Mme Françoise Maylié, Ambassadrice de France au Vanuatu, a procédé, le lundi 27 avril, à la signature de plusieurs protocoles de financement du Fonds Social de Développement (FSD) avec les représentants des administrations et des organisations bénéficiaires. Allocution de Mme Maylié.)
Il n’y a actuellement aucun cas de grippe porcine au Vanuatu. Le virus (H1N1) qui se répand dans plusieurs pays est parti d’un foyer au Mexique. Des mesures de préventions, notamment aux aéroports et aux ports, seront prochainement mises en place par le Ministère de la santé du Vanuatu, avec l’aide de l’Organisation Mondiale de la Santé. Foire aux questions sur la grippe porcine.)
I’m going to start a Twitter political analysis channel. A few samples:
China: DANGER THREAT! (If they actually cared about us.)
Fiji: Coup Bad. Coup Leader Good. Populace Conflicted.
Swine Flu: Pig Factory Farm! NAFTA! Zombie Illegal Alien Dead! Rapture?
Obama Foreign Policy: Long-term, mostly nuanced weighing of liberal values versus realpolitik, focusing mostly on the art of the possible yet<<<CHARACTER LIMIT EXCEEDED
All right, all right. I give up already.
By Stu Harrison25 April 2009Australian property developers are pushing the Indigenous people of Vanuatu, the Ni-Van, off their land.Just a few hours flight away in the Pacific, Vanuatu is a hot-spot for Australian tourists. It is also a favoured destin…
A bungalow at the Port Resolution Yacht Club, simple but an oh so pretty location….Pictures of Vanuatu’s largest town by photograpers Michael Blamey, Terry Moloney and Glen Craig
Madame Françoise Maylié, Ambassadrice de France au Vanuatu et M. Jacques Nioteau, Président de la Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie (CCI) ont signé, le 24 avril, une convention de subvention d’un montant de 70 000 euros, soit environ 10 500 000 vatu visant à renouveler le soutien de la France à la Cellule de promotion des Investissements au Vanuatu, pour les 2 années à venir.)
Un stage de formation au profit de la police du Vanuatu a été organisé du 6 au 17 avril par le centre de formation de la police nationale de Nouméa dans le cadre de la Convention de Coopération signée entre la Nouvelle-Calédonie et le Vanuatu.
Allocution de Mme Françoise Maylié, Ambassadrice de France à Port-Vila.)
Mme Françoise Maylié, Ambassadrice de France au Vanuatu, a procédé, le lundi 27 avril, à la signature de plusieurs protocoles de financement du Fonds Social de Développement (FSD) avec les représentants des administrations et des organisations bénéficiaires. Allocution de Mme Maylié.)
[This week's Communications column for the Vanuatu Independent.]
Fifty years ago, Charles E. Lindblom, a professor at Yale University published an essay entitled ‘The Science of “Muddling Through”.’ The paper’s main point was stated briefly and simply: We can’t know everything about anything. So, as long as we’re just muddling through an imperfect world with only imperfect knowledge, we’d just as soon admit it.
At the heart of Lindblom’s rationale is the contention that even if we could know everything, we’d never be able to adequately express the value of competing development priorities. Therefore, we should work within our limitations, reduce the scope of our planning activities and allow competing interests to adjust to each other over time.
In a column marking the 50th anniversary of this seminal essay, Financial Times columnist John Kay remarks that, while contemporary economists may have scoffed at what they considered to be an unscientific and benighted approach to policy and planning, Lindblom’s gradualist approach has largely been vindicated.
Kay’s take on gradualism is filtered through the eyes of a businessman. Noted development economist William Easterly, however, celebrates Lindblom’s work as the only really workable model for developing countries.
Originally published at the Scriptorum. You can comment here or there.
[Originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Weekender Edition.]
Recently, numerous commentators in Vanuatu and other Pacific countries have complained loud and long that Commodore Frank Bainimarama is being treated unfairly by the media. The real bad guys, they say, were the ones who so abused the shambles of Fijian democracy that the army leader was left no choice but to intervene.
Furthermore, they argue, the problems of governance in Fiji are significant enough that holding elections before 2015 (the date recently suggested by the ruling junta) would only result in a return to the same sorry state the nation was in before. In short: Fiji can have its coup now or later, but by having it now, we can rest assured that it’s happening for the right reasons, guided by the right man.
I’m not entirely unsympathetic to this argument. It’s true that some reports, especially those appearing in Australian popular media, tend to miss the point that Fijian democracy was deplorably weak when Bainimarama took over. Furthermore, the hard rhetorical line taken by the governments of Australia and New Zealand hasn’t done much to improve the situation for anyone.
Frank Bainimarama is without a doubt a patriot who cares deeply about the welfare of his nation. But the question is whether any single patriot should rule Fiji.
Originally published at the Scriptorum. You can comment here or there.
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