Nutshell

DEATH robbed the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony of its old est centenarian—and possibly the oldest man in the Pacific—on May 9.

He was Ten Tebao Kabure, of Kuria, in the Northern Gilberts, who claimed to be 115 years old. • The conference of Pacific Is lands leaders, which was agreed on at the Pacific Islands Producers’

Association’s meeting in Nukualofa in April, will take place in New Zea land later this year. Sir Keith Holy oake, the NZ Prime Minister, said on May 24 that his government had agreed to a request from Fiji’s Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, that the NZ Government should host the conference. The Pacific Islands leaders hope to discuss matters of joint interest and their relations with Australia and New Zealand. • Papua New Guinea may have to double the size of its police force “to keep lawlessness within tolerable bounds”. Dr. John Guise, Speaker of the House of Assembly, warned in Mount Hagen recently. Increase in urban lawlessness was growing, he said, but “even sadder is the growing awareness by many leaders in the ter ritory that the unwritten traditional customary law, which governs our village society and constrains law lessness is beginning to crumble be fore the onslaught of urbanisation and industrial revolution”. • Monsignor Hendrick Joseph Cornelius Maria de Cocq, Roman Catholic Bishop of Rarotonga, is to retire. His resignation has been ac cepted by Pope Paul, who has ap pointed Bishop Rodgers, of Tonga, to be apostolic administrator of Rarotonga until a new bishop takes over. The Pope has also named Monsignor Felix Berto Comacho Flores as Bishop of Agana, Guam, succeeding Bishop Baumgartner, who died last December. • The title of Fiji’s Minister of Defence, Ratu Penaia Ganilau, has been changed to Minister for Home Affairs, Land and Mineral Resources.

His former title has been scrapped.

Land and mineral resources were formerly the responsibility of the Minister for Natural Resources, Mr.

Doug Brown, whose ministry has also been renamed. He is now known as Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests. A new Ministry of Youth, Sport and Rural Develop ment has also been established. The Minister is Jone Naisara, formerly

Assistant Minister to Mr. Brown.

Ratu William Toganivalu has been appointed Assistant Minister to the Minister for Home Affairs, Land and Mineral Resources, Ratu Penaia.

Announcing the changes, Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara said the new Ministry of Youth, Sport and Rural Development would not have an army of civil servants.

It was intended to work through a number of voluntary youth and welfare services which were already in existence, but which needed financial help, guidance and coordination from the government. The establishment of a National Youth Council would be a priority task for the new Ministry, he said. • Four men and a woman, sentenced to death in Western Samoa for murder, have had their sentences commuted by the Head of State, Malietoa Tanumafili 11, to life imprisonment. Announcing this, the Secretary for Justice, Su’a Leituposa Thomsen, recalled that after the last execution—on April 1, 1952—n0 murders were committeed in Western

Samoa for almost four years. “It would appear that there is some de terrent value in capital punishment”. he said. He added that the next mur der was on Christmas Eve, 1955, and the death sentence was commuted.

Since then a conservative estimate would place the murder average at five a year.

Agreement in principle has been reac h e d beween the Solomon Islands Government and the Mitsui Mining and Smelting Company, of Japan, for th e t r j a mining of bauxite on Rennell i s i and . The Mitsui Company, one of th e j a rgest mining companies in the world with interests in the United states, South America, Australia, Thailand and the Pacific as well as in Japan, was in competition with other international companies for the con tract. Final mining trials are expected to start shortly. Bauxite ore reserves on Rennell are estimated at about 30m dry metric tons with an exceptionally low silica content. The BSIP Govern ment will hold a substantial number of shares in Mitsui’s local subsidiary company.