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Siteri Maravou

METHODIST CONFERENCE NOT UNTIL 2014..............WHAT DO YOU THINK ? 2 Replies

Bainimara has confirmed this week that there will be no Annual Conference for the Fiji Methodist Church until the year 2014.      After cancelling last years conference, I thought he may change his m…

Started by Siteri Maravou. Last reply by Siteri Maravou Apr 2.

Siteri Maravou

THE RECENTLY RELEASED HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT FOR FIJI-2009

    It amazes me how our Individual rights are been abused in Fiji.   Here's a link to the report found in the US Department of State website   http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/200 your honest op…

Started by Siteri Maravou Mar 30.

SUNIL BRIJ BHAN

WATCH PACIFIC VOYAGER the islands of Fiji. Now Video On Demand

Watch Pacific Voyager the islands of Fiji VOD http://www.amazon.com/PACIFIC-VAYAGER-islands

Started by SUNIL BRIJ BHAN Feb 17.

Vanesa

Soccer Fans News

The most awaited sports event soccer World Cup 2010 has satisfied its organizer FIFA for selling 2 million tickets on the event and still looking forward to sell more on the next event.  Fans are rem…

Tagged: Sports, Cup, World, Soccer

Started by Vanesa Feb 12.

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Aussies return with more aid
Serafina Silaitoga
Thursday, August 05, 2010

Nabavatu villagers surround Joy Baxter from Geelong Rotary Club in Melbourne, Australia who visited their village
AN Australian charity has come to the aid of a group of villagers, schools and hospital in the North.

The Rotary Club of Geelong from Victoria is known for its annual donations to the villagers of Nabavatu in Dreketi, Macuata, health centre and schools in Dreketi and the Labasa hospital.

Club member Joyce Baxter, who arrived in the country this week, said the Labasa hospital will tomorrow receive seven beds, three of which are electronically operated.

This, Mrs Baxter said would help patients get in and out of bed by pressing buttons to either raise the bed or to put out its arm rest from the side of bed.

Apart from the seven beds, she said wheelchairs, an incubator and other machineries needed at the hospital would be also donated.

"At Nabavatu, we will give a set of computers and sewing machines to Dreketi High School and library books to the primary school," Mrs Baxter said.

"We believe in helping students in whatever way we can and the computers, library books and sewing machines will assist the students academically," she said.

The club will also donate cartons of household items to Nabavatu villagers.

"Every year, we give to these villagers, so this week they will receive clothes, cooking utensils and other household items we have packed," Mrs Baxter said.

"The club also built their pipes and reservoir last year, which has seen every house with a tap and we are glad to be a part of the local community," she said.

Mrs Baxter said items were donated to the club by members and companies back home in Australia.

Homeless John Cote Thursday, August 05,

Kolinio Waqairawai, who has been living on the streets under the Transbay Terminal, talks with the mayor about relocating. Picture: MICHAEL MACOR/The Chronicle
SAN Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom didn't get the warmest reception Friday morning when he approached a homeless encampment under a bus overpass for the soon-to-be-demolished Transbay Terminal.

"Go away, man!" hollered 60-year-old Kolinio Waqairawai as he sat against a concrete pillar, a koala blanket draped over his legs, a pack of Parliament cigarettes on his lap and a 16-ounce Bud Light tall boy near at hand. "You're wasting the state's money."

Within five minutes, Waqairawai was holding Newsom's hand and flashing a smile showing his missing lower tooth as the mayor knelt next to him. After rhapsodising about Marin County Waqairawai said both of his sisters went to Newsom's alma mater, Redwood High School in Larkspur the mayor made his pitch.

"So how do we get you into some housing?" Newsom asked.

It's part of a final push by city officials to find homes for about 30 die-hards who have used the Transbay Terminal and its web of overpasses as a shelter for years, repeatedly resisting the city's stepped-up efforts to get them into transitional housing.

Calling the Transbay Terminal home won't be an option in a week. That's when demolition is scheduled to start on the dank and graffitied bus terminal at First and Mission streets to make way for a gleaming hub for commuter trains, high-speed rail and buses dubbed the "Grand Central Station of the West."

