Results for Tongan society

Tonga's reputation as the Friendly Islands is being threatened by criminal thugs –thought to be from the same group, who are attacking Tonga's Chinese shopkeepers with a brutality that is breathtaking. Shop surveillance videos released to Matangi Tonga this week show extremely violent crimes. The videos record attacks – in one a gun is fired to the side of a woman shopkeeper – and another where a Pahu shopkeeper, hit by a suckerpunch to the face, falls backward suffering severe head injuries. He remains paralysed and fed on a tube.

I entered into this debate to point out that the CEDAW vote in parliament was nothing more than a weathervane and that there is adequate evidence to warrant concern for the future of Tongan women in Tonga. The responses from some of your scribes have done little to change my view – in fact I'm even more convinced that the paradigm shift required is made more difficult by the Daniel K Fale's of this world. - Sefita Hao'uli

Perpetrators of women abuse are to be held accountable for their own actions. This is not a Tongan societal problem. In old Tonga, the brothers or uncles of the abused women would descend on women abusers and beat the crap out of them, and may have even killed them in the process. But in a modern "democratic" society, we provide professional help, and then prosecute them under the law of the country as a deterrence mechanism. Unfortunately, we may have to see some of the guilty murderers hung before Tongan abusive men get the message. -Sione A. Mokofisi

A massive presentation of food for more than 1,200 guests on Sunday May 6 at Nukunuku marked the end of a week-long wedding celebration for Hon. Fanetupouvava'u and Second Lieutenant Siaosi Kiu Tau-ki-Vailahi Kaho. Photos by Adrienne L. Kaeppler and Pesi Fonua

His Majesty, the father of our nation, who is abroad while our household is on fire and we the people are in it, speaks volumes than his past history. To abandon your responsibility towards a nation who is currently suffering, indicates lack of conscience or moral emotion towards his subjects. -William Mariner

A day of Royal Birthday Celebrations on November 17 included a Black-tie dinner for about 1,200 guests at Liukava, the residence of the Prime Minister, HRH Prince 'Ulukalala Lavaka Ata and Princess Nanasipau'u, at Kolovai.