The aid sector gasped this week at the news that the Australian government would divert $375 million of foreign aid away from helping the world’s poorest people towards meeting the costs of supporting asylum seekers in Australia. This decision, perversely, makes Australia the third largest recipient of Australian aid. No right minded individual would deny…
It can choose to be transparent and reveal all or wait for the legal challenge or a Commission of Enquiry, or both, to unravel its callous handling of the Members’ Fund. Last Wednesday 21 November, in the Solomon Star, Malaita Ma’asina Forum (MMF) warned NPF that if it did not come clean on certain actions…
THE Leadership Code Commission urgently needs to be reformed. This was one of the key messages delivered by the Taskforce on Political Integrity and Stability to the Premier’s Conference in Kira Kira last week. The Taskforce recommended that the LCC should be brought under the control of a new Independent Commission Against Corruption, a…
There might be merits in OBE but what concern me most was the lack of consultation and proper debate on OBE and the speed at which it was introduced. OBE will affect the future of Solomon Islands in a drastic way, either for good or for worse. Hence, careful consideration, wide consultation and informed debate…
The belief by some Rennellese that logging will make them rich is really a joke. The truth is logging will not only going to destroy Rennell biodiversity, but it will also cause huge financial loss to the people in terms of hewing their logs and the destruction of the environment. Studies shows that tropical rain…
I would like to raise some important aspects of the ‘Outcome-Base Curriculum’ or Outcome Base Education (OBE). Let me begin, by saying, large numbers of children in developing countries, including Solomon Islands receive little or no formal education. Solomon Islands is categorized as one of the developing nations in our world today. Likewise, Papua New…
Last week, with many others I attended the funeral service of Fr John Lamani. It always comes as a shock when someone you know dies. John was only six months older than I am. I do not expect to die in the next six months, and I am equally sure that John did not expect…
LAST week, I spent an hour with journalism students at the University of the South Pacific during their Friday Forum session; a talanoa session during lunch-hour. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) works mainly through its programmes with 14 Pacific island countries but this was an invitation we wouldn’t have missed. We anticipated sharing our…
It was 6pm on a day in March 1996. And Kevin Riria Malopo, a landowner at Gold Ridge, Solomons’ only commercial gold mine outside the capital Honiara, remembers it well. He along with another landowner, Stephen Moffat, were the last hurdle in the development of Solomon Islands’ first commercial gold mine. Up to that point,…
Deep sea mining (DSM) is the new frontier in extractive mining. For the companies involved, as well as the governments that own the mining rights, it offers substantial profits. However DSM is still experimental in nature, with potentially vast adverse environmental effects. It also makes use of new technologies that have yet to be tested.…