More Top Stories
‘Nothing to worry about’: Prime Minister Brown on China agreement
16 February 2025
‘Serious questions’: Opposition challenges China partnership
15 February 2025
No-confidence motion against PM and his Cabinet faces delays
15 February 2025
Ruta Mave: People’s Republic of China red flag
10 February 2025
No debt in China deal
8 February 2025
Thomas Wynne: Haka with the taniwha or dance with the dragon?
8 February 2025
‘Paedophile’ gets 13 years in prison
22 January 2025
Thomas Wynne: Where were our leaders while children suffered?
25 January 2025
$541.7m tourism earnings
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
Anxiety on the rise: Cook Islands faces mental health challenge
7 September 2024
MCI rejects ‘dark fleet’ label
3 August 2024
Pacific
NZ looks forward to talks with Cook Islands govt
New Zealand has indicated to the Cook Islands Government that they are looking forward to discussions between relevant officials on their concerns related to the China / Cook Islands agreement.
Cook Islands seeking New Zealand expertise for Sovereign Wealth Fund
The Cook Islands government has taken further steps towards establishing a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), with officials currently in New Zealand holding discussions with financial experts, Prime Minister Mark Brown told Parliament this week.
Tonga's leitis strive for visibility
TONGA – Transgender women and gender-diverse ‘leitis’ in the conservative Pacific Island Kingdom of Tonga say they “cannot be silent anymore” about their fight for visibility. Joey Joleen Mataele is one of many in Tonga’s island chain who identifies as a ‘fakaleiti’ or simply ‘leiti’, which translates roughly from Tongan as “like a lady”. “The role of leitis in our society is more of a housewife role, a domestic worker, we’re known in the public eye in our churches and for helping the youth programmes, but when it comes to our personal choices, that’s when the barriers start going up,” she told the ABC’s Pacific Beat this week. Mataele is the President of the Tongan Leitis Association, a group at the centre of a new documentary released at the weekend in London called Leitis in Waiting, a year-long exploration of what life is like for transgender women in Tonga. “It’s been years of dreaming that our story would be recorded and be distributed to the world,” she said. “I think this is a great achievement for us to be able to do this. And it’s a tool that we will be able to use.” Mataele’s father was a politician and a member of Tonga’s elite, and her family has a close relationship with the country’s royal family. In the documentary, Tonga’s Princess Salote Lupepau‘u Tuita describes her mother’s relationship with Mataele when he was a baby. “One memory my mother has is of when Joey was a toddler and he had very, very feminine features and really, really curly hair. “So my mother had a life-sized doll as well and she said, ‘you’re prettier than my doll’ – so she put the dress of her life-sized doll on Joey and put his hair in ringlets and would take him around. “It wasn’t to mock him or anything, she just loved it. Since then, he’s always been that special and close to her.” Yet despite her connections in the upper echelons of Tongan society, Mataele’s place within the community remains a struggle. While in some cases leitis are accepted as caretakers and workers, they are also outlawed, shunned and even face jail time. Tonga’s Civil Offences Act criminalises cross dressing and sodomy, with both carrying jail terms of up to 10 years. Mataele said people in Tonga remain uncomfortable talking about the issue. “I think it’s time to talk about it, we cannot be silent any more, I mean if we keep silent about this, it’s not healthy, it’s not mentally and physically healthy for all of us,” she said. Leitis in Waiting culminates with a meeting organised by the Tongan Leitis Association, where the group publicly push for decriminalisation for the first time. The documentary’s director and producer, Joe Wilson, said the dichotomy of Tonga’s identity is part of what drew him to the story of the leitis. “It is probably the most religious country I’ve ever been to, which makes the story of how you work for change when it comes to how LGBT people are viewed very interesting and very challenging. “But also very hopeful because in this case the Tongan leiti community is also very well integrated into their church communities,” Wilson told Pacific Beat. “So they’re accepted on some levels but not on other levels.” The push for decriminalisation and the rising public presence of the leitis comes at a time of heightened religious tension in the country, with American-funded elevangelists fuelling a new campaign against the LGBT community in Tonga. “It’s creating an ugly division that I don’t think had really existed in Tonga prior to the emergence of this kind of approach,” Wilson said. But Mataele continues to be an avid church-goer and won’t be swayed from either her faith or her gender identity. “The more they preach against us, it doesn’t really make me angry, it actually makes us all a stronger person,” Mataele said. “At the end of the day it’s just a small island. You cannot move without anybody noticing and if they think they can move us out to little secluded islands, because of our sexual orientation or gender identity, I think they need to wake up.” In London for the premiere, Mataele was awarded a Commonwealth Points of Light Award – an honour given by the British Government and endorsed by the Queen of England. The award commended her for, “using song, humour and dance to promote issues which affect the transgender community”. While the award is not recognised in Tonga, Mataele said she dedicated it to everyone who had helped “fight this fight”. The new documentary is to tour worldwide.
Pacific must embrace plan to clean up shipping
PACIFIC – There is a call for Pacific nations to maintain a leading role in reducing greenhouse emissions from the shipping industry.
Folau explains his religious convictions
Wallabies star Israel Folau has revealed he offered to walk away from his Rugby Australia contract in the wake of his controversial comments on homosexuality and that tension remains with the game’s administration over the issue.
Israel Folau's beliefs spark backlash
TONGA – The president of Tonga Leiti’s Association is asking for Pacific sporting role models like Israel Folau to be more socially responsible.
Tree-trimming laws frustrating
A DELAY in a government review into tree trimming is incredibly frustrating, the Electricity Networks Association says.
