Nutshell

In A Nutshell

• Radio Wewak, in the NG Sepik )istrict, will transmit a special lessage of greeting to short-wave adio listeners in Nelson, New Zea and, in February. The manager of ladio Wewak, Mr. R. Wilson, said tiat reports indicated that the station ad been received in many parts of Jew Zealand, Japan, Germany and )enmark. • Exploration Services, a Port Moresby company, is using teak from tie Territory teak plantation at Irown River as the piles for 12 low est houses it is building near the .aloki River for native employees, 'he teak was planted seven years ago iy the P-NG Forestry Department. • A census taken in the Gilbert nd Ellice Islands Colony in 1963 howed the population had increased 0 50,000, compared with 36,000 in 946. The colony consists of 37 atolls nd islands spread over two million quare miles of ocean. • In the last three years on lougainville, NG, P-NG health officers lave achieved what is believed to be a vorld record for malaria reduction on 1 comparatively big land mass. In hat period they have reduced the in idence of malaria from as high as >0 people a hundred down to three >r four people a hundred. The re actions are the result of the general ;radication campaign now being ;arried out in Papua-New Guinea.

• The first South Pacific Com mission course to be held in the Cook Islands —a training course with the theme of “Incentive for Economic Development”—will be held on Rarotonga in April. American Samoa, French Polynesia, Fiji, Tonga, Western Samoa, Niue and the Cook Islands are being invited to send delegates. • An independent survey of the welfare of Cook, Niue and Tokelau Islanders living in New Zealand is being arranged by the Department of Island Territories. It is hoped that the School of Social Science of Victoria University, Wellington, will be able to begin the survey in the Auckland city area next May.

A committee headed by Mr. J. M.

McEwen, Secretary for Island Territories, has been set up to plan the survey. Other members are Dr. J. H. Robb and Mr. John McCreary, of the School of Social Science, Rev, R. L. Challis, who acts as Probation Officer on behalf of the Department of Island Territories, and Mr. S. D. Wilson, of the Department. • The University of Hawaii Library has completed its first field filming operation in the Pacific Islands and the first project of its kind in Samoa. With a portable microfilm camera the University Library’s filming technician spent two weeks in Pago Pago, American Samoa, and two weeks in Apia, Western Samoa, microfilming Government documents, court records, land titles, newspaper files, and certain church records concerning the history of the islands. • The new Administration hospital at Lae, NG, which is expected to be officially opened in February, will be called the ANGAU Memorial hos pital. The Administrator, Sir Donald

Sydney Visitors:

Seen here at the Polynesian Associ ation, Sydney, on the night of their arrival from Fiji recently are (left) Mr. and Mrs.

Charles Eyre, of Ba, Fiji, with their daughter Mrs. Mona Little, and her hus band, Mr. George Little, hon. secretary of the Polynesian Association. Tele photos.

Cleland, said the name had been chosen because much of ANGAU’s initial activity was organised from the Lae region, under Major H. L. R.

Niall, when the Japanese were being pushed back, although ANGAU was Port Moresby based. • The New Caledonian Education Department is distributing in all schools an illustrated leaflet on six dangerous cone shellfish found in New Caledonian waters. The leaflet was produced free by a local printer. • Investigating a possible route for ultra-high frequency radio links for Territory internal telephone traffic, P-NG Department of Posts and Tele graps officers recently used a heli copter to land on the peaks of Mt.

Albert Edward, Mt. Scratchley and Mt. Strong to inspect them as repeater radio sites. The mountain sites might also be used to link Territory tele phone traffic with the SEACOM cable that would be landed at Madang. SEACOM is part of a link: connecting Europe, Asia, the Pacific: and America. • Twenty-nine New Hebridean, men and six women, the first students; to graduate as teachers from Kar wenu College, just outside Vila, re ceived their certificates from Dr.

Richard Seddon, of the South Pacific Commission, at a ceremony at the; college on December 2. Karwenu College, which was mainly built with British Colonial Development and Welfare funds, was opened in March, 1962. New Hebrideans are trained there for two years as teachers. • At Tarawa Atoll, in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, on No vember 15, the Resident Com missioner, Mr. V. J. Andersen, form ally opened a mile-long causeway linking Naanikai and Teaoraereke Islets, thus completing unbroken high way communication to Bonriki Air port. The first regular air service to the GEIC, by Fiji Airways, is ex pected to start in a month or two. • The Popondetta Agricultural Training Institute, the first of three similar institutes in Pa p u a-New Guinea to begin teaching, was offici ally opened on December 3. Others will be opened in the Central District and Western Highlands District.

