“Strive to the very end”, says the family motto on the coat of arms that Mick Beddoes displays proudly on his website. All of which means that dogged persistence comes naturally to Mick Malcolm Millis Beddoes, the businessman and politician who heads the United Peoples Party in Fiji. Grubsheet has labeled Beddoes the attack dog of the Three Amigos … [Read more...] about #97 THE ATTACK DOG BITES BACK (REVISED 19/6)
#96 TOWARDS DEMOCRACY – THE ADS
Fijians are to be blitzed with a big media advertising campaign to encourage voters to register for the promised elections in 2014. The campaign includes three television commercials with a heavy multiracial component and - naturally for Fiji - an accent on sport and a need for teamwork on and off the field. The most startling is a clip that has … [Read more...] about #96 TOWARDS DEMOCRACY – THE ADS
#95 THE THREE AMIGOS COUNTER THREAT
Three of Fiji’s political leaders – Laisenia Qarase, Mahendra Chaudhry and Mick Beddoes – have said they are “reviewing their stance” on discussions on a new constitution while accusing Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama and the military of making threats and spreading fear. The statement amounts to a threat themselves to withdraw from the … [Read more...] about #95 THE THREE AMIGOS COUNTER THREAT
#94 TOUGH TALKING LITTLE BIG GUY
The ordinary people of any country – what Richard Nixon famously called the silent majority – hope for leaders with judgment and Fiji is no exception. All of which makes it extraordinary that a senior politician like Mick Beddoes has taken to taunting the military with the threat of life-long jail sentences in the current political environment. … [Read more...] about #94 TOUGH TALKING LITTLE BIG GUY
#93 VALE A MULTIRACIAL PIONEER
One of the last living links to Fiji’s colonial past has been severed with the death in Britain of Philip Snow - a colonial servant, author and celebrated cricketer who retained close links with Fiji long after he left the then colony in the early 1950s. Philip was already a minor celebrity when, in 1938, he sailed half way around the world to … [Read more...] about #93 VALE A MULTIRACIAL PIONEER
# 92 WHEN RHETORIC GETS RIDICULOUS
Wadan Narsey is one of Fiji’s most gifted academics, an economist with an international reputation now living in Australia. He was once a member of parliament for the largely Indo-Fijian National Federation Party and is on the public record complaining vociferously about racism in Fiji. Yet he harbours a particular loathing for the … [Read more...] about # 92 WHEN RHETORIC GETS RIDICULOUS