GlobalVoices in Learn more »

Michael Hartsell

Contributor profile · 44 posts · joined 20 April 2009

RSS feed for Michael Hartsell RSS feed for Michael Hartsell
View all contributors »

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.

Email Michael Hartsell

Latest posts by Michael Hartsell

3 September 2009

Commonwealth suspends Fiji

The Commonwealth of Nations has suspended Fiji from the 53-nation body for failing to hold elections by October 2010

31 July 2009

Fiji: President announces retirement

Forum posters and bloggers are reacting to the announcement that Fiji’s president will step down. Ratu Josefa Iloilovatu Uluivuda announced his retirement after nearly nine years in office. At 88, he leaves office as the world’s oldest statesman.

27 July 2009

Video posts
Fiji: Tension rises between government and Methodist Church

The months-long standoff between Fiji’s government and the country’s largest Christian denomination became more heated last week when police arrested, held and later charged seven Methodist Church officials and a high-ranking chief for “incitement” and infringing on emergency rules regarding meetings.

17 July 2009

Fiji finds foreign friends?

Leaders of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands will lobby the 15-member Pacific Islands Forum to consider lifting Fiji’s suspension to re-start dialogue with the country to provide its military backed government time to complete reforms.

Why did Thailand’s former PM travel to Fiji?

Bloggers are debating the significance of the recent trip of Thailand’s ousted Prime Minister to Fiji and Tonga. Fiji and Thailand have no extradition treaties, fueling speculation that the former Thai leader traveled to the Pacific looking for asylum.

10 July 2009

Fiji

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

New Zealand

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.

3 July 2009

Fiji: New constitution or delaying tactic?

Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama outlined the plan to create a new constitution that will take the country to its next scheduled elections in September 2014.

24 June 2009

Fiji: A roadmap towards elections?

Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama told an audience his government will soon begin work on the country’s new constitution and a “road map” to elections set to take place in 2014. He didn’t provide a timetable, or framework, but it is the first signs of the country gaining a new political and social code since April, when the President annulled the country’s 1997 Constitution.

4 June 2009

Fiji

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.

World regions

Countries

Languages