Much activity of sorts, in the Cooks

Dr Tom Davis, Leader of the Opposition in the Cook Islands Parliament, has set off for Boston, USA, to sail his 45 ft cutter hack to Rarotonga. Meanwhile his blast about politics in the Cooks in the September issue of PIM has stirred a lot of interest in the Islands.

Journalists at the South Pacific Forum in Suva did not get much from Cook Islands Premier Albert Henry in reply, but Mr Henry has accepted PlM’s invitation to reply in a personal article, yet to come.

Back in Rarotonga, where both newspaper and radio were closed down for a week, “for work on radio transmitters”, the Cook If mas News resumed publication on September 8, under a new editor, publishing sweetness-and-light interviews with retiring editor Don Percival, transferred to the Public Service, and retiring radio announcer Mrs Kopu Brown, whose “future plans are a little indefinite”. There were also a new acting general manager of the combined media service and a new head technician. „ . . , , The newspaper warned in its first week that the newly restored radio service was in imminent danger of failing for want of spare parts for the transmitters. This was rather strange in view of the work that had just been done, but no more strange then the idea of the complete closure of news sources in the first place.

In New Zealand the Cooks finances came in for closer scrutiny, and Deputy Prime Minister R. F. Muldoon told Premier Henry that NZ will insist on stricter supervision of future financial grants to the Cooks.