Global Voices Online

With Fiji’s government cracking down on outlets selling pirated DVDs, L. Cass pens a piece in Failed Paradise criticizing these “cheating” retailers but also lamenting their downfall

A second journalism school has opened in Fiji, this one at the Fiji Institute of Technology. But given “the climate of censorship and media paranoia in post-putsch Fiji,” media educator David Robie in his Café Pacific blog argues the standards of these new programs should face heavy scrutiny.

Jonathan, the writer of the blog Oceanic: User Experiences from the South Pacific reports on a consumer complaint against his Fiji-based advertising agency stating that his advert for a local ISP attempts to benefit from the Swine Flu epidemic (now called H1N1) by misleading consumers into thinking internet service “is like a prescription drug.” He wonders how people can protest against his work, while much of the local media prints “sensationalist” and “inaccurate” headlines about the flu scare.

Most taxi drivers in Suva, Fiji are quiet and uneventful. Every so often, however, you'll run into the driver who is the anti-barman, reports Paradise Fiji Blog. Instead of listening to your problems, these drivers are full of opinions and stories. Here lie five topics you'll most likely hear in a cab in Fiji.

After a local academic argued that Fiji's chiefly system holds back the country's democratic progress because it could allow certain people to grab resources for themselves, Luvei Viti: Children of Fiji counters the organization of chiefs binds society together and offers solutions for handling disputes, especially at the village level.

Commenting on a local report regarding the falling service standards at some of Fiji's well-known resorts, Oceanic: User Experiences from the South Pacific argues that 'service complacency' is more dangerous to the viability of Fiji's large-scale tourism industry than any worries over ‘political instability.'

In light of the recent court ruling stipulating that Fiji's public servants must retire at age 55, Wendy from Babasiga argues with so many people in the prime of experience and responsibility in their late 50s, perhaps the pension age for government workers should be optional.

After news hit that the editor of the Fiji Times had has vehicle vandalized, Fiji Coup 2006 points out that other government critics have suffered the same fate and Talking Fiji contends the property damage forces these critics to live in fear of clandestine prosecution.

When about 30 uniformed soldiers in Fiji's army — including the Chief of Staff — showed up at a trial where eight servicemen (and one former police officer) have been accused of killing a teenager in 2007, Fiji Today called it “intimidation of court witnesses by [the] Fiji military.”