Tuilaepa's Women; Bizarre Asylum Appeal; Xinhua in Fiji; Waste and Solar Energy Projects

N249.GOOD OL' TUILAEPA.  Samoa's PM  thinks he's got the right gender balance in his newly appointed cabinet. “We have two female members and 34 male members [in Parliament, and one woman in the 13-member cabinet]...That’s more than enough,” he said.

Meanwhile in the Fiji he so often criticises, the Minister of Women has confirmed that government departments will now be required to supply gender information in all personnel statistical data in order to better monitor progress towards gender equality.

N250. BIZARRE ASYLUM APPEAL. A Fiji Muslim applied for political asylum in the US in 1989 following the 1987 Rabuka coup. The case was deferred for 14 years when a court ordered his deportation on the grounds that conditions in Fiji had improved. That takes us to 2004.

He appealed, and last Friday, some eight years later, a federal judge said immigration officials hadn't considered evidence of the treatment of minorities since the 2006 coup. They had looked only at general conditions in Fiji, not the situation of someone who had been persecuted under a previous military regime. If they had conducted an up-to-date analysis, said the judge, there is a "reasonable likelihood" they would conclude that Ali would face persecution in Fiji. His case has been referred back to the immigration courts for further review.

Jannif Ali, the applicant, said the military forces that overthrew Fiji's government in 1987 had dealt harshly with Fijians of Indian descent.  He testified that a soldier had beaten him with a gun, military forces had vandalized and dynamited his home, and that ethnic Fijians had regularly thrown rocks at his family and car and threatened to rape his wife.

The court was told persecution of Indo-Fijians resumed after the 2000 coup but then receded but "the human rights situation deteriorated greatly" after the 2006 coup.

This should tell us something about how little American courts know about Fiji and how some emigrants use the appeal system to indefinitely extend their stay on false grounds. It is unlikely to be any different with most of those who have applied for political asylum in Australia.

N251. XINHUA, CHINA'S official press agency, now has  a press agency in Suva. The bureau will cover Fiji and nearby South Pacific island countries.  [The North is getting closer!]

N252.WASTE AND SOLAR ENERGY EFFICIENCIES. Two new energy developments will soon bring economic, environmental and social benefits.

The first, the waste-to-energy power plant under construction in Sigatoka will employ about 600 people in the construction phase and about 200 permanent positions in the factory and 4,000 indirectly when it is complete in three years time. "We are talking about rubbish pickers all around Fiji, in the outer islands and resorts. The whole of Fiji will feel the impact as we try and rid Fiji of this problem – rubbish,"  said i-Viti Disenergy Renewable Power Plant Company president Ratu Enesi Yavala.

The other is at Tavua where in three months time solar street lights will replace existing lighting. Fiji's first town, Levuka on the island of Ovalau, is likely to be next on the list. -- Based on No:0673/MOI.