Nutshell
pp. 127-129 · Read in the full issue
In a Nutshell
• The meeting of Pacific Islands leaders will take place in New Zea land from August 5 to 7, the Fiji Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara said in Suva on June 20. The meeting was suggested when PIPA met in Nukualofa in April and later Ratu Mara asked the NZ Prime Minister, Sir Keith Holyoake, to host the meeting. • Philippine Air Lines will not take advantage at present of new rights to fly into Port Moresby on flights between Manila and Mel bourne, via Sydney, as it is not an economic proposition because of weight restrictions.
A full aircraft from either Aus tralia or the Philippines would be unable to take off from Port Moresby if it put down there.
A Philippine Air Lines spokesman said in June the airline realised the potential of Port Moresby as a com mercial proposition. The airline has been granted permission to fly into Port Moresby on its Philippines-Aus tralia flights three times a week. In December, 1973, the number of flights may be increased to four.
An Australia-Philippines air service agreement was recently negotiated in Melbourne. This gives Qantas and Philippine Air Lines formal rights to fly into the Philippines and Australia.
It replaces a provisional agreement under which the airlines have been operating between Manila and Syd ney. • The PNG House of Assembly in June invited President Suharto of Indonesia to visit the territory. Julius Chan (Namatanai) moved a motion asking the Australian Government to thank the Indonesian Speaker and Parliament for their hospitality given to a PNG delegation in April, and then went a step further. • Badly battered by the typhoon Amy while sailing from Guam to Truk, the Saipan-based, 49 ft trimaran Dhyana was placed under arrest after she arrived at Ponape early in June.
A writ filed in the Trust Territory High Court alleged that the tri’s owners, Bob, Paul and Larry Leitz man, owed back wages to a former employee. After the L e i t z m a n brothers settled the complaint, Dhyana was released and sailed for an unknown destination on June 16.
Dhyana was posted as missing after the typhoon Amy struck and a wide spread search was mounted before the trimaran reached Truk a week late. • The crew of a New Zealand yacht Rosina, threw a party in Tonga’s Faua Harbour early in June and the police threw them out of the kingdom. Harbourmaster Captain Chris Hill-Willis reported complaints of “drunken noisemaking” at the Rosina’s party, followed by nude bathing. The police ordered the Rosina’s owner and crew of five to leave Nukualofa. “Nobody objects to people having a party and making noise, provided the common decencies are observed; but when the law of Tonga is completely ignored and hooliganism takes over it is time to call a halt,” said Captain Hill-Willis. • New Zealand butter has shot up by 7c a pound to 47c in Tonga, giving Fiji butter a chance to capture the kingdom’s market for the first time since butter was made in Fiji. As soon as the NZ Dairy Board told Tonga stores of the increase, the stores sent an order to Fiji for its butter which, till now, has been shut out of the Tonga market because of price. But, on occasions, Fiji dairy firms are unable to meet the demand in Fiji and mix the local butter with the imported. • The oil survey which is being carried out in Tonga will be advanced a stage further, King Taufa’ahau said at the opening of the Legislative Assembly in June. Between the current session of the assembly and the open ing of the next, Tonga would see the drilling of an exploration well, he said. • A big influx of Philippines copra in world markets blew a chill wind through Tonga’s copra planta tions in June when copra prices were cut by $7.85 a ton to $92.75 for first grade and $80.75 second grade. The price of whole coconuts also dropped by 1.2 c a nut on Tongatapu. Judging by reports from London later in June, however, Tonga could expect some recovery by the beginning of July. • Continental Airlines opened its third luxury hotel in the Western Pacific, the 56-room Palau Continen tal Travelodge Hotel on the island of Koror, Micronesia, on June 7. Contin ental already has a 203-room hotel on Guam and a 56-room hotel on Moen Island and plans more at Ponape, Saipan, Yap and Majuro. A 20 per cent, interest in the hotels will be offered to Micronesian citizens. Con
tinental is bracketing its subsidiary Air Micronesia with the new hotels. It has announced new excursion air fares from Guam to Truk and Palau, with a 25 per cent, discount off the fare for passengers buying the air-hotel package deal, • Regent Hotels International Ltd., a hotel management company based in Hong Kong, will manage the first hotel to be built on Denarau Island in Nadi Bay, Fiji. Regent al ready manages big hotels in Guam, Manila and Bangkok. Five hotels are planned for Denarau. The first, to be called the Fiji Regent Hotel, will have 300 rooms and cost about ssm. • Qantas will begin its Jumbo Jet trans-Pacific services and re-introduce its Sydney-Nadi terminating flights with smaller 707 jets early in Septem ber. The first Qantas Boeing 7478 will
leave Sydney on September 3 for San Francisco, via Fiji and Hawaii. Initi ally a weekly service, it will be built up to three Jumbo services a week by September 20. Rescheduling its flights to allow for the 356-seat Jumbo to complement the 140-seat 7075, Qantas will bring back its Syd ney-Nadi terminating flights scrubbed in October last year. Both Fiji flights will be daylight out of Sydney and Melbourne. A 707 will leave Sydney for Nadi on Saturday morning, and return to Melbourne Saturday night.
