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Last September, Il Partito Democratico, the Italian Democratic Party, asked me to talk about politics and the internet at its summer school in Cortona. Political summer schools are usually pleasant — Cortona is a medieval Tuscan hill town with excellent restaurants — and unexciting. Academics and public intellectuals give talks organised loosely around a theme; Read more
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A Vietnamese priest imprisoned for criticising human rights abuses has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by two members of the United States Congress. Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, 65, has been nominated by members of Congress Chris Smith and Zoe Lofgren along with the Patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, the Read more
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The submission from the SDL – the largely indigenous Fijian party, called for Fiji to be declared an officially Christian state, that Fijian be the official language of the country, for only indigenous i-Taukei to be known as Fijian, and for references to sexual orientation to be removed from human rights laws. Despite denials from Read more
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Two years ago I was asked to write an Assessment of the Fiji situation as I saw it. Now I have been asked once again to reflect on the current situation and make an assessment of Fiji today. Two years ago I wrote: “Unlike the 1987 and 2000 coups which were carried out in the Read more
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Fiji’s military ruler sat behind an imposing wooden desk, deep in thought. This was the most attention he had given to any of the questions posed to him in the interview thus far, and he seemed to be struggling to find an answer. Finally, after a lengthy pause, he said that he could think of Read more
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The Speaker of Parliament, Jeffery Nape, has called on the Electoral Commission to set new dates for the election that’s supposed to be held in June, even though the Prime Minister and the Electoral Commissioner now say the elections will go ahead as scheduled. On Tuesday a crowd variously reported to number 100′s to 10,000 people, including students, Read more
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With Christians threatened by civil war fleeing Syria and in the fear that majority rule could lead to an Islamic republic, His Beatitude, Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan has asked the international community, but especially western powers, to help find a peaceful and democratic solution. “We try to tell, especially the Western powers: look, democracy Read more
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The Electoral Commission in PNG is again partnering with Caritas PNG to provide voter education on election issues.
Electoral Commission representative Alice Guguna said the awareness was a civic-voter education strategy to educate people in the remote areas on the election process and their right to vote freely, fairly and safely.
Caritas PNG has been a long-time partner of the commission in educating the people on the election process.
It has produced awareness materials such as posters, leaflets and brochures to educate the people on the importance of casting their votes without being intimidated.
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Perhaps we should not be surprised that Fiji dropped the democratic ball after the Hail Mary pass that their Colonial masters gave them at independence: a nation divided by tribal and ethnic barriers. In the course of Britain’s colonial rule so many Indians were imported to work in the cane fields, that by the time Read more
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In the western experience modernisation and secularism come in a single package. ”Real modernity must be democratic, runs the logic; and real democracy must be secular” says Lois Lee. However, outside of Europe, modernity is emerging without secularism. In modernised India for example the organisation of public space and the place of religion in it is quite different. The historian Dipesh Read more
