NEWSPAGE 18 September
2009

(Photos: Families Commission)

NEW ZEALAND: White Ribbon Ambassador announced

(Photos: Deutsch Wikipedia / Rugby League Samoa)

SAMOA: Rugby League Samoa names Toa Samoa squads
Source: Rugby League Samoa Press Release

Prime Minister of Samoa and Rugby League Samoa Patron - Afioga Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi today (September 16, 2009) named the Toa Samoa Squads for its upcoming international campaigns to highlight the end of its 2009 Calendar of Events Year.

Rugby League Samoa’s International Program for end 2009 includes:

Sept 18: Toa Samoa 7s to Mini Games tournament in Cook Islands
Sept 28 & 29: RL7s tournament dates
Sat Oct 10: Toa Samoa (local players) for a final trial match vs. NZ Residents (Barter-Cup Representative Team) at Erickson Stadium
Sun 11 Oct: Toa Samoa Final Team for the Pacific Cup Named
Mon 12 Oct: Team travels to Cairns for match vs. Cook Islands
Sat 17 Oct: TS vs. Cook Islands
Mon 19 Oct: Winner of PC Elimination match v CI travels to PNG for Pacific Cup
Mon 19 Oct - Nov 2: Pacific Nations Cup Tournament in Papua New Guinea

Rugby League Samoa has had quite a successful year in 2009 after landing 9th place after Toa Samoa’s participation in the 2008 Rugby League World Cup held in Australia last year. Toa Samoa quietly put together two home wins vs. the highly fancied PNG Kumuls in March before they held off the British Amateur Rugby League Lions in two tests held in Apia in June.

The Mini Games team en-route from the Cook Island will join the rest of the local contingent in Auckland on the 2nd of October. They will have a week to prepare for a historical first ever test vs. a locally selected New Zealand Representative team from the Barter Cup Championship called the NZ Residents at Erickson Stadium on Saturday evening October 10th.
The final Toa Samoa Squad for the Pacific Cup starting with an elimination match in Cairns vs. the Cooks will leave on Monday October 12.
 

(Photo: J. Kneubuhl)

AMERICAN SAMOA: ASCC/GUAS to Celebrate National GEARUP Day
Source: American Samoa Community College Press Release

The GEAR UP American Samoa (GUAS), a partnership program with the American Samoa Community College (ASCC) will join the nationwide celebration of the First Annual National GEAR UP Day this Friday, September 18th. This day commemorates 10 years of success for the transformative Gaining Early Awareness and Education for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP), a college access program created during the Clinton Administration. Since its inception in 1999, GEAR UP has improved educational outcomes for millions of low-income students across the United States.

The program provides intensive after-school tutoring, as well as special events and summer camps, to cohorts of qualifying high school students who come from low income families. GEAR UP specifically seeks to serve individuals who might be the first in their family ever to attend college. “The program proceeds from the idea that promising students from low income families can find greater opportunities open to them if they have access to state of the art tutoring methods and technologies,” said GUAS Director Tupua Roy Fua. “Increasing these students’ chances at these opportunities through academic achievement will ultimately help bridge the gap between the low and high income members of society. It’s basically like ‘moving on up’ through education.”

Looking back over the past three years that GEAR UP has operated in American Samoa, GUAS Director Tupua Roy Fua recalled, “We started July 2006, with a cohort of 850 students. Today, in our third year, the program now serves over 1171. Along with that original group of 850 came from 13 of the Territory’s elementary schools, and as we followed these cohorts into high school, we found our 9th grade classrooms this past year came with an additional 309 plus students. We can't overlook them, so we provide services to the entire class and we are also tracking the additional new GEAR UP kids in our database. Our database now consists of 1171 and is still growing,”

To celebrate its success, GUAS will host a Partners Award Luncheon at the Tradewinds Hotel, which will include recognizing its selected GUAS Teacher of the Year 2008-2009. For the first ever American Samoa recipient of this prestigious award, the GUAS staff has selected Valasi Lam Yuen, the GUAS Leone High School Counselor, Teacher and Tutor. “Her role in Leone has been tremendous. Valasi has demonstrated true commitment to the GUAS program,” said Tupua, who also credits Valasi for working three weeks chaperoning the GUAS Marine Science Mini-Camps.

ASCC President Dr. Seth Galea’i will be the keynote speaker, and invited special guests include First Lady Mrs. Maryanne Tulafono, American Samoa Department of Education (ASDOH) Director Dr. Claire Poumele, Department of Human and Social Services (ASDHSS) Director Mrs. Lei Stevenson, and American Samoa Department of Health (ASDOH) Dr. Tuiaina Salamo Laumoli. The special guests will present the plaques to participating partners, who in addition to ASCC include ASDOE, the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, Ta’ita’itama Prevent Underage Drinking Initiative, Blue Sky Communications, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, SODEXO to mention a few.

