NEWSROOM 08 May
2009

(Photo: New Zealand Labour Party)

NEW ZEALAND: Number of Pacific Island workers left jobless dramatically increases

(Photos: Samoa Rugby Union / Fiji Rugby Union)

SAMOA: Upolu set for Pacific Rugby Cup thriller at Apia Park
Source: Samoa Rugby Union Press Release

The IRB Pacific Rugby Cup is set for a thriller as Top-of-the Table Upolu Samoa hosts the winless Fiji Barbarians in Apia this Friday (May 08, 2009). The match promises to be a thrilling affair as it brings together two teams with varying fortunes mid-way through the competition.

Upolu Samoa will be under pressure to maintain its unbeaten run nearing its aim to repeat last year’s grand final appearance. On the other side, the Fiji Barbarians team is hoping to win back atonement after a first round thrashing by the Warriors and then last week losing to Savaii Samoa at Lawaqa Park.

With nothing to lose and everything to gain, the Fiji Barbarians will be out to spoil Upolu Samoa’s grand final aspirations.

Head Coach for Upolu, Fepulea’i Selefuti Patu said he was disappointed with the way his team played against Tau’uta Reds last week. “We threw away some very good try-scoring opportunities early in our match and that’s just irresponsible in this professional era. We’ve been addressing those weaknesses at our training sessions and I expect our team to show the benefits in those areas on game day. We’re looking forward to the game against the Barbarians. Their results don’t really tell the story of how good they are so we wont be complacent or take them lightly.

“I can promise the crowd that it’ll be an exciting match to watch…and being there live at Apia Park will always beat watching it on TV.”

The Fiji Barbarians touched down safe and sound at 1am this morning. Their first training run will be at Apia Park at 3pm before appearing on TV-1’s ultra popular current affairs program: The Lali at 6pm.

Savai’i Samoa in Fiji

Savai’i Samoa after its disappointing 1-point loss against Tau’uta Reds in the first round is keen to maintain its winning ‘away’ campaign when it plays the strong Fiji Warriors side in Fiji.

Head Coach for Savai’i, Paepaetele Stan To’omalatai has always maintained that the side that brings its A-game on match day will have a very strong chance of going away with the win.

“The PRC has continued to develop since 2006 and every year it gets more competitive and even where any of the other five sides is capable of winning on any given day. Savaii Samoa always aim for our players to keep to the game-plan and as shown in our win last week, if we do that, then we’ll be halfway to doing well this week against the Warriors.”

The Savai’i Samoa is Samoa’s second ranked team in the competition but is studded with Sevens stars, Lolo Lui, Alatasi Tupou, Afafoti Fa’osiliva, Reupena Levasa and captain Simaika Mikaele. As with Fiji’s strategy of using the Fiji Barbarians for its Under 20s player development, the Samoa Rugby Union is structuring its teams in a tiered approach where Savai’i provides a competitive pool of players that week-in, week-out will keep the Upolu players on edge to stay in the number 1 team. At the same time it gives the Upolu squad more time together to work out combinations in readiness for the international tournaments starting with the Junior All Blacks and finishing with an end of year tour to the Northern Hemisphere.

These strategies are bearing fruit for the iRB’s $1million tala annual investment with a total of 48 players from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga making the transition from PRC to their national teams in 2008.

Savaii in the meantime sits third on the points table, equal with Tautahi Gold on 6-points but places lower due to an inferior points difference.
 

(Photo: Australian Governement)

AUSTRALIA: Company benefits from Australian aid
Source: Source: FijiVillage

The Australian government has set aside over $43 million for its ongoing aid program in Fiji through the Enterprise Challenge Fund and a private company is the first to benefit.

Australian High Commissioner to Fiji James Batley said the fund is an innovative and important part of Australia's aid program in Fiji and is aimed at strengthening the private sector, encouraging economic growth and livelihood benefits for the poor.

And the first to benefit from the fund is a teak plantation project by Future Forests which was today granted $307,399.

Batley said the grant to Future Forests will enable it to expand and modernize seed germination and nursery facilities on Viti Levu and create long term employment and training opportunities for local indigenous landowners and their families in six rural villages in Ra.

He said in addition, landowners will receive ongoing income from leasing their land for plantation use and from royalties or stumpage from each tree planted on their land.

Photo Caption: Australian High Commissioner to Fiji James Batley.
 

