FIJI’S ROADMAP TO DEMOCRACY

Fiji’s Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama will attend the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) meeting in Vanuatu this week to present his roadmap towards returning the country to democratic rule

The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Preferential Trade Agreement is a trade treaty governing the four melanesian states of Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and recently, Fiji



FIJI PLANS NEW CONSTITUTION

Fiji’s Prime Minister Commodore Bainimarama said on the country’s Constitution would begin in September 2012 in preparation for the general election in 2014. The new Constitution must include provisions that will entrench common and equal citizenry, it must not have ethnic based voting; the voting age shall be 18; and, it must have systems that hold governments accountable with more checks.

OBAMA ACCEPTS MANMOHAN’S INVITATION TO VISIT INDIA L’Aquila, Italy, United States President Barack Obama has accepted an invitation from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to visit India, dates for which will be finalised through diplomatic channels.U.N. reforms,Mr. Obama also endorsed Dr. Singh’s fresh calls for urgent U.N. reforms saying the global community would have to “update and refresh and renew” international institutions like the world body that were set up in a different time and place.

15TH NAM SUMMIT AT SHARM EL-SHEIKH IN EGYPT
INDIA’S PROPOSAL ON KEY ISSUES

Financial crisis gives NAM new relevance – India, NAM-“A moral force for equitable transformation of today’s world”

1. ON FINANCIAL CRISIS the 118-nation grouping must ensure the steps planned to revive the global economy take into account the developing world’s concerns.

Dr. Singh said the developing countries had been the hardest hit by the crisis which “emanated from the advanced industrial economies” and had strengthened protectionism and choked credit and capital flows to the third world. “If the aftermath of the crisis is not carefully managed, and if the abundance of liquidity leads to a revival of speculative activities, we may well see a period of prolonged stagflation,” the Prime Minister warned.

2. ON CLIMATE CHANGE too, he blamed the “over two centuries of industrial activity and unsustainable lifestyles in the developed world” for the threat posed to the planet by the accumulation
of greenhouse gases.

The weight of NAM should be used to achieve “a comprehensive, balanced and above all, equitable outcome” in the ongoing multilateral negotiations leading up to the Copenhagen conference in December this year.

3. ON UNO The Prime Minister criticised the fact that “decision-making processes” at the United Nations and in international financial institutions “continue to be based on charters written more than 60 years ago, though the world has changed greatly since then.”