More Top Stories
$541.7m tourism earnings
25 January 2025
‘Paedophile’ gets 13 years in prison
22 January 2025
Thomas Wynne: Where were our leaders while children suffered?
25 January 2025
Cook Islands passport proposal
6 January 2025
Top cop position advertised
7 December 2024
Police need numbers and bigger budget
9 December 2024
Niki Rattle: A call for stronger human rights protections
10 December 2024
Solid and Hazardous Waste Bill referred to Parliament committee
10 December 2024
DPM defends CIIC finance and travel policies
6 December 2024
Cook Islands has its first mosque
14 November 2024
CI Muslim opens up about her faith and journey
16 November 2024
RAC to address mosque legality
19 November 2024
I don’t expect much change: PM Brown on US Elections
6 November 2024
Fifth weekly Sydney flight to Rarotonga announced
23 October 2024
CIIC directors seek $350,000 in damages over defamatory claims
21 October 2024
Man found guilty of rape, burglary
24 September 2024
Tenants face water bill burden
8 October 2024
Concerns over Minister’s role in inmate work releases: PAC
5 October 2024
Tourism contribution set to surpass half-billion dollar mark
25 September 2024
Parliament Clerk sparks outrage over deep sea mining statement
23 September 2024
Deep sea dilemma: Cook Islanders weigh the cost of mineral riches
21 September 2024
Anxiety on the rise: Cook Islands faces mental health challenge
7 September 2024
Cook Islands deep sea mining poll sparks controversy
7 September 2024
MCI rejects ‘dark fleet’ label
3 August 2024
Rising seas, rising costs: Climate impacts on Cook Islands economy
2 September 2024
Inflation eases but concerns remain
31 August 2024
Prime Minister defends $659,000 MPs travel bill
23 August 2024
Taxpayers foot $659,000 bill for MPs travel and allowance
22 August 2024
Corruption report exposes ‘bribe and sexual favours’
17 January 2023
PM Brown eager to hand over Forum chair role to Tonga
13 August 2024
Challenging ‘rape culture’
8 July 2024
Articles by Utopia Support
Rarotonga's golden egg has cracked
Monday 2 November 2015 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Kia Orana, The concerns around the current weed growth within Muri Lagoon need some very, very urgent attention.
Medical costs don't come into it
Monday 2 November 2015 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear editor, I was on a flight to Auckland in 2013 and my brother-in-law got sick half an hour away from Auckland.
MINISTERS TRAVEL DIARY
Monday 2 November 2015 | Published in Politics
Prime Minister Henry Puna is heading to Paris this week to participate in United Nations education talks.
Magic night in Muumuu wonderland
Monday 2 November 2015 | Published in Hot on the Rock
Ngatipa, the beautiful home of New Zealand High Commissioner Nick Hurley and his wife Christine, was transformed into a magical wonderland on Saturday night, with a wonderful display of 50 muumuus.
Gold heart SBW gets another RWC medal
Monday 2 November 2015 | Published in Rugby Union
All Blacks star Sonny Bill Williams has tweeted a picture of him wearing the new Rugby World Cup winner’s medal he received at the World Rugby Awards on Sunday (CI time).
Children's charity 'made a scapegoat'
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Regional
YAREN – The head of Save The Children Australia has defended the organisation’s controversial tenure at Australia’s offshore processing centre on Nauru.
Men told to stop being cowards
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Regional
APIA – Former Manu Samoa player, Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu, is calling Samoan men out – urging them to put a stop to domestic violence against women.
Plea for return of stolen goods
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Regional
APIA – Former Manu Samoa player Filipo Saena – who says he has already been through hell and back after he lost his wife to cancer – is appealing to the public.
Bachelors desperate for 'matches'
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Regional
SUVA – Concerns have been raised by a school manager of a district in Fiji regarding the increasing number of bachelors in villages around his district.
'Door open' to cap global warming
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Regional
NEW YORK – Carbon-cutting pledges from 146 nations for a universal rescue pact leave the “door open” to capping global warming below the danger threshold, the United Nations says, a month ahead of crunch talks in Paris.
Fiji conference shapes Paris approach
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Regional
SUVA – It is hoped the outcomes of a climate resilience conference in Fiji will give the region a strong platform before next month’s global climate change conference in Paris.