Call to clamp down on clampers
NEW ZEALAND – A South Auckland woman is accusing car clamp companies of deliberately targeting poor areas.
Cancer screening error
A BOWEL cancer screening error affected 12,500 more people than earlier revealed, with 30 of them developing cancer. The Health Ministry said in February a technical glitch involving a pilot screening programme at Waitemata District Health Board meant 2500 people missed out on screening. It said three people developed the killer cancer as a result and one died. But new details released today show about 15,000 Waitemata residents missed out – including the original 2500. Ministry officials said initial analysis showed that more than 30 of those people got bowel cancer. Jane O’Hallahan, the Ministry’s National Screening Unit clinical director, said they had clearly failed some people “and for that we are sorry”. She emphasized the problems only related to Waitemata residents and the pilot, not the national rollout of screening now under way. Russian hackers suspected Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is checking whether New Zealand has been hit by a fresh wave of global cyber attacks, she says. The United States, Britain and Australia have said hackers backed by the Russian government infected computer routers around the world. Speaking in Berlin, Ardern said she was awaiting advice from the New Zealand intelligence agency, GCSB. GCSB director-general Andrew Hampton said in the agency’s annual report in November that 122 local incidents, about a third of the 396 serious incidents recorded by the GCSB’s National Cyber Security Centre, had “indicators of connection to foreign intelligence agencies”. He said Russian state-sponsored hackers were behind some of those incidents. “New Zealand is not immune to the threat of espionage by foreign states or to foreign efforts to interfere with the normal functioning of government or the rights of New Zealanders,” the report said.
Deportation order 'a nightmare'
NEW ZEALAND – A British man whose stepdaughter was murdered in New Zealand could be deported by the government despite residing in the country for more than 50 years, in a situation he describes as an “endless nightmare”.
Kiwi dog owners' love knows no limits
NEW ZEALAND – New Zealand is a nation of dog lovers who will spare no expense when their pets get into trouble.
Political changes were within the law
TONGA – A former prime minister has hit back at allegations made last week by Tonga’s current prime minister that political reforms were made in 2010 without the approval of parliament.
Medical teams deployed to Ambae
VANUATU – Medical emergency teams have for the first time been deployed to the Ambae volcano disaster.
13,000 islanders need to be resettled
VANUATU – The active volcano on Vanuatu’s Ambae island has once again begun spewing out ash and harmful smoke, and Vanuatu’s government is now looking into acquiring land to permanently resettle the island’s 13,000 residents.
Chinese base in Vanuatu 'ridiculous'
VANUATU – A Chinese embassy spokesman has said the idea that China is planning to establish a military base in Vanuatu is “ridiculous”.
Body of missing man found
FIJI – The body of a man missing in Fiji’s recent flooding since last weekend has been found.
Superpowers recognise Vanuatu's importance
Reports this week that Vanuatu was to be the site of a Chinese military base caught most in Vanuatu by surprise.
Son of Philip the demi-god given chiefly title
VANAUTU – Last week Prince Charles touched down in Vanuatu on a side trip from his visit to Australia for the Commonwealth Games, but unfortunately he might not have been the British prince that some of the islanders had been hoping for. It is his father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who is regarded in a very spiritual way to a community of Tanna islanders. When he visited in 1974 many believed Philip was a reincarnation of an ancient warrior. Philip, the husband of the Queen of England, may hold a string of grand titles but for the small community, deep in the rainforests on the southwestern part of the island of Tanna, he is regarded as a an demi-god. “For them Philip is a tabu man – human but possessing qualities and powers that make him sacred,” Matthew Baylis, the British author of Man Belong Mrs Queen: My Adventures with the Philip Worshippers, who spent time living with the villagers, told the ABC. He said the people have a special relationship with the Duke of Edinburgh that is more complex than simple worship. “The closest parallel I can think of is the way we treat our war dead,” Baylis said. “We honour them, remember them, hold ceremonies for them, but we’re not actually worshipping them.” A group of people living around Yaohnanen village on Tanna have an ancient legend, describing a band of warriors who left the island to fight a war to protect and preserve their culture. The leader of the warrior group vowed to one day return with a rich, powerful – and white wife. In 1974, the British Royal family visited Vanuatu – then known as New Hebrides – as part of a tour of the Commonwealth. While he and Queen Elizabeth did not visit the isolated community, it is said that Prince Philip handed a symbolic white pig to a Tanna man in the country’s capital, Port Vila. It is believed that from that gesture the Tanna people formed a strong bond with Prince Philip, believing him to be a physical representation of the ancient warrior leader returning home with his wife. According to Kirk Huffman, a research associate at the Australian Museum in Sydney and honorary curator of the National Museum of Vanuatu, it’s a link they are very serious about. “On Tanna, traditional spiritual belief systems are a 24/7 situation,” Huffman told the ABC.
Highlands rocked by new quake
PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Emergency response teams are being flown by helicopter to a remote part of Papua New Guinea – a region already struggling to recover from a magnitude-7.5 quake which hit in February.
Cyclone Keni drenches Fiji's west
FIJI – Fiji’s meteorological service says Cyclone Keni was a category two storm but expected to intensify further as it moves closest to Fiji at around midday yesterday.
Another cyclone bears down on Fiji
FIJI – With rivers still raging, thousands still in temporary shelters, and streets and farmland caked in silt and mud after Cyclone Josie little more than a week ago, residents in Fiji’s sodden west are now being warned to be prepare for the arrival of yet another cyclone.
First medal for the Solomons
SOLOMON ISLANDS – Solomon Islands won its first ever Commonwealth Games medal on a historic night on the Gold Coast.