People

AP-NG medical assistant, John Huon, in late March became the first white man to cross the 12,000-ft Star Mountains in the Sepik District of New Guinea, ac cording to a report from the Govern ment post at Telefomin. The Star Mountains are along the West New Guinea border.

Huon was a member of a six man Australian expedition led by Tom Hayller, of Sydney, which kept in touch with the Government post at Telefomin by radio.

After Huon’s crossing, the other members of the expedition worked in native villages south of the divid ing range collecting zoological specimens.

No white men had been to this area before, and most of the natives had never seen one. • The Apostolic Delegate to Aus tralia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, Archbishop Enrici, will pay his first official visit to Fiji in May.

Accompanied by Monsignor Trica rico, he will arrive at Lautoka on May 31, and drive to Ba and Rakiraki before flying to Suva in the evening. He will also visit Roman Catholic missions on the islands of Ovalau and Taveuni. Archbishop Enrici will fly to Tonga and Samoa from Fiji on June 2. • The first Fijian to gain the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Dr.

Rusiate Nayacakalou, left Suva with his wife and family in April to be come a Lecturer in Anthropology at Sydney University. Dr. Naya cakalou gained his degree at the University of London in 1963. • A New Guinean police sergeant who was wounded in the anti-government Johnson Cult riots on New Ireland last year has been awarded the Constabulary Valour Medal for bravery. He is Sergeant Givere, stationed at Rabaul, who has had more than 27 years’ service with the Royal Papuan and New Guinea Constabulary. • A new medical officer, Dr.

Bass, arrived in Tarawa, GEIC, by air on March 30. Dr. Bass’ wife will act as relieving dentist. • The Australian Government’s “intention to give away East New Guinea” is a “fantastic idea”, ac cording to Sir Raphael Cilento, who was Director of Public Health in New Guinea before the war.

Speaking in Toowoomba, Queens land, at the end of March, he said: “Papua should be our seventh State.

Whoever holds Papua holds Aus tralia, “From the northern slopes of the Owen Stanleys you can command nearly all of Asia. From the southern slopes, all of Australia as far as Heard Island can be commanded.”

Sir Raphael said that in 1939, nearly all of Asia was under the direct or indirect control of Europe,

but by 1959, only Hong Kong and Macao were under European control.

“We are no longer geographically isolated from Asia,” he said, and added: “Did America give Hawaii away?” • Miss Rosalind Merrifield, 27, of Sydney, became the first Aus tralian woman to fly the Pacific Ocean solo when she reached Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport on April 18. Miss Merrifield, who flew from San Francisco in seven days, 50 hours flying time, was greeted by a cheering crowd. She flew a Piper Aztec aircraft and was accompanied on the flight by another Piper Aztec flown by Captain Peter Ahrens, chief pilot with Avis Rent-a-Plane Pty.

Ltd. The planes will join the com pany’s fleet. They flew via Honolulu, Canton Island and Fiji. • Mr. E. E. Nielsen, Superinten dent of Civil Aviation for the Western Pacific High Commission, was in Tarawa in April to draft a plan for development of an internal air service for the GEIC. Mean while a US geodetic survey of the area will shortly bring a lot of aerial activity to the Colony. • Kalpokor Kalsakau, a member of a well-known New Hebridean family, has decided to study law. He became the first New, Hebridean to matriculate, after studying at Scotch College, Melbourne, under a scholar ship from the British Administration in the New Hebrides. Kalpokor’s father, Makau Kalsakau, is a

SYDNEY VISITORS: Among visitors at the Polynesian Association clubrooms in Sydney recently were Mr. and Mrs. John Brown, of Auckland. Mrs. Brown is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Griffin, of Suva. The Browns are having a work ing holiday in Australia and are enjoying it so much that they have not set a date for their return to Auckland. — Tele-photos.

Dancing

Guides

Young women from several Islands terri tories recently at tended a Girl Guide trainer conference at Lincoln College, Christchurch, New Zealand. Among them were these Gilbert and Ellice Islanders seen here about to give a dance. They are (from left) Aona, Bin-Bean and Naoma Maheu.— Photo: NZ Information Service.

brother of John Kalsakau, a member of the New Hebrides Advisory Council. • Frank Pritchard, of Leone, Tutuila, American Samoa, has achieved scholastic honours attend ing the Indiana Institute of Tech nology, majoring in Civil Engineering.

He was named in the president’s list last year, having been in the top 4 per cent, of his class. He has since transferred to Michigan State University and has been asked to volunteer for the War on Poverty programme. • Lieutenant I. I. Duthie, of the Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps, arrived in Suva recently to succeed Captain Michael Dudman as aide-de camp to Fiji’s Governor, Sir Derek Jakeway. • The Rev. Titus Path and Mr.

Michel Noel will represent the New Hebrides at the Sixth South Pacific Conference in Lae in July. Mr. Path is from Hog Harbour, Santo. He was trained at the Sydney Bible College before being ordained as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in the New Hebrides in 1954. Mr. Noel is also from Santo. He has studied in France and has made study tours to the Cameroons and Switzerland. He is at present on the staff of the French District Agency at Santo.

Surgeon specialist in Western Samoa, Dr. Leonard Goodman, has returned to Guernsey, Channel Islands, from Apia after having completed his second term with the Western Samoan Government— the first between 1959 and 1961, when Samoa was a Trusteeship Territory. He went back in 1962 to work for an inde pendent Samoa. "I don't know if or when I shall return to the Pacific, but I shall certainly be keeping in touch through PIM," said Dr. Goodman in Suva in April.