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New Zealand has stepped in to try to stall a crisis as Pacific countries struggle to pay their fuel bills.

New Zealand has paid for petrol experts to find an answer to the crisis amid concern that rioting could erupt in New Zealand if the crisis makes its way here.

“We haven’t seen instability arise because of rising fuel prices in the region yet, but it is something we are continuing to monitor closely,” NZ Foreign Affairs spokesman Mark Talbot says.

The Marshall Islands is under an economic state of emergency because they cannot pay for their next fuel shipment, with other islands not far behind.

“In my view it is dire; it is critical,” Jared Morris of the Pacific Islands forum says.

Most Pacific countries get their power via generators but diesel costs are also soaring.

Edward Vrkic from the Pacific Islands Forum says there are implications for keeping public services going, such as schools and hospitals.

Some islands are spending up to 70% of their gross national income on petrol subsidies so power stations can continue to supply electricity. To save costs they are preparing to bulk buy fuel and sharing high transport costs.

While Niue and Tuvalu have the highest prices in the region, Cook Islanders are paying up to $3.15 a litre.

“Our geographical location is one of the major factors that have contributed to high fuel prices. It has fallen hard on the people of Niue,” says George Valiana.

Refugees from the West Papua who are currently living in Papua New Guinea have expressed that they wish to settle in Vanuatu, instead of PNG.

As reported by PNG’s The National, the refugees who were evicted from Eight-Mile, National Capital District, last year, said ‘they wanted to leave for a third country despite the reluctance of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to resettle them’.

‘Leader of the West Papuan displaced refugees Freddy Waromi said there were 148 people from 25 families living under makeshift tents and tarpaulins, with only one water tap and a dug pit toilet’ and that the “Vanuatu council of chiefs has indicated to adopt us as Melanesian brothers and sisters, but the only problem is that Vanuatu is not a signatory to the UN refugee charter”.

West Papua is under Indonesian rule and many had fled over the border to PNG during the times of unrest.

‘According to Mr Waromi, the UNHCR granted them refugee status in 1980 and the PNG Government had also earlier granted them permissive residential status, but now both parties wanted to repatriate the refugees back to West Papua’.

According to the report, ‘ABC news reported that the UNHCR would not resettle the West Papuan refugees living in PNG in Vanuatu’ and UNHCR regional representative in Canberra, Richard Towle, ’said the West Papuans had been campaigning to the UNHCR to be resettled in Vanuatu but their plea had been rejected’.

He stated that from their point of view, “resettlement is really a last resort for the most deserving on the basis of protection needs” and that they did not think “that this group falls within that category” and that ‘the PNG Government would rather see the refugees return home across the border to the Indonesian-governed Papua’.

But Mr. Waromi stated that “UNHCR wanted us to go back to West Papua but the sad fact is that we will be dead when we go back. UNHCR arranged for some of our Melanesian brothers to go back to East Awin in 2001 and none of those who got repatriated are alive today; they are all dead.”

PNG hill tribes negotiate peace deal

In Papua New Guinea, at least 30 warring hill tribes from the Southern Highlands have agreed to lay down their arms and cease generations of fighting in what’s being described as the regions first peace agreement. The so-called Tari District peace deal has taken 5 years to negotiate through a series of peace building activities organised by a team of local and international volunteers lead by a former Philippines born nun now living in Australia.

Sri Lankan refugees duped by HK traffickers

Hong Kong-based agents are charging US$11,800 to smuggle Sri Lankan refugees to Papua New Guinea, the Post-Courier reported.

The newspaper, quoting unnamed PNG intelligence service officers, says the human smuggling operators are charging $31,600 for refugees who want to go on to Australia. These smuggling groups are reportedly using agents in PNG.

“But it still looks like they came into PNG to have easy access somehow to Australia because they would not have had an easy way out if they had gone straight to Australia from wherever they came from.

“But in any case, coming to PNG, especially from a dangerous grouping, is a threat to the national security of this country in itself,” the intelligence officers said.

Corruption, disease and poverty threaten the futures of Melanesian countries that are home to 85 percent of Pacific Islands people, a top New Zealand official said Tuesday.

The populations of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are rising at a pace that is outstripping economic growth, Pacific Island Affairs Minister Winnie Laban said at the opening of a symposium on Melanesia in the New Zealand capital, Wellington.

The countries also suffer from youth unemployment, law-and-order “problems,” and adverse effects of global warming, Laban said. All these conditions together represent a “toxic mix” undermining growth and stability in these countries, she said.

“In combination, these factors pose clear and present danger to the ability of states in the region to provide for their people and ensure national viability,” Laban said at the event, sponsored by the Pacific Cooperation Foundation.

HIV, AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are a brake on the region’s potential, while education trends are also troubling, she said.

Four years of communal fighting in the Solomon Islands have left education services “in tatters,” with only 70 percent of children able to access limited education, Laban said.

“To be blunt, corruption seems endemic and undermines governance at almost every turn,” she said.

Melanesian countries play a major role in the Pacific tuna fishery, currently worth around US$3 billion a year. But overfishing of a number of tuna species means reductions in catches are urgently required to preserve the industry’s sustainability, she said.

Laban praised Melanesian countries New Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands for maintaining a unified front in pressuring Fiji’s military government to honor its pledge to hold elections by March 2009.

Melanesian leaders last month joined other Pacific Islands’ Forum states in expressing disappointment at Fiji’s delays in restoring a democratic government.

In the era of neoliberal globalization, the large centers of World power, headed by the United States and Europe, often forget the needs and problems of the small island states, whose physical existence is threatened by phenomenons for which they are not responsible.

These small and vulnerable islands, from the Caribbean or South Pacific for example, are seriously threatened by global challenges such as climate change, natural disasters, and problems of development, scarce energy resources or food crises.

It is no secret that these groups of States suffer from geographic isolation, communications and transportation problems.

Even between themselves they are separated by thousands of kilometers, making contacts difficult.

But without a doubt, the main challenge for these small territories are climate changes, as they are more susceptible to suffering the consequences derived from global warming, among them the alarming rise of sea level.

Archipelagos like Kiribati and Tuvalu run the risk of disappearing in the near future if the pace of the rise of sea level continues.

Cuba is also not exempt from these dangers, like the recent devastation inflicted by two hurricanes.

This is why it is necessary for an exchange of information and cooperation among the group of small nations to help each other in facing the challenges of nature and the environment.

On the other hand, Cuba, lacking financial resources and economically blockaded by the US government, has international recognition for its vocation to internationalism and solidarity not to contribute leftovers, but shares what it has, mainly its well prepared human capital encouraged throughout the last 50 years.

An example of these fraternal ties is the creation of a School of Medicine in the western province of Pinar del Rio for the training of 400 students from the South Pacific, of which 64 have already enrolled (25 from the Solomon Islands, 20 from Kiribati, 2 from Nauru and 17 from Vanuatu).

Also, Cuban medical brigades are offering their services in Kiribati, the Solomon and Vanuatu Islands, through the General Health Program, while details are being ironed out for the implementation of health cooperation with Tuvalu, Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

An exemplary cooperation, which is a clear revelation, without conditions and on an equal basis.

tok baksait = gossip about
tok bilas = ridicule
tok bilong bipo yet = fable / myth
tok bilong ol tumbuna = tradition of ancestors
tok bokis = secret language / parable
tok grisim = flatter
tok gude = greet
tok gumi = tall tale
tok hait = secret
tok insait = conscience
tok pait = controversy
tok ples = local language
tok tru = speak the truth / truth
toktok = talk / conversation
tokautim sin / confess
tokim = tell
toksave = advertisement / information / explain
tok save long = explain
toktok long = talk about
toktok wantaim = converse with
tokwin = rumour

South Pacific island nations have armies of unemployed and underemployed people who will turn to violence if its economic, social and political problems are not dealt with, a report by a Sydney-based think-tank said.

“It is only a matter of time before the growing army of unemployed and underemployed turns from restless to violent,” said a new report on the South Pacific released on Thursday, adding that the region’s poor economic development lags similar island nations like those in the Caribbean.

The report by the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney said two million Pacific island men, or four out of five, were unemployed in towns or villages.

“These islanders are bored and frustrated. Unemployment and underemployment are at the core of the Pacific’s ‘arc of instability,’ ” it said.

The South Pacific has some of the world’s smallest and poorest countries, with economies reliant upon tourism, logging, royalties from fishing and foreign aid. The island nations of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji have all suffered coups, military rebellions and civil unrest, and have been labelled an “arc of instability” by Pacific analysts.

