People

• Mrs. Mii Matapo has been ap pointed Matron of Rarotonga General Hospital, the first Cook Islander to fill this position. She was trained in New Zealand and returned to Raro tonga in 1964 as a ward sister. In her new position, Mrs. Matapo is now also responsible for the overall administration and management of nursing services throughout the Cook Islands. • Mr. Jose Garanger, French archaeologist, arrived in Vila in early February for a brief stay before attending a conference in Canberra on archaeology in the Pacific. Mr.

Garanger, a professor at the Paris Sorbonne, did archaeological work on Hat Island, off the coast of Efate, some years ago. • Patrice Nieli, New Caledonian painter, whose work was exhibited in Vila last year, returned to the New Hebrides in February to hold another exhibition. His new series included oils, ink sketches and some 30 water colours of New Hebridean subjects.

O Two Nauru Phosphate Corpora tion senior assistant civil engineers, John Jolly and Malcolm McLean, left Nauru recently. Mr. Jolly, who had been on Nauru for seven years both with NPC and the BPC, returned to Australia, and Mr. McLean, eight years with both companies, left for New Zealand. • Western Samoa’s chairman of the Public Service Commission, Tufuga Samuelu Atoa, has resigned for per sonal reasons. His post has been advertised. • A first child, Sonia Jane, was born to Helen and Gerald Rousseau in Sydney on February 7. Gerald Rousseau is a member of New Caledonia’s Territorial Assembly and publisher of the magazine Ditto.

Helea Rousseau is PIM Noumea cor respondent.

O Mr. Richard A. Hughes, trust officer for the Bahamas International Trust Co. Ltd., has been seconded to manage the Melanesia Trust Co.

Ltd. in Vila. ANZ Banking Group acquired a substantial interest in the Melanesia Trust Company late last year. Mr. Hughes is a Law graduate from Leeds University and joined Bahamas International Trust Com pany in 1965. • Prime Minister of India, Mrs.

Indira Gandhi, is to visit Fiji, but no

details have yet been announced. The decision was taken following the visit to India late in January of Fiji’s Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara. • Police officer in charge of Fiji’s Western Division, Senior Superinten dent R. Bateson, was the victim of crime in early February. A thief broke into his Lautoka home while he was absent and stole a transistor radio. • Sir Alec Rose, the famous lone yachtsman, visited Fiji on February 4 with a party of leading UK yachts men and their wives. The party spent two days touring Viti Levu, and then left for San Francisco. • Well known Islands agent Lex Strahan has left Unilever Australia Export Pty. Ltd., where he had been sales manager, and joined Les Clark and Sons Pty. Ltd., Islands brokers and manufacturing agents. Mr. Paul Dormer has been appointed Unilever regional representative in P-NG, and Mr. Robin Pitts representative for Fiji, Tonga and the Samoas. • Australia’s new High Commis sioner for Fiji, Mr. Rowen Osbom, is settling in to his new post in Suva with his wife and daughter. He has served in diplomatic posts in Karachi, Tokyo and London, and for the past 3i years has been attached to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra. • Fiji’s new Secretary of Finance, 32-year-old Mosese Qionibaravi, who takes over from Mr. R. V. Cole, holds a master of commerce degree

Auckland University. He began his government service in 1965 when he became assistant secretary in the Central Planning Office. In 1967 he spent nine months in Bangkok at the Asian Institute for Economic Plan ning, on a UN fellowship. Before his new appointment ,Mr. Qionibaravi — whose wife, Anaseini, is a member of the Senate —was deputy chief plan ning officer in the Central Planning Office. • Papua-New Guinea’s Ministerial Member for Education, Mr. Matthias Toliman, headed a territory education delegation to the Fifth Common wealth Conference in Canberra in February. With Mr. Toliman at the conference were Mr. Tau Boga, a district superintendent of schools for the East Sepik District; Mr. Nason Paulius, inspector, attached to the Department of Education headquar ters in Port Moresby and Mr. Kumalo Kalo, district superintendent of schools for the Northern District. Mr.