GUAS received one of the Territory’s highest forms of recognition when Governor Togiola T. A. Tulafono issued an official proclamation earlier this week declaring Friday, September 18 as GEAR UP Day 2009. “On behalf of ASCC President Dr. Seth Galea’i, we are proud to have received Governor Togiola Tulafono's Proclamation recognizing the hard work of the GEAR UP American Samoa Program,” said Tupua. “We will frame this proclamation and display it prominently so that our GEAR UP community recognizes and appreciates the commitment made to preparing our students for college.”

For more information about GUAS, please contact them through ASCC at 699-9155. To learn more about the national GEAR UP program, contact the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships at 202-530-1135 or visit their web page at www.edpartnerships.org.

Photo Caption: GEAR UP American Samoa Director Tupua Roy Fua (front, center) is seen here with members of his staff at their headquarters on the ASCC campus. The local GEAR UP program will host a Partners Award Luncheon as part of National GEAR UP Day this Friday, which Governor Togiola has also proclaimed as GEAR UP Day in the Territory.
 

(Photo: University of the South Pacific)

FIJI: Fijian language’s future key to unity: USP Vice-Chancellor
Source: Fijilive

University of the South Pacific Vice-Chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra has urged the preservation of the Fijian language for the sake of national unity, at celebrations to mark World Hindi Day.

Speaking yesterday at the celebrations, organised annually by the USP’s Hindi Studies Program, Chandra said the Fijian language did not have the opportunities that Hindi had.

“We are fortunate that due to our contact with India, the Hindi language is not facing any difficulty, Hindi literature is progressing in India; the popularity of Bollywood is further protecting Hindi and Indian culture,” said Chandra.

“Fijian does not have all these opportunities. To promote and preserve Fijian, Fiji alone has to work hard.”

Chandra said that with the fear among indigenous Fijians that their language may become extinct, “it is our shared responsibility to help strengthen and preserve both these languages”.

“The protection and preservation of the indigenous Fijian language will benefit the two ethnic groups by promoting unity and cohesion, thus creating a better future for all people of Fiji. We have to understand this very clearly.”

He said Fijian and Hindi were taught in schools as part of the Fiji government’s national language policy on vernacular languages and was a necessary and important initiative that should be embraced.

“Unless and until we speak each other’s language and understand each other, the future of this country is less likely to be bright.”

The USP began offering courses in Hindi Studies in 1995, with diploma and degree courses as well as distance learning options currently available.

Chandra said with USP reviewing all its programs due to financial constraints, enrolment numbers for Fijian and Hindi were low.
“We would like to maintain both of these languages but they need to boost enrolment numbers and look for sponsorship.”

USP will also establish a Hindi Advisory Board so that key stakeholders can contribute to the program.

Hindi will also go through an external review process and establish networks with other universities to increase quality.

Chandra said Indians should be proud they had maintained Hindi and Indian culture in Fiji.

“I vividly remember my visit to Trinidad; they appreciated the fact that we can speak in Hindi here because they have not been able to preserve Hindi in Trinidad as well as Fiji.”

Hindi is the third most widely spoken language in the world. About 680 million people globally speak Hindi as their first language and more than 230 million people speak it as a second language, Chandra said.

Photo Caption: University of the South Pacific Vice-Chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra.
 

NEW CALEDONIA: Paris to organise another meeting?
Source: Islands Business

New Caledonian politicians hope that a new meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Pacific islands leaders can be organised later this year, after the failure of the third France-Oceania summit.

France has organised three summits since 2003 to improve relations with Pacific Islands states and discuss issues of regional security, development and environment. But President Sarkozy did not attend the July 31 summit in Noumea as originally planned and Pacific leaders stayed away in droves.

Announcing the France-Oceania summit, French officials stated: “This summit confirms the importance that France attaches to its relations with Pacific states, with whom we have developed a partnership that contributes to political, economic, and social stability in the region.”
But the absence of the French president from the Noumea meeting has overshadowed France’s agenda in the region.

Speaking to ISLANDS BUSINESS at the Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns, the speaker of New Caledonia’s Congress Harold Martin said that Noumea was lobbying Paris to hold another meeting as soon as possible in the aftermath of the summit.

“We spoke with France’s Foreign Affairs Minister, hoping that the French President might host another gathering in Paris later this year or early next year,” said Martin. “This could be an opportunity to discuss European Union funding for the Pacific.”

