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From The Crowd
24th October
From the Crowd: Coming out
WHILE many of us are still under all sorts of lockdown restrictions, we who are in Sydney due to various reasons or Acts of God, are facing the delightful prospect of rejoining you. I would...
23rd October
Carotid stenosis
Sound like a carrot smoothie … it is actually the abnormal narrowing of a blood vessel in the neck. This blood vessel supplies the brain with oxygen and nutrient to function. To understand this medical condition we have to go back to the basics of the human anatomy (study of the normal human body and its functions)...
Diagnosing the state of Fiji’s health system
Hospitals are the primary ultimate healthcare facility. The anecdotal evidence suggests that Fiji’s health system and facilities are in pretty poor shape. Drug shortages are commonplace, health infrastructure is in a deplorable condition in some places, and new hospitals that were commissioned years ago are either incomplete or still remain inaccessible to customers. To add to the problem, constructive criticism...
Gareth Baber leaves a mark and an impression
Olympic Sevens gold-winning hero and our head coach Gareth Baber is to join Edinburgh as skills and assistant attack coach. The 49-year-old Welshman will move to Scotland in December, having been in his role as Fiji 7s head coach since January 2017. The former Cardiff Blues coach had a spectacular spell with Fiji, guiding our national 7s...
Sport post-COVID
Sport ground to a halt in April as our country was hit by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. And now, nearly half a year later, I’m looking ahead to tomorrow – the return of competitive sport in the form of football’s Digicel Premier League. Really? Well, you’ll find out my concerns as you...
Benefits of starting young
The following article is part of Consumer Council of Fiji’s (CCoF) Project Financial Resilient Fijians (Project FRF) which is being implemented through partnership with United Nations Capital Development Fund’s (UNCDF) Pacific Insurance and Climate Adaptation Programme (PICAP). The project aims to help Fijian consumers become more financially resilient in the face of natural perils. When...
Promises, promises … Now even one of these can jail you
I’m old enough to remember when politics was fun. In my short career as a Fiji Times reporter I was in the thick of the 1982 General Election. It was a more innocent time in some ways – after all, no one was looking over their shoulder and wondering if there would be a coup...
22nd October
Justice for sorcery – Accusation related violence in PNG
Jesten Jessy was bedridden with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 during the pandemic. Later, he recalled that he had seen a woman doing something, involving sugarcane sprouts. A magic spell to give him fever and weakness? So, while she was sleeping, he beat her to death with a piece of timber. Not every case like this...
21st October
COVID-19 recession – The impact on the Pacific region
The socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 are devastating communities in the Pacific and Timor-Leste as much as the virus itself, and sometimes to an even greater extent. World Vision surveyed 752 households (with an average of six people per household) in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu in late 2020 to better understand the...
20th October
Political crises in Vanuatu and Samoa – Tells us about their past and future
In recent months, both Vanuatu and Samoa have endured political crises. To a casual observer in Canberra or Wellington, their travails might seem part of a common political malaise that affects much of the Pacific. This isn’t the case though. The polities of the Pacific have similarities, but they differ in important ways: different dynamics,...
18th October
Point of Origin: Brothers part ways – Two districts believed to be from the same family
Descendants of the two districts of Tunuloa and Natewa in the province of Cakaudrove are believed to have come from the same family tree – two brothers who arrived in the area in the early days before Christianity. When the brothers arrived, they settled at Naqarautu, now known as Naqaravutu or Qaravutu Village. According to...
