Islands

From The

Press

From the Samoa Times, Apia: Solosolo men cut off the water pipes supplying the adjacent villages of Eva, Fusi and Saluafata to give their village more water . . . The Minister of Works, Letiu Tamatoa . . . said the village action was quite illegal and the alleged involvement of Members of Parliament in ordering it made it quite deplorable.

From an editorial in the Fiji Times, Suva: Why is Suva Chamber of Commerce objecting to the Consumer Council obtaining powers to hold inquiries and call people to give information? The suggestion that it is because consumer councils in overseas countries do not have the powers of a statutory body fails to hold water . . . Here our consumers are basically unsophisticated shoppers who know little, if anything, about their rights or about the Consumer Council . . .

Businessmen who provide a genuine service to the consumer have nothing to fear from a properly functioning consumer council, however powerful it is . . .

From Samoa News, Pago Pago:

The Governor of American Samoa will soon be taking his showers in water heated to a comfortable temperature by the sun’s rays ... The pilot project with solar energy is part of a world-wide effort to save on consumption of oil and gas.

From an editorial in the Papua New Guinea Post-

Courier, Port Moresby:

So the louts have won. Kila Kila High School has been closed indefinitely. What a disgusting state of affairs. There have been 19 break-ins at the school this year and thousands of kina worth of damage caused. In June the students were fingerprinted. For a while the vandalism stopped. Now it has broken out again. The police must winkle out these louts and lock them up. Why should hundreds of children suffer because of a few?

From the Solomons News Drum, Honiara: Squatters are becoming a big problem on Guadalcanal, the Minister of Natural Resources, Paul Tovua, told the people of Mataniko village at a meeting. Mr Tovua said pigs and crops had been stolen and women threatened in their gardens. He said that squatters are illegally settling on land and action must be taken to stop such people.

From Lae Nius, Papua New Guinea: The secretary of the Morobe Traditional Dancing Society, Mr Werner Knoll, claimed that not enough time was given to traditional dancing at the Morobe Show. He said: “Giving the show ring to the dancers for only a couple of hours, while the rest of the day is taken up with horse events of limited interest, means the dancers cannot display themselves properly. Most groups can put on plays and elaborate dances, involving building various structures. For example, there is an 80-foot tower needed for one fertility dance . . .”

From the Cook Islands News: Well the Tourist Authority is going to be an Authority at last.

The trouble is that it might be too late. Already outsiders have moved in and Cook Islanders moved out so where do we go from here? We have heard the same old story from the Authority that it is their intention to restrict outsiders in the tourist industry, but up till now all they have done is restrict Cook Islanders.

From the Norfolk Islander: The Nimmo report arrived this week. Its effect has been elec trifying. The judge talks of the divisiveness of the people of N or folk Island. We feel that the report will aggravate and further this divisiveness.

From the Cook Islands News, on a critical report of

the Cl Broadcasting and Newspaper Corporation:

On the radio side, the equipment is so bad that the announcers bring their own records and cassettes. They also supply their own cassette players because the wonderful studio does not own one. The tape recorders are so old that you never know if the programme is being recorded properly or not.

From The Atoll Pioneer, Tarawa, Gilbert Islands: Radio Tarawa is able to resume transmissions on a temporary basis with the assistance of the Ministry of Communications Works and Utilities who kindly offered the use of one of their short wave transmitters. This is a commercial transmitter and cannot produce good quality music. Our sincere apologies to our music fans but we hope they will understand, and that our own transmitter will soon be repaired.

Mr Barry Holloway, Speaker of the PNG Parliament, in the PNG Post-Courier: “The planning of the Papua New Guinea economy is upside down. We are going full speed astern in the false security of a currently favourable and misdirected cash economy. The amount of money going out of Papua New Guinea on luxury and replaceable food items is reaching a peak far more beyond the point of necessity than ever before. This money alone would replace the fiscal benefits of a new copper mine, or nearly hall the generous Australian grant.”

From an article on water pollution in the Tonga Chronicle: ... The water of the lagoon now carries more suspended sediment than previously, and this has killed some large coral heads near Mu’a ... The rate of change of the lagoon has increased with the population of Tonga and the amount of land under cultivation. At this rate the already shallow lagoons will turn into dry land causing the loss of an extremely important ecosystem many coral reef fish use the lagoon as a nursery area in which the young fish grow up . . .

A recipe for successful negotiating from PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare and reported in the Arawa Bulletin: ... In the past some people have tried to betray my government and have criticised me for taking my time in negotiating the Bougainville problem. But I have always told them that we Papua New Guineans have a unique way of coming to terms, by sitting down together, chewing betelnut and at the same time

talking about differences . . .