Global Voices Online

With China's loan to Fiji to build low-income housing soon to be approved, Intelligentsiya wonders how the money will be repaid if few people can even afford inexpensive accommodations because of Fiji's sagging economic figures.

Fiji: The Way It Was, Is and Can Be chronicles the plight of the Kai Solomoni people, the descendants of Fiji’s first indentured servants who were kidnapped in the mid-1860s to work on European cotton and copra plantations.

According to The Coconut Wireless, Fiji needs to expand its internet infrastructure if it wants to attract investors in the Business Process Offshoring industry.

Kiwipolitico accuses New Zealand of being hypocritical and neo-imperialist for criticizing Fiji's military leadership yet it maintains trade and diplomatic relations with countries with “less than stellar human rights records.”

Noted Fijian (Born in Papua to Tongan parents)  antropologist Epeli Hau'ofa died on January 11 in Suva, Fiji. The Savage Minds blog links to an essay by Epeli Hau'ofa tha argued against the commonly held assumption that the pacific islands were isolated communities held apart by massive oceans. 

Oceanic writes about the debate over the culturally inappropriate ads in Fiji.

A government infrastructure project in Fiji was delayed after local residents demanded that workers in the project should come from the local community.

A visiting European Union delegation concludes that there is no reason why Fiji should not continue with the elections next year. There is also a need for more domestic pressure to implement political reforms in Fiji.

Heavy police presence accompanied the launching of Fiji's Draft People's Charter, which among other things will reform the country's electoral system. It is also alleged that villagers were paid to attend the launching.