TODAY is International Women’s Day, and a perfect time to reflect on why it is so important to promote gender equality in the Pacific. In the last decade: womens voices are increasingly being heard and more women are entering the formal workforce. And in the Pacific, political leadership has endorsed the Pacific Leaders Gender Equality…
Christians in the early church, those whose doctrine included the life and example of Jesus, that of his birth, his manhood, his passion, his crucifixion, death and burial and his resurrection and ascension, Lent is an important part of their faith and practice. This season of Lent provides a time in which believers of the…
Australian Aid at all destinations should be reviewed, perhaps through a Royal Commission. For example I saw former PM Howard announce AUS$800 million aid for Solomon Islands but a later SMH report stated $600 million never left Australia. Google “phantom aid” and “boomerang aid”. Solomon Islands people virtually have no money. An experienced SI economist…
I THINK that the prime minister’s intention to sue the Solomon Star and the Forum Solomon Islands International (FSII) for the publication of allegations of sex scandal will be personally and politically detrimental to him. It will harm, more than help, his reputation. I am therefore surprised that his lawyer and close associates have advised…
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…