDOWN FIJI WOMEN'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT MEETING. The FWRM is an NGO, largely funded like most Fiji NGOs by overseas aid money. It was formed in the 1980s to help remove discrimination against women.

World Cup Shattered Dreams

This story by TV3. Note also the comments.   Click on the link below.

Jul 3 - Shattered Dreams - Stories - Story Archive - 60 Minutes - Shows - TV3

What Goes Up Must Come Down: New Revelations on FNPF Pensions and Rick Rickman's Letter

FNFP Pay Shock
By Leone Cabenatabua in the Fiji Sun
Some Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) pensioners have been paid more than three times what they and their employer contributed towards their pension, it has been revealed.

Peter Ponders the Fiji National Provident Fund Reforms

Would readers please direct all their FNPF comments to this posting.
A reader “Peter” made these comments. I thought they’d get lost in the NEWS posting so I’m publishing them as a separate item and invite comment. I have added, at the end, correspondence between Ross MacDonald who opposes the proposed changes and Ajith Kodagoda of the FNPF.  Readers should note that this blog has no position on the proposed changes but it is concerned that they are not used by anti-Government forces for their own political purposes.  I suspect that had history been otherwise and the SDL were still in power, they would have been facing  similar hard decisions today.

See also this letter in the Fiji Sun.  I'm told there's also one by Rick Rickman. Would someone please sent it to me. I can't find it on Fiji Sun on line.

Paradise in Turmoil: Twenty Years of Military Coups and Implications on Democracy and Development

Dr Tupeni Baba's Speech to the University of Guam, June 8, 2011

Four Horses for Courses: Chaudhry, Mara, Singh, Baba

By Crosbie Walsh

The phrase, horses for courses, stems from the fact that a racehorse performs best on a racecourse specifically suited to it (Wiktionary)  but what happens when the jockey jumps horses?

People who change their minds because they have been backing the wrong principles or practices are to be applauded, but people who change their minds when they think they are backing the “wrong horse” inevitably arouse suspicion, especially when they change not one horse but two, or even four.  Sometimes, of course, people are most probably motivated by a confused mixture of principles and horses.  

Lockington's Everyday Fiji ... Life Goes On

Allen Lockington is a self-employed customs agent and business consultant who has regular articles published in Fiji. I thank Allen for permission to reprint some of them in this political blog. They remind us that life goes on, whatever the political situation. And it's good to know that. 

FFA Furore