Samoa

A tree in Samoa after cyclone Evan

via imgur

ᔥ the tipline

For the past 3 years the Manukau City Council Planning Policy Department had been working towards a plan change for the whole heart of Mangere.

The area has its own character and its own strong community spirit. The people did not want or need to have new fangled (and foreign) urban design philsophy and concepts foisted on them, much less shoved on them by having it declared immediately effective in October 2010 just before the advent of Auckland Council.

This plan change (PC26) has been abandoned (PDF 88Kb) with effect from date it is to be announced, today, Friday 22 June. The copy of the public minutes attached record the end of an ill-conceived and inappropriate plan change. The excuse for dropping it is apparently something to do with “incompatibility with the proposed Auckland Plan”.

The only part remaining of PC26 has been turned into a spot zone beside the Mangere Town Centre for a Samoan Consulate under PC54. This spot zone applies to a Council property that is presently public reserve land that will be sold to the Samoan Government.

This is probably a good idea considering the large population of Samoans in the South Auckland area, and having a consulate actually in the community is sensible.

Is Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi the best PM in the world ever?

I mean John Key seriously needs to HTFU to beat this statement from the Samoan PM:

Samoans who claim they are poor are lazy, Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele says.

In a comment on the government website Savali, Tuilaepa says having no food, water, clothes, a home or access to medical treatment was poverty.

There was no poverty in Samoa.

“Every Samoan has claim to land. There are plenty of mangoes, pawpaws, bananas and breadfruit falling off and rotting on the ground, plenty of fish in the sea,” he said.

“The problem is too many people are coming into town and loathing around. They are lazy and do not want to go back to their village to work the land. They should stay in their village where their lands are and develop it.”

Tuilaepa says that some Samoans think that not having car, a TV or a European house is poverty.

“Those are luxuries. Having none of those is certainly not poverty.”

If there is no poverty in Samoa there sure as hell isn’t any poverty here. This is the image accompanying the press release on the official government website:

Ok I am fricken over hearing about Samoan and the poor Samoans.

Eight people, including a six-month-old baby are reportedly dead following a bus crash in Samoa.

Twenty other people were injured in the accident, Radio New Zealand reported.

The bus was travelling at speed before it was forced to swerve, causing it to roll with around 30 people inside, it reported.

The bus driver is reported to have fled the scene.

The accident, reportedly the deadliest in Samoa’s history, comes as the country struggles to recover from the devastating tsunami in October which killed at least 129 people.

Got that 6% of the death toll of from the Tsunami have died in one road accident. I’m fully expecting calls for the government to have a national appeal to raise funds for the families devasted by Samoa’s worst ever road crash.

And on the Tsunami….I’m over that too. Fricken hell, 129 people died. So what! More Samoans die in South Auckland every year and we make a big deal about a wave. FFS millions died in the Asian Tsunami and no where near the fuss was made.

I’m over it and want to hear no more about it.