(Photo: CNMI Government)

USA: Ferry service between Guam and CNMI proposed
Source: Marianas Variety via Pacific Islands Report

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation and Communications is proposing to establish a regular ferry service between Guam and the Northern Marianas using federal grants.

Senator Paul Manglona, R-Rota, in a letter to CNMI Congressman Gregorio C. Sablan, said the economies of the two American territories are intertwined and a regular ferry service would further enhance that.

"I would like to propose the idea of establishing a regular ferry service between the island of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Tying our islands’ economies through reliable ocean ferry service would certainly be mutually beneficial to Guam and the CNMI," the senator said.

Rota is near Guam and many residents there frequent the territory to buy food and goods which are relatively cheaper than in Saipan.

Many Saipan residents too regularly travel to Guam for business or leisure activities.

The inter-island ferry commute is viewed as relatively cheaper than taking a plane.

Manglona said the replacement legislation for the Safe Accountable Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act set to expire this Sept. 30 could probably be tapped to finance his proposed project.

"It is my understanding that SAFETEA-LU funding and/or stimulus funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act could be used for this purpose. Please consider this idea during your deliberations with your colleagues," he told Sablan in a letter dated April 30.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers just completed conducting public hearings on Rota’s master plan to identify and justify projects that would be eligible for federal funding.

Manglona said the final draft is expected to be released by August.

Photo Caption: Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation and Communications, Senator Paul Manglona.
 

(Photo: Reuters)

VANUATU: Land-diving: from ancient ritual to modern festival
Source: Australian Associated Press via TVNZ

Land-diving on Vanuatu's remote Pentecost Island was once an ancient, unique and private ritual where young men hurled themselves off treetops bungee-style to celebrate the annual yam harvest.

But nowadays it's evolved into the annual N'gol Land Diving Festival with tourist groups welcome on any of up to 30 dates in May or June to enjoy what the organisers describe as "a once in a lifetime cultural experience".

Boys as young as seven and young men jump head-first into the ground from a man-made tower 20 or 30 metres high with only a liana vine with one end tied to the tower and the other their ankles, the spectacle dramatised by the dancing, stomping of feet and yelling by the excited watching villagers.

Selection of the vines has to be made with great care: they must be thick and strong enough not to snap during the jump - if their length is even 10cm too long the diver risks crashing into the ground and suffering serious and even fatal injuries.

Accidents have happened.

When Queen Elizabeth II visited Pentecost for the N'gol Festival in 1974, a young diver fractured his neck and later died when his vine broke; the visit came some weeks after the yam harvest and during the dry season, when the vines were less pliable and more likely to snap.

In 2006, after three divers were injured in falls and one was paralysed, the Vanuatu Cultural Centre warned the organisers against over-exploiting the land-diving spectacle for tourists.

Other VIP visitors to the festival have included the late Pope John Paul II, in 1986.

Latest tourist package to see the land divers comes from Talpacific as a day trip from the South Pacific island nation's capital Vila, as part of a four-night getaway from Australia.

The holiday includes return economy airfares with Air Vanuatu, transfers, four nights' accommodation at the Melanesian Hotel in Vila, daily continental breakfasts and the 190km northbound domestic flight from Vila to Pentecost with light refreshments, lunch and a guide.

Several stories are told about the origin of the land-diving ceremonies.

One is that they were designed to ensure the success of the harvesting of yams, a staple root-crop food of the islanders - traditionally, if a diver's hair or shoulder touches the ground in the fall (a feat demanding considerable accuracy), it is said to bode well for the next year's crop.

Another tale links N'gol with a centuries-old legend about a woman who ran away from her husband, Tamale, after he beat her.

He eventually spotted the woman hiding high in a tall tree, and told her that if she came down to earth he might beat her again - but only a little.

She refused, so he climbed the tree and made a grab for her, only for his wife to leap from her high perch towards the ground.

The angry Tamale jumped after her - not realising that she had liana vines attached from a high branch to her ankles, and landed safely.

Tamale did not, and he died.

The incident led to the N'gol festival with men diving from a treetop tower in a display of their strength, and to show that they would never be tricked again by woman, as Tamale had been.

Land-diving is often said to have been the forerunner of bungee-jumping, the New Zealand "sport" introduced in New Zealand by one A J Hackett in the mid-1980s a few years after it was initially tried in England after the televising of a BBC film of the Pentecost Island festival.