The Popondetta Institute, which offers a sub-diploma course of two years to those who have first-year secondary school qualifications, can accommodate 60 students—3o in each year of the course. The emphasis of

he course will be on practical agri :ulture, and successful students will ret a Certificate of Agriculture.

A higher (full diploma) course, asting three years, will be available in 965 to students with Intermediate or unior Certificates at the Vudal Agri :ultural College now being built in slew Britain. • A tender to build a £97,000 jower station at Keravat, about 25 niles from Rabaul, has been let to he Australian firm of Alfred, inashall, Anton Pty. Ltd. • The BSIP Civil Servants’ Asso ciation has asked the Chief Secretary o approve a change in the hours of vork for civil servants, to allow for m official working week of five days 'excluding Saturday), and a maxi mum of 35 hours work a week for ill sections of the British Solomon [slands Civil Service. • Captain Lionel Thrift, manager : or TAA in Papua-New Guinea, will ransfer his office from Port Moresby ;o Lae early in the New Year. Mr. \rthur Krieg, who represented TAA n P-NG during the takeover from Qantas several years ago, will be Dosted from Sydney to become TAA’s Port Moresby manager. • Two new Norfolk Island post age stamps, the first of a new series, will go on sale on February 24.

Lheir denominations will be 5d and Bd. • To combat the danger of sur prise cyclones, the New Caledonian Weather Bureau is installing three automatic weather stations on outlying islands. One, on Ouvea, the northern most of the Loyalty Group, has been operating for some months. A second has just been installed at Belep, an archipelago north-west of the main New Caledonian land mass. A third will be built at isolated Surprise Island in the far north-west of the Group. The three stations will broad cast weather information every three hours. • The Polynesian Airlines DC3’s service between Western Samoa and the Cook Islands, started earlier last year, has proved so popular that on November 29 the company increased the frequency from a fortnightly to a weekly one. The service leaves Apia every Friday for Aitutaki and Raro tonga, returning on the same route on Saturday. The aircraft also now has a hostess. The PAL service is the first to link the Cook Islands with out side services since TEAL closed down its flying boat services to the Cooks several years ago. PAL is owned in Western Samoa.

• A young native girl died on Tanga Island, off the east coast of New Ireland, after she was stung by a cone shell in November. The girl was the second person on Tanga to be stung by a cone shell in recent months.

The first, a seven-year-old boy, re covered. The type of cone shell which stung the girl was not identified. • A £175,000 project has started to make the 45-mile road between Port Moresby and Kwikila an all weather highway. The new road will cost about £92,000 and an additional £83,000 will be spent on erecting 19 bridges between Port Moresby and the Kemp Welch River. • With the installation in No vember of a new transmitter at Kingston, the Norfolk Island Admin istration’s broadcast station VL2NI received an increase in power from 2 watts to 10 watts.

VL2NI is on the air every morning, Monday to Friday, for about 45 minutes to rebroadcast the news from Radio Australia, followed by local news. Short broadcasts on air services and shipping are made at week-ends.

Some transmissions now feature a re quest session. • If all children of school age in New Guinea were to be educated, some 20,000 teachers would be needed, P-NG’s Director of Educa tion, Mr. L. Johnson, said in Port Moresby on November 19 at the third annual graduation ceremony of the Port Moresby Teachers’ College.

He said there were now 4,000 certificated teachers in Administra tion and mission schools, of whom 2,800 were natives and 1,200 were Europeans. An additional 2,500 people had permits to teach. • A mysterious disease has been affecting bananas in parts of south east Viti Levu, Fiji’s largest island.

It is hoped that its cause and treat ment will be discovered by an expert on banana diseases. Dr. R. Leach, of England, who will be in Fiji in Jan uary, • ‘‘Papua and New Guinea Poly valent”, a new anti-venene specially developed for use in the Territory by the Commonwealth Serum Labora tories, Melbourne, is hoped to be suc cessful against the bites of all venom ous snakes in the Territory. Dr.

R. F. R. Scragg, P-NG Director of Helath, said in December the anti venene, a mixture of the venom of the Papuan black, taipan, death adder and tiger snakes, was successfully used on a Tupeseleia man bitten ,by an unidentified snake.