People

Andy Ayamiseba, the West Irianese manager of a rock band, has left Papua New Guinea claiming that ‘hidden white advisers’ influenced the government there to move him and his group of West Irian musicians out of the country. ‘We had a lot to offer the musi cal world here if we had been allowed to stay,’ he said in Port Moresby on his way out. Resi dents of the Port Moresby sub urb of Boroko agreed the band had plenty to offer in deci bels, if nothing else. The noise from a series of nightly open air concerts caused some resi dents to initiate a petition

calling for the electronically

boosted band to move on.

But the immigration office in Port Moresby said e was nothing sinister oehmu the band’s departure. Their entry permits had expired and there was no provision for an exten sion. The members of the group, who hold Indonesian passports, have wound up in Holland with their wives and children and are claiming poli

tical asylum. They say they

can’t go back to Irian Jaya, a province of Indonesia, because of differences with Indonesian authorities. Indonesia has denied the claim.

If there’s one member of the new Papua New Guinea cabi net who appreciates the fact that ministers are allocated houses, it surely must be Akepa Miakwe who is now Minister for Lands. Just before the pol itical storm which unseated the Somare government another sort of storm a real tropical one - swept through Mr Miakwe’s electorate of Ungai- Bena. It uprooted a giant tree which fell on his house and de stroyed it. No one was injured in the incident.

Just arrived in the Cook Islands from Australia, Dr Stephen Weinstein immediately set

about making arrangements for his wedding. He was to marry Elizabeth Sadlak, a nurse he met last year in the operating theatre of an Adelaide hospital. The wed ding took place on the island of Manihiki, where Dr Wein stein will be stationed for sev eral months. Later in the year Dr and Mrs Weinstein will be stationed in Penrhyn, with Mrs Weinstein working as senior staff sister ‘and taking orders from me,’ says Dr Weinstein.

P&O Cruises in Australia has announced the appointment of R. A. Blackburn as national sales manager, based in Syd ney. Mr Blackburn was pre

viously marketing services

manager in Australia for Air New Zealand.

The regional director in Aus tralia for Qantas, John Rowe, will be the next president of the Pacific Area Travel Associ ation. He was made president elect at the recent PATA annual meeting in Manila, Re public of the Philippines, and will take over as president at

the next annual meeting in Los Angeles, USA. PATA, which will be 30 years old next year, promotes travel in the Pacific and on the Pacific rim. It has membership from the govern ments of 34 countries, from 52 airlines and from nearly 40 agencies and authorities in the countries represented.

Under a bilateral aid pro gramme the New Zealand government has appointed John Rowley as general man ager of the Cook Islands Development Bank for a term of two years. Mr Rowley has been projects manager for the New Zealand Finance Corpor ation. and goes to his new

appointment following dis

cussions between the corpor ation, the Cook Islands government and the New Zealand government. His assignment is to structure the Cook Islands Development Bank so that it will qualify for international soft loans, par ticularly from the Asian Development Bank, and to ensure that the bank becomes an effective development agency.

The Australian Government’s International Trading Insti tute in Sydney has a new prin cipal in Bob Heron. He came to the position after being director of planning at Darwin

Community College in the

Australian Northern Territory and before that he was deputy dean of the Papua New Guinea

University of Technology in

Lae. He holds bachelor’s de grees in commerce and edu cation from the University of Melbourne and is a master of science from the London University School of Econ omics and Political Science.

ITL the institute of which he is now principal, grew from the

widely-known Australian

School of Pacific Administra tion to fill a completely dif ferent role in the changing politics of the Pacific. In its original role it trained the men and women who administered Australian territories. Today it operates a wide range of train ing courses for middle-level managers and administrators from developing countries in the Pacific and Asia. It is operated by the Australian Development Assistance Bu reau of the Department of Foreign Affairs as part of Aus tralian overseas aid pro grammes. This year the institute plans to run 20 courses which will be attended by about 300 government officers from South Pacific island countries, South-east Asia, Africa and the Indian sub continent.