But the Vanuatu Tourism Office said the N'gol is "an event of dignity and mystique (which) bears no more resemblance to bungee-jumping than abseiling down a 60-foot cliff or catching a lift down a six-storey building".

Photo Caption: Land-diving on Vanuatu's remote Pentecost Island.
 

WORLDWIDE: Regional gender mainstreaming capacity stocktake launched
Source: Secretariat of the Pacific Community Press Release

A regional gender mainstreaming capacity stocktake was officially launched this week at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) headquarters in Noumea. This effort to measure the extent to which Pacific governments are able to incorporate gender perspectives and analysis at all levels of government in the Pacific region was launched at the opening of a four-day preparatory stocktake workshop for consultants (4 to 7 May).

The stocktake will be rolled out in all 22 SPC island member countries and territories over the next three years.

The need to improve gender mainstreaming capacity in the governments of Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) was identified during the 10th Triennial Meeting of Pacific Women in 2007. This triennial gathering focuses on the advancement of gender equality in the region.

Participants at the meeting agreed that while commitments to gender equality were relatively strong, institutional capacity for implementing those commitments and for mainstreaming gender into the work of government was, in many cases, quite weak and needed increased support.

By gauging the existing capacity and resources, and identifying gaps and areas for improvement, the project aims to help national governments, with the assistance of SPC and its partners, to develop specific strategies for enhancing the capacity to mainstream gender across all government sectors.

The purpose of gender mainstreaming is to promote good governance and sustainable development through the integration of gender analysis at all levels of government. This entails the consideration and inclusion of gender perspectives in all government policy-making, programming and budgeting to ensure that a clear picture exists of the differing needs, experiences and perspectives of women and men. It also involves properly and equally addressing those differences, and supporting women in particular in areas where they have traditionally been marginalised.

‘Women and men make up roughly half the population of a country. When they are given equal opportunities to contribute to their communities and societies at all levels, everyone benefits. By investing in both women and men, a country is not only maximising its resources, it is also ensuring stronger, healthier and more economically secure societies,’ says SPC’s Gender Equality Adviser Treva Braun.

Ministries and government departments or sections in charge of gender equality and women’s affairs can facilitate gender mainstreaming through their resources and technical expertise. However, to be effective these structures require political commitment and accountability, a supportive organisational culture, resources and technical capacity across the whole of government.

The stocktake will therefore focus on government-wide efforts, as well as the capacity of national gender equality offices to act as catalysts for gender mainstreaming. It will identify strengths, constraints, and necessary changes to empower national gender equality offices and to increase the ability of line and central ministries to mainstream gender. This in turn will help governments achieve gender equality objectives outlined in the Pacific Platform for Action, the Pacific Plan and other guiding regional and international frameworks relating to gender equality.

The stocktake methodology includes desk research, interviews, focus group discussions and strategic planning for further joint support by development agencies to PICTs. The process will involve a sample of government ministries, including those responsible for gender equality, as well as civil society groups and development agencies.

The anticipated challenges of the stocktake include issues related to the diversity of the region, says Ms Braun.

‘Because each country and territory has its own unique circumstances, influenced for example by political, geographical, socio-cultural and economic factors, different PICTs will present different challenges,’ she says. ‘We’re aware that the approach may need to be adapted to suit the various situations in the region. Therefore the methodology has been designed to allow for flexibility while maintaining comparable results based on a replicable analytical framework and clear, feasible measures of gender mainstreaming capacity.’

The project will be carried out in phases. The first phase involves six PICTs, including Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tonga, as well as the Republic of the Marshall Islands, where a pilot stocktake was carried out in November last year.

Evidence-based strategies to increase gender mainstreaming capacity in these six PICTs will be developed and implemented after the stocktakes are complete. The stocktakes will take four to five weeks each depending on the size of the country or territory. The first phase of the stocktake is expected to be completed by the end of 2009. Technical assistance following completion will include legal and policy support, skills training and awareness raising.

As implementation gets underway in the first group of PICTs, the project will enter its next phase with a second group of PICTs. The second phase is expected to begin in 2010.

The stocktake is being run by SPC’s Human Development Programme in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

For more information please contact Treva Braun, SPC Human Development Adviser (Gender Equality) by phone: +687 26 01 91 or email: [email protected] or Tione Chinula, Human Development Programme Advocacy and Communications Officer by phone: +687 26 01 57 or email: [email protected].