Chirac’s summit

The first France-Oceania summit was held in July 2003 in Papeete, as an initiative of former French President Jacques Chirac and French Polynesia’s Gaston Flosse. The two men had a close personal and political relationship and Flosse proposed the summit as a way of improving France’s relations with the region after the era of nuclear testing and the signing of the Noumea Accord in 1998.

Chirac travelled to Tahiti (French Polynesia) for the first meeting and then hosted a second summit in Paris, in June 2006. The second meeting coincided with the official opening of the Quay Branly Museum of indigenous cultures—an opportunity for Pacific leaders to visit this pet project of the French President, which gathers artwork and artefacts from indigenous communities around the world.

With New Caledonia and French Polynesia gaining observer status at the Pacific Islands Forum (later upgraded to associate membership), French officials also saw these summits as a way to integrate France into regional intergovernmental networks. In the lead-up to the 2006 summit, then Secretary for Overseas Territories Francois Baroin stated: “France for its part should become a privileged Forum partner and therefore take part in the annual meetings of what is the main political organisation of the region.”

Sarkozy drops out

The third leaders summit was held on July 31, 2009 in Noumea, but the one thing missing was the host!

During the 2007 Presidential election campaign, Sarkozy promised a visit to New Caledonia, where anti-independence voters gave him overwhelming support. He later expressed an interest in being the first French president to visit Australia.

This commitment to visit the South Pacific raised high hopes in New Caledonia, which is seeking closer ties with neighbouring Pacific countries. Last May, former President Harold Martin said: “This is an unprecedented event. Not every French President has made it to New Caledonia, and Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged he’ll do it. His arrival will coincide with the holding of the third France-Oceania summit where all the region’s islands leaders will be present. The presence of all these leaders, together with the Australian and New Zealand Prime Ministers, will be an historic and profitable moment for New Caledonia.”

The original vision was that the summit would precede the Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns, and that Sarkozy would also make a brief visit to Australia between the two events.

In the months leading to the summit, there was a flurry of diplomatic manoeuvring to develop a programme and organise logistics (for example, the dates for a major Pacific conference organised by the Sydney-based Lowy Institute to coincide with the Cairns Forum were rearranged to allow Pacific delegates to fly to Noumea).

However, the plan for President Sarkozy to host the summit came to naught. With a busy European schedule, Sarkozy has never had the same ties to the Pacific as his predecessor and rival Jacques Chirac (indeed, the French authorities are currently investigating Gaston Flosse on corruption charges).

Sarkozy’s visit to the southern hemisphere was never locked in and the summit began to look like a diplomatic disaster. Attempts to organise French Prime Minister Francois Fillon to travel to the South Pacific also failed. It was only days before the summit that a formal announcement revealed Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner would represent the French President, accompanied by Secretary of State for Overseas Affairs Marie-Luce Penchard.

In the end, Kouchner only made a 36-hour flying visit to Noumea. The working session of the summit at the SPC headquarters in Anse Vata amounted to just a few hours, overlain with official dinners and a visit to the Tjibaou Cultural Centre. New Caledonia’s newly elected President Philippe Gomes stated that it was “sad for New Caledonia and for France in the South Pacific” that the French President and Prime Minister were unable to attend.

Anti-independence leader Pierre Frogier, affiliated to Sarkozy’s UMP Party, also expressed regrets at the absence of the President and the lack of substance to the meeting. Frogier told Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes: “Listen, two hours around the table is too short. Like all these major diplomatic meetings, the real work has been done before-hand by the embassies and diplomatic networks…When things are ready, there can be formal diplomatic exchanges. The real interest for this rendezvous in the Pacific is therefore a physical meeting between these Pacific Heads of State and the President of the French Republic.”

Roch Wamytan, head of the FLNKS group within New Caledonia’s Congress, described the summit as a “flop” and announced that his party was boycotting the gathering: “This summit is a provocation. Within the framework of decolonisation currently underway in New Caledonia, the role of foreign affairs is supposed to be transferred to our country, but France is acting as if it wants to keep that responsibility for all time.”

Members of the Union Calédonienne Party in the congress issued a statement condemning the summit: “New Caledonia has become a platform to defend the wider interests of France within our Pacific region, disguised under its aid to islands states and under the pretext of sustainable development and the preservation of marine biodiversity. We have requested our brother countries—Melanesian, Polynesian, Micronesian as well as Australia and New Zealand—not to support the hegemonic strategy of France in our Pacific region and to refrain from participating in this staged farce from Paris.”

International delegates were greeted by tight security in Noumea as striking workers took to the streets to protest the jailing in June of Gerard Jodar, the President of the USTKE union confederation.

