Articles by Utopia Support

Noise complaints at weekend

Tuesday 13 April 2010 | Published in Smoke Signals

The weekend was nearly incident-free for police, whose biggest problem was a high number of excessive noise complaints. On Saturday morning at 4.50am, a car crashed into a taro patch on the back road at Takuvaine. The man sustained only minor injuries but blew a breathalyser reading of 490 mg/s and will appear in the […]

OIA request on Telecom documents

Tuesday 13 April 2010 | Published in Smoke Signals

An official information request has been made to the office of the Prime Minister Jim Marurai for documents relating to Telecom Cook Islands by local company Mervin Communications. Director William Framhein confirmed he made the Official Information Act (OIA) request last month and is expecting a final response shortly. Framhein did not wish to divulge […]

No worries

Tuesday 13 April 2010 | Published in Smoke Signals

“We all know that the Police are trying hard to clamp down on road speeders,” writes a smoke signaller, “but on a Saturday morning drive to town, doing 50k, I was overtaken by three boy bike racers doing 60 plus k without helmets. They don’t have a care in the world and apparently no fear […]

Primary soccer set to go

Tuesday 13 April 2010 | Published in Football

The Cook Islands Football Association will be holding the annual Rarotonga Primary School One Day Soccer Tournament for Grades 4, 5 and 6 at the CIFA complex in Matavera today. Rarotonga primary schools have put together boys, girls and mixed teams to compete and show their ball skills and to test themselves against each other. […]

Rakahanga gets broadband

Monday 12 April 2010 | Published in Local

Rakahanga, one of the northern-most islands in the nation, now enjoys access to the internet via broadband technology. In March, a team of Telecom engineers travelled through the northern group for two weeks for upgrades and maintenance work, and while in Manihiki also visited sister island Rakahanga to install satellite capabilities and a Broadband ADSL […]

Education review

Monday 12 April 2010 | Published in Local

Cabinet has approved an independent review of the country’s education sector this year. Last week the ministers endorsed a proposal for the review which has been in the pipeline for the last decade and will look at the structure of the education sector and rationalising its services. According to prime minister and education minister Jim […]

Vaka fleet prepare for epic voyage

Monday 12 April 2010 | Published in Local

A sight not seen for hundreds of years greeted boaties on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour on Sunday when four traditional vaka sailed in an inner harbour regatta. The skippers of the double-hulled, 13-tonne, 22m-long vaka – modelled on the original Cook Islands design of Te Au O Tonga – were fine-tuning their vessels in readiness for […]

'Grand Plan' sidelines little guys

Monday 12 April 2010 | Published in Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor, So the Tourism Board has a Grand Plan and they want the whole country to buy into it. They want government to double its expenditure on tourism, they want the industry to increase their expenditure on marketing, and they want us all ‘on board the vaka’ paddling in the same direction. Never mind […]

Local politics in a nutshell

Monday 12 April 2010 | Published in Smoke Signals

“Let’s summarise and quantify the political mess,” a smoke signaller writes. “The Democratic party is now in three parts: the Toa-gate bunch (6) and a Demo-splinter group (4) that sort of supports the third lot that happens to be in control (6). Then, there’s the Cook Islands Party including an independent (8) that certainly has […]

Demo divide deepens

Saturday 10 April 2010 | Published in Local

The Democratic Party divide has now grown with the executive hoping to stop any members supporting prime minister Jim Marurai’s cabinet from using the party name. Yesterday the Democratic Party central executive and caucus members said it had decided not to attend a meeting called by the ‘Demo faction’ in support of the ‘government’ on […]

Teen taken from paradise to prison

Saturday 10 April 2010 | Published in Local

Police sergeant Avere Naku escorted an 18-year-old man from Aitutaki to the Arorangi prison this week. Ngatokorua Imanuera appeared before three justices of the peace in Aitutaki on April 1. He pleaded guilty to two charges of unlawful taking, one charge of trespassing, five charges of residential theft and four burglaries. Police had been searching […]

Toa in court

Saturday 10 April 2010 | Published in Local

Crown fights $10m profit ‘agreement’ Court proceedings started yesterday to decide on the out-of-court agreement made on government’s behalf last year to guarantee Toa Petroleum an annual profit of $1.2 million over the next eight years. The case is being heard before Justice Tom Weston, and is scheduled for April 21-22. Weston has 30 years […]

Justice desperate

Saturday 10 April 2010 | Published in Features

With the restoration of the Arorangi prison nearly complete, Secretary of Justice Mark Short is shifting his focus to other areas of immediate concern within the ministry. Short says that Justice’s problems stem from a “shocking” lack of funding. He says that the ministry is under-funded and under-resourced, which means it cannot and does not […]

It's a disgrace

Saturday 10 April 2010 | Published in Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor, Just reading all the articles in the local paper is a disgrace to both parties (CIP & Demo). We have a major problem here amongst both parties. Why are you guys showing your incompetency in leading the country by running each other down? New Zealand, Australia, United States are not even doing this, […]

So much bickering and battling

Saturday 10 April 2010 | Published in Letters to the Editor

We don’t want any more stupid leaders! Dear Editor, It is so disappointing to return home and find that we are still our own worst enemies. How can we possibly expect the elected leaders, of this country or any organisation, to do their job well in a climate of so much bickering and internal battling […]

Kata - April 10, 2010

Saturday 10 April 2010 | Published in Kata

Political qualifications

Saturday 10 April 2010 | Published in Smoke Signals

“It would appear that Mr Maggie has all the prerequisites to become a very successful politician,” a reader writes. “Little education, convicted criminal, arsonist, done a bit of Porridge. He is one step ahead of the other contestants in that he achieved his qualifications before entering politics. Should he make it into the hallowed house […]

A gospel crippled by lifestyle

Friday 9 April 2010 | Published in Church Talk

God has called us to a lifestyle which glorifies Him. Are we not told to glorify God in whatever we do (1 Cor. 10:31)? How many of us do? Look at the believers in Christ of today. We see all manner of lifestyles which do not glorify Him – swearing, getting drunk, hate, sexual immorality. […]

What's different about a Christian

Friday 9 April 2010 | Published in Church Talk

In these verses Paul is thinking of the Christians as the chosen people of God, and his mind runs along three lines. He thinks of the fact of God’s choice. Paul never thought of himself as having chosen to do God’s work. He always thought of God as having chosen him. Jesus said to his […]

NZ will give more: McCully

Friday 9 April 2010 | Published in Local

NZ foreign minister Murray McCully says NZ’s $5.5 million Aitutaki cyclone recovery assistance package will be increased if necessary in the efforts to help rebuild homes lost in February. “The $5.5 million contribution should resource most of what we need to do, but I’ve made it clear that if we need to do some more, […]