Nutshell

In A ft Nutshell

A SHIPMENT of nine tons oft candlenuts from Rarotonga to!

New Zealand in October could result] in a profitable new industry for the) Cook Islands.

The shipment—made under al project financed by the Cook Islands Co-operative Bank Ltd.—was con-| signed to an important NZ oil manu-j facturing firm, which ordered the) nuts for a trial extraction of oil.

New Zealand now pays nearly] £200,000 a year for candlenut oil) most of which comes from Europe!

However, several years ago thq Imperial Institute of the Uniteq Kingdom found that oil extracted from Cook Islands candlenuts com! pared favourably with the oil novtf imported into New Zealand. * * * A three-storey building to ac] commodate nearly 300 Papuan andl New Guinean nurses is being builti at the Papuan Medical College, Port Moresby. The building will be largest brick and concrete building in the Territory, and will cosl approximately £347,000.

Supervising architect of construe) tion for the Commonwealth Depart! ment of Works is Mr. A. Jones, whq said in Port Moresby in November that the nurses’ home should be finished next October. * * * Mr. Kenneth Mills, a former Resill dent Agent at Mauke, has beei appointed architect to the CooH Islands Government. The Coo?

Islands Assembly recently decided that the appointment of an architect to be stationed in Rarotonga, wajj essential if progress on major build; ing jobs was to be made.

Mr. Mills, who has recently bee| working with New Zealand?

Ministry of Works, drew the plans-| without charge—for the publiii library and museum to be built ill Rarotonga. ( PIM, Nov., p. 141 X He visited Rarotonga briefly earlie this year to discuss the plans with thif Library Committee.

Mr. Mills and his wife were dui to arrive in Rarotonga in latt October.

The Nauru Administration recently >mpleted the scaling of the main tad on the island, so that it is now jssible to drive right round Nauru i bitumen. * * * Four Papuans and New Guineans ill be chosen soon to attend a two :ar boat-building course at Auki, alaita, BSIP. The course, the cond of its type, will start on arch 4, 1963, and will last for two ars.

The courses are organised jointly r the South Pacific Commission and ie United Nations, with the assis nce of the BSIP Administration, ie purpose of the course is to im ove the standard of boat building the South Pacific, * * * A research economist estimated re ntly that Papuans and New uineans had between £1.5 and million in saving bank accounts, ie economist, Mr. John Phillips, of e Reserve Bank, said at least ,000 natives had opened savings nk accounts in the past 12 months, ; estimated that native savings bank positors had saved an additional 50,000 during the last 12 months, * * ♦ Two Papuans were missing, pre med drowned, when the Tagari ver Bridge, near Tari, NG, col led in November while a three i truck was crossing it. The truck apped into 20 ft of water. * * * Samples of tea from the P-NG Ad nistration’s pilot commercial tea mtation at Garaina, in the Morobe itrict, were sent to tea importers in itain in November. They will be ted for taste, blending, colour and )ma. Similar tests are at present ing made in Australia. * * ♦ Surveyors have been working on a m for a big expansion of Kwikila 3-district station in the Rigo area Papua. Kwikila will become a vn, with houses, schools (including technical and secondary school), a al, shopping centre and sports >und. The LMS Church has already rted building a teacher training liege on 45 acres there—to be led Ruatoka College. The Roman tholic mission is building a brick iool about two miles away and will er add a convent, church and girls’ look

Statistics released in Port Moresby in November put P-NG population at 1,972,361 —1,947,031 native people, and 25,330 people of other races.

There was an overall population in crease for the year of 68,185 people. * * * P-NG Mission leaders are prepar ing a hymn book that can be used at all religous meetings throughout P-NG. The book will have about 200 well-known hymns. * * * About 3,000 natives in the Bainings area of New Britain have agreed to the P-NG Administration resettling them. The Administration plans to

move them to 12,000 acres in the Malasait-Mainem area, but a bridge will have to be built across the Vudal River. The Bainings people suffered heavily during the war and popula tion since the war has declined. * * * Widespread damage is being caused in Lae, NG, by the giant white ant— biggest white ant in the world— which was found for the first time in NG last year. It grows to a length of three-quarters of an inch. Pre viously it had been known to exist only in Queensland, but Dr, J. Szent- Ivany, P-NG’s Senior Entomologist,

thinks it got into the Territory during the Pacific War. In November, Pro fessor A. Emerson, of the University of Chicago, arrived in Port Moresby to advise on methods of controlling this giant and also to study all types of P-NG termites. * * * Dr. Chester Williams, 43, al UNESCO educational consultant, has arrived in Western Samoa to help formulate the State’s educational pro gramme. He will be in Samoa for two years. Dr. Williams is a Yale graduate and is now Professor of| Education at the College of Educa tion, University of Wichita, Kansas.

In 1958 he visited Russia to study Soviet education.

Native women at Kerema, in the Gulf district of Papua, have started a sewing business.

They have formed a company of 23 shareholders and six directors.

Share price, open to anyone who; works in the business: 10/- Aus tralian. The women guarantee to: fill bulk orders for eight types of clothing including women’s and children’s underwear, boys’ shorts and girls’ skirts. $ $ $ Although Road Rates and Bicycle Taxes for 1962-63 were due to be paid on April 1 this year, 1,500 bike riders in Rarotonga had still not paid up by mid-October. However, a stern notice in the Cook Islands News on October 16 reminded defaulters that proceedings would be taken against all those who had not paid by October 29. * * * The West Samoan census report] is available at the Treasury, Apia, for £Stg.l a copy. The census was taken in September, 1961, and the re port contains an account of the; trends in Samoan population since 1839. * * * The first sheet of a new series of large-scale maps of Western Samoa; was released in Apia in October. This sheet covers the main island from Faleolo in the west to Le’auva’a in the east and extends south as far as Tanumalala. It costs 7/6 per copy.

Two more maps in the series will be published within the next six months —a further four maps will follow.