The report titled The Bipolar Pacific”said the South Pacific was divided into nations which are developing and those failing to even supply running water and electricity in homes. Those floundering islands included Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, while those developing were the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Samoa and Tonga.

“Without employment-led growth, crime and corruption will worsen. Port Moresby (the capital of Papua New Guinea) has become one of the most violent cities in the world,” it said.

“With major criminal interests now operating in the region, the Pacific is developing its comparative advantage as a location for international criminal activities such as people-smuggling, drug production, and arms trafficking,” the report noted.

The danger was that about 80 per cent of the South Pacific’s population was found in the failing group of islands, where employment was rare and living standards were not rising, it said.

Throughout the country goods and services cost more, thanks to the increase in the global fuel price, which is being passed on to businesses and consumers, according to the Bank of Papua New Guinea. In 2007, the fuel price per litre was around K2 (US$0.72) compared with K5 ($1.82) now.

Many remote communities in Papua New Guinea are not accessible by road so air service is vital to their local economies. However, some small airlines, including Madang-based Airlink, have cut back or ceased operations because of higher fuel costs. National flag carrier Air Niugini continues to increase fuel surcharges because of the high cost of aviation fuel.

In Bougainville, an autonomous island which is still an integral part of Papua New Guinea, taxis charge K100 ($36.45) for a three-hour ride to and from mainland Bougainville to Buka Island and another K2 ($0.72) just to make a three-minute crossing by boat to and from Buka Island. The whole trip used to cost only K20 ($7.00), a price that was quite affordable for a worker who earns an average of K300 ($100) a fortnight. The price increases really hurt, workers say.

One vehicle owner, Francis Baru, said, “We sympathise with passengers travelling in our vehicles but at the same time we also need to make enough money to repay our loans and look after our families.

“If fuel prices continue to rise,” he said, “we will be forced to pass on these additional costs to our passengers, but we hope they will fall … that will be really good for all of us,” Baru said.

In Manus, an island province north of Port Moresby, the capital, fares are even higher as people are dependent on boats, which are particularly costly to run.

Linus Pokanau, a fisherman and boat owner from Manus Island, said the price of zoom (petrol mixed with oil) was the most expensive and many boats now were anchored as fishermen could not afford the fuel.

Thomas Abe, chief executive officer for a consumer watchdog group, Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC), expects fuel prices to continue rising due to global demand. The ICCC regulates the pricing formulae of petroleum products in the country.

Even though Papua New Guinea is a crude-oil producing country, once the oil is refined by InterOil, a Canadian petroleum company, consumers pay a rate closely pegged to the world rate.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Mining, Puka Temu, in June announced that the government would start subsidising fuel prices on 1 September 2008, by reducing the excise duties on fuel products, which would cut the prices of petroleum products significantly.

“Eliminating the excise tax on zoom will be of particular assistance to those that use small boats for transportation and for fishing in rural areas,” he said.

“Reducing the excise on diesel will also help PMV [taxi] drivers, transport companies and those who run power generators, while reducing excise on petrol will help all those drivers who dread having to fill up at the petrol station. This government says it is working with key stakeholders to see if there are other ways that the price of fuel at the pump can be minimized,” Temu said.

Almost 200 people have been arrested in Vanuatu after tribal violence flared amid claims of black magic.

Three people have been killed in the South Pacific island nation.

A state of emergency has been declared after fighting broke out at the Blacksands squatter camp on the outskirts of the capital, Port Vila.

The fighting - sparked by accusations that a sorcerer had used witchcraft to kill a rival - escalated rapidly and spread through the settlement.

Blacksands is home to thousands of people who have migrated to the capital from other parts of Vanuatu.

Villagers from the islands of Ambrym and Tanna fought with machetes and knives. Local police said the ethnic violence was the worst the Melanesian nation had ever seen.

It left three men dead and others seriously hurt. Dozens of people have been arrested, including a number of tribal chiefs.

A state of emergency has been imposed and public meetings have been banned for the next two weeks.

The country’s unarmed police officers have been given special permission to carry weapons just in case there is more trouble.

Many residents across Vanuatu’s archipelago have been forbidden from travelling to Efate, the main island where Port Vila is located.

Although Christianity has strong roots in this corner of the South Pacific, witchcraft and superstition remain powerful forces.

