People

The new government of national unity announced on December 21 1978 in the New Hebrides (PIM February) was not only the finest Christmas present its people could have hoped for, but with an average age of around 40, its 10 mem bers must form one of the youngest cabinets in the world.

They are: Father Gerard Leymang, 41, Chief Minister, representing the Tan-Union, Malekula. After studies.abroad was ordained deacon in 1962.

In 1972 was attached to the Sacred Heart Cathedral. Vila.

Former minister of social ser vices.

Father Walter Fini, 36, Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Social Services.

President of the Vanuaaku Party, from North Pentecost.

Educated for the Anglican priesthood in Solomon Islands and New Zealand. Ordained deacon 1968, priest 1970.

Guy Prevot, 43, Finance Minister, Tan-Union, Vila.

Held the same post in the Kal sakau government. Born Tanna, educated locally, and until taking up politics fulltime was in insurance.

Donald Kalpokas, 35, Edu cation Minister, Vanuaaku Party, from Lelepa. Educated locally, Solomons and Ard

more Training College, New

Zealand. Diploma in Edu cation, University of the South Pacific.

Maxime Carlot, Internal Affairs Minister. Until recently

Speaker of the Representative

Assembly. Has worked in French Residency, and has fre

quently represented the New

Hebrides overseas.

John Naupa, 39, Health Minister, Vanuaaku Party, from Erromanga, Joined Bri tish National Service in the New Hebrides, 1965. Attended senior administrative super visors’ course at USP.

Aime Malere, 36, Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism, MANH Party, Santo. From Malekula, previously with

Banque de Tlndochine et de Suez. Retains ministry he held in former government.

George Kalkoa, 41, Minister of Public Administration, Vanuaaku Party, from Mele, Efate. Trained as teacher in Fiji. Joined British National Service Education Department in 1957, Diploma in public and social administration. UK.

Former assistant secretary for social services, British Resi

dency.

Luke Dini, 38, Minister of Transport. Posts and Telecom

munications. Independent,

Banks Islands. Retains this

ministry from previous govern

ment. With the British National Service as a medical assistant. 1971-77, with further training in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Thomas Reuben, 42, Minis ter of Natural Resources, representing Vanuaaku Party/ Natuitano. From Hog Har bour, Santo. Was with British National Service 1963-76.

A senior student at Samoana High School, Vicki Aoelua

representing Polynesian Air

lines, has won the title Miss American Samoa-Tourism. At the judging were Miss New Zealand, Jean Simmonds, and

Miss Tahiti, Moeata Schmouker. The Pago published official New Bulletin reports that the audience

‘reacted enthusiastically during

the “talent” section of the con test’. It said ; ‘A number of con testants presented the Samoan siva which drew loud applause from the traditionally-minded members of the audience . . . M iss Natalia Steffany gave a performance in her dramatic reading that would have won respect in any college in the US. Miss June Atutasi displayed her many talents by singing, playing the organ and the clarinet. The most unusual

display was presented by Miss

Elizabeth White, who showed her talent in flower arrang

ing . . .'

Kolone Nelu has been appointed a member of the Tuvalu Public Service Com mission. Mr Nelu, manager of Vaitupu Kioa Holdings, suc ceeds Dr Tamaika Kofe who has taken up a temporary appointment with the Nauru Phosphate Commission.

Two senior Islands public ser vants were due to visit Aus tralia last month as guests of the Australian Government.

They are the Fiji Permanent Secretary for Labour, Indus trial Relations and Immi gration Satyanand, and Secretary of the Papua New Guinea Education Department Alkan Tololo.

Father Harry Tevi of North Pentecost in the New Hebrides was last month consecrated as sistant bishop of the Anglican Churches in the New Hebrides at Lolowai on Aoba island.

Father Tevi previously served at Kohimarama in Solomon Islands.

A man who served as a subal tern with the Fiji Forces in Malaya from 1954 to 1956 has been appointed successor to the Commander of the Royal Fiji Military Forces, Colonel Paul Manueli. He is Colonel Robert Thorpe, 49, of the New Zealand Army. Colonel Thorpe was selected because, at the moment, there is no

other suitably-qualified Fiji

soldier to take on the pos ition.

Twenty years ago, French-born painter Nicolai Michou touchkine opened an art gal lery in Noumea, the first in the French Pacific. For a week after he opened the gallery

High chief Vaitagaloa Maaku Nua, director of tourism, pays tribute to Miss American Samoa-Tourism 1979, Vicki Aoelua. At right is the retiring 1978 title-holder Ateliana So’oto

doors as he told PIM a few years ago ‘I used to see a little dark man passing the door fre

quently and running away.