Limited participation

The summit communiqué bravely asserts that all Forum nations were represented by their “heads of state or governments or their representatives.” But the failure of French officials to confirm the replacement for President Sarkozy until the last minute meant that the majority of Pacific leaders deferred their travel to Noumea.

Only five Forum member countries were represented at the summit by their President or Prime Minister—other islands nations sent ministers or were only represented at officials’ level. New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully decided to travel to London for a Commonwealth meeting on Fiji and New Zealand was represented by Defence Minister Wayne Mapp. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith decided to focus on the Forum leaders meeting in Cairns and Australia was represented by Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Islands Affairs Duncan Kerr. As in 2006, Timor-Leste was invited to attend, but failed to send a delegation.

Another notable absence was Fiji. The military-backed interim administration was not invited to the summit, matching the diplomatic isolation from the Forum and Commonwealth. France has joined the European Union to condemn the 2006 military coup in Fiji (in contrast to Colonel Rabuka’s first coup in 1987, when Paris provided trucks, a helicopter and other support to Fiji after Australia, New Zealand and the United States cut military aid to Fiji).

France’s regional relations

In spite of these diplomatic dramas, Foreign Minister Kouchner pronounced the meeting a success. He announced the summit had covered “sustainable development, food security, the management of fish resources in the Pacific Ocean, climate change and its adverse effects on Pacific islands, regional security and stability and regional cooperation.”

There were also pledges of support for regional organisations and commitments to ease short-stay visa requirements to the French Pacific and develop opportunities for young islanders to teach English in primary and secondary schools.

As the second largest donor to the European Development Fund (EDF) after Germany, France also plays a key role in European Union initiatives in the region. With EDF funding for the Pacific worth 389 million Euros between 2008-2013, the EU is playing an increasing role in the region, even with the failure to finalise negotiations for a regional EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). Summits come and go. But with the diplomatic faux pas in Noumea in sharp contrast to the turnup at the Cairns Forum leaders meeting, Paris may want to try again in promoting France-Oceania ties.
 

(Photo: Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme)

WORLDWIDE: Pacific weather services train to meet international standards
Source: Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme Press Release

The Aviation weather services are undergoing massive changes world wide. In all parts of the world the International Civil Aviation Organisation ICAO is imposing a requirement for Quality Management in the aviation weather services to be met by 2012.

Weather information carries a lot of bearing when you plan safe travel by land, sea or air. It’s at the forefront of training for Pacific islands meteorologists who are ensuring their weather information for the aviation sector is of international standards, reliable and accurate.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) is conducting the training this week in partnership with the Government of Finland.

The very first workshop for Aviation Weather Services for Pacific Meteorological Services opened in Apia with words of encouragement and support from the Associate Minister of the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry of the Government of Samoa.

Associate Minister Afioga Fonotoe Pierre Meredith spoke of the importance for Pacific Met Services to provide the best quality aviation weather information to ensure the best possible standard of aviation safety is achieved.

“This is a very serious task for many of us in the Pacific because most of us rely on air transportation for travel between our islands, and such travel is heavily reliant on accurate weather information.”

The one week training session will help provide SPREP member countries with the knowledge and skills in the development of the Quality Management System Process so they can achieve full compliance of the ICAO standards.
 
The need for quality managed systems in the weather information to the aviation authority will have different impacts upon the different countries, but as Mr Jaakko Karppanen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute explains, “work has to be done by even the smallest services.”
He believes the most difficult task for many services is the change required in management attitudes and to see the benefit of doing this work in addition to normal duties.

“Once completed, the Quality Management System will be a strong support system for aviation weather services and increase the credibility and reliability of the service, hence increasing the potential for cost recovery from the services provided.”

There will be 2 more such workshops over the next year and a half as the Pacific moves to meet ICAO standards within 3 years time for which SPREP will also work in providing to the region in continued partnership with the Government of Finland.

“SPREP has been involved for more than 16 years now in the coordination of capacity building activities centered on the national meteorological services in the Pacific, and around the meetings of the Regional Meteorological Services Directors. The objectives and purpose of the workshop falls readily in line with the objectives of SPREP.” Said the Acting Director of SPREP Mr. Kosi Latu.
The workshop ends on Friday 18 September with a special closing by the Ambassador, Special Representative of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland, Mr. Pasi Patokallio, who will be visiting Samoa.

For more details please contact Dean Solofa the Pacific Island Global Climate Observation Systems Officer at SPREP.
E: [email protected] T: (685) 21929 F: (685) 20231 W: www.sprep.org

Pacific Year of Climate Change Website: http://www.sprep.org/climate_change/PYCC/index.asp

Photo Caption: Delegates attending the inaugural workshop for Aviation Weather Services for Pacific Meteorological Services in Apia.