Opinion
Some advice for people of Pa Enua
Monday 6 February 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
To the people of the Pa Enua with no doctors on your island and with no-one listening to your calls for basic hospital supplies and services, here is my advice:
Forgiveness works in mysterious ways
Monday 6 February 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
If the PM can demonstrate so much forgiveness for convicted drug dealers Arlander and Marsters by making them welcome in his office and work with them on a community project, perhaps he can show the same degree of forgiveness for Mark Franklin
Cruel people turn blind eye to dogs
Monday 6 February 2017 | Published in Smoke Signals
“How many starving thin skin and bone pictures of animals do we have to report and see before anything gets done about it?” a smoke signaller asks. “The land the animals that featured in CI News recently were found on belongs to someone, so report them. Charge them, put their names in the paper and shame them. A woman found the dogs because they were barking. Didn’t the neighbours hear the dogs? Someone must have known they were there, so why didn’t they help or report? It is pathetic how these people can get away with such cruelty on such a small island and no one sees or knows anything. It is time to give police the power to arrest for cruelty to animals. and as harsh as it sounds, culling may be kinder in the long run. The poor bitch dogs left to have puppies constantly should be removed from the owners and desexed immediately. And for repeat animal cruelty human owners should be offered castration or imprisonment.” LOCAL WORDS “Just to help Jaewynn McKay out in her letter on the Chamber of Commerce, the word we use in the Cook Islands is “papaanga”, not “whakapapa,” a smoke signaller says. “That would make the letter more, ahhh, “local.” TURN IT DOWN, PLEASE! Can the CIRU lovers and haters please keep it down, the leagues on. BENEFITS FOR SOME… “In the March 2000 Economic Gazette, under the heading ‘Current Court Actions’, it is recorded that MFEM was taking action against a certain retailer for the sum of $103,784.64,” a smoke signaller says. Eleven years later, on June 9, 2011, a CI News article recorded that the amount owed to MFEM from that same company was now $237,216.05. You can only wonder what the amount is today. And now the government wants to write off the penalty tax. So effectively the company will receive an interest free loan for over 17 years from the taxpayers. Is that what the Minister of Finance means by saying ‘all Cook Islanders will benefit from this’?” REDS UNDER THE BED What reds under the bed are scaring Papa Williams, a smoke signaller ponders? His attack on an Australian heading the inquiry into the multiple shootings near Titikaveka in October is bewildering, a smoke signaller says. “Williams whinges that it should have been a New Zealander heading the inquiry and that by not picking one it is a slap in the face for the Cook Islands relationship with the former colonial ruler. What is he on? Australian police have had a long relationship with Cook Islands Police and Australia’s Federal Police fund many training programmes here and through the Pacific. And his thought that the government’s choice is done purely to cover up issues is an outrageous slur upon the integrity of Dennis McDermott, a man who is a former AFP Assistant Commissioner. If Williams wants to slam the government he should make sure it is the politicians he targets, not experts who come here to help Cook Islanders.”
Out of illness comes whole new awareness
Saturday 4 February 2017 | Published in Virtues in Paradise
THERE are times in our lives, when we receive major wake up calls.
Charges versus those wages...
Saturday 4 February 2017 | Published in Smoke Signals
STANDING IN THE long queue at one of the banks this morning I was pondering over the bank charges for their various services and wondering...
Wright's resignation a blow for rugby
Saturday 4 February 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
I am deeply disappointed, saddened, but not surprised at the actions of the CIRU executive in terminating national rugby coach Stanley Wright.
Island health services in dire need
Friday 3 February 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
We are writing to express our grave concerns and those of our fellow resident Mangaians about the health care situation on the island.
Where's the drivel?
Friday 3 February 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
PS: To the smoke signaller: As you clearly pointed out, no one group of people has a monopoly on being racist; it is a human condition we have all experienced in one way or another.
Chamber of Commerce clarification helpful
Friday 3 February 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
I would like to thank Jaewynn McKay and the Chamber of Commerce for their letter responding to comments made in my Column Saturday on January 31, 2017.
PM's tourism comments stick to the bright side
Thursday 2 February 2017 | Published in Smoke Signals
THE PM’S COLUMN on the growth and development of tourism may be rosy and all good for his government’s revenue, but he avoids the negative impacts of tourism, a smoke signaller says.
Watch out for that algae
Thursday 2 February 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
THE TWO recent articles in Cook Islands News, first the Tourism Corporation patting itself on the back, and then the footloose prime minister patting the Tourism Corporation on the back, come suspiciously soon after the most recent public outrage at government and the Tourism Corporation fiddling while the algae eats up Muri lagoon and social media continues to spread the story as fast as the algae itself is spreading.
Chamber benefits 'local' business
Thursday 2 February 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
THE EXECUTIVE of the Cook Islands Chamber of Commerce noted with interest the comments by Thomas Wynne from the prime minister’s office in last Saturday’s CI News.
Green weed a bad look for our precious lagoon
Wednesday 1 February 2017 | Published in Smoke Signals
THE FACT THAT the lagoon is deteriorating rapidly has been brought home to an Arorangi resident who says when he went for a swim at high tide last week, he was disgusted at the amount of green weed floating around on the surface.
Inquiry slap in the face for NZ relationship
Wednesday 1 February 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
WHEN IT was announced earlier this month by PM Puna that government had decided to select an Australian citizen, former Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Denis McDermott, and retired former Cook Islands Police Commissioner Tevai Matapo, to be their two-man team to head a Commission of Inquiry into last year’s shooting incident, my first thought was that this was simply not good enough.
Stan Wright has his final word
Tuesday 31 January 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
KIA ORANA to the people of the Cook Islands.
Hard work and vision grows tourism
Tuesday 31 January 2017 | Published in Opinion
I wish to publicly congratulate Tourism Corporation chairman, Ewan Smith and his board, chief executive Halatoa Fua, Karla Eggleton and your team for your continued vision and hard work to manage and grow our tourism industry well above your expectations and goals.
De-sex and care for your dogs
Monday 30 January 2017 | Published in Smoke Signals
THE CRUELTY SHOWN to those poor dogs featured in CI News this week was appalling,” a smoke signaller says.
Signaller owes a big apology to our women
Monday 30 January 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
THE SMOKE Signaller who claims that women should have more babies instead of being encouraged to stand in parliament clearly is not of this century or is very anti-women.
Shame on resorts banning pool use
Monday 30 January 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
I WRITE in disappointment at the fact that Rarotonga has, for the most part, now become one of the Pacific Islands that excludes patrons from the friendliness and patronage of using their facilities.
The real reasons Wright wants change
Monday 30 January 2017 | Published in Letters to the Editor
NATIONAL rugby 15s coach Stanley Wright’s comments contained in an article in Wednesday 25 January’s CI News, regarding the issue of CIRU’s governance structure and other rugby matters.
« Previous 1 … 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 … 666 Next »