Nutshell

In a Nutshell

Strikers Fired.—One Hun

ired and fifty members of the Fiji Air ne Workers Union who went on trike at Nadi Airport on August 3 in protest over “Qantas inaction n payment of superannuation funds” ound themselves out of a job. They /ere sacked by the airline’s Nadi lanager. The government also hit iack at the strikers, recruiting a 0-strong volunteer force from a near ly village. The emergency porters egan work about the time the union nnounced its decision to end the 0 hour-strike which had closed the irport. Among air travellers unable o return to Fiji because the airport /as closed was the Prime Minister, tatu Sir Kamisese Mara. When the •rime Minister arrived a day late he ommended the action of his col sagues in recruiting the labour force o get the airport working. At the time f writing, Australian Aviation Min : ter Mr C. K. Jones and Dr J. F.

'aims, Minister for Overseas Aid, /ho is a friend of Mr A. M. Tora, tie Airline Workers Union general ecretary, were trying to persuade )antas to cancel the dismissal notices.

Ieic Students’ Rlot.—Steel

lelmeted riot police with shields and runcheons were called out on Tarawa ti the GEIC on August 4 when boys rom the King George V School taged a vigorous protest against ntertainment planned for that even rig after the annual sports. They

were disappointed at the offer of a film show that evening and a picnic the following day. They wanted an Island night with dancing. Stones were thrown and the next day girls from the adjoining Elaine Bernacchi School joined in the protest, damaging school furniture. All pupils, except prefects, were sent home for an early start of the school holidays.

CENSORS AWAKE.— Censorship reared its head in Fiji and Papua New Guinea when Customs officers seized “girlie” magazines from a Suva bookseller and the PNG Trade and Industry Minister, Mr John Poe, en dorsed a Customs prohibition on certain types of “overseas offensive magazines”.

Election Petitions.— The Peti

tion to try to upset the election of Ashley Wickham in the BSIP went very badly for the petitioner, defeated candidate Colin Bentley, who saw four of his witnesses appear in court afterwards on charges of impersonat ing voters. Two men—Philip Lifuimae and James Bamani—were sentenced to two months imprisonment, and two others were find $l5 each. No evidence was produced to support allegations of corrupt practices by Mr Wickham or his agents during the election campaign, the Acting Chief Justice, Mr Justice Davis, ruled at the end of June.

DEPORTED. —Satyendra Pratap Sharma, 31, member of a Nadi, Fiji, family, was deported to Fiji from Australia on August 24. Arrested as an illegal immigrant by the Common wealth Police after a chase through Sydney streets, Sharma failed in an application to the NSW Supreme Court for a writ of habeus corpus, and his expulsion followed despite appeals to the Minister for Immigra tion, Mr A. J. Grassby, to be allowed to remain in Australia. His de facto wife, Mrs Irene Surya Baldwin, by whom he had a child, said in Sydney, after Sharma’s departure, that she and Sharma would get divorces from their legal partners and then he would attempt to rejoin her in Australia.

Sharma married Australian Mabel Ina Rhodes on October 22, 1970. They separated eight months later.