Fiji and three other dioceses within the Pacific Region are still awaiting a new bishop. The Diocese of Chalan Kanoa in the Northern Marianas has entered its third year without a new bishop. Rev. Fr. Ryan P. Jimenez, apostolic administrator for the diocese, said the CNMI will have a prelate “not in our time but in God’s Read more
Last Tuesday Marist Brothers High School, the first multi-racial school in Fiji, marked its 75th anniversary celebration with a march from Marist Suva Street to Flagstaff. Old boys from the US, Australia and New Zealand also gathered in numbers to mark one of the auspicious occasions for the school, with old scholars sharing their experience Read more
Three of the asylum seekers detained in Nauru’s processing centre have attempted self harm in as many days. Self harm is defined as the intentional, direct injuring of body tissue most often done without suicidal intentions. An Iranian man attempted self harm on Thursday, while another two Iranians did the same on Saturday, an Australian Immigration Department spokesman Read more
L’église catholique de Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée s’est officiellement prononcée en fin de semaine dernière en faveur d’une intervention de l’armée, en renfort de la police nationale, dans la capitale Port-Moresby, pour mettre un terme à ce qui est perçu comme une vague prolongée de criminalité. Cette prise de position, de la part de la conférence des évêques Read more
Recent school boy brawls in Suva have lead to calls by some Fijian leaders for the re-introduction of corporal punishment. And earlier in the year the Prime Minster of Samoa also threatened to reintroduce corporal punishment in response to school brawls at sporting events. There is no evidence however that the abandonment of corporal punishment has made Read more
Papua New Guinea’s government plans to distribute a cheaper, long-lasting and more effective female contraceptive. The Sino-Implant is composed of two thin, flexible, silicone rods, each containing 75mg of levonorgestrel (a synthetic form of the hormone progestin). The size of a match stick, it is inserted under the skin of a woman’s arm by a Read more
The recent school brawls involving secondary school students in Suva, Fiji are a reflection of the deep rooted bad effects of human rights or children’s rights on the family structure. In his written submissions to the Constitution Commission, Aisea Vunibaka, a retired revenue collector, said human rights were stopping teachers from punishing students. “Their parents, Read more
The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand is calling for the New Zealand Government to establish relocation strategies with the governments of Pacific island nations in danger of disappearing as a result of climate change. A recommendation for the Church to advocate for climate change refugees was accepted with unanimous support at the Church’s biennial Read more
This week in Suva, Fiji, there have been a number brawls involving students from the city’s boys’ secondary schools. Brawls last Friday and on Monday involved students from Suva Grammar and Marist Brothers’ High School. Three people were hospitalised and a Marist student was arrested. He appeared in the Magistrates Court on Wednesday and was charged with Read more
Professor Boyd Swinburn believes churches in the Pacific Islands could be effective preachers of the good news about weight loss because any effective obesity programme needs to address socio-cultural barriers and churches are often the custodians of culture. He has reached this conclusion after a three-year project to reduce obesity levels in the Pacific which worked well in Australia but was ineffective Read more