On the island of Tanna villagers worship a mystical American called John Frum, while others believe that the husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is a god. Vanuatu’s Great Council of Chiefs is expected to meet next week to look at ways to defuse tensions between rival tribes in Port Vila.

Kastom

One of the many unique aspects of kastom is the bulu scar. Believing they are vulnerable to an attack from a devil while walking alone through the forest, the people from this highland tribe of Vanuatu go to painful measures to do what they believe will protect them. Taking a burnt thorn from a sago palm, they push it into their flesh and then set it on fire. It sears the flesh, festers, and then forms a scab which will heal into a bulu scar. They do this because they believe that by enduring this pain they arouse the compassion of a powerful spirit they call Taute, and in turn Taute empowers the bulu to ward off evil spirits and damate (ancestral ghosts) when they travel through the jungle.

A boy receives his first bulu when he is five to seven years old. At that time, a minimum of five holes are burnt into the flesh of his biceps and as many as thirty if he can endure the pain. Since they believe a protective spirit enters each wound, they feel the more the better. After receiving their bulus, the boys are lowered into a pit where they live in isolation for ten days surviving only on wild yams that have been cooked in bamboo. During these ten days the boys are forbidden to leave the pit for any reason. This period of isolation is believed to be a form of rebirth and spiritual growth.

France’s former president, Jacques Chirac, has launched his new foundation,which will support projects aimed at promoting sustainable development and cultural diversity, with a special focus on languages and cultures threatened with extinction.

One of its first projects will be a programme to preserve what is left of the Araki language, now spoken by only eight people on one island in Vanuatu.

The population of the Pacific is set to reach nearly 9.5 million by the middle of this year.

New data from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community shows the region’s population is growing by 1.9 per cent a year, or 500 people a day.

The population estimates are compiled by the Secretariat from country statistics.

The report predicts the population of Melanesia will grow to more than eight-point-three million people, Polynesia to more than 655,000 and Micronesia more than 530,000 by mid-year.

The largest individual country population is that of Papua New Guinea, which has an estimated six-point-five million people, followed by Fiji with nearly 840,000.

The smallest is Pitcairn Island with just 66 people.

Predictably, the fastest-growing population is that of Guam, where thousands of American troops are being relocated from Japan.

Both Niue and the Northern Marianas are experiencing a decrease in residents, the latter because of the lack of jobs.

Fiji and Papua New Guinea have been added to a United States blacklist of countries trafficking in people.

The Tier Three blacklist is contained in the US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons report.

The report analyses efforts in 170 countries to combat trafficking for forced labour, prostitution, military service and other purposes.

Pacific correspondent, Campbell Cooney, says the report claims Fiji is a source country for children trafficked for sexual exploitation, and a destination for women from China and India for forced labour and exploitation.

It also claims Papua New Guinea is the destination for women and children from Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and China for sexual exploitation in cities, towns and isolated logging and mining camps.

Remaining on the Tier Three list are Sudan, Syria, Algeria, Iran, Burma and Cuba, while Malaysia and Bahrain have been removed.

In introducing the report, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said human trafficking deprives people of their human rights and dignity, and “bankrolls the growth of organised crime”.

“The petty tyrants who exploit their labourers rarely receive serious punishment,” she said.

“We and our allies must remember that a robust law enforcement response is essential.”

Meanwhile, the Netherlands has allocated $US2.5 million for the elimination of child labour in Papua New Guinea.

The National newspaper reports the funding is part of a 36-month program that also covers Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

PNG acting deputy secretary for Labour and Industrial Relations, Martin Kase, says the program will help determine the extent of child labour in the country.

He says current data is inadequate.

The South Pacific country of Vanuatu has been voted the happiest place in the world so what makes its inhabitants such a happy lot?

The twin pillars of a classically happy life - strong family ties and a general absence of materialism - are common throughout this island nation

Jean Pierre John is living the dream. That popular fantasy of owning one’s own island, complete with swaying coconut palms, coral sea and tropical forest, is his for real.

On the island called Metoma, in the far north of Vanuatu, Jean Pierre can look around and truly say that he is master of all he surveys.

This single fact would put Jean Pierre in an exclusive club, you would think, one made up of billionaire businessmen, royalty and rock stars.

But Jean Pierre is none of these things. In fact, he could not be more different.

On Metoma, Jean Pierre and his family live in thatched huts.

