Fiji pulls out of Pacific leaders meeting
FIJI'S controversial Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has indicated he will not attend a special meeting convened to discuss his country's troubled regional relations.
Leaders from 16 nations in the Pacific Islands Forum, including Australia and New Zealand, will meet in Papua New Guinea next week to decide the fate of Fiji's membership in the group.
Mr Bainimarama had made plans to attend the meeting, making a special request to the Australian Government to have bans for travel by Fijian diplomats temporarily lifted so his party can transit through Brisbane to Port Moresby.
But the self-appointed leader has since told a New Zealand radio station that the severe flooding across his country last week required him to remain at home.
"The last thing I want to do is move away from here at this time," he told Radio Tarana.
The move indicates he has backed out of a showdown with other Pacific leaders who were calling for him to explain his path to democracy following the December 2006 bloodless coup.
Since then, Mr Bainimarama has failed to live up to promises he made at a forum meeting in Tonga in 2007 that free and fair elections would be held by mid 2009.
A letter from Mr Bainimarama to the forum secretary Toke Talagi published in the Fiji Sun on Monday ruled out an election before the year is up.
The PNG meeting on January 27 will discuss the failed promises and consider suspending the country from the forum as a penalty.
Professor Brij Lal, a specialist in Fiji governance at Australian National University in Canberra, said while suspension was best for the region it was "very unlikely" given Tonga has said it would not support it.
"The forum is also based in Fiji which makes the situation logistically difficult, so the members will have to come up with another plan, like more sanctions, to penalise Fiji," Prof Lal said.
He said the floods were a "lame excuse" for Mr Bainimarama to not attend the meeting.
"He was looking for any excuse to get out of it."
Kidnapped Greek shipping tycoon Pericles Panagopoulos released
From correspondents in Athens, Greece
GREEK shipping magnate Pericles Panagopoulos, kidnapped in Athens on January 12, was released today near the Greek capital.
The 74-year-old shipping tycoon, who founded Greece's largest ferry company Attica, was picked up by the police near the Aspropyrgos industrial zone west of the capital where his kidnappers told the family they had left him.
Greek media said his family had paid a ransom of €15 to €20 million ($29-$39 million).
Mr Panagopoulos, one of the richest men in Greece, did not appear to have been mistreated by his captors but after being held for a week while suffering from a serious illness he was to be taken to hospital in a private clinic in Athens, a police source said.
The police had remained silent throughout the kidnapping drama but media reported that the family of the tycoon had left the ransom as demanded in an isolated spot 100 kilometres north of Athens.
His wife Katerina had said last week she was "ready to pay the sum" to the abductors, who captured her husband along with his chauffeur in the seaside suburb where he lives.
US Vice President Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back yesterday while moving boxes into a new house and will be in a wheelchair for the inauguration of Barack Obama as the next president, the White House said.
Mr Cheney - who has a history of health problems, including four heart attacks, a blood clot in a leg and long-standing knee arthritis - is looking forward to being at the swearing-in ceremony tomorrow for Mr Obama and Joe Biden, the incoming vice president, said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.
"Under his physician's recommendation, the vice president will be in a wheelchair for the next couple of days, including for tomorrow's inauguration," she said.
