Nutshell

In A Nutshell

• Subject to the approval of the United States Government, Pan American Airways will establish a weekly air service, using Boeing 707 jet aircraft, between Honolulu and Tahiti.

This follows an agreement between Panam and South Pacific Air Lines.

SPAL will abandon its Honolulu- Tahiti service.

SPAL has been operating a Hono lulu-Tahiti service since April, 1960, but has never obtained authorisation to extend its flights to San Francisco and Los Angeles; whereas Panam has long had a service between Hono lulu and the Californian ports, but none from Honolulu to Tahiti.

The first flight of the new service is expected either in December or January. • The Japanese tuna fishing com pany Taiyo Gyogyo, which has an interest in the recently - established tuna fishing industry in New Cale donia, may establish a tuna base in French Polynesia soon. Two members of the company recently inspected sites at Raiatea, and were particularly impressed by one in Fafao Bay. • Lever’s Pacific Timbers Ltd., a new company to be constituted in the BSIP to exploit timber there, plans to log 30 million super feet of timber on Gizo, and then to begin operations on Kolombangara. Heavy equipment for the company was being shipped from England in September.

The company’s general manager, Mr. A. D. Melhuish, arrived at Yan dina on September 24. He was formerly a senior official with African Timber and Plywood (Ghana) Ltd. • The New Hebrides Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, which was officially opened by the British and French Resident Com missioners in June, began its first working session on October 3. This was the first of a series of quarterly general meetings, • Apia’s Harbourmaster, Mr. Harry Jay Moors, in Apia in October, was sentenced to three months’ gaol on a charge of having forged a certificate on a Treasury voucher. It was alleged that by manipulating vouchers, Moors

had obtained an air conditioner for his office. His counsel submitted that nobody had been defrauded and the signing of the certificate was not forgery. The Chief Justice, in passing sentence, said Moors had abused his position of a trustee of public revenue. Leave to appeal was granted and Moors was released on bail. • With improvements in the ex port of nickel to Japan and increased exports to France of smeltered nickel over the last few months, New Caledonia’s revenue has taken an upwards turn. The large deficit earlier expected in this year’s budget should be considerably reduced. Government departments have also helped the position by carrying out important economies and there is even a hope now that the budget might be balanced. • There has been a delay in the dart of an internal air service for the British Solomons, which it was hoped would begin in September. It is still expected to start before the ;nd of the year. The service will be Dperated by Captain L. Crowley, of Crowley Airways, New Guinea, who is converting a De Havilland Dove aircraft for the service. • An Apia report in October said aegotiations were in the final stages for Polynesian Airlines to increase its iortnightly Cook Islands’ service to veekly flights, and to introduce a new service each fortnight between Apia and Nadi, Fiji. • One hundred members of the French Foreign Legion arrived in Papeete on October 9 to assist in the erection of the atomic testing centre n French Polynesia. A civil engineer n October completed a survey of Papeete port and will submit plans br a transformation of the port to aandle the big increase in sea traffic expected. A substantial sum has re cently been voted by the French Parliament for the work. The new aarbour plans include the building of t road on the barrier reef at Papeete. • The Eastern Queen left Noumea m September 28 with a full passenger ist of 550 Vietnamese returning lome to Haiphong, North Vietnam.

Phis shipload seemed to have many nore young people aboard than brmer ones. Amongst them were nany local footballers who had played :ither in Noumean teams or in Viet earns in Noumea. • Additional seismological instru nents are being erected in tunnels in iabaul to help the resident vul anologist predict the behaviour of volcanoes there.