They have no electricity or running water, no radio or television, and their only mode of transport is a rowing boat, which pretty much limits them to trips to the neighbouring island.

On top of that, they have little money and few opportunities to make any.

No money?! Suddenly their island life does not sound all that glamorous. But here’s the thing, the Johns really are happy.

This may sound surprising but living on their island they want for nothing.

Local produce

All the family’s food comes from on or around Metoma. Coconuts, yam, and manioc - their staple diet - are all grown on the island and then, of course, there is a sea full of fish to harvest.

And if fish protein gets boring, there is always the occasional fruit bat, from a colony that roosts on the island.

Indeed, food is so easy to gather that the family appears to have a lot of relaxation time.

When the Johns do have money - perhaps when they sell one of the few cows they own - they will buy soap powder and kerosene for their lamps.

But if not, they are just as happy to make do with island solutions - sticks which can be crushed to make soap and coconut oil in place of kerosene.

Some useful items are even washed up onto their island - buoys from boats are cut in half to make bowls and old fishing nets are recycled as hammocks.

It may sound like a Robinson Crusoe existence, and in many ways it is, but the Johns are not castaways. They live on Metoma out of choice.

Jean Pierre had not heard that Vanuatu had been voted happiest country in the world but, when I told him, he nodded in a knowingly happy sort of way

It is not as if they have not experienced some of the trappings of a more modern world.

Jean Pierre grew up on one of Vanuatu’s larger islands and still makes the occasional visit. His eldest son, Joe, even went to school in the nation’s capital.

In fact Joe, a very easy-going 28-year-old, had recently returned to Metoma to live full time and he told me that the only thing he missed was hip hop music, but that it was a small price to pay for living on the island.

No money worries

Jean Pierre had not heard that Vanuatu had been voted happiest country in the world but, when I told him, he nodded in a knowingly happy sort of way.

So what is his secret of happiness?

“Not having to worry about money,” he immediately replies, while picking his nose in an uninhibited way.

If you asked the same question in the UK, you would probably get the same response. The only difference is that, in Jean Pierre’s case, it means not needing any money, rather than having bundles of it.

We can all repeat the mantra “money can’t buy you happiness” until we are blue in the face, but deep down, how many of us in the West really believe it to be true?

But I can see that Jean Pierre’s happiness is more than just a question of money. It also comes from having his family around him, and there is undoubtedly an enormous respect between them.

Absence of materialism

His children - and this includes those of adult age - do anything their father asks, not out of coercion but because they genuinely want to please.

Forget the Waltons, the Johns are the real McCoy: one happy family.

While talking to Jean Pierre, I find myself wondering whether he is the most contented person I have ever met.

But he is keen to know whether I am having a good time on his island too. Every day he asks me if I am happy. When I tell him things are great, his eyes light up and he replies in pidgin, “Oh, tenkyu.”

Whether happiness can truly be measured is a debatable point, but there is no doubt that Metoma - or indeed Vanuatu as a whole - has the ingredients to encourage a greater sense of happiness.

The twin pillars of a classically happy life - strong family ties and a general absence of materialism - are common throughout this island nation.

The simple things in life, it seems, really do make you happy.

A 58-year-old Australian man is due to be extradited to from Western Australia to the state of New South Wales after police broke up an international money laundering scheme.

The alleged scheme operated in Australia, Vanuatu and New Zealand and involved around $US87 million.

Robert Agius, who had been living in Vanuatu, has been charged with fraud and money laundering offences relating to the scheme, which was exposed by a police task force targeting tax evasion.

Australian federal police officer, Warren Gray, says around 400 people put money into a scheme, allegedly operated by Agius, in which millions of dollars was moved into offshore bank accounts to avoid tax

Agius was arrested on Monday in the western Australian city of Perth, and appeared briefly in court where he was ordered to be returned to Sydney to face trial.

He faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison if convicted.

Vanuatu’s Pentecost Island can boast to have the only newspaper that’s written by hand.

The Pentecost Star, now eight months old, is a weekly newspaper.

It is the brainchild of Keith Hango, a former newspaper boy for the Trading Post newspaper.

The newsletter is written in English and comes out every Saturday.

Hango single-handedly writes all of the newspaper’s contents by hand.

His only tools are pen, paper, ruler and a stapler and staples all of which he buys himself.

Hango said he started the newsletter because he saw a great need to disseminate interesting, factual information to the people of Pentecost.