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NRL player Dargan dies in Aitutaki motorcycle crash
24 December 2023
‘Please heed the signs’: resident makes plea to tourists
20 December 2023
Cook Islands set to play in new World Series
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Corruption report exposes ‘bribe and sexual favours’
17 January 2023
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Moana target 2025 World Cup
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Articles by Jonathan Milne
'Kuki Airani': The name debate
Friday 19 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Culture
In association with the Ui Ariki, Cook Islands News asked our community what Reo Maori names they would suggest to replace Kuki Airani. Here is a small sample of the ideas.
Editorial: Chickens, eggs and police pay
Thursday 18 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
Pay rises and inflationary price increases: which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Bull couldn't eat or drink for three days
Monday 15 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Local
There is mounting support for local photographer Melanie Cooper, after she cut free a bull whose owner had left it tangled up in a rope on her property for three days.
The Wolf of Avarua hid money in ANZ
Monday 15 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in National
ANZ Cook Islands is named in a major US ‘Wolf of Wall St’ style fraud case.
The world-famous Cook Islands scooter licence test
Saturday 13 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Weekend
Jonathan Milne was happy to blithely disregard the advice of those who told him to take care with scooters in the Cooks – until this week, his front wheel started sliding out on the gravel.
Editorial: Sickeningly real impacts on our kids
Friday 12 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
POP QUIZ: NaCL is the formula of Sodium chloride, a strongly-flavoured chemical compound that is key to one of the proposed means of disinfecting Rarotonga’s drinking water. Consumed in sufficient quantities it causes poisoning and death.
Editorial: Who is responsible for Games blunder?
Wednesday 10 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
The swimming team’s admission it recklessly sent four athletes to the Pacific Games in flagrant breach of eligibility rules is not just embarrassing for team management; it is distressing for those now banned from competing.
Editorial: Asbestos victim: 'He went through hell'
Tuesday 9 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
As a journalist, some people’s stories stick with you. I remember the story of Des Sayegh.
Editorial: Today's news: sunny forecast for tourism trade
Monday 8 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
It’s a good week for Cook Islands on the world stage – and it’s only Monday ...
Editorial: Ariki/church/government: a healthy tension
Saturday 6 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
There’s a page in the paper that not everybody reads. That’s because it’s titled, the KidsPage.
Fruits of Raro: Expect the unexpected from Teremoana Napa
Saturday 6 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Weekend
At the back of Punanga Nui market is a partially-roofed wooden stall containing fruits you’ve never heard of, where an extraordinary woman creates a heady elixir for Jonathan Milne and his three boys.
Editorial: Chlorine brought in by bulldozer
Thursday 4 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
The debate over chlorinating the Rarotonga water supply is a shambolic and sometimes shameful display of poor information, bad information and misinformation.
Editorial: Nature scorns those who would tame it
Wednesday 3 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
It was as if every element of nature joined forces.
Editorial: How do we treat our most vulnerable?
Monday 1 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
OPINION: It’s easy to embrace lazy catchphrases like “tough on crime”. It’s far harder to take the humane approach: tough on the causes of crime. Today, lawyer Norman George announces plans to set up a local branch of the Sir Peter Williams QC Penal Reform League, to help address the poverty and abandonment driving people into crime. Acknowledging prisoners are not innately bad, but often just made bad choices under the influence of hunger or addiction, the League would provide support behind bars for their rehabilitation. This sits well alongside the leadership group being convened by the Cook Islands News to address the health challenges around meth and other addictive drugs. The prison lacks funding to feed all 47 inmates. Some have fallen ill drinking the water. Others suffered intimidation. READ MORE:* Norman George: Please pause, look at our young people* Prison work gangs ‘pay for jail food’* Second inmate complains of heavying It’s easy to write off prisoners as mad or bad and lock them away without thought, but this only plunges them further into the cesspit; it will not rehabilitate them to rejoin society as decent citizens. As Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Pearl Buck once said, “the test of a civilisation is the way that it cares for its helpless members.” There are some good people working in police and corrective services; they need the support of an engaged community to help those who might fall into crime, and those who have already. Not an archaic approach of lock ‘em up and throw away the key.
New climate change trauma
Monday 1 July 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in National
New $500,000 study into helping Cook Islanders and Niueans mentally and emotionally harmed by fleeing island homes.
Getting Rusty
Saturday 29 June 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Weekend
When Jonathan Milne and his family decided to move to Rarotonga, there was never any question their 11-year-old terrier Rusty would come with them. After all, their three boys had grown up with him. But then, they ran into problems.
EDITORIAL: What really stinks is NIMBYism
Saturday 29 June 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
The first we knew was when the shrub on the old landfill site was ripped out. Like an oversized plough, an excavator dug deep trenches the length of the Ara Metua property.
EDITORIAL: Look at the bleeding evidence
Friday 28 June 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
Here’s the maths. About 100 people are found guilty of drink-driving on Rarotonga every month, and forbidden to drive. That’s more than 1000 bans year – in a population of about 10,000 men, women and children.
Editorial: Is there a free mace on offer?
Thursday 27 June 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
There are many archaic features of the UK Parliament that seem anomalous in a democratic 21st Century.
Editorial: No excuses for hurting children
Wednesday 26 June 2019 | Written by Jonathan Milne | Published in Opinion
No excuses. That was the message handed down by the Court yesterday, in sentencing a woman for assaulting her little sister at school drop-off.