Press

From The

Islands

A quiet time in Port Moresby as presented by the PNG Post-Courier: The Metropolitan Police Superintendent, Mr Lawrence Sausau, said yesterday the ban on liquor sales had helped to make the Easter weekend in Port Moresby a quiet one. Police reported 71 street arrests, eight break and enters and 10 motor vehicle accidents.

The importance of physical fitness in rugby players as expounded by King Taufa’ahau Tupous IV, of Tonga, and reported by the Tonga Chronicle: His Majesty likened players, who are not fit physically, to a raw egg dropped into a frying pan, and the fact that such an egg splashes in all directions. An unfit player, said His Majesty, when he goes on to the field will perform exactly the same as a raw egg. This statement from His Majesty drew a lot of understanding grins from the well-filled grandstand on

Saturday.

A new slant on sexual behaviour as reported by the Arawa Bulletin in an article on a Law Reform

Commission inquiry into PNG’s adultery laws:

. . . Under the present adultery law, it is a crime in PNG for married people to commit adultery with anyone except their husbands or wives. The adultery law, however, has applied only to Papua New Guineans and not expatriates . . . Also under the present law, there is no guaranteee that the defendants can receive some form of compensation if the wife, husband, son-in law or daughter-in-law commits adultery.

From a farewell message by Mr Justice D.R. Davies of the New Hebrides High Court leaving the condominium to be Chief Justice of the Solomons, as reported by the New Hebrides News: “■ • • The multiplicity of legal systems and of courts in a little place like this is confusing to everyone and only serves to bring the law into disrespect,” he said.

Norfolk Island’s cosmopolitan population as recorded on the electoral roll and reported by the Norfolk Islander: . . . The roll shows 997 persons. Of these, 329 are of Pitcairn lineage ... the same exhibit shows that persons other than those of Pitcairn lineage, or those born on Norfolk Island have the following origin: Argentina, Australia, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, China, Curipipe, England, Fiji, France, Germany, Gilbert & Ellice Islands, Holland, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Malta, New Hebrides, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, USA and Wales.

From an editorial in the Samoa Times: The last issue of the Underground Monthly is now on sale in Apia. Some time today the monthly’s publisher and total staff, Miss Sherry A. Sullivan, will leave American Samoa probably for good. Her departure marks the end of a courageous fight against official deceit and general hypocrisy. In her last editorial titled “A few rarely published observations about American Samoa”, she, among other things, had this to say . . . “I was frightened half to death and later attacked. My hair was all hacked off and passed down a surrealistic ‘bucket brigade’ of Samoans, an earring was torn out and an attempt to blind me or disfigure my face was narrowly aborted.” She complained to the Police Commissioner who suggested “that I drop the prosecution because I would be ‘killed’ by the remaining

family members(aiga) if I succeeded in getting what looked like a definite conviction” . . .

From The Fiji Times: The Nadi Duty-Free Dealers’ Association will urge the Consumer Council and the Fiji Visitors Bureau to stop publicising such statements which warn tourists from buying in Fiji ... Its newly-elected secretary, Mr Himat Lodhia told The Fiji Times that his members were disappointed with the Consumer Council for publicising statements such as “look before you leap” for visitors. Such statements, he said, implied that Fiji’s duty-free dealers were cheaters and robbers and were there only to “suck money”. In fact, duty-free dealers were no such people, but were in existence to cater for the needs of the

duty-free goods buyers.

From the Tohi Tala Niue: Shame on those who go around slashing the polythene village water pipes with their bushknives. Someone suggested to us this week that to overcome the problem (which seems to be getting greater each week) the pipes should be made of galvanized iron and all local traders be restricted to selling plastic bushknives.

From a Cook Islands News report of Premier Sir Albert Henry’s stay in a New Zealand hospital after his heart attack at Rotorua: . . . Grinning widely he related yesterday how $4 was lost that afternoon with a punt on a horse called Royal Albert. There is nothing in a name when it comes to racehorses, he murmurs, and to the tune of La Marseille, sings a ditty to himself about going down the drain. “I picked a horse called Henry’s Dream last week and it came home on its first start and paid $25,” he says, “but I didn’t back it.”

From a reprint in the Tonga Chronicle of a Radio Times (BBC) interview with Crown Prince Tupouto’a in London: . . . The prospect of being king does not displease him, but neither does it fill him with a royal flush or pride. I asked him if, in solitary moments, he dreamed of his kingship. He said sometimes he thought about it in bed but added, ‘Nothing puts me to sleep quicker than the thought of being king.’

The policeman’s lot is not a happy one, especially in some parts of Papua New Guinea, the PNG Post-

Courier reports:

One tribesman was killed and 10 houses destroyed in recent tribal fighting at Du village in the Sinasina area of the Chimbu Province. A police spokesman said that because of bad weather and road conditions, police were unable to attend. No arrests have been made.