Nutshell

In A Nutshell

In Port Moresby in April it was reported that of 260 Buka natives who were gaoled during the Court sittings at Sohano Island in February for having taken part in the Buka riots, 80 had now served their sen tences. Another 180 were still in gaol serving from three to ten months. * * * Captain Joe Shephard, TEAL’s famous South Pacific flying boat captain, who earlier this year took up a new post with the International Civil Aviation Organisation in Mon treal, wrote from blizzardly cold Canada in April with the news that he was finding it a long way from the sunny South Seas, with snow, ice and temperatures ranging from minus 15 degrees to 36 degrees. But he likes the novelty, nevertheless, and has been meeting old friends, includ ing Peter Summers, who was in the Nadi meteorological office for two years, and is now working for a private meteorological firm which supplies forecasts to anybody who wants them. * * * Former Australian Olympics team captain Kevan Gosper will be asked to manage Papua-New Guinea’s team at the Perth Empire Games in No vember. The P-NG Empire Games Committee decided on April 10 to ask him. Gosper, who works in Rabaul, has been in P-NG for several months and has spent a great deal of time training native athletes. * * * There hasn’t been much rest in recent months for the High Com missioner for the Western Pacific, Mr. D. C. C. Trench, CMG, MC.

In mid-March he was visiting out port districts of Guadalcanal; at the end of the month he left Honiara for Vila and a tour of the New Hebrides, and followed that up with attendance at a meeting of the British Phosphate Commission in Melbourne, Victoria. Part of Mr Trench’s kingdom is the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony and part of the G & EIC is phosphate-producing Ocean Island. * * * P-NG in April had a visit from an Australian official tennis team.

which played a series of exhibi matches at Port Moresby. Ti manager Alf Cade said he he the team would return for mat< in other centres next year and Australia, as the champion tei nation, should sponsor team t< in its territories and neighboui countries, similar to sporting t< sponsored by the US Governmen * * * Early in April the vanguard c United States observation team rived in Fiji to watch for ra» active fall-out during the nuclear t at Christmas Island. They and tl equipment arrived at Nadi by gi Globemaster transport aircraft. * * * In early April a Fiji Aimv Heron made a charter flight fi Nausori to Rarotonga with a gn of Seventh-day Adventist missi aries. The plane carried two fami who had been unable since Janu to get shipping berths. * * * Papua-New Guinea’s Nauti School will go into operation Napa Napa, near Moresby, on N 1. Eight trainees will take seam ship and marine engineering in first course of 12 months. 1 school is similar to the Nauti School Hollandia, West New Guin where some P-NG sailors hi already been trained. * * * The volcano on Manam Island, the Madang Coast, NG, which 1 been in continuous action for a lo time, seemed to be building up to major explosion in mid-Ap: P-NG’s Senior Geologist, Mr. G.

Taylor, says that there is no cai for alarm yet, but he has placed special watch on the current la flow from the southern crater. * * * Work is progressing on Suva’s n< Civic Centre, to replace the To\ Hall which has been the home the local government at Suva sin it was built early in the century. T first stage will cost £54,000. F Builders Ltd. are the contractors the building which is in Suva’s ma thoroughfare, Victoria Parade. * * * A threatened strike by airlii pilots employed in Papua-Ne Guinea by Ansett-MAL was calk off in early April pending negotii tions and because the company ha agreed to an interim increase i salaries and allowances ranging froi £2OO to £l,OOO per annum. The piloi want the same service conditions a TAA pilots employed in P-NG.