nutshell
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THREE shark attacks in rivers have been reported already this year in the Solomons. Early in the year a 10-year-old girl lost a foot, in early March a 15-year-old boy was at tacked at the mouth of the Boko kimbo River, and on Easter Saturday a shark attacked David Vota when he was swimming at the mouth of the Aola River. David lost his leg but was rescued by two women and carried to hospital. All the attacks took place in shallow rivers east of Honiara. • The Roman Catholic Church in Papua-New Guinea and the Solomons has created a Melanesian Social Pastoral Institute for Research and Information, aimed at organising training courses for missionaries, carrying out anthropological and pastoral research, assisting in develop ment schemes and publishing articles on these activities. Its headquarters will be at Vunapope, near Rabaul, and it will stay in close contact with the Protestant Churches. • The fourth Kavieng Show at New Ireland, New Guinea, will be held in September. Mr. M. Gallen has been re-elected president of the Show Society; the three vice-presi dents are Mr. W. Meehan, Father Jones and Mr. Laurens Maris; Mr.
Tony Connors is secretary and Miss Suzanne Bonnell, treasurer. • The annual Hibiscus Festival in Suva will be held this year from August 29 to September 5. It will be even bigger and better this year, culminating in the popular float pro cession, crowning of “Miss Hibiscus 1970”. • Twenty-three acres of land on the Serua coast of Viti Levu, Fiji, have been sold to an American restaurant owner in Fairbanks, Alaska, for a reported $97,000. Last year the land changed hands for $14,000. The owner is believed to be planning a 100 room chalet-type hotel on the site. • Following a series of road accidents at night in which three policemen have been killed, Fiji’s police force has been issued with white reflecting belts to be worn over their dark blue uniforms to allow motorists to see them in the dark.
• Sixteen men from Ufeto, near Goroka, New Guinea, were sent to gaol for five months on a charge of riotous behaviour on May 6. The men had stoned a police car near Goroka, breaking two windows of the car. They all pleaded guilty. • The board of management of the Vila Cultural Centre has re commended to the two Resident Commissioners of the New Hebrides that a committee, composed of gov ernment and private people, be set up to examine wild life preservation in the New Hebrides. The committee would be asked to propose wild life reserves on Efate and other islands. • American Samoa is to have a Bar Association with a membership comprising of all persons entitled to practise before its High Court. • Home-brew drinking is worrying Western Samoan police. Nearly all charges of drunkenness in recent months have been over the drinking of “bush beer” and a number of assaults in the territory have been directly related to drinking. • After being closed for 28 years, Salamau’s airstrip, New Guinea, was officially re-opened in May, by the Morobe District Commissioner, Mr.
H. P. Seale. The airstrip was origin ally in service in the 1920’s and from it aeroplanes carried goods to Wau and Bulolo. It also served the early mail planes from Australia, and during the war was used by the RAAF in the early stages of the Japanese invasion. • For the second time an attempt is on to introduce taxis on South Tarawa, capital of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. The travel department of the government-run Wholesale Society has put two white Mini- Mokes, one based at Bikenibeu and one at Bairiki, for hire as taxis or “chaffeur driven rental cars”.
Tarawa’s first abortive taxi effort was operated by private enterprise on Betio several years ago. • The Fiji Government is looking for a developer to build a luxury hotel on Fijian land at Bilo Battery, about 10 miles west of Suva.
The government holds a 99-year lease on two pieces of Fijian land in the area, owned by the people of nearby Waiqanake Village. It’s on the larger of the two leases that the hotel may be built. • The United Nations Association New Zealand has asked the UN
Commission on Human Rights and the UN Committee on the Ending of Colonialism, to study conditions in the French territories of French Polynesia and New Caledonia, where the authorities it claims, have opposed or suppressed movements for independence.
The association also pointed out that France has conducted nuclear tests near Tahiti without the consent of the Polynesians and resumed tests in May. The World Federa tion of United Nations was asked to bring before member States of the UN repeated demands of the French Polynesians for independence and to request the UN to invite a deputation from French Polynesia to discuss the issue. • Agricultural chemicals may have been the cause of the killing of thousands of fish in Truk Lagoon in the US Trust Territory and the recent illnesses of several villagers. TT officials say the cause of the con tamination of the lagoon is not yet known but samples have been flown to Honolulu and Manila for close study. A strong smell in the area suggests that powerful agricultural chemicals may be responsible. • The US territories of Hawaii, Guam, Micronesia and American Samoa are expected to participate in a pending SUS 3 million Pacific-wide research programme on skipjack fish ing, subject to approval by the US Congress.
Over $750,000 would be provided for Samoa for research in Samoan waters over a two-year period.
The American Samoan Govern ment also hopes to invest $50,000 to $70,000 in a multi-purpose research boat, build a prototype small tuna fishing boat (similar to boats used out of Tahiti) to train Samoan fisher men, and locate trapping areas for crabs and lobsters.
Efforts in recent years in Samoa to set up locally-run fishing industries have failed despite two abortive government-backed attempts, but the territory’s Governor, John Hay don, is now optimistic that something can be started. • The New Hebrides main islands of Efate and Santo were weltering under a plague of flies in May and a consignment of 400 fly parasites arrived from New Zealand. The parasites were larvae of small wasps which lay their eggs in fly larvae, thereby killing them. The parasite has been used with some success on Niue.