Tagata o te Moana is a weekly Pacific programme, broadcast on Radio New Zealand National (Saturdays at 5.30pm). It features news, interviews, and discussion of issues. Presented by Don Wiseman.
The programme for 28 April 2007 includes the following:
- Tonga remains in a state of emergency nearly six months after the November riot. As well as obvious restrictions on movement, the government is continuing to have nothing to do with the pro-democracy MPs, who it blames for fostering the riots. But there are some signs of a warming. For a start, the country’s best known pro-democracy advocate, MP Akilisi Pohiva, who has been charged with sedition and starts his trial next week, has got his passport back. He’s been in Australia and New Zealand this week. He speaks with Don Wiseman.
- New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Fiji, Michael Green, says there’s a lack of consultation by the interim administration, which is ruling by decree. He says this means decisions affecting everyone are being made by a small number of people in Suva. Mr Green also says there’s a need to get to the bottom of the coup culture. In his first interview since the coup, the High Commissioner spoke to Linda Skates on a wide range of issues, beginning with the lack of consultation.
- There’s tension between members of the Pacific community in New Zealand in the Labour Department over perceived flaws in the Seasonal Temporary Workers Scheme which begins on Monday. The Tongan Advisory Council, and the New Zealand-Pacific Business Council say the scheme to bring temporary workers for the horticulture industry needs a lot more work. Melino Maka of the Tongan Advisory Council says there’s been no dialogue with community groups which will bear the burden of pastoral care and better training for the temporary workers. Radio New Zealand’s Pacific Issues Correspondent, Richard Pamatatau, reports. There are comments from Melino Maka, Mike Flanagan, and Kerupi Tavita.
- The Solomon Islands Ministry of Education is sending thirty-five experts to the tsunami affected areas of Western Province and Choiseul. Seven teams of five officers have gathered in Gizo, from where they’ll be dispatched to various regions to survey the extent of damage to schools from the disaster. Janine Sudbury reports.
- The Pacific is once again in the spotlight for human trafficking, and its links to prostitution. There’s been a number of instances of forced prostitution in the past, including in American Samoa, the Marshall Islands, and Papua New Guinea. The latest case is in Palau, as Dubravka Voloder reports. Four Chinese and Taiwanese nationals have been convicted on multiple charges including human trafficking, prostitution, and the breaking of labour laws.
The Attorney General says the charges stem from complaints filed by ten Filipino and Chinese women, who had been lured to the country on the promise of a better life, but ended up in the sex trade.
- Pacific civil society groups have expressed concern about the way the European Union is negotiating economic partnership agreements, or EPAs, with each of the African/Caribbean/Pacific group of nations to which it provides aid. The EPAs are presented as comprehensive trade and development arrangements, but there’s growing opposition to the pressure being applied by the EU for countries to sign. Many groups participating in this week’s Pacific Trade and Education Programme Conference in Apia voiced concern about the EU’s deadline for the conclusion of negotiations by the end of this year, when the current preferences expire. That deadline is to comply with World Trade Organisation requirements.
Earlier this year, Pacific Trade Ministers concluded the Pacific and the EU are still far apart in negotiations, and that the Pacific will not be ready to sign deals by the end of the year. The civil society groups backed the stand this week. The Chairperson of the Pacific Network on Globalisation says they feel the ongoing negotiations are not in the interests of Pacific people.