On Sunday morning, the same jet will leave Melbourne for Fiji, returning to ' Sydney at night.
O There are 1,964 British subjects living in the New Hebrides according ; to a recent Immigration Department ; survey. Of these, about 45 per cent, are European. Next largest groups are ; the Gilbertese and Fijians, each with j about 20 per cent. • Debris seen in the sea in June 700 miles south-west of Hawaii, is be- ■ lieved to be from a US Air Force t transport plane which vanished while ; flying on a secret mission from Pago < Pago to Honolulu. Although Air - Force spokesmen have refused to < comment, it is believed the plane’s < secret mission was to monitor the j French nuclear tests at Mururoa. • The Anglican diocese of Papua i New Guinea is going ahead with its * million dollar appeal in Australia. .
Work has already begun, but the cam- paign will be intensified next year to c provide the PNG church with a capi- tal fund enabling it to stand on its z own feet. • The 11-year-old Papuan boy \ who was gaoled for two years by a r magistrate, Mr. A. H. Germain, for i four breaking and entering offences, has had his sentence cut to three s months by the Supreme Court at Port J Moresby. After three months, he will 1J be placed in his parents’ care and re- main under the control of the Direc- -: tor of Child Welfare until he is 16. .< He is serving his sentence at a Catho- h lie mission home in Wewak. At thes time he sentenced the boy, Mr. Ger--main criticised the government’s z' failure to provide juvenile corrective e institutions. • The mystery of distress flaresg off the Western Solomons on June 13 £ has been solved with the finding ofh the burnt-out hulk of the Taiwan fishd catcher, New Cathay, on Mundas Reef. The crew, none injured but all II suffering from exposure, was taken n off. Government vessels searched an wide area after the flares were seen, t r but drew a blank.
• Melanesian Roman Catholic priests working in Papua New Guinea and the Solomons have formed an organisation called the Catholic Indigenous Priests’ Conference, with the Rev. Ignatius Kilage (Goroka) as chairman and the Rev. Fred Reiher MSC (Port Moresby) as secretary.
Sixteen indigenous priests con celebrated Mass at the opening of the conference with Bishop Louis Vangeke MSC, auxiliary at Port Moresby as principal celebrant. • Mr. Ron Green, administrative officer in Nauru’s public service, has been transferred to the republic’s Melbourne office as personnel officer.
He took up his appointment on the island in February, 1969 and had recently acted as senior administra tive officer in the temporary absence of Mr. Peter Kelly. • From July 1 the affairs of American Samoa, Guam, the US Trust Territory and the American Virgin Islands will be switched from the US Office of Territories to one man, the newly-created Deputy Assistant Secretary for Territorial Affairs, who had not been named when the change was announced by Washington at the beginning of June, Tasks of the deputy assistant sec retary will include the rendering of technical assistance, programme plan ning and co-operation with other Federal agencies and Congress. • The retirement of Mr. David Petrie Ragg from the posts of chair nan and managing director of North ern Hotels, Fiji, leaves quite a blank n the Northern Hotels hierarchy.
There still will be Raggs in charge )f the Northern Hotels chain (Mr. W.
"lark, manager of Korolevu Beach tJotel, who married Kathy, a daughter )f the late Sir Hugh Ragg, is the new nanaging director) but DPR had )een prominent there for nearly 40 fears, and will be missed.
He was bom in 1906, and in his ;arly life was a CSR overseer, a law Jerk and a plantation manager.
Vhen he was 27 he joined Sir Hugh lagg in the management of the chain >f hotels which Sir Hugh had as embled. He took over the top position vhen Sir Hugh died in 1966.