An Australian soccer club, Grange-Thistle in Brisbane, is pinning its hopes for the new season on three Solomon Islanders who will play in the

club’s first-grade team. They

are midfielder Ben Sokeni, striker Wilson Maelaua and defender Sam Ata. All three were brought from Solomon Islands by the club after manager-coach George Pagan saw them in action in Honiara, the Solomons capital.

Cook Islands has sworn in its

new police chief, Superintend

ent Jim Butterworth, formerly an inspector in the New

Zealand police with specialist

qualifications in management services, industrial engineering and work study. A special uni

Visiting new South Seas parliaments from the mother of parliaments at the end of March was this three-man delegation from Britain’s House of Commons - from left, Mr John Roper (Labour) Mr Philip Holland (Conservative) and Clerk to the House, Mr John Willcox, They presented an oak gavel and box each to Tuvalu and Kiribati and a cherrywood clock to the Solomons. They were independence gifts to the three new Commonwealth countries.

form parade marked his first

day in office. Superintendent

Butterworth replaces Superin tendent Eliot Khan who re

signed following last year’s

conspiracy trial.

The Prime Minister of Fiji, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, has followed his father’s footsteps

by taking up song-writing. His

father, the late Tui Nanay, Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba, wrote one of the sets of words for the widely-known song of farewell Isa Lei. And now Ratu Sir Kamisese has written a song about the role of Fijian soldiers in the United Nations peace keeping force in Lebanon. The music was written by the well known Fijian composer Sir Josua Rabukawaqa and a

recording has been published

in Nadi featuring the Fijian Phoenix Choir.

Ratu Sir Kamisese said the words for the song came to him while he was on a flight over Lebanon on his way to Europe. ‘lt was a clear bright day’, he said. Thoughts about the soldiers flowed into my mind so I picked up a piece of paper and started writing’.

Earl Cameron, a Bermudan who became one of Britain’s best-known black actors in television, has retired to Honiara in Solomon Islands. T wanted to get out of the rat race, and Honiara seems a nice quiet place to settle down,’ he said.

A memorial service was held last month at English Harbour on Fanning Island in the Line Islands for Bill Frew, a kindly Australian widely known to passing yachtsmen and who is

now presumed dead following

his mysterious disappearance

on the island.

Over the years many yachts have called at Fanning and their crews have known the hospitality and help which was always available from Bill Frew and his Tuvalu-bom wife Marina. Frew had long been established there as a plan tation manager for Burns Philp. He walked from the house earlier this year and has not been heard of since despite an extensive search of the

property, the island and the

surrounding seas.

Friends have now opened a trust fund to care for the edu cation of his children, and do nations are being received by Judith H Moore, Trustee for Daniel, Donald and Diana Frew, 1782 Halekoa Drive, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Fred Kona, widely known to Pacific tourists for his Vilu Vil lage war and cultural museum on Guadalcanal in Solomon Islands, was beaten uncon scious when he stopped to help a group of men beside an ap parently broken-down car out side Honiara. He is recovering from the attack for which no motive has been given.

Charles Maino, one of Papua New Guinea’s best-known government lawyers, has been

appointed his country’s Public

Prosecutor, becoming the first Papua New Guinean to hold this office. He replaces the Australian, Kevin Egan, who was a controversial central fig ure in last year’s contempt of

court proceedings against the

then Justice Minister, Nahau Rooney Mr Maino, married with four children, is a law

graduate from the University

of PNG.

Meanwhile PNG has appointed another Australian, Jeffrey Allan Miles, to serve as a National Court Judge, although the Rooney affair raised sensitive issues about the need to speed up localisation of

the judiciary. The new Mr Jus tice Miles has been Public De fender in NSW since 1978 and had earlier experience as a legal advocate for northern Australian Aboriginal com munities.

In another senior legal

appointment PNG has given

the position of Chief Magis trate to Joseph Aisa, a Papua New Guinean magistrate of

wide experience.

Two supreme and national court judges in Papua New Guinea have had their jurisdic tions extended to become judges of the PNG Defence Force. They are an Australian, Mr Justice Andrew, and the first Papua New Guinean to be made a judge, Mr Justice Kapi.

