Michael Hartsell
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My name is Michael Hartsell. Presently I work as a project manager at a public relations firm near Seattle, Washington. I studied Communication & Media at a university in Australia. Ok, actually a few universities. I fell in love with Fiji when I first traveled there in 1998.
Latest posts by Michael Hartsell
13 June 2010
Fiji
Just a week after Fiji's Ratu Kadavulevu School was closed by the health department because its kitchen wasn't up to code, the country's largest boarding school dedicated a new chapel at the cost of about US $500,000. Wendy, writing in the blog Babasiga, asked why the school kitchen wasn't fixed earlier in the year.
25 May 2010
New Zealand
Fiji's government has overturned the practice of suspending pensions to former Parliamentary leaders who have been critical of the present regime. This announcement “is the sort of forward-looking conciliatory acts we need to see more of,” says blogger Crosbie Walsh. Coup Four And A Half says the government has “done a u-turn.”
17 April 2010
Fiji
Fiji Today reports that Fiji's government has created a list of “subversive” blogs (Fiji Today's term) that government workers should not access at work. The report is unsubstantiated. However, “FijiToday questions how Babasiga, Crosbie Walsh, Globalvoicesonline or the Fiji Labor Party could be considered subversive.”
New Zealand
Many prognosticators worry about how Fiji's proposed media ownership law will affect the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fiji Times. But a former staffer said in Cafe Pacific both foreign and local management are to blame for the paper's fall.
8 April 2010
6 April 2010
New Zealand
It's hard to prove fully, but for the past six months, blogging platforms (including Global Voices) have been subject to on-again, off-again access problems in Fiji. As another round of blog blocking has been rumored, New Zealand-based blogger Crosbie Walsh writes an open letter to Fiji's Police Commissioner explaining the harm indiscriminate censorship can do to a fragile political situation.
It was mainly because of some disagreement between the two and also because Lijun knew...