Results for Tonga

The last Heilala Festival for this century, finished with the Miss Heilala Grand Ball on August 20, and the announcement of the Miss Heilala for 1999, Fonoti Taumoepeau. Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 3, July 1999.

‘Aisake Tuiono, the former Chief Accountant of the Tonga Electric Power Board is now the head of two new companies, Global Import and Export, and Global Finance and ­Business Deve­lopment. ‘Aisake resigned from the TEPB early this year to set up the companies in Nuku‘alofa. From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 3, July 1999.

The Kingdom of Tonga is expected to become the 188th member of the United Nations in September, when its application for membership will be tabled at the United Nations General Assembly.

Free Trade, says Sioeli Matoto, the Deputy Secretary for the Ministry of Labour, Commerce, Trade and Industry, “sounds appealing, and sounds like a very good idea, but it is difficult to put into practice, because every country wants to protect their own interest.”

The 70 year-old wooden store of Bhagwan and Sons Ltd. traders on Hala Taufa‘ahau in central Nuku‘alofa has been demolished, and in its place a $500,000 a two storey building is being constructed. From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 2, May 1999.

The Tonga Pro-Democracy Movement has changed its name. In the process of changing its image from that of a political organisation to become a Non-Government Organisation, it is now called the Tonga Human Rights and Democracy Movement. From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 2, May 1999.

‘Akilisi Pohiva has been a controversial political figure ever since he first entered Parliament in 1987, not only because of his indifference to the rules and procedures of the House, but also for his outspoken and controversial comments about Cabinet ministers, the King and members of the Royal family. They are comments that have cost him tens of thousands of pa‘anga in lawyers’ fees and court awards for the defamed over the last decade. Interview and photos by Pesi Fonua. From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 2, May 1999.

Putting everything on the line, “our money, my jewellery and even our lives,” was how Tricia Emberson, the Managing Director of ‘Alatini Fisheries described the commitment she and her partner, Bill Holden, had made toward the development of their company during the past ten years. From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 2, May 1999.

Bob Gillett, a World Bank consultant, visited Tonga at the end of April to brief the Ministry of Fisheries and the Environment Unit of the Ministry of Land on the result of a coastal resources study that he carried out in six Tongan villages last year. From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 2, May 1999.