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NEW FIJI TIMES PUBLISHER EXPLAINS HIS POSITION. ABC interviewer Geraldine Coutts asked the Times's new publisher Dallas Swinstead (photo) how he was going to handle free speech. Swinstead:
"Freedom of speech - my original answer was my parents gave me a pretty fair idea of what you can say and get away with, and when you stepped out of line and they ran the show they knocked you over. So, I mean, I don't like that happening. I am tenacious, but I am a good mediator and a facilitator, and I will be trying to talk to people in government to lead them to understand how valuable a free and open press is. But look, it is a developing country with lots of problems and I am sympathetic to them and I am not angry about censorship or anything else. That's life.
Local Motibhai Group bought the paper from Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd last week. Motibhai Chairman Mahendra Patel said: "The Fiji Times will operate as an independent separate unit. Dallas Swinstead and his staff are the people that will fashion the editorial content of the paper. We will not interfere with that. The staff are empowered to operate and run independently – of course we will be there to guide, but we will not interfere.” Read also the Cafe Pacific story.
THE FIJI WOMEN'S FEDERATION. Approved by Cabinet last year, the FWF is an important unit in the Department of Women, which advises the Minister for Women on national issues concerning development and works in partnership with women's NGOs to achieve a coordinated approach to programme implementation. Unlike many umbrella women's organizations in the past, the FWF is open to all races.
Most FWF activities are based on centres and involve a great deal of self-help supplemented by government assistance. Eight centres should be built by the end of this year and 14, one for each province, by 2014. The women's husbands and male relatives build the centres; government provides the money for materials. The elected president of each centre sits on an advisory committee at the Ministry.
The centres also work closely with divisional planning offices to identify the needs of women specific to their communities, and training is provided in capacity building, alternative livelihoods, and other activities to help generate income for the women
The Advisory Committee is charged with the implementation of government's Women’s Plan of Action (WPA) 2010 to 2019 that spells out five priority areas for the development and advancement of women:
1. Formal sector employment and livelihoods
2. Equal Participation in decision-making 3. Elimination of violence against women
4. Access to services (Health and HIV/AIDS, education and other basic services)
5. Women and the Law.
FWF informs women about the international Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); its centres are places of informal education and shared experiences, and training grounds, perhaps, for women's greater involvement in politics.
When I met the Minister of Women, Dr Jiko Luveni, in June, she told me of government actions to empower women, and said: "For years we've been waiting for this." This spoke words for a woman who initially was opposed to the Bainimarama government and whose husband was a member of former PM Qarase's SDL party.
For readers and organizations in Fiji that would like to know more about the FWF, email the Secretariat at rtavakaturaga@yahoo.com -- Based, in part, on 2010 No:1415/MOI.
AFTER NATADOLA, PACIFIC CO-OPERATION. Following on from the Natadola meeting (see report on communique) that was held in place of the abandoned Melanesian Spearhead Group in June, several Pacific Island countries have expressed interest in closer relations with Fiji. Tuvalu, the first to sign a MOU, is now joined by Kiribati, and expressions of interest have also been received from Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste.
The memorandum of understanding was signed when the Kiribati President the Fiji PM were in New York for the 65th session of the UN General Assembly. Broad areas of co-operation include education, medicine, and fisheries. The PM will deliver Fiji's national statement during the general debate session of the Assembly.
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