People

Dr A. Singh, of the University of South Pacific, Fiji, was one of 10 senior health advisers who assisted health officials from regional coun tries of the Western Pacific area in their deliberations at a World Health Organisation seminar held in Tokyo in September on the use of medicinal plants in health care.

Seminar participants were from Australia, Fiji, Guam, Western Samoa, Japan, Lao People’s Demo cratic Republic, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Solomon Islands and Tonga.

Mr Gregory Urwin, a career dip lomat in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, will become his country’s acting High Commissioner in Apia, Western Samoa. The High Commissioner, Mr Gordon Upton, who is resident in Suva and also ac credited to Fiji, will continue to make periodic visits to Western Samoa. The establishment of a resi dent Australian mission in Apia is part of the government’s efforts to ensure closer co-operation with the countries of the South Pacific region.

Mr Rory Scott, Papua New Guinea’s director of tourism, resign ed on October 16, when his contract expired. Before taking up his Port Moresby post, Mr Scott was general manager of the Fiji Visitors’

Bureau. He said he had no plans for the future, but hoped to continue working in the Pacific area.

Mr M. Terry has returned to New Zealand after 25 years in the New Hebrides, first with the Public Works Department and then with the Department of Civil Aviation.

Patrick Rama. Dick Depa and Stewart Apaika, engineering stu dents with Air Niugini, are to do a 21-month training course on jet aircraft maintenance at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. All three apprentices completed their first-year training in Papua New

Guinea before taking up the course with Japan Airlines (JAL) in Tokyo.

They recently completed a three month intensive training course in the Japanese language. The three young men are all from the Western Highlands Province of PNG.

Mr D. M. Diment, 47, is Fiji’s new director of information. He brings to the position experience gained in information services in Britain, Kenya, Gambia and Malawi. In 1973 he became course director at the Centre for Interna tional Briefing, Farnham, Surrey.

His duties in Fiji will include those of public relations officer, creating

publicity material, press releases, liaison with radio outlets, preparing brochures and editing the house journal. Mr Diment is married and has two children.

Fred Uhrle, 62, has retired as director of port administration in Amierican Samoa after 45 years in the government service. Governor H. Rex Lee, accepting Fred’s resig nation with regret, said his first reaction in receiving it was “You can’t do this”. But after Fred ex plained that he had responded to similar pleas from three previous governors, Governor Lee did not persist. Fred was born in Utulei and became a customs clerk in 1932.

Before becoming director of port administration in 1956 he served as assistant director of financial affairs.

Mr Justice Quinn, the new chief justice of the Gilbert Islands, had his hands full almost as soon as he stepped into the post. After an early reorganisation of the courts he in tended to have a close look into the decisions of magistrate’s courts and island courts to ensure that justice was being done, and even-handedly.

To help him achieve reforms he in tended to learn Gilbertese as quickly as possible. Mr Justice Quinn is a barrister of Kings Inn, Dublin, and of the Inner Temple, London. He has served in various legal and judicial capacities in Malawi (then Nyasaland), the Cameroon Republic and the Seychelles. He became a Queen’s Counsel after serving as chief justice in the Seychelles.

Mr Jack Healy, 42, is the first general manager of Polynesian Airlines who has not been seconded from either Air Pacific or Air New Zealand. Mr Healy was a port man ager at Tafuna in American Samoa.

He held several senior appointments in various areas of the aviation industry before being named as Pan American Airways regional director for Scotland, where he was born. Mr Healy succeeds Mr Cedric Wiseley, who returns to Air NZ.

Mr Renagi Lohia has been ap pointed vice-chancellor of the University of Papua New Guinea.

He replaces Dr Gabriel Gris who will leave at the end of the year to go back to the public service. Mr

Mr Maiava lulai Toma, 39, has been appointed Western Samoa's first perm anent representative to the United Nations. He has the rank of ambassador.

He will also become US Ambassador to the United States and High Commissioner to Canada. For the last three years he was secretary to the Western Samoa Government. The Prime Minister, Mr Tupuola Efi, said there had been some lobbying for the post on behalf of others who sought it. Maiava was given the title of matai the day before his appointment was announced at Satoa lepai, Savaii. Prime Minister Efi said being a matai was not one of the qual ifications for the post, but the point was made in cabinet that it "would be nice” if the person chosen did have a title.

Lohia, one of the university’s first graduates, was the first national to be appointed dean of a faculty. He has recently been filling the post of deputy vice-chancellor.

After 30 years of work in the Gilbert Islands, Captain E. V. Ward has gone home to live in his small cottage in Devon, England. He first arrived in the Gilberts in 1946 as chief mate on the three-masted Lon don Missionary Society vessel John Williams V, and was on board when she was wrecked on Savai’i, Western Samoa, on Christmas Eve, 1948. He later became master of the John Williams VI, staying with that vessel until 1952.

He then joined the Government Trade Scheme, predecessor of the Gilbert Islands Development Authority. He was still with the GIDA Marine Office when he retired from the Gilberts in June.

Part of the legacy of his years in the Gilberts is represented by his navigational charts, Sailing Direc tions in the Gilbert and Ellice Is lands, and the Line Islands, which are still used by Gilberts govern ment vessels.

Mr J. Manciot, managing director of the French government-controll ed IRHO Coconut Research Station at Saraoutu, Santo, has left the New Hebrides after 15 years in the group.

His successor, Mr de Taffin, who took over in September, previously worked at an IRHO station in Africa, and has considerable ex perience with palm oil.

Mr Campbell Fleay, one of the last Australians to head a govern ment department in Papua New Guinea in the transition to indepen dence has retired. Mr Fleay stepped down as Secretary of Labour more than a year ago but had remained as a consultant with the National In comes Authority. He had been 34 years in PNG first as a coast watcher during World War Two, then as a patrol officer and district officer before joining the Depart ment of Labour which he eventually headed.

Mr Sam Moses, an official of the Wau-Bulolo Workers’ Union, Papua New Guinea, flew to Israel in August to do a three-months course sponsored by the Afro-Asian In

stitute. Announcing the selection of Mr Moses for the course, Mr Tony I la, president of the PNG Trade Union Congress, said the study would be extremely helpful to Mr Moses whose union is involved in trade stores, trucking and other community enterprises.

Mr Teeta loran, member of the Gilbert Islands House of Assembly for Arorae, represented his country at a meeting organised by the Com monwealth Parliamentary Associ ation in London in July. Twenty five countries sent representatives to the meeting.