People

• A Tongan, Mr. Lisiate Akau, has been awarded a scholarship to study engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Mr. Akau will become the first Tongan to take a degree course in engineering, and therefore, when he completes his training, will be the first Tongan engineer. He was due to leave Tonga for Bombay during the second week in July. • Papua-New Guinea’s Director of Forests since 1959, Mr. W. R.

Suttie, has retired after 18 years’ service in the territory because of ill-health. Mr. Suttie played a lead ing role in the development of forestry services in Australia and the territory since he first entered the public service in 1926. Mr. and Mrs Suttie will retire to Queensland. • Research worker with the Fijian Department of Agriculture, Mrs.

Phelma Richmond was to leave in fuly to become a lecturer in soils it the University of the South Pacific.

Mrs. Richmond, a graduate of the university of the Philippines and the University of Hawaii, worked with he Department of Agriculture on letailed soils and land classification urveys of the Lower Waidina and econnaisance surveys of the Nabuno dateau. • Two New Hebridean school eachers arrived home recently after year’s teaching in Scotland. Mr. one lerta, of Ambrym, was at )uncan College of Education study ng primary education methods, and 4r. Seru Kalbeau, of Mele village, Tate, took a course for head eachers and administrators at the loray House College of Education. • Former vice-president of Indo esia. Dr. Moh Hatta—banned from ntering West New Guinea (as it 'as then called) 35 years ago by ic Dutch East Indies Government— lade a nostalgic return visit to West nan recently. He took with him is two daughters, Meutia and tahda, and, during his stay in Ijayapura, told officials their mission as to help the territory and raise ie standard of living of the people. [e also gave a lecture at the Uni ersity of Tjenderawasih.

• Fiji Visitors Bureau photo grapher, Nitin Lai, left Suva in July to spend 12 weeks studying photo graphy in Canada. Apart from a trip to Tonga in 1967, when he scooped the world with a pre-coronation picture of the king, Mr. Lai has never travelled outside Fiji, He is largely self-taught, but spent some time as chief photographer on the Fiji Times before joining the bureau. His photographs are now used for brochures and publicity material all over the world. He will be training at CP Air’s photographic department in Vancouver, but will also visit CP Air offices in cities in the US. • The first woman in Fiji, Mrs.

Unaisi Wati Yalimaiwai, to be made a Justice of the Peace was sworn in by the Commissioner Western, Mr.

R. N. Nair, and presented with her certificate by the Chief Minister, Ratu Mara, at Lautoka in July. Mrs, Yalimaiwai, aged 44, is a school teacher in Vitogo near Lautoka. • Secretary and Registrar of Co operative Societies in Fiji, Mr.

Shardha Nand, resumed duty on July 5 after spending six months leave in England. Mr. Nand served as an advisor to the Fiji delegation at the

London Constitutional Conference in April and May, and then attended a three weeks seminar in Vienna.

Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies, Mr. R. Phillips, acted in Mr. Hand’s place during the six months. • Former chief executive officer in the Papua-New Guinea Public Service Board, Mr. D. Morland, has been appointed assistant secretary (special projects) in the Department of the Administrator. Mr. Morland will be responsible for the co ordination of Administration par ticipation in large-scale mining, forest, agricultural and other develop ments. • Returning to Sydney in June after a three week visit to Papua- New Guinea, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Rev. M. L.

Loane said outside pressures might force the territory into independence before many people there really understood it. He said when self government came to the territory it might be through influences which did not arise from within the terri tory but from the United Nations or the Commonwealth Government. • Mr. John Hall, nine years Deputy Director of Agriculture in Honiara, has returned to New Zealand with his wife. They were both especially well known for their prowess on the golf field. • Vitale Tangisi, of Tangarare, Guadalcanal, has become the first Solomon Islander to gain a second mate foreign going certificate. Study ing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology under the Australian South Pacific Aid Programme, he is now qualified to become third-in command of any mercantile ship of any size in any part of the world. • The New Zealand trade com missioner for the Pacific is soon to be based in Fiji. The move from Auckland to Fiji will coincide with the establishment of a diplomatic post in Suva later this year. Mr. G.

M. McLaren has been trade com missioner for the Pacific since 1968. • Mr. Jack Ruth, an engineer with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, is supervising 15 New Guinean carpenters in the construc tion of a linguistic centre complex at Ukarumpa. SIL linguists will use this centre for concentrated study of New Guinean languages and cultures and the techniques of conducting literacy work in the vernacular.

This Islands' beauty is Miss Rose Magu, newly-chosen Miss Agricultural Show Queen at Gizo in the British Solomon Islands.—Photo: Chris Taboua.