REGION: Memo to PINA - and other stories

Memo to PINA – get your Vanuatu facts right
AUCKLAND: So PINA finally came to the party, after days of Pacific journos asking around the region’s traps why hasn’t the main media organisation taken up the cudgels of media freedom? Yet again? PINA finally acted four days after the March 4 brutal political attack and assault on Vanuatu Daily Post publisher Marc Neil-Jones. The publisher plans to take a private prosecution against Public Utilities Minister Harry Iauko and the “gang of eight” henchmen, who were allegedly led by the politician in the attack, if the police fail to act.
Read more

Vanuatu's 'gang of brutes' and climate of impunity
Devastating. This was the withering attack in an editorial by the "the board" of Transparency Vanuatu against disgraced Infrastructure and Public Works Minister Harry Iauko. Under fire from all media and civil society quarters, but mostly from Transparency (TV), the minister should fall on his sword and quit politics. But it will never happen. Will Prime Minister Sato Kilman sit up and take notice, let alone purge his thuggish minister? Hardly. His majority is too slender. Self interest is the name of the game. The Vanuatu politicians will close ranks and shield their rotten apple.
Read more
 
Libya: The African mercenary question
John Liebhardt, who a year or two ago was posting some excellent analytical blogs on post-coup political developments in Fiji – in contrast to the rabid anti-coup blogs (and some pro-blogs for that matter) that were obsessed with political point scoring and obscuring the truth – has recently turned his attention to the Middle East. This extract is from his post on the vexed “mercenary” issue on Global Voices - and the full article is well worth a browse. It strikes a chord whenCafé Pacificrecalls the foiled Sandline mercenary adventure plot against rebels in Bougainville in 1997:
Read more