Croz Walsh's Blog -- New Zealand and Fiji: How Much Fairer They Could Be

In a bizarre extension to Himalayan border disputes fought out on glaciers and in rain forests, India and China are launching a battle of the summits in Fiji next week.
Both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will leave the Brisbane G20 summit next week and head to Fiji.
They will then host separate summits with 13 Pacific nations, each hoping to outflank the other in a complex piece of geopolitical drama.
Openly at stake will be the United Nation's votes of the South Pacific nations, regarded as one of the world's biggest voting blocs.
Strangely India is hoping to weaken the stand taken by Pacific countries over global warming.
Fearing rising sea levels, Pacific states are pressing countries like India to severely cut carbon emissions. Indian political sources think they can weaken the Pacific's united stand.  
In Delhi, the Hindustan Times today quotes Modi political sources saying that the Indian led summit in Fiji “comes in…

Doctor Shortage

Every person who has gone to a  government hospital knows what its like. The wait is long and the time in the doctors examination room is/can (sometimes) be short. Heck the doctor has to see so many and he/she has to try and see them all. Some people will undergo a through examination and some will get a fleeting glance and the doctor has mad a diagnosis. For the experienced doctors, they will know the genuine case and the one who came in for a sick sheet. (Here I speak from my days as a customs officer - re sick sheet, but that's another story.)

Sometimes people who go there do not really need to go and see a doctor. They probably have a headache in their stomach or big toe. But they have the right to go and see a doctor if they so need.

We, the people who go to the hospital can see that doctors and nurses are sometimes stressed. And I ask, how well can a person under stress perform? No wonder some people get the wrong medication prescribed to them.

Furthermore, t…

As always, Wadan makes some good points (his articles in the Fiji Times are solely missed even though the anti-Bainimarama blogs recycle them all) but why does he see membership of the Forum as so important to friendship and normal diplomatic relations between Fiji and Australia/NZ?  Fiji is not the only Pacific Island nation to have serious concerns about the overly dominant role of the 'big brothers" in regional affairs.  It could well be time for that role to be re-examined — politely, of course. - Croz


Bainimarama and the Pacific Islands Forum:  a Storm in a Calm Ocean
By Prof. Wadan Narsey

Thinking members of the public would have been pleased to see the Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) announce that Fiji was being admitted back into this regional organization. But immediately, they would have been horrified that Bainimarama is demanding, as a pre-condition, that either Australia and NZ relinquish being full members and become only development partners like Japan, C…