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7 December 2024

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Opinion

Church Talk: The 2024 festive season and what it truly means

The festive season is a time of celebration, family gatherings, and joy. For many in the Cook Islands, this period is about reconnecting with loved ones, sharing meals, and participating in cultural and spiritual traditions, writes Pastor Eric Toleafoa from the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Opinion

Pet Talk: Keeping your pets cool and comfortable this summer Christmas

The holiday season is a time of joy, family, and festivity, but for pet owners, it can bring unique challenges, writes Dr Rose Hasegawa, medical director Te Are Manu Vet Clinic.

Mangaia: A fruit bowl of potential

As we sat at a table laden with food, vegetables, corn, pineapples, paka and everything else you would have at a Mangaian church kaikai, the people sang behind us.

Opinion


Time for a woman to lead the country

In New Zealand, the country, where close to 90,000 Cook Islanders live as a matter of right by virtue of holding New Zealand citizenship, the prime minister is a woman.

Opinion

Reaching the other side of bereavement

For everything there is a season. Each significant change brings us to a fork in the road, a new decision point. The question arises: What season is this in my life? A life-changing loss of someone close, as I have experienced in the last year, can turn us inside out. When the last child leaves the home nest, when we retire, develop an illness, make a move, there is a vacancy of the familiar that sooner or later must be filled. A new homecoming beckons on the other side of the emptiness. We are called to reassess, review and revise our life design. If we choose to make this a mindful process, it can lead us to fresh happiness. As author Christina Baldwin says, “Change is the egg of the phoenix.” It is in the human spirit to rise from the ashes over and over. A friend whose husband died recently told me in a tearful phone call, “I need to move. This house is all about ‘us.’ I need to find my way to ‘me.’” People promised me, in the midst of my bereavement, that I would eventually get to the other side. Thankfully, that happened. I find that this cataclysmic change has created a new space in my life. I am aware that like Alice, I can fall into a hole, or venture deeply into trust, taking the necessary time to discern what this season of my life will hold. This is what I have discovered so far. Being is more important than doing. My brother John grew in virtues as he faced his own death. He dived deeply into trust, gratitude, awe and joy. As he let go of doing — driving, working, cr

Opinion

Time to share unconditional love

It’s a numb, incredulous feeling that almost passes through us when we hear the tragedy of a person passing in an accident.

Opinion

Demo Party to offer tailor-made solutions

In the past people have complained about political parties failing to deliver what they promise.

Opinion

Returning voters raise suspicions

I was at Avatiu wharf last Friday to say goodbye to a family returning home to Penrhyn on one of Tapi Taio’s inter-island vessels.

Opinion

Encourage your children's emerging virtues

My island granddaughter surprised me as we walked the beach recently.

Opinion

We want to learn, but who will teach us?

We want to learn, but who will teach us?

Opinion

We're born to be the greatest version of ourselves

When our family started The Virtues Project nearly 30 years ago, the word “virtues” was not popular. It sounded too righteous, too “churchy”.

Opinion

Our neighbours show pride in their nations

A sea of red and a sea of blue, waving flags and choruses of song flooded the stadium as over 10,000 people - the equivalent of the entire population of Rarotonga, supported their rugby league teams in a much-anticipated clash between Tonga and Samoa

Opinion

Time to revisit political reform

CINews correspondent “Unionist” turns his mind to the subject of political reform and takes a close look at the implications of the decline in voters in the outer islands.

Opinion

Getting real about our 'golden goose'

Two things of note stood out in our tropical isles last week.

Opinion

Trust is hard to earn, easy to lose

“Entrusted” is a word that has seemed to pop up over and over again lately, along with this whole idea of trustworthiness, what we can do to earn it, and how we can lose it so easily.

Opinion

Openness and gratitude will help in testing times

The world’s sacred texts contain great wisdom on the virtues which are the very purpose of our lives.

Opinion

Better skills key for public servants

The Public Service Leaders’ conference held last week at the Edgewater Resort was an excellent step in the right direction.

Opinion

Finance minister gets it wrong again

Yet again we read another blunder by the Minister of Finance.

Opinion

Rarotonga visit prompts thoughts on friendship

I recently visited Rarotonga from my home on Aitutaki.

Opinion

Shipping problems in need of urgent action

This week I heard a Papa phone a radio talkback show to confront Finance minister Mark Brown about the state of shipping services to the Northern Group islands.

Opinion

A legacy of change lives on

I could hardly see over the large oak mantlepiece, the large clock chimed on the hour and among the photos of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother were more photos and trinkets of every kind. Everything seemed so much larger then, and so much higher. And yet when we revisit places when we are much older, those things we saw when we were young children seem so much smaller.

Opinion

Constitution change would be needed

Those who debate the issue of possible UN membership are perhaps not aware of the fact that any change in our relationship with New Zealand would require amendments to our constitution.

Opinion

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