PNG on brink of financial black hole
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Regional
PORT MORESBY – Australia is not the only country in the region facing a budget black hole because of lower commodity prices. Papua New Guinea is more dependent on mineral and energy exports than Australia and has been hit hard by falling prices and drought. As PNG’s treasurer Patrick Pruaitch prepares to deliver his 2016 budget next week, economists are warning the country is facing a revenue collapse of historic proportions. Economist Paul Flanagan, a former PNG treasury official, said the budget due to be delivered on Tuesday would be “very, very tough”, precipitated by what he described as “an extraordinary collapse in revenues”. “International commodity prices have dropped and that has taken about 10 per cent of their revenues,” Flanagan told the ABC’s Pacific Beat programme. Drought and other pressures such as exchange rate controls have slashed revenue predictions further. “These are cuts of about 20 per cent in revenues even from the 2015 budget,” Flanagan said. Pruaitch announced a delay in the return to budget surpluses from 2017 to 2020 when he released his 2016 budget strategy statement last week. Flanagan said that was “a sensible and overdue move” but the cuts to spending proposed by the government were huge. “They are looking, for example, on the expenditure side, to go from government expenditure being about one third of the economy to only 21 per cent by 2020,” Flanagan said. PNG’s prime minister Peter O’Neill has moved to calm public nerves because of the predicted big spending cuts. “This is a conservative budget that carefully manages spending to ensure essential services are delivered to the people,” O’Neill said. O’Neill said school fees, access to health care and critical infrastructure would continue to be properly funded, while more would be spent on police, courts and prisons. “The budget is one that better positions our economy to confront international challenges including low commodity prices and global economic uncertainty,” he said. But the quarantining of so many areas from spending cuts is also raising eyebrows. Former prime minister Sir Mekere Morauta said in a statement that PNG needed to take urgent action to save itself from a looming economic and financial storm. “The prime minister has had plenty of warning from his own expert advisers in treasury and from eminent foreign institutions and observers,” Sir Mekere said. Local business have praised the treasurer’s 2016 budget strategy but they have also warned about the scale of the task ahead. “Confidence may only be maintained by continued disciplined and zealous fiscal constraint over the next three to five years,” the Business Council of PNG and Manufacturers Council said in a rare joint media release. Concern has also been expressed about the government’s enthusiasm for taking large investments in resource projects, such as its purchase of Oil Search shares, controversially funded with a $1.2 billion loan from UBS. “We do caution government that it should not spend its scarce revenue on greenfield and brownfield projects,” said Douveri Henao, executive director of the Business Council of PNG. Sir Mekere – an economist, former head of treasury and a political rival of O’Neill – has warned that the country is facing one of its biggest budget crises in history. “A series of foolish deficit budgets and mini-budgets have brought Papua New Guinea to the brink,” Sir Mekere said. He said economic conditions were similar today to those caused by notorious former PNG prime minister, Bill Skate, who was a mentor to O’Neill. “Only urgent action saved the nation from disaster in 1999,” Sir Mekere said. “Only a well-structured and disciplined recovery package, implemented consistently over the next four to five years, will create the environment necessary for sustainable economic and social advancement.” - ABC PNG ‘no place for struggling refugees CANBERRA – Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs has criticised moves to resettle refugees in Papua New Guinea, describing the country as struggling. PNG announced earlier this month that it would begin resettling processed refugees from within Manus Island, three years after the detention centre opened. The development was welcomed by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton and his Opposition counterpart Richard Marles, despite concerns for the welfare of gay refugees in a country where homosexuality is still illegal. Professor Triggs also voiced concerns over the economic capabilities of PNG. She told the ABC that the country was facing pressure to provide services to its own people, many of whom live in unsafe and unhygienic situations. “Seventy per cent of the women there allege rape or sexual assault in their lifetime,” she said. “Infant mortality is poor, the mortality of the mothers i s poor. Health care generally, access to clean water, is very limited. Access in particular to the courts or police services is very limited.” “I think it is not a country that should be asked to accept the burden of refugees, whereas obviously Australia is a wealthy country with huge opportunities.” “I think it’s an extraordinary request to make of a country that struggling to service the needs of its own people.” Her comments come ahead of the unveiling of PNG’s budget next week, which economist and former PNG treasury official Paul Flanagan said would be “very, very tough”. Flanagan told Pacific Beat that falling commodity prices, drought and pressures such as exchange rate controls have slashed revenue predictions. - ABC
Don't trash our flag
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, We have had a boat bombed twice by military planes while flying the Cook Islands flag, now we have a boat flying our flag, seized carrying tons of narcotics.
Tractors shrink and multiply
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor Did the Chinese tractors shrink and multiply in the rain?
Doing right thing with Chinese machines
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, “Do the Right Thing” asked an important question in yesterday’s CI News regarding Members of Parliament and the quads gifted from China.
Unit title could solve major land issue
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, Catching up on conversations regarding occupation right, it seems to me we got our knickers in a twist over some eminent judge from New Zealand pointing out that “occupation right” speaks for itself: that the right to occupy land is for lifetime only, meaning when we die so does our occupation right.
Sixty years of love, happiness
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Local
When 22-year-old Englishman Roger Evans first laid eyes on Cook Island beauty Mereana Henry in Masterton in 1952, it was her long thick hair that caught his attention.
Spain contradicts MMR on fishing deal
Saturday 31 October 2015 | Published in Politics
If the European Union and Spanish government are to be believed, it seems our Ministry of Marine Resources may have been economical with the truth about an agreement for Spanish purse seiners to fish in Cook Islands waters.
Fact check: Is Nauru virtually a failed state?
Friday 30 October 2015 | Published in Regional
Australian independent Federal MP Andrew Wilkie recently made the claim that the “Republic of Nauru is virtually a failed state”. ABC Fact Check took a closer look and determined that such claims about Nauru are exaggerated.
Fans prepare for 'Bledisloe on steroids'
Friday 30 October 2015 | Published in Regional
TWICKENHAM – Tickets are still available for seats at the Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham, with prices ranging from $1300 to an eye-watering $18,000.
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