In so successfully establishing Corolevu as the first famous holiday esort hotel on the south coast of liti Levu, Sir Hugh Ragg, David, nd Bill Clark, pioneered tourism in 'iji.
While actively controlling Northern iotels, Mr. Ragg has occupied many lirectorships and positions connected pith business, sport and public
affairs. He is the chairman of the large Fiji Electrical Authority.
Presumably, he will continue those operations and remain a prominent and esteemed figure in the Fiji busi ness world. • Alleging that the defendant had knocked him from his bicycle and then thrown a bottle containing ammonia at his feet, Patrick Matthew Anthony (33), formerly of Lautoka, Fiji, and now living at 15 Cascade St., Paddington, Sydney, summoned 36-year-old Allan Hamilton, of 102 Alison Road, Randwick, Sydney for assault. The hearing opened in the Magistrate’s Court at Waverley, Sydney, on June 24 and was adjourned by the Magistrate, Mr. B. J. Hayes, until September 15. • Marshall Islands Air Taxi Service, one of two charter services based at Majuro, is seeking permis sion from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in the south to operate a scheduled service each Sunday from Majuro to Tarawa return. MIATS uses a 6-44 Widgeon and a D-50 Beech, and in July will inaugurate a scheduled service four times weekly between Majuro and Kwajalein and once every Friday from Majuro to Ponape, The Ponape flight will con nect with Air Micronesia’s turn around, to establish a through service between Majuro and Saipan. • Spending $4 million on two new DCS’s, bringing its DCS fleet strength to six, Air New Zealand will extend its weekly Nadi-Honolulu flight through to Los Angeles from early November. The flight leaves Nadi for Honolulu early on Friday mornings.
It will arrive in Los Angeles (over the date-line) on Thursday afternoon, leave the same night for Fiji, arriving at Nadi on Saturday morning.
Fiji Airways is expected to make its first commercial flight to Niue on July 6 with the HS74B, but the new service—a weekly one which Fiji Airways will operate for Polynesian Airways until PA gets its own HS74B in October or November—is not ex pected to create a tourist boom.
There’s no accommodation for visitors on the island.
The Niue flight leaves Nausori Air port at 7.15 a.m. on Tuesdays, stops for 40 minutes in Tonga and then hops over the date-line, arriving on Niue at 12.40 p.m. on Monday. Forty minutes later the flight leaves, stop ping at Apia for 40 minutes and arriving at Nausori at 5.55 p.m.—it’s still Tuesday at Nausori, The round flight is about 10J hours. • Chief Toleafoa T. V. Le’iato, of Fagaitua, has been appointed Chief
of Police of American Samoa. Aged 39, Chief Le’iato has been 16 years in the police force and recently served as captain of the Field Service Divi sion. • A cost-price squeeze which the Papuan rubber industry faced in 1970 was the reason for the poor results returned by three Papuan rubber com panies, according to Mr. W. L.
Conroy, PNG Director of Agriculture.
World market factors included both strong supplies and the effect of economic recession in major industrial consuming countries. In 1970, rubber was at its lowest sustained level of price since 1921. • Australia will soon be flooded with 300,000 Norfolk Island tourist brochures—at $1 each. They will be tickets in a monster art union (which is an Australian euphemism for lottery) being promoted by the Norfolk Island sub-branch of the Returned Services League.
Prizes include holiday houses in Australia and a new car. Profits will go to form the foundation of a special welfare fund on the island, which is bereft of any social service of this nature because the islanders don’t pay taxes.
The man responsible for floating the venture is David “Scotty” Neagle, whose original intention was to offer houses on Norfolk Island itself. How ever, the NSW Government witheld permission for this, as it had no jurisdiction over property on the island and would not be in a position to guarantee protection to the winner, as it legally must.
RSL clubs throughout Australia will be selling tickets in the art union over a period of six months.
The Norfolk Island RSL has a membership of 62—about one for every 20 of the island’s population— and the body has been active in many charitable activities within its own tiny shores, but hasn’t gone “inter national” before. • The University of the South Pacific’s executive committee met in Nukualofa towards the end of May for its first meeting outside Fiji, a significant venue because the Chancellor is King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV who opened the meeting and, at a private audience earlier in the day, discussed varsity affairs with the Pro-Chancellor, Masiofo Fetaui Mata’afa, of Western Samoa, and the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. C. C.
Aikman.