Page 25 - IB March 2021

Mining Mining

Bauxite Namosi copper/gold
Aurum Exploration from China was awarded two bauxite Is in early stages of visibility studies.
mining leases and 8 bauxite exploration licenses. Fiji’s last The company is doing a number of studies on the explora-
bauxite shipment was in 2018. tion data that it has generated, in order to determine the
viability of the project.
Status of its two bauxite mines:
Nawailevu, Bua: was high grade but has been mined out and Ironsand mine, Ba Delta
is now in mine rehabilitation phase with 260,000 pine trees Mining lease held by Amex Resources Ltd, working in the
planted. Ba Delta. The company is faced with mechanical challenges
Naibulu, Dreketi: Low grade bauxite. Needs beneficiation and is working on those in order to ramp up production by the
before shipping. The company is working on trying to improve middle of this year.
the yield via its R&D and also work on the ground.
editor@islandsbusiness.com

Media

FACEBOOK AND PACIFIC NEWS

By Kevin McQuillan On the first day of Facebook’s ban, the audience responded
in their hundreds from the region and across the world,
The importance of Pacific news on Facebook was thrown Fijians in South Sudan and Afghanistan, seasonal workers in
into sharp relief by the stand-off in January between the Australia and Tongans in Utah, ‘all hungry for news’.
Australian government and Facebook over the government’s Amanda Watson, an expert on digital technology in the Pa-
media code. cific at the Australian National University, says that for many
Facebook closed access to Pacific and Australian news and Pacific Islanders, Facebook is the internet.
stopped users from sharing Pacific and Australian news. For a “Those who have worked out how to use Facebook may not
time, Australians were unable to access any news, including know how to go to a website or use a search engine.”
news from weather bureau, hospitals, emergency services, She told The Diplomat that one of the major issues is that
charities and schools. Pacific telecom companies offer Facebook as a cheaper data
The code, which Facebook and Google earlier said was pack.
“unworkable”, has established a framework which will see “For example, Our Telekom in Solomon Islands sells Face-
the tech giants to enter a binding arbitration process with book data cheaper than other data. In Papua New Guinea,
Australian media outlets, so they can be paid for use of their Digicel has a 3-day data option for PGK10 that includes 300MB
news content. of data for general use plus 700MB for Facebook. Similarly, a
After a week-long stand-off, Facebook backed down, restor- 7-day option is PGK20 for 600MB plus 2000MB (2GB) of Face-
ing news pages and the ability of users to repost news. Face- book data.
book’s vice president of public affairs, Nick Clegg, conceded There are varied figures for the percentage of population
the company had “erred on the side of over-enforcement”. on Facebook. It’s highest In French Polynesia 59%, Tonga 49%,
As part of the backdown, Australian Treasurer, Josh Fryden- and Cook Islands 49% and lowest in PNG 7%, Kiribati 25% and
berg, agreed to take into account whether Facebook has Solomon Islands 11%.
already struck commercial agreements with news publishers “I started the Pacific Newsroom three years ago and
before enforcing the code. Auckland-based Michael Field and I work as volunteers,” said
The founder of The Pacific Newsroom Facebook channel, Ahern.
Sue Ahearn, told Pacific Business that the compromise struck “We share a commitment to public interest journalism. I
by the Australian government and Facebook looks like a win could see technology was changing the speed of communica-
for traditional big media at the expense of newer, innovative tion rapidly in the region and there was a void left by the ABC
outlets. where I’d worked for 25 years. A senior executive told me
She says it’s too early to tell if the latest deal will have an there was no one in the Pacific and the audience was in India
impact on The Pacific Newsroom. and China. I hope I’ve proved him wrong.”
The site is an aggregation of the best news in the world “In the absence of accurate, trusted and timely informa-
about the Pacific - from newspapers, national broadcasters tion, rumour, speculation and innuendo fill the vacuum. I’ve
like the SIBC, Radio NZ Pacific, and NBC, Pacific bloggers, and seen this so many times in the Pacific,” says Ahearn.
development sites including DevPolicy and Lowy. *
“The Pacific Newsroom has become the town square of the *Islands Business articles also appear on The Pacific Newsroom
Pacific where people can share stories,” says Ahearn.
“Our audience is just over 20,000 and there’s a steady num- editor@islandsbusiness.com
ber of new members every day.

Islands Business, March 2021 25