How ironic...children exploring media roles in a non-existent media freedom environment

Students explore the media and its roles

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Fiji Media Watch's Violet Savu enlightens students of Veiuto Primary last week.

STUDENTS of Veiuto Primary School marked Children's Day last week by exploring the roles of the media and how it is a channel through which their voices can be heard.

This was organised in recognition of this year's Children's Day theme, 'Media: Voice for all children'.

Fiji Media Watch representative Violet Savu was the guest speaker who raised awareness on the issue.

She spoke on how children could ensure their voices and messages are heard by taking advantage of the media programmes tailored for young people.

TVs Get Set programme and Fiji Times' Kaila newspaper were cited as examples.

To help her young audience, Ms Savu shared a story which simplified the relevance of the media and how its existence is for the empowerment of people as it is representative of the community it serves.

Students also took part in a first Global Childrens Handkerchief project.

The banners contained messages and handprints of the children.

These will be sent to Thailand in October at the SIGNIS World Congress on Media for a Culture of Peace. Childrens Rights Tomorrows Promise.

The activity was dedicated to all children, especially to the students and teachers of Veiuto Primary School and especially class teacher, Margaret Jitoko.

From: The Fiji Times

Same ending for the recent Order of Fiji medal recipients

This story will be the same ending for the recent recipients of the Order of Fiji medal, once a democratically elected government is installed. Usurpers and disgraceful cowards will never ever be able to hang-on to any national recognition that they self-awarded themselves and their lackeys.

Disgraced former judge stripped of AO award

• Dan Harrison
• April 28, 2009

DISGRACED former judge Marcus Einfeld has been stripped of his Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) award.

Governor-General Quentin Bryce cancelled the general division award on Friday, announcing the decision in the Government Gazette.

Einfeld, 70, is serving a jail term of at least two years after lying to avoid a speeding ticket.

The former Federal Court judge had earlier pleaded guilty to making a false statement under oath and to making a false statement with intent to pervert the course of justice.

He received the award in 1998 for service to international affairs and the promotion of human rights. He was president of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission for four years and worked in Palestine, the Caribbean, Rwanda and Bosnia.

Last year Steve Vizard — who in 2005 was fined $390,000 and banned from managing any corporation for 10 years after abusing his position as a Telstra director — handed back his Order of Australia award out of respect for the honours system.

Then governor-general Michael Jeffery gazetted regulations for cancelling membership of the Order of Australia in 2007. The award can be cancelled on the advice of the council or on the governor-general's own initiative, on grounds such as civil penalty under Australian or foreign law, an adverse finding by an Australian or foreign court or tribunal, or if the recipient has brought disrepute to the order.

Aiyaz's plans caught red-handed

So, this has been the plan all along - ABROGATE THE CONSTITUTION so their half-cooked electoral reforms can be implemented. So, really they have been stalling and wasting everyone's time with meetings and tantrums of not attending meetings etc for the day of reckoning on April 10 2009.

The writing continues to be scribbed on the wall...one day Mafatu!

Abrogation made way for poll reforms: AG
25/04/2009

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Changes to Fiji’s electoral system could not have begun under the conditions that existed prior to the abrogation of the 1997 Constitution, says Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

“Any elections that are going to be held will obviously be held under electoral reforms,” said Sayed-Khaiyum.

“Well there were different circumstances that existed pre-10th April 2009. The circumstances are now different now compared to what they were and electoral reforms can now happen,” he told Fijilive.

“To hold elections, parliamentary elections, with the abrogation of the 1997 Constitution, you obviously need to have a constitutional framework in place which will include the electoral reforms,” he said.

Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama has said Fiji must have a non racially-based electoral system in place before elections are held in 2014.

Sayed-Khaiyum said the Prime Minister’s Office would study how the constitution-making process would work and would then determine a time frame and the cost of the exercise.

Fijilive