Waqairawai and three others who share a camp under a bus ramp are part of a dwindling group that is resistant to leaving.

Among them is the gray-bearded Cat Man, who mumbles angrily as he strides around the terminal with a huge cat named Chiquita on his shoulder.

He sleeps with the cat in a coffin-size assembly of cardboard boxes just down from Waqairawai's two shopping carts and rebuffs offers of help with "Go away!" On Friday, he kept a few paces away from Newsom while listening as the mayor talked to two fellow homeless people in the camp.

"Don't say no," Newsom told them. "If you start saying yes, everything's possible."

Minutes later, with Newsom standing next to him, Waqairawai agreed, saying: "You are a good mayor."

"I better be. I work for you," Newsom replied.

But whether chronically homeless people will actually move into transitional housing is an open question.

As soon as Newsom and San Francisco Director of Homeless Policy Dariush Kayhan finished chatting with Waqairawai, three city outreach workers approached him to try to formalise an agreement to move him into his own room in a single-resident occupancy hotel, where he will stay for free until permanent housing is found. Sometimes people agree to go and then change their minds, Kayhan said. Other times, hotel rooms aren't available and people are placed in shelters before housing is arranged. The process averages about six months, Newsom said.

"People end up doing six years on the street because they didn't want to do six months in a transition," Newsom said. "That's the most frustrating part."

One woman in a tent a block away, on the stretch of Beale Street known as The Strip because it's lined with camps at night, said she's "had some really bad experiences in shelters."

"San Francisco is full of characters," said the woman, who calls herself Bambi from Baltimore. "Some of them I don't want to run into again."

Ben Avery, who was hanging out at Cat Man's camp eating a sandwich, said he wanted to fend for himself. He didn't have a home, but was staying on a friend's couch and said he made $200 or so a week recycling or selling items like books on eBay.

"I just do my own thing," Avery said.

It can take dozens of discussions with outreach workers before some people agree to accept help, Kayhan said.

Sometimes it takes urging from peers who have made the transition.

Or it can be the jolt of seeing the mayor standing in front you.

Newsom said his influence was fleeting, though.

"You have to bring the case manager out on the street.

"You have to be able to say yes on the spot," he said.

As he stood in the bowels of the terminal, Newsom fretted that if Waqairawai wasn't moved into housing that day, he would change his mind. The low-ceilinged hall echoed as a disheveled man walked by singing: "We're all together again, we're here, we're here."

Then an outreach team member rushed up.

Waqairawai had agreed to take a room.

Then came the surprising part. The Cat Man had, too.

A short time later, the Cat Man was gone from the camp. Waqairawai was finalising the paperwork, asking, "Where do I sign?"


Ratu Tevita Momoedonu appears in court
Publish date/time: 04/08/2010 [17:06]



Vuda High Chief the Taukei Sawaieke of Viseisei Ratu Tevita Momoedonu appeared at the Lautoka Magistrate court in the last hour charged with allegedly making off without payment.

Momoedonu is alleged to have failed to pay a contractor around $10,000 and it is also alleged that the cheque he issued was declined.

He is charged under Section 314 (1B) of the Crime Decree 2009.

No plea was taken today and Momoedonu has been released on bail with strict conditions to re-appear in court on the 15th of next month.


Story by: Tokasa Rainima



| Fiji's dictator intoxicated with power







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commodore Frank Bainimarama says he was intoxicated when the Australian defense minister called to threaten him.

"We had a heavy grog session the night before, and I was still doped," he explained with a silly grin to a television interviewer. "He told me, 'Don't ever do anything that will pit my troops against yours.' I thought, I'm not the one who's doped" on a kava-root beverage. "It must be this guy."


Bainimarama, the self-appointed prime minister of Fiji, is a South Pacific dictator. But he's not very good at it. The U.S. State Department says it has seen no reports of "unlawful killings," disappearances or political prisoners in Fiji. What kind of dictator is that? And earlier this month, the Bainimarama administration gave out good-governance awards. The top performers: the ministries of information and prisons.

Four years ago, Commodore Bainimarama seized power in a military coup. No blood was shed, but he immediately earned the undying enmity of his largest neighbors, Australia and New Zealand. They imposed sanctions, as did the United States and European Union. They call him the Pariah of the Pacific and repeatedly urge him to hold elections.

But Bainimarama says they don't understand. He is interested in maintaining power only as long as it takes to enact important reforms. In fact, he promised to hold elections again in 2009. But then in April of that year, Fiji's court of appeals ruled that his 2006 coup had been illegal. What choice did the commodore have? He abolished the courts, abrogated the Constitution and removed almost every official appointed under the old, elected government.

"Everything was removed, right?" asked reporter Graham Davis, in a Sky News television interview. No, Bainimarama said with an earnest expression. He was wearing a flowered, short-sleeve shirt. "Let's get that right. Not everything was removed. I was reappointed as prime minister."

With all the foment that came from abolishing the government, the commodore's reform agenda was foundering. He wanted to end crime and racism, improve government efficiency and promote economic growth. So elections had to be postponed until 2014.

The economic part is not going so well. Fiji's vacation resorts are half-empty; tourists are afraid of him. Sugar-export prices are down, and earlier this year the government had to fight a cataclysmic termite infestation. The commodore was forced to devalue the currency by 20 percent. Earlier this month, he asked the International Monetary Fund for a $594 million loan.

Australia and New Zealand are taking every opportunity to rail at him. Just a few days ago, the Australian newspaper quoted an unnamed foreign-affairs official saying: "The people may have no choice but to stand up to Bainimarama and his thugs." The commodore was understandably offended, principally because "some of the foreign countries are turning a blind eye" to "the reforms that the government is carrying out," he complained.

Among them, on June 28 the government implemented the Media-Industry Development Decree - an important part of the government's reform agenda, the secretary of information said. The decree imposes two-year jail terms on reporters and editors who write "irresponsible" stories that undermine government initiatives. It is also forcing sale or closure of the Fiji Times, the nation's oldest and most important newspaper. The new decree says Fijians must own 90 percent of the paper.

Every newsroom now has a government censor. But the prime minister, in that Sky News interview, insisted that reporters still have "the right to say whatever they want - as long as they don't stop us from moving forward."

He moved forward with another reform earlier this month. Everyone in the nation now must register his phone number with the government. Justice Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum explained that some misguided citizens "have threatened the lives of government ministers in an attempt to deter ministers from the execution of their official duties," like warrantless arrests, property seizures, religious persecution and deportations.

Last year, Australia and New Zealand suspended Fiji from the Pacific Island Forum, an important, 16-state organization. So the commodore tried to arrange his own regional summit this month, inviting the few nations that remain friendly. Unfortunately, the prime minister of Vanuatu, Edward Natapei, announced earlier this month that the group would not come to Fiji because of concerns about the "lack of democracy and good governance."

Of course, Bainimarama blamed Australia. He immediately expelled the Australian ambassador and announced that because of "constant interference" by Australia and New Zealand, "I'm all of a sudden thinking that we might not be ready, come 2014, for elections."

© 2010 Joel Brinkley

Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times. To comment, e-mail Brinkley@foreign-matters.com. Contact us via our online form at sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1.

This article appeared on page E - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/25/IN301EH5DC.DTL#ixzz0v0qtzYTz

RIO 2016, HERE WE COME!!!!

NZ skipper DJ Forbes has been insturmental as ever in the kiwi's first two wins in 2009-2010 IRB sevens series Photo: IRB

OLYMPICS: SEVENS HEAVEN FOR RUGBY
IRB.com

October 9, 2009 will be remembered as a monumental date in the history of Rugby Union. It was the day on which the International Olympic Committee Session in Copenhagen elected to include Rugby Sevens in the Olympic Games.

Rugby Sevens will make its debut at the 32nd Olympiad in 2016 when the Games are staged in Rio de Janeiro, an apt new dawn in a country where the sport is experiencing significant increase in popularity off the back of the Brazilian women's exploits at Rugby World Cup Sevens 2009.

The format will have a familiar feel. Twelve men's and 12 women's teams, 144 Olympic athletes competing over two or three days. It is a proven formula at multi-sport events such as the Commonwealth and World Games and a truly exciting prospect.

The top players have pledged their commitment and each and every one will be proud to call themselves Olympians, while a global audience of billions will see a truly high-octane mix of fast and furious action, highly competitive matches, drama, excitement and a festival of a modern sport.

"This is a historic moment for our sport and for the Rugby family around the world," said International Rugby Board Chairman Bernard Lapasset. "Rugby Sevens will be a great addition to the Olympic Games and Olympic Games inclusion will be fabulous for the growth of the Game.

"I want to thank the IOC membership for their decision to include our sport and I would also like to say a special thank you to the global rugby community for their strong support of the campaign and their hard work in promoting Rugby Sevens around the world."

Pinnacle for Rugby Sevens

When the dust settles the countdown to the inaugural Olympic Rugby Sevens tournament will begin. The consequences for the sport are far reaching. Inclusion will unlock new funding worldwide and access to facilities and infrastructure as many Governments only fund Olympic sports. It will also further establish Rugby Sevens in new and emerging markets and attract new fans, sponsors and broadcasters to the sport.

The campaign by the International Rugby Board gained universal acclaim across the rugby world with leading players like Lawrence Dallaglio, Agustín Pichot, Jonah Lomu and Cheryl Soon leading the way.

The Olympic Games will be the pinnacle for Rugby Sevens; a festival of the world's fittest and finest players. In order to ensure high standards of competition and a Sevens pathway across all continents, the IRB is already working on the qualifying structure, the role of the annual IRB Sevens World Series and the development of women's tournaments.

"Like the IOC we are committed to inspiring a new generation to play and watch sport. Currently there are over three million playing the game in 116 countries. We are determined to see that grow and that's why we are investing £153 million in development programmes over the next four years," said IRB Chief Executive Mike Miller.

"We will work with National Olympic Committees and our own Unions throughout the whole of the Olympiad, investing in training programmes, facilities and competitions to help them prepare for Rugby Sevens at the Olympic Games.

"We are already doing that in Mexico and India to ensure that the Pan American and Commonwealth Games are a huge success - and that a lasting legacy is in place for the growth of Rugby in those countries."

For smaller nations the opportunity to win an Olympic medal resonates, but so too does the opportunity to inspire more people to take up the sport in new communities bound by the Game's ideals of fair play, team work and respect.

Kenya is a modern day rugby success story. In a short space of time the Sevens team, led by the charismatic Humphrey Kayange, has set the world alight over the past two years, causing upsets, entertaining fans and challenging for honours.

They are not alone, Kenya's exploits has prompted growth across Africa with Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, Tunisia, Ivory Coast and Morocco, to name but a few, all making progress on the Sevens circuit. Olympic inclusion will provide another, more significant lift.

The impact that this decision will have on the future of the sport across Africa and in emerging nations around the world should not be underestimated. Rugby Sevens is now firmly on the map, it will be played on the world's greatest sporting stage and there will be significant growth.

"It is every sportsman and woman's dream to participate in an Olympic Games. Now that dream is a reality," said Kayange, a member of the IRB's presentation team in Copenhagen.

Unprecedented growth

"Many sports in Africa are not funded centrally unless they are Olympic sports. Rugby was one of those sports, but now it is an Olympic sport, I would expect to see government support and assistance, NOC support and that means more teams playing at a more competitive level. It is very exciting."

Inclusion will also boost the women's game, which is experiencing significant global appeal. There are now more than 200,000 registered players worldwide and for gold medal winning Australia captain Soon, the heralding of a new era will have a big effect on the development of women's rugby worldwide.

"Women's rugby is experiencing unprecedented growth, but Olympic inclusion will provide further stimulus. We can look forward to the emergence of new nations with Sevens programmes, more competitive tournaments and what I am sure will be a remarkable Olympic Sevens tournament," said Soon.

The campaign, which had its origins a decade ago, was a key goal of the International Rugby Board's Strategic Plan and is testament to the hard work of the IRB, led by Lapasset, the Executive Staff, the IRB Council and of course the global rugby family.

There may still be six years to go until Sevens makes its debut, but the excitement is palpable. Rugby Sevens has finally been welcomed into the Olympic Games and sports fans from around the world will be in for a treat when the inaugural tournament kicks off in Brazil.


Fijian News will keep all our readers posted in this section during the Las Vegas USA Sevens

FEATURE

BROWN PERSPECTIVE ON FIJI PROVIDES BALANCE BUT SOME MYTHS PERSIST

Voreqe Bainimarama talking to Native Affairs presenter Julian Wilcox. Photo: Māori Television

Pacific Scoop
Opinion – By Thakur Ranjit Singh
HISTORY has shown that countries with a cosmopolitan population but with a dominating mainstream white media tend to create stereotypes portraying ethnic minorities or non-whites negatively.
That is, until ethnic journalists come in to fill the vacuum and portray a more balanced picture.
That in a nutshell depicts coverage – or rather lack of it – of Fiji by the mainstream New Zealand media.
I must commend Māori Television’s Julian Wilcox and Radio New Zealand’s Richard Pamatatau, a Cook Islands Māori Kiwi, for venturing into the lion’s den and getting first hand information and news on Fiji that much of the media in New Zealand has ignored.
David Robie’s Café Pacific and Media 7 have done their share, among others, in bringing these reports to the general public.
The reports of Wilcox and Pamatatau have eroded the myth that Fiji is a militarised zone with soldiers lurking around every corner. They have seen no evidence or feeling of a military presence. Most people appeared to be happy with the way things were and it appears the misconception is created by some Fijians in New Zealand with an agenda against the Fiji government.
While the Media 7 coverage on Fiji did show a side of picture that was welcome, there were, however, some misconceptions that need to be clarified by somebody who knows Fiji.
Regarding comments about poverty and squatter settlements, this problem was there there from the days of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Sitiveni Rabuka and Laisenia Qarase, so it is unjustified for New Zealand media to imply that poverty and squatter settlements crept in after Bainimarama took over government in 2006.
As former Director Administration and Operations of Suva City Council until 2003, I can vouch with first hand knowledge that the squatter settlements we have in and around Suva were there for a long time.
Displaced farmers
However, they have increased due to displaced farmers from expired cane farm leases on indigenous land, the poor state of rural development and failure of agriculture and land use through ineffective regimes which resulted in urban drift of especially rural Fijians to Suva City.
The failure of policies of past democratic governments has been to explain about increasing poverty in Fiji where the poverty of the downtrodden is inversely related to the expanding good fortunes of rich elite Fijians and the Indian business community.
Comments that Pamatatau obtained from some villagers and which interviewer Russell Brown has taken as the “other” side of the story are misleading.
Richard Pamatatau’s interview quoted rural Fijians as follows:
“Everyday you are getting new people coming to sell you food – these people are just trying to make ends meet.”
This statement could have been given by people in Otara, Avondale or other markets in Auckland where they eke out a living by selling food even here in New Zealand. So what is new in Fiji? This is happening even here in New Zealand.
“Before the coup in 2000, everything you buy is good price, but now everything … the price is going up.”
Price doubled
This statement can be given by any Kiwi, even by me. Some two years ago, I could buy my Rivermill whole meal grain bread for 99c. Now it costs $1.90. The rice I was eating has doubled in price, with an increase in price of dairy products and virtually everything else.
Do I blame John Key’s National government for it? Hence, Voreqe Bainimarama is as much responsible for price increases in Fiji as John Key is in New Zealand.
“Now when the country changed… life has [now] become difficult.”
So, what is new about that? Ask Social Development Minister Paula Bennett and she will tell you how difficult things are in New Zealand now. Ask those trying to make ends meet with rising prices and increasing unemployment – so it is not confined to Fiji.
Things have changed globally.
“People are coming here every day at our gate, asking for clothes and food. Everyday. That has never happened in Fiji, how many years back. But it is happening now.”
Like squatter settlements, this has been prevalent in Fiji long before 2006, people have been begging in Fiji for long, just like in New Zealand. Except, the begging in NZ is more sophisticated, you beg through charitable organisations.
Street sleepers
I bump into people sleeping in Queen Street every now and then and see long queues of people seeking food and support at City Mission in Auckland. So Fiji is no exception.
Therefore, Russell Brown of Media 7 really needs to explain what he meant when he said Pamatatau’s interviews told another story. What other story?
What was said in Fiji about a difficult life is also applicable here.
Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments about what has escaped these journalists and those who covered the interviews is about the myth of Fijian democracy. In explaining about his interview in a Fijian village, Richard Pamatatau said:
“I had to speak to the village chief before anybody would speak to me.”
That was the gist of the interview that New Zealand media in general, and Radio New Zealand in particular, have not deciphered or have ignored.
In one of the segments of Māori TV’s Native Affairs interview, Frank Bainimarama said:
“In Fiji you do not come up with your own vote… Your vote is decided by the chiefs, it is dictated by the Great Council of Chiefs, it is dictated by the Provincial Council, it is dictated by the church- so it is not your vote. So, do not tell me it is democracy…” [Bainimarama]
It needed to be clarified that if you cannot have the democratic right of freedom of expression in a Fijian village without the chief’s approval, how can the people be expected to vote freely?
What Bainimarama told Julian Wilcox about lack of democracy in Fiji’s current system was substantiated by the experience of Radio New Zealand’s Richard Pamatatau in a Fijian village.
It’s such a pity this was not fully explained to the New Zealand audience.
Thakur Ranjit Singh is a former publisher of the Fiji Daily Post, a political commentator and a postgraduate student in Communication Studies at Auckland University of Technology.
 
 
 

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FIJI COACH ELLA FEARS FOR GLOBAL GAME IF KICKING JOB CAN'T BE CURED

SPORT.sportsman.com
THE Wallaby trying to keep Fiji in the world's top ten nations believes the global game is in danger of dying if teams do not step back from an increasing reliance on kicking balls all over the rugby pitch.
The launch of the November Test window last weekend returned the spotlight to a desire by teams at the top level of the game to kick the ball into opposition territory instead of run with it, in an effort both to avoid being caught in possession and
penalised, and force the opposition into mistakes.
This kind of "safety-first" rugby exploded across the Test stage at the 2007 Rugby World Cup with coaches falling like dominoes in their protestations of being forced to take the kicking route because that was exactly what their opposite number was doing.
The IRB turned to experimental laws in a bid to arrest the slide towards increasing periods of aerial ping-pong, notably forcing players to run ball outside their 22 instead of going for touch and allowing more of a contest for ball at the tackle, but the latter move has merely heightened some teams' reluctance to run ball from their own half at international level.
Glen Ella played for Australia in the 1980s when his brother Mark was at the centre of a new generation of Wallaby success stemming largely from incredible passing and running skills. He is, therefore, delighted to be working with the Fijians for the next few weeks, and insists they will play only one way at Murrayfield.
He said: "If it's a dry day we'll want to play attractive rugby and though if it's a wet day there will be more tactical kicking, we still need to score tries to beat Scotland. Kicking doesn't fit with the Fijian way of playing, really, and I think kicking is the reason why the modern game has gone.
"I watched Australia recently and the Super 14 and it's boring rugby. There are plenty of coaches that have said we need to see more ball in hand. Rugby in Australia is dying. We're competing against Rugby League, Aussie Rules and soccer, and our game is going backwards at a rate of knots.
"If you look at the last World Cup, let's be honest, if it wasn't for the island teams it would have been just a kickathon. Fiji, Tonga and Samoa sparked that into a great tournament, but from the first game of Argentina and France to the final, the rest of the teams just kicked the leather off the ball. I hope we don't see that this weekend."
He accepted, however, that to play running rugby one first has to have the ball, and that is where he fears for his team, who are without a handful of key professional forwards not released by their clubs.
"Our guys are here to run the ball, but if we don't get ball on the front foot and going over the advantage line, then we're going to struggle, and that's something we've talked about all week. We have some real quality players, brought up in Fiji where they just want to run. We've got to find ways to find room for these guys because they'll light the crowd up," said Ella.
"We've got a few ploys to try to break the Scottish defence. I read an article this week quoting the Scottish defence coach where he said they'd done a lot of work on defence and, unfortunately, defence wins big games, so we're going to do our best to break Scotland's down, and if we do we'll go well at Murrayfield, and if we don't we'll lose.
"But these Fijian boys love to represent their country and they will do everything to make it happen."
By David Ferguson


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