Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Hamish Fejo
The Siumu Cross Island Road upgrading project
I refer to the Siumu Cross Island Road Project and the recent interview by the Minister of Works published in the Samoa Observer newspaper on 24 April 2023. The Siumu Cross Island Road was first upgraded from our very first World Bank Loan through the International Development Association (the WB soft lending window) approved in 1974. The road was completed in 1976.
A strategy for engaging for small developing states
When Australians hear of small island developing states, the most immediate thought is of the Pacific. However, all small island states across the globe are at risk from climate change. With Australia bidding to co-host COP31 in 2026 and seeking a seat on the UN Security Council for 2029–30, these island nations will be an important group to engage for support. The Pacific is home to 13 of the 38 small island developing states that are members of the United Nations.
Verteidigung, Fischerei, offene Seewege: So ringen China und die USA um Einfluss im Pazifik
Die pazifischen Inseln werden zum neuen Kampfplatz zwischen China und den USA um geopolitischen Einfluss. Die dortigen Inselstaaten, die strategisch zwischen den Vereinigten Staaten, China und Australien liegen, sind für die Verteidigung, die Fischerei sowie für freie und offene Seewege von entscheidender Bedeutung. Durch das Ringen um die Region hat sich die Hilfe hier seit 2008 mehr als verdoppelt.
France tightens the screws in New Caledonia
New Caledonian parties are meeting in Paris this week for talks that France hopes might break a deadlock over the territory’s future. After a disputed independence referendum in 2021, France is now increasing pressure on independence parties to institutionalise New Caledonia within France. France organised the third and supposedly final independence referendum held in December 2021 under the 1998 Nouméa Accord in an arguably partial “stay with France” manner.
Trepidations of a female student in Port Moresby
Not being apprehensive about your safety in public spaces is a luxury – one that I recently enjoyed as an ANU-UPNG Summer Scholar in Canberra. Sadly, this is not a luxury that is available for Papua New Guineans. The issue of law and order has been a longstanding one in the country, generating concerns of safety among the country’s population, especially its female population.
School Holiday Program
April is almost here and seven more months before christmas! How time has flown. I hope you’ve had a wonderful and peaceful Easter. I totally forgot that Ms. Four is already on official holiday. There I was on Tuesday morning, rushing Ms. Four, finishing the usual lunch and breakfast preparations so we can be at school playground before 8:30 am, forgetting to read the school newsletter in the business of it all.
Good governance in Melanesia? Corruption and integrity in Vanuatu
Efforts to address corruption in Vanuatu have come a long way over the past 25 years. In the 1990s, the country’s politicians were embroiled in a money laundering scandal involving USD1.1 million earmarked for cyclone relief, which allegedly made it into the then Prime Minister’s personal offshore account. At the same time, the country’s independent Ombudsman Commissioner was often attacked. She was eventually replaced in the late 1990s by one more sympathetic to the government.
Climate change: We know what to do, the Pacific needs us to act, now
The United Nations has overwhelmingly adopted a landmark resolution requesting an International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the obligations of states to act on climate change. It will be a non-binding opinion but holds moral authority and adds to the pressure on high emitters to take action. For Pacific Island nations facing acute dangers from global warming, this latest move is decisive.
Australia names and shames in its fight against foreign interference
Foreign interference concerns have been well documented in Australia in recent years with regular reports of intimidation of diaspora communities, monitoring of university students and the tracking of political donations. However, last month, Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s Director-General of Security Mike Burgess both gave unprecedently frank speeches about this rising danger.
When was the last time you went to an art gallery?
It’s so good to be busy again. This week we are visiting the Manamea Art Gallery. I’m a big believer in introducing your child to all great things, entertaining activities, thinking games, social settings, art, music, different cultures and many great educational resources. I also believe in taking them away from screens and encouraging them to go outside for at least an hour a day. This might be tricky for those with medical conditions or mosquito attracting sensitive skin but can be done.
Ending the climate wars: the public’s mandate
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, released this week, represents the most authoritative and comprehensive summary of current global science on climate change. After seven years of in-depth assessments, the global scientific community’s message to world leaders is stark: we are dangerously off track to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius – the agreed limit to avert the worst impacts of climate change.
Papua New Guinea: media under threat
Over his nearly four-year tenure as Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister, James Marape has continued to trumpet his slogan – “Take Back PNG”. The trademark phrase, which has similar connotations to former US President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again”, has been Marape’s tagline for his government’s aim to rescue PNG from corruption, malpractice in government systems, and excessive foreign resource ownership among other sensitive issues.
P.M. Fiamē's inaugural FDC Pacific Lecture
Talofa Lava and warm Pacific greetings. I’m honoured to be given the opportunity to deliver this Pacific Lecture, as has been the tradition for the Lowy Institute to host world leaders in order to foster positive relations between Australia and our respective countries. I have been asked to provide through a Samoa-focused lens, Pacific perspectives on the region’s most pressing challenges and opportunities. And there are a few.
Pacific Islands are holding the front line of climate change, but this is a global fight
This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a new report, bringing together seven years of research on the global state of climate change from hundreds of experts. With each line approved by 195 governments, there is no room for doubt in the report’s stark findings. One of the main messages of the IPCC’s Synthesis Report is that climate change is progressively becoming more severe and intense and will likely continue to do so.
Do you really know someone?
I am convinced that you cannot truly know someone even after living with them for more than fifty years. We can know about a person, we can study a person but we cannot completely understand a person. Everyone has their own secrets, their own hidden truths, unbearable personality traits and stories that can’t be shared. Some even live completely double lives, living one way with their family and a completely different person to another in a parallel life.
Are family protection orders helping to prevent domestic and family violence in the Pacific region?
First introduced in high-income countries, restraining or protection orders aim to prevent further domestic and family violence by imposing civil court orders, that if breached result in a criminal penalty. Although the evidence suggests some caveats about the effectiveness of such orders, overall they constitute an important option for survivors, and for many perpetrators or “respondents” to the orders, they do act as a warning and deter further abuse and violence.
Is the sun setting on the era of Bainimarama and FijiFirst?
The long-running row between the former Fiji government and the Suva-based University of the South Pacific (USP) has come back to haunt former Fiji prime minister Frank Bainimarama, who spent a night in a police cell on 9 March before appearing in court, charged with abuse of office.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Hamish
Contact Hamish, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack