South Seas in a nutshell

Micronesia accepts "free association" with the US

The Congress of Micronesia, after a 45-day session finishing

on August 27, has accepted the

Future Political Status Commis sion’s report recommending free association of Micronesia with the United States.

A 10-member Micronesian Political Status Delegation was created and was due to go to Washington at the end of September to confer with members of the US Congress and the Administration.

A resolution was adopted authoris ing the Washington delegation to study the steps to independence as well as free association with the United States.

Members of the new Political Status Delegation include: Senators Lazarus Salii, Palau; Andon Amaraich, Truk; Tosiwo Nakayama, Truk; Francisco Palacios, Marianas; Bailey Olter, Ponape; and Repre sentatives Ekpap Silk, Marshalls; Olter Paul, Ponape; John Mangefel, Yap; Minoru Ueki, Palau; and Benjamin Manglona, Marianas. Salii and Silk are co-chairmen.

See "US military chiefs look towards Micronesia", p. 54. 9 The most virulent type of in fluenza for many years swept Western Samoa in September filling the hos pitals and resulting in several deaths with its complications of pneumonia.

In an effort to halt its spread the two-week August school holiday was extended an extra week for secondary school pupils and two weeks for primary schools. • Results of mineral investigations by the Conzinc Rio Tinto Company in the Eastern District of the British Solomon Islands have so far proved disappointing, according to a spokes man for the Geological Surveys De partment. The company, which has been prospecting for bauxite on Ugi and Ulawa, has found it present only in very small patches, and these small amounts are not worth exploiting.

This was also found to be the case when investigations were carried out earlier at Maru Bay, San Cristo bal.

Prospecting licences for Ugi, Ulawa

South Seas in a nutshell

and Small Gela were granted to the company in September, and work in the last area, Small Gela, has just begun.

In August the company was granted prospecting licences for the Three Sisters Islands, and a large area of Santa Cruz. • A New Zealand motelier, Trail ways Ltd., has been granted per mission by the Cook Islands Govern ment to build a 36-unit motel on a 20-acre site at Amuri Beach, Aitutaki, The government will take up a third interest in Trailways Aitutaki Ltd., which will own the motel. Clearing has already started and it’s hoped to have the motel completed by January next year when the territory’s main airstrip on Rarotonga is closed down for re-building into an international jet strip. • Indian firewalking ceremonies may be dropped from Fiji’s Hibiscus Festival programme in future be cause of objections on religious grounds by Hindus. They said fire walking should be reserved for re ligious purposes and not be held on a commercial basis as a festival at traction. ® Hopes that Papua’s gas reserves will be utilised were raised again in September by a six-day visit to the territory’s underground and off shore gas prospects in the Gulf by a 12-man Japanese Government team.

Price negotiations were not held.

Oil Search Ltd., oil explorer in Papua for over 30 years, said the Kuru, Bwata and Berikewa gas wells were owned about 71 per cent, by itself, 15 per cent, by British Petroleum and 14 per cent, by Mobil Oil. ® Western Samoa released m October a $1 crown to honour the 75th anniversary of the death of Robert Louis Stevenson, who died in 1894 and was buried at the summit of Mt.

Vaea, adjacent to his home Vailima, in the suburbs of Apia, ® An old pre-war airstrip at Sala maua, in the Morobe District of P NG is to be reconstructed for use by light aircraft. The new airstrip will be 2,200 ft long, 150 ft wide, and will give quicker access for

medical emergencies from Salamaua to Lae and, it is hoped, encourage the tourist trade. • Fletcher Holdings Limited of NZ has won a contract to build SUSS million chain of hotels in Micronesia.

About $70,000 worth of machinery for site preparation was to leave New Plymouth in the Turakina for the Truk group, where the first of seven hotels was to start in September. The contract is with Travelodge Corp. of the US (a subsidiary of Travelodge Australia) and Continental Airlines to build the first of the hotels, on Guam, by January next year, • Llnstitute d’Emission d’Outre- Mer has printed a 100-franc note which will in time replace the note of the same face value issued by the Bank of Indo-China in the New Hebrides, The new note shows on one side the bust of a girl playing a guitar surrounded by a variety of Polynesian objects. On the other side is a girl’s head garlanded with flowers. On this side are printed the words Nouvelles Hebrides. The Bank of Indo-China notes will continue to be legal tender. • Mr. Lindsay James Curtis, 40, a senior parliamentary draftsman in the Australian Commonwealth Gov ernment Attorney-General’s Depart ment, will take up his appointment as Papua-New Guinea’s Secretary for Law on October 27, succeeding Mr.

W. W. Watkins, who retired in mid- September after 20 years in NG. The choice of a man not in the territory public service for the $10,500 a year job was criticised by the NG Public Service Association. • Emergency supplies of food and water were distributed by the gov ernment to outer islands in the Fiji group and rural areas badly hit by a prolonged drought during Sep tember. The long dry spell has re sulted in disastrous losses to farmers, whose crops have withered and died.

On one island alone, Vatoa in the Lau group, more than 5,000 coconut palms have died. • Work is going well on Vila, New Hebrides’, $l.B million over seas ships wharf. Clearing of a five acre site for the wharf and adjacent buildings has been completed, preliminary survey work has been

finished and dredging in 35 ft of water started in September ahead of schedule. Major work on the wharf due for completion by 1972 —is to start between January next year and May, 1971. • Following rejection of a $6 mil lion hydro-electric project to supply future power requirements for Honiara, Solomon Islands. ( PIM , Aug., p. 125), two English firms, McLellan and Partners and Wilton and Bell Dobbie and Partners, both based in Australia, have been jointly engaged by the Solomons Electricity Authority to plan an alternative SUSBOO,OOO diesel scheme. • The New Guinea Administra tion is considering having an ex haustive survey made of a multi million dollar proposal to reclaim a large area of swampland in the Wahgi Valley area of the Western Highlands. Several private firms have submitted reports on how they would conduct the survey. • In the most direct step into politics taken by a P-NG church leader, Anglican Bishop of New Guinea, Bishop David Hand, called for the resignation of Minister for External Territories, Mr. C. E.

Barnes, in Sydney on September 24.

Bishop Hand said Mr. Barne’s politics represented “muddling, ham-handed ness and perhaps even a little panic”.

“I don’t know if it is he or his ad visors who are at fault but we need a new look”, he told members of the Sydney Journalists’ Club at a luncheon. • Two banks have set up branches on the site of the proposed mining township north of Kieta, Bougain ville, adjacent to the island’s huge copper finds. They are the National Bank of Australasia Ltd., which has as clients several contractors for Bougainville Copper Pty. Ltd., and the Commonwealth Banking Corpora tion. • Solair, the New Guinea con trolled Solomon Islands internal air line, has had its protected industry status extended for an additional two years, to 1971. Earlier this year (PIM, June, p. 123), two other air groups tried unsuccessfully to set up other air services in the protectorate.

Now the Solomons Government has decided continued protection of Solair is “in the public interest”. • After over two years dropping broad hints that it would get into the Fiji hotel business, BOAC, the British Government international air-

line, has finally agreed to invest $550,000 with Qantas in two pubs, the Fijian, Sigatoka, and the Mocambo, Nadi, both on the main island, Viti Levu.

Each airline is putting $175,000 into Fiji Resorts Ltd., owner of the Fijian, and $lOO,OOO each into Fiji Mocambo Holdings Ltd., owner of the Mocambo. The Fijian will be extended and 70 new rooms built, making a total of 170 rooms. • Troops from Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Fiji carried out a two-week jungle warfare exer

cise inland from Sigatoka on the main island of Viti Levu, Fiji, in September. British and Gurkha troops acting as the enemy were “at tacked” by New Zealand and Fiji troops. The Governor, Sir Robert Foster, during a visit to the exercise area landed by helicopter in a “terrorist camp”. • In what must be the fastest growing tourist area in the Islands, about 12,500 visitors entered the United States Trust Territory last year and a further 17,000 visitors are expected this year. Increases have averaged about 45 per cent, per year for the past four years; in 1968 visitors spent $U5540,000, this year they will spend $750,000.

By 1974, providing these trends remain unchanged and corresponding facilities—such as new hotels, are built—the territory can expect 97,000 visitors a year spending about $7 million, • Fiji's bureau of statistics esti mates that gross receipts from tour ism in the first six months of this year totalled more than sl2i million.

This compares with sl7i million in the whole of last year. If the present trend continues for the rest of the year, gross receipts from tourism could soar to more than $26 million, the bureau said. • How to lose 7 lb in three days and wear your car out into the bar gain? Sydney journalist John Bryson came out winner of the Papuan Safari, which started from Port Moresby on September 15—but he returned to Australia a lighter man.

John, who completed the last London-to-Sydney marathon, is all smiles about his first Papuan Safari, in which 16 teams took part. He really believes that it could become the world’s number one safari, taking

Religious scenes by old masters are de picted on a set of four Christmas stamps from Western Samoa to be issued on October 13. These two, 20 sene and 30 sene, show El Greco's "The Nativity" and Velazquez's "The Adoration of the Magi".

over from the ultra-tough East Africa Safari, Says John: “The conditions at Moresby and the fantastic interest take by the people there, could make it big. We drove 800 miles in three days along river beds, through 15 ft high grass and over some of the roughest ground I’ve seen.

“Manufacturers could well use this safari to test their new cars. We drove a lot on disused wartime jeep tracks into foothills of the Owen Stanley Range, one car was destroyed by fire and another retired with a broken sump.”

The safari, arranged by the South Pacific Sports Club, is already an annual event, but it is due soon to become part of the South Pacific Rally series which includes Indo nesia. New Caledonia, New Zealand and Australia. • The Noumea Hotel Residence was opened in New Caledonia in September under Australian manager Jean-Claude Kruger. Built by Cale donian interests for $A300,000, the new 30 room project is situated in a quiet residential street of Baie des Citrons, behind the existing 50 room Noumea Hotel on the beach front.

Offering double accommodation at SAIO per night, the new rooms are equipped with individual refrigerators, and the “Residence” also offers a bar and light refreshments with French television each evening. • The funeral of Bishop Hill, 13 years Bishop of Melanesia, took place before 2,000 people at St.

Barnabas Cathedral, Honiara, in the Solomon Islands on September 1.

The Bishop’s coffin, wrapped in tapa cloth and a mat given by members of the Fijian community, was lowered into a newly consecrated burial plot in the cathedral grounds, specially reserved for those who have served the diocese of Melanesia in special ways.