Islands Press

From the Islands Press

From a letter by Matron Vera Stanton, Lord Liverpool Hospital, Niue, in Tohi Tala Niue, about the intrusion of unwanted male visitors to the nurses' home: I have disturbed intruders myself when doing rounds; the last one, about a week or so ago, took off at high speed, skidding all over the place like a dog on slippery lino, clad only in a pair of puce red under pants and clutching his pareu in his hot sweaty hands.

Perhaps this is the latest mode of dress when out visiting at 11.30 p.m. on Niue. He was a weedy looking male specimen too, and certainly not much to arouse any ardent passions in any females around at the time.

Extract from letter by Joseph Mohammed in The Fiji Times: 1 think that there is no sense in keeping the unused land idle for too long. We know that the land belongs to Fijians, and no Indians are going to take it away, and Fijians do not cultivate the land because they are not used to it. Finally, there are hundreds of acres in reserve, which even the Fijians are not using.

They don't want the Indians to use it either, and the result will be jungles.

From the Cook Islands News: The Director of Education, Mr Rangi Moekaa, announced this morning that headteachers in Rarotonga today unanimously supported a motion which recommended that the Director of Education take action to close Ngatangiia School because of danger to the school children from faulty electric wiring in the school. The decision was made after hearing that yesterday a horse was electrocuted after touching a power pole at the school entrance. It was further reported that in wet weather the walls in some classrooms are alive.

From the Norfolk Islander: It came our way this week. Under international law, Norfolk Island is not part of Australia. The definition of a territory is that it is a separate piece of country which has certain forms of government of its own, administered by some other body. Therefore, Norfolk Island complies with that definition and being a territory, it cannot be part of Australia. If Australia or any other country that is administering a territory makes laws which are contrary to the interests of the inhabitants of that territory, those laws are also ultra vires. You'll find the definition of "territory" in Webster's International Dictionary.

From the British Newsletter, New Hebrides: Ambrym Accidents —Copra production is increasing now that the price has gone up, but some people have got out of practice while the price was low. On the day the price went up to $BO, three people on Ambrym cut themselves badly while clearing long grass to find nuts, and a woman using an axe to split nuts, missed and chopped off a toe, according to Mr Damelip Taso, writing from Baiap Junior Primary School.

From a GEIC Legislative Council speech by Mr Sione Tui Kleis about work of civil servants, reported in Atoll Pioneer: Should the time they chat to friends, relatives, wives, girl friends, be taken as working time and what should be allowed? How much shopping time should be allowed? And what about time for

following their personal interests, like reading

newspapers, comics, pornographies, etc?

From a report by the controller and chief auditor in the Samoa Times: ... At the Produce Marketing Division, the auditors found that even though parliament has for years voted funds for the division’s activities it never found the time to enact legislation to legal!- (continued next week) From Tohi Tala Niue: For the average Niuean, he understands little of political campaign intrigues. What he is interested in is what the Labour Government can do for his island. National has given him an airport and a guest house. He is now anxiously waiting to see if Labour will give him electricity.

From the Tonga Chronicle: During the holiday break on Monday, there was a lot of banging and hammering in the Prime Minister’s Office building by MOW workers. We asked one of the workers whether they were pulling the building down and were informed no, they were nailing wire netting against the boarded partitions in readiness for plastering with cement. At that time, we thought these must be security measures. It was only yesterday that we learned that there had been a terrible misunderstanding. What in fact was required was for the stairs up to the first floor of the building to be painted!

From the Atoll Pioneer, GEIC: Mr Sione Tui Kleis agreed with the Acting Governor that Hurricane Bebe had taught us a number of lessons. He was sorry to say that the Acting Governor had intentionally left out the reasons why this disaster took place. He firmly believed that there were reports, in cobwebbed files in Government archives, asking previous administrations to develop Funafuti. These requests had been turned down, till at last the creator of Funafuti, who was also the Creator of the Universe, decided He had to do something about it. By His divine power He destroyed Funafuti, so that people would pay attention to the problem. Had the previous requests been heeded Mr Kleis did not think there would have been any Hurricane Bebe.

Extract of a report in Tohi Tala Niue of the finding of a dead whale: The whale was 10 feet long with no teeth and a high forehead. On Thursday morning an inspection showed that the whale was going rotten. Several youths from Makefu helped in cutting into the whale to allow the sea to break it up easily and the fish to eat it before it became a health hazard. If the whale had been cut up while it was fresh it could have been eaten or fed to pigs and poultry. Anyone finding a whale in future should contact the Agriculture Department straight away in case the meat can be used. Also, the department can use shark meat for its pigs.