After I spoke to him, and found from his broken French that his name was Pilioko, he be came a regular visitor. A few months later, he asked for pen and paper and started draw ing’. That was the start of a suc cessful career as a painter for Wallis Islander Aloisio Pilioko and the start of a partnership which has taken Michou touchkine and his protege all over the world. They now have their studio in Vila and are busy packing up for a trip to France where 70 of their paint ings and tapestries are on exhi bition. In Australia in 1964 with Pilioko for exhibitions in Sydney, Adelaide and Can berra, Michoutouchkine was invited to plan the decor for Vila’s new Hotel Vate. He and Pilioko fell in love with the New Hebrides he describes as the best place for ‘genuine in spiration’. So they settled down there and, when they’re not showing the rest of the world their art, they welcome visitors to their gallery which doubles as a museum with relics,

antiques and artifacts. They

were in Sweden for four months last year and could be in Russia within a few months as Michoutouchkine has been

approached by the Russian

Academy of Science to stage a display. Pilioko has made great strides and from pen and paper has graduated, via an art school

in France, to painting, drawing and embroidering. PIM com missioned a picture of one of his tapestries exhibited in the

Kabuki Gallery in Sydney’s

Paddington in 1976. It appeared as our cover in July 1976.

A fisherman, born in Fiji but living and working out of Port Lincoln, South Australia, is selling up his home and

crayfishing boat, and moving

to Suva to work in the local skipjack tuna industry. He is Grahame Southwick who has bought the 20 metre steel cutter Duyfken, which was based at Portland, Victoria, and con verted it. According to the Pro fessional Fisherman, a new newspaper describing itself as ‘the voice of the Australian

fishing industry’ and published

at Armadale, Victoria, Mr Southwick gave, as one of his reasons for leaving South Aus traia, the ‘restrictive regu lations applied by the South Australian Fisheries Depart ment’. Mr Southwick, for sev eral years president of the West Coast Cray Fishermen’s As sociation in South Australia, was reported as saying that fishermen had lost many fish ing days because of confron tations and meetings with the

department.

A Papua New Guinea nursing sister, Ada Inabi, is due to return to Port Moresby this month after undertaking an eight-month course in inten-

sive care nursing at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Sister Inabi is one of nine sisters who have been taught the use of sophisticated cardiac and other equipment used in the treat ment of patients in intensive care. In Australia under the

sponsorship of the Develop

ment Assistance Bureau, Sister Inabi did her secondary edu cation at Daru High School in PNG’s Western Province.

Three Fijian soldiers with the United Nations (UN) peace keeping force in Lebanon were wounded when caught in a skirmish between Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) men and French members of the UN force. The Fijians, Captain Matereti Sarasau, 27, Lieutenant Metuisela Mua, 36, and Warrant Officer Ravuso Wainiqolo, 30, on duty in Tyre were captured and were being taken as hostages to the PLO camp when an exchange of fire occurred at a French check point. The French over powered the PLO men and the Fijians were freed and taken to

hospital. Captain Sarasau was

wounded in the left shoulder.

Lieutenant Mua in the right buttock and Warrant Officer

Wainiqolo in the right

shoulder.

A young New Zealand scientist won the British Soil Science

Society’s silver jubilee award

last year for work carried out under the sponsorship of the government of Papua New Guinea. Dr R. L. Parfitt, of New Zealand’s department of scientific and industrial re search, won a medal and a cash prize for four papers on the mechanism of sorption of anions on hydrous oxides. The practical aim of Dr Parfitt’s work is to discover ways by which high production can be maintained with lower levels of

phosphate application.

Delma Boden is the first woman to be elected to the Papua New Guinea Public Ser vice Association executive. Ms Boden, 36, was the only woman to contest the recent election. A former school teacher, she has taught in her home province of East New Britain, and in Morobe, Eastern Highlands

and Central Provinces.

Another first for Ms Boden came in 1970 when she became the first married woman to undergo a second year re training course at a time when married women were denied the opportunity to re-train after marriage. At present Ms Boden, now 36, is a govern ment liaison officer with the Office of Information.

Forty-one years of government service in the Cook Islands came to an end last month when Tuti Taringa, secretary of internal affairs, retired. Before starting retirement leave in December, Mr Taringa was honoured by Minister of Internal Affairs Tangaroa Tan garoa and departmental staff who put on an umukai (feast) for him.

Dr Edwin Young, president of the University of Wisconsin System, has been appointed to the board of governors of the East-West Center, Honolulu.

The appointment was made by US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance for a three-year term. Dr Young succeeds John K.

Mclver of Milwaukee, whose

term expired.

Fiji’s first woman ambassador, Mrs Soonu Koochar, India’s

high commissioner to Fiji,

arrived in Suva late last year to take up her duties. Accom panied by her husband and son, Mrs Koochar has been in India’s foreign service since 1955 and has served in Paris, where she met her husband who was also serving at the Indian embassy, and London.

Mrs Koochar is also accredited to Western Samoa, Nauru and

Tonga.

Sister Ada Inabi with an Australian nurse, Sister Janet Clarke, work ing with a cardiac monitoring device at the Royal Melbourne Hospital - AIS photograph

Delma Boden ... a second first