At least nine Christian denominations in Fiji have agreed to work together on a joint calendar of peace messages and peace building initiatives leading up to the 2014 elections. This resolution comes at the conclusion of the World Association of Christian Communication (WACC) Pacific Communications Rights for Peace symposium held in Suva last week. The Read more
The Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma has welcomed the 2013 Constitution saying it’s good that Fiji has one. Church general secretary Reverend Tevita Nawadra said they were grateful that government kept its promise for a new Constitution before the general elections in September next year. “Fiji needs a democratic government and we are on Read more
In a recent interview published in the Fiji Times, Compassion Sister Annette Green shared some of her life story with reporter Sailosi Batiratu. Annette said she made her first trip to Fiji in 1962, teaching at St Agnes Primary School in Nabua until the end of 1976. This time she says she is there to help Read more
Tony Abbott says Nauru is a “pleasant island” that can accommodate up to 5000 asylum seekers. During the election campaign he told Neil Mitchell the ‘tent city’ asylum seeker policy would cost about $50 million to set up. Abbott said reports of $75 a week in handouts for asylum seekers was incorrect – “we’re looking Read more
The winds of change are blowing through the Methodist Church in Fiji. The church’s president, Reverend Dr Waqairatu been very clear, throughout the Church’s recent conference, about the changes the new leadership team hopes to effect. In his opening address to the “Bose ko Viti”, Reverend Dr Waqairatu highlighted the 12 pillars that are to Read more
An EFKS (Congregational Christian Church) church in Faatoia, near Apia in Samoa has just concluded five weeks of sessions covering major health issues. The initiative, lead by Reverend Paulo Koria, was run in conjunction with the Ministry of Health and covered a range of issues including communicable and non-communicable diseases and healthy living. At the last Read more
In West Papua four community leaders who attended a church meeting to pray for activists aboard the West Papua Freedom Flotilla are to be charged with treason and could be given long jail terms, it emerged on Friday. The flotilla is sailing from Australia to draw attention to human rights abuses under Indonesian rule and Read more
Indonesia’s religious affairs minister has called for the Miss World beauty pageant to be cancelled, as opposition in the Muslim-majority country mounts the week before the contest opens in Bali. Suryadharma Ali said that the organisers should follow the advice of the nation’s top Islamic clerical body, which last week called for the contest to Read more
The new president of the Methodist Church in Fiji Reverend Tuikilakila Waqairatu has challenged the church to focus on committing to an open dialogue with other Christian churches, living faiths, ethnic groups, the vanua, civil society and the government. Mr Waqairatu shared his vision to the church during the induction service in Suva which was Read more
A true partnership between the Churches and the State, doesn’t really exist in Papua New Guinea. What is in place is a remnant of the colonial structure or more precisely of the missionary era says Fr Giorgio Licini of the Office for Social Communications of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Papua. Licini was responding to Read more