Nutshell

• Hope was fading at the end of March for two Roman Catholic mis sionary nuns missing on a boat jour ney in the Gilbert Islands. The nuns —members of the Order of Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart— are Sisters Rita Mary Skinner and John Bosco Donnelly, both of Aus tralia. With two Gilbertese they had left Tarawa Lagoon for Abaiang, a distance of 25 miles, in a 14 ft powered boat, on March 21. Sister John Bosco is Director of Catholic Schools in the Gilberts. © Verbiage and legal jargon got the better of Fiji’s Senate in March, when five bills were deferred “until further notice” after one senator said he and other senators were laymen who could not understand them.

They were the bills to give Fiji re vised and modernised law relating to property, the transfer and registration of land, libel, the limitation of actions and arbitrations, and a bill to amend the law covering maintenance for married women and children and affi liation orders covering illegitimate children.

All the bills had been passed pre viously by the House of Representa tives.

However, in moving them, the At torney-General, Mr. J. N. Falvey, said many of their clauses could really be understood only by legal experts. • The crown of thorns starfish does not threaten Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as a whole, according to an expert committee set up by the Federal and Queensland Govern ments. It said in March the starfish had caused extensive damage to the reef, but recolonisation and regenera tion of coral had occurred on all reefs examined by the committee. At the same time, Dr. Endean, Reader in Zoology at Queensland University, said that the committee’s findings were not in accordance with the facts as he knew them. • Sione Tovi Yea, who attacked Mr. F. Withana, a Ceylonese estate officer for the Tonga coconut replant ing scheme, in his home, was sen tenced to 10 years’ gaol on three charges in Tonga in March. He was given seven years for housebreaking, 10 for robbery and 10 for inflicting grievous bodily harm, to be served concurrently. In October last year, Vea forced his way into the home of Mr. Withana, beat him around the

head with a rifle butt and ransacked his house. Mr. Withana earlier this year filed a $50,000 claim for dam ages against the Tonga Government (PIM, March, p. 115), but the gov ernment has denied liability. • John Benjamin Quintal, 20, was found guilty in the Supreme Court of Norfolk Island on March 19, on one count of receiving and one of simple larceny. He was acquitted on charges of breaking and entering and stealing and the Crown withdrew a further charge of breaking, entering and stealing. Quintal was released on a three-year good behaviour bond of $250. He had pleaded not guilty to all the charges. • According to a World Health Organisation release, two-thirds of South Pacific children between five and eight suffer from tooth decay.

The UN organisation says this has been caused by a general change of diet. People now eat more imported food, some of which has less protec tion against decay than local food, which contains natural fluoride, WHO and the South Pacific Commission organised a seminar to look into the problem in January in Noumea. © Americans, Walter (41) and Yvonne (39) Steinkraus and their daughters Kerry (11) and Kathy (2) were buried alive on March 20 when 3 million tons of earth slid down from Delman (Singing Hill) cliff alongside the Tifalmin airstrip in New Guinea’s West Sepik District. Seven native people were also engulfed— three men, two women and two children. The other 111 villagers from Tifalmin were cutting wood, fishing or wandering in their gardens. A native woman eyewitness said the falling cliff destroyed the 15-house village and the Steinkraus’ home in 18 to 21 seconds. The Tifalmin villagers buried the first-found, Kathy, in a wet grave on a ridge at the foot of the airstrip “because she came here in a balus (plane) and we think she would like to be near the balus from now on”. • Sir Donald Cleland, pro- Chancellor of the University of Papua and New Guinea since March, 1969, has been appointed Chancellor of the university. He replaces Profes sor P. Karmel of the Flinders Univer sity, Adelaide. Professor Karmel was Chancellor until earlier this year when he resigned to become chair man of the Australian University Grants Committee. • The Tongan Ministry of Works store at Neiafu, Vavau, was gutted by fire on February 12—Vavau‘s most costly blaze in years.