Mission & Justice

Andrew Darby; 17/5/08

The first humpbacks have begun their annual migration along the Australian coast. They may be safe from Japanese whalers, but perils remain. Australia’s largest single wild animal migration, the coastal trek of the humpback whale, is expanding yearly into a major spectacle. This week’s sporadic first sightings in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania show the lead animals in the yearly passage between Antarctica and the tropics are on their way north again. Up the coast, humpback season has started. Perched on a sandstone cliff from dawn to last light, a group of whale watchers at Cape Solander, south of Sydney, has seen a quadrupling in a decade, with 1295 whales sliding by in only 69 days last year. And many others swam through in the dark.

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Rowan Callick; 17/5/08

Papua New Guinea’s Planning Minister Paul Tiensten signed, when acting foreign minister, a draft communique switching the country’s diplomatic recognition from China to Taiwan. And lawyer Florian Gubon, a former chairman of Telikom, PNG’s equivalent of Telstra, said he was authorised by Prime Minister Michael Somare to receive $220,000 from the Taiwan Government for the travel costs of a delegation to Taipei led by Mr Tiensten. These are among the latest revelations in the growing scandal involving $32million deployed by the outgoing Taiwan Government via two Taiwanese middle-men to secure PNG’s switched loyalty 18 months ago.

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13/5/08

Six countries in the region are working on their submissions to the United Nations (UN) to claim extra ocean space. According to Fijilive, the six island nations ‘are beginning to feel the pressure to complete their submissions to the United Nations to claim extra ocean space, with only one year remaining to the May 2009 deadline, says the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC)’. ‘The Maritime Boundaries Project Officer with SOPAC, Emily Artack said Fiji along with Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga and Papua New Guinea have a credible claim to more than 1.5 million square kilometres of additional space beyond their current 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)’.

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12/5/08

Betel nut chewing contributes to the degradation of coral reefs, was a message among others that stood out at the launch of the Pacific year of reefs 2008. People who enjoy chewing betel nuts were told to think twice about how much damage their habit has done to the reefs. An observer at the stall display pointed out that in the Maringe District of Isabel Province, people have damaged the coral reefs in order to produce the lime for betel nut chewing.

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Sandra O’Malley; 8/5/08

Australia and New Zealand deny they have ditched the possibility of legal action to stop Japanese whaling. Rejecting a report that New Zealand had abandoned taking the legal route, both countries say it remains an option although a diplomatic solution remains their preferred course of action. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who is on two-day visit to Tokyo, insisted international legal action remained an option among Australia’s strategies to get Japan to stop the annual cull. “We’ll make a decision about the need for legal action in due course at a time of our own choosing, but we are very keen to exhaust diplomatic measures to try and bring this matter to a conclusion,” Mr Smith said.

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Dennis Shanahan; 8/5/08

Australia is likely to abandon its $1 million attempt to take Japan to the international court over whaling after New Zealand gave up its plans to use legal action to stop the annual cull. The Rudd Government embraced the use of the UN’s international court soon after theelection, using aircraft and ships to gather evidence against Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean.  But the New Zealand Government has since discovered “significant difficulties” with taking Japan to the international court and has abandoned the tactic.

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Joanna Siherheti; 6/5/08

There is nothing like walking through Honiara to come across a young man standing around the busy street with an owl. It turned out that the young man, who caused public stir on Friday with his rare catch of an owl, was actually waiting for a potential buyer. In an interview with the young man from north Malaita, Mickey Gwalu spoke of his interest in keeping birds and selling them to expatriates.

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6/5/08

Government identifies three key sectors to take over from logging Tourism, Fisheries and Agriculture sectors have been identified by the CNURA government to take over from logging. Acting Finance Minister, Gordon Darcy Lilo made the announcement in a press conference with local media last week. “It is so important to prepare ourselves structurally, with the sector that will be able to take over the burden of generating economic benefits to the country that is currently being done by the logging sector.”

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Rowan Callick; 5/5/08

The Taiwan Government has lost $32 million it gave to two men who claimed they could use it to persuade the Papua New Guinean Government to switch its diplomatic loyalty from Beijing to Taipei. The scandal came to light when Taiwan began legal proceedings in Singapore to recover the money and Singaporean newspaper Lianhe Zaobao reported on the case. The men who were given the money, which was paid into a Singapore bank account on their behalf, are Wu Shih-tsai, a 55-year-old brought up in Taiwan but now a Singapore citizen, and Ching Chi-ju, aged 64, who lives in Taiwan but has an American passport.

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2/5/08

An international Catholic network has accused the Vatican of passing over developing nations in new appointments to its laity office. The Cardijn Community International (CCI) has “greeted with dismay the news that 18 out of 24 new appointments to the Pontifical Council for the Laity announced by Pope Benedict XVI last week are from Europe,” it said in an April 28 media release. The community “regrets sidelining laity from the developing countries,” saying that it was “astonishing to find that there is only one new nomination” from Africa and Asia. The statement signed by CCI convener Joseph Ruben asked whether the nominations “imply that 75 percent of the most exciting lay initiatives in the Church today are to be found in Europe.” It quoted Apostolicam Actuositatem, the Second Vatican Council’s “Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity” as saying “the various movements and projects of the apostolate of the laity throughout the world should also be represented in this secretariat.”

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