25 September (Auckland) Fiji sent a Hail Mary Pass by Britain   Guest blog from Fr Denis O’Hagan, a Marist priest and one of the editors of the online e-newsletters  CathNews New Zealand and CathNews Pacific. I was delighted that Samoa beat Fiji on Sunday, because Samoa was my home for seven years. (Though I was on Fiji’s side when the ...

17 September (Wellington) On paper, it looks a tough game for the Fijians, ranked 12 places below the Springboks on the rugby tables – but Fiji will be on a high after Wednesday’s decisive victory over Namibia, while the South Africans could be a bit nervy after just holding out against Wales. On the social stakes, however, Fiji edges in two pl ...

(Saturday 10 September, Rotorua) The story of Pool D is a sad one – the group is both the poorest and the most unequal in the tournament (even the lone OECD representative in the pool, Wales, is far poorer than the rest of the United Kingdom.) The data that’s available for Fiji and Namibia tells essentially the same story. Information on Fiji i ...

Further to yesterday’s blog on New Zealand’s ranking – the Pacifica nations also probably rank higher than they should in our indicative rankings – we haven’t factored in gender inequality properly yet. The latest Human Development Report 2010 had no figures for the Gender Inequality Index for Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. Presumably ...