Toliman said this was the first com pletely indigenous P-NG delegation to attend an international conference. e Mr. Graham Douglas has been appointed to the newly created

with honours in economics from Two pretty young sisters from Santo, New Hebrides, studying in Rabaul. On the right is Ivana Wing Seeto, 15, and next to her is Helen Wing Seeto, 13. They are at Rabaul High School. Mr. Gabriel Wing, their father, was born in Kieta, Bougain ville, and has lived in Santo for the past 20 years, and his father, Mr. Seeto Kui, is a Kieta trader.

position of First Assistant Treasurer (Financial Policy) within the Papua- New Guinea Department of the Trea sury. Mr. Douglas is in charge of the Financial Policy Division of the Treasury, and is the first of two new appointees to arrive in the terri tory in moves designed to strengthen the department in its expanding fields of accounting and financial and econ omic policy formulation. Mr. Lavin, from the Commonwealth Sub- Treasury Hobart, was also to join this department in February as Assistant Treasurer (Accounting Services). • Dr. R. R. Wilcox, consultant venereologist at St. Mary’s Hospital, London, has been named Consultant in Venereal Disease to Papua-New Guinea by the World Health Organi sation. Dr. Wilcox will spend three months there from March, and will assist the Administration in reviewing the nature and extent of the venereal disease problem and the venereal disease programme, particularly diag nostic and control aspects. He will consider all venereal diseases, but of prime concern will be the outbreak of syphillis in the Highlands. • Visiting Sydney briefly from Wellington in February, where he is part-time Reader in Political Science at Victoria University, was Mr. T. R.

Smith, a former secretary, Western Samoa Government, and who was secretary-general of the South Pacific Commission, 1958-63. Mr. Smith, who gave up full time activities at the university last year, is currently up to his neck in the compilation of the first history of the SPC, which he hopes can be published to coincide with the SPC’s 25th anniversary next February. It’s not an “official” history any official history would be sure to have all the stuffing knocked out of it by the time the various national commissioners got through with the text but T. R. Smith is ideally qualified to produce an unofficial one, which would put the SPC into focus.

It is being produced under the auspices of the NZ Institute of Inter national Affairs. • New Guineans in Fiji; When Assistant Ministerial Member for Local Government in P-NG, Mr.

Kaiabelt Diria, arrived in Fiji re cently with a group of ministers on an educational visit, he said he had heard rumours that, because of indepen dence, industries in Fiji were being closed and foreign investors leaving.

“We have observed the opposite,” he said. Pictured left to right are; Mr.

Meek Singiliong, P-NG Assistant Minister for Corrective Institutions; Mr. W. P. Ryan, secretary to the

Administrator’s Executive Council; Mr. John Knight, of the Australian High Commission in Suva; Mr. T.

Kapena, Ministerial Member for Labour; Mr. Malakai Gucake, Fiji Office of External Affairs; Mr Siwi Kurondo, Assistant Ministerial Mem ber for Forests; Mr. K. Diria; and Mr. A. Wabiria, Ministerial Member for Lands and Surveys. The party spent a week in Suva before continu ing on to Western and American Samoa and NZ. • Captain Irving and Electa John son, well-known in the Pacific through their operation of the brig Yankee (whose bones are on the reef at Raro tonga, having piled up there under different ownership), continue their tourist cruises of European water ways, and their lecture tours of the US. From Connecticut they send greetings to their many Islands friends, and comment: “The size and scope of PIM these days amazes us.”

Last year the new Yankee visited many ports in the Adriatic, cruised to the top of the Po River, miracu lously escaped a hurricane which damaged Venice, and in November bedded down for the winter in Malta. • Mr. Jack Evans, 38, of Suva, has passed the 3rd class marine engi neer’s certificate at Sydney Technical College. Mr. Evans, who works as a motor fitter for the Royal Australian Navy at Garden Island, Sydney, now plans to go for his 2nd class certifi cate. Before coming to Australia about 15 months ago he worked on a number of Burns Philp ships in Fiji and the New Hebrides, and also served for a period as second engi

neer in the Ai Sokula, owned by W.

R. Carpenter in Fiji. • Miss Vaaifetu Sumeo, of the West Samoan Broadcasting Depart ment, and Mr. Tuu Faasavalu, of the Public Service Commission, both of Apia, are currently attending a six month course in intensive English in Sydney, under the Australian South Pacific Aid Programme. • The West Samoan Minister of Education, Amoa Tausilia, and the Director of Education, Dr. Fanaafi Larkin, recently attended the Com monwealth Conference on Education in Australia. On his way to the con ference, Mr. Tausilia attended a credit union conference in Fiji. • With the naming of Yosiwo P.

George as administrator of the US Trust Territory Social Security Ser vice, the programme is now run entirely by Micronesians. Mr. George was chosen to replace Harry U.

Brown, who came from the US to start the programme in 1968. He is a graduate from the University of Hawaii and has also studied at the College of Guam and the Pacific Islands Central High School on Ponape, Mr. George, originally from Kusaie, will be responsible for a pro gramme covering some 14,000 wage earners and 400 private businesses. • Mr. John Sarnia, American Samoa’s Sports Supervisor, is making a study of professional boxing in the territory. He is checking on payments to boxers, the alleged mixing of pro. and non-pro. boxers on cards and on reports of unruly behaviour at Lee Auditorium during fights.