They will hear proceedings

involving members of the force

charged through military pro

cedures.

An Australian on secondment to the Papua New Guinea De fence Force, Lt-Colonel I. R.

M. Maclean, has been given the command of the force’s Engineer Battalion based in

Port Moresby. He replaces

another Australian, Lt-Colonel D. M. King, who was com mended by the PNG Govern ment for his command over the past two years. The Engineer Battalion is the element of the force most in the public eye be cause of its civil construction programme involving roads,

bridges and rural buildings.

The title of veteran veteran is fast being earned by AI Bonney

Left, Bill Frew, the cruising yach ties’ friend, of Fanning Island, who is presumed dead and for whose children a trust fund has been opened in Honolulu. Photo graph is by Larry Bortles Below, Mr Joe Carlo, director of Radio New Hebrides, in Sydney re cently with Mr John Sparkes, acting national director of rural broadcasting for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Mr Carlo spent four weeks making a study of ABC operations.

f of Brunswick, Maine, USA. > He’s just returned home after his eighth re-visit to the former battle grounds of World War II in Solomon Islands where he ■ served as a marine in 1942. At a mere 59 years of age he be lieves he still has plenty of re l visits ahead of him.

Mr Bonney is executive sec retary of the Guadalcanal Vet erans Association and regularly [ organises non-profit tours for former US servicemen return ing to the areas where they

fought during the Guadalcanal

campaign.

There were 43 members in this year’s pilgrimage, includ

ing 77-year-old Father Fred

Gehring, 50 years a priest this year. In Honiara on Guadal canal Fr Gehring recalled how he used to say mass for fighter pilots before they took off

every morning.

The National Bank’s new Chief Manager for Fiji, Dun can Stewart, is a Scotsman who served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force and has had 30 years

banking experience in

developing countries. He has been a bank manager in

Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda

and his most recent position was as central manager and alternate director of the Stan dard Bank of Zambia.

Two young women from Rotuma, Fiji, Jane Foster and Violet Gibson Burns have broken the Guinness Book of Records marathon typing time of 162 hours 1 minute. Violet typed for 214 hours (with 25 breaks), and Jane, formerly of the Fiji Times, for 164 hours 45 minutes (36 breaks).

They were allowed five min utes rest every hour, but could accumulate these periods to

give themselves longer rest

times if they wished.

The typathon was in aid of a House with No Steps for

handicapped people. But Gay

Laurence of Ben’s Office Ma chines, on whose Sydney prem ises the event took place in February, said the amount raised had been ‘disappoint

ing’.

A warrant officer from the Royal Australian Air Force, Norm Plowright, 53, is nearing the end of one of the

most unusual tours of duty ever assigned by the RAAF. For the past two years he’s been the first and only Australian ser viceman assigned to the King dom of Tonga where he’s been teaching carpentry trade skills.

His official designation is carpentry instructor to the Ton gan Defence Force, which in cludes the preparation of a syllabus to guide future instructors. His appointment was part of the Australian de fence co-operation pro gramme, assisted by New Zealand which has provided tools and equipment. Projects carried out by WO Plowright and his trainees have included the construction of a carpentry workshop, a general lecture room and an orthopaedic

workshop for Tongan medical

services. They have also carried out building work at Lotuma naval station.

The Rev David Williams, an American United Methodist missionary with an agricultural background, has joined the Pa cific Conference of Churches (PCC) in Suva. He takes over the work of Fr Patrick Murphy who was killed in a road acci

dent in Port Moresby in 1978.

From 1974 Mr Williams worked with the Melanesian Council of Churches in Papua New Guinea as agricultural secretary.

He edited the Lik Lik Buk, a rural development handbook

produced for village people by

the MCC. It gives information

on appropriate technology,

farming and nutrition.

His post in Fiji as co ordinator of the Church and Society Programme of the PCC will involve a close study of tourism, its effects on Pacific culture and/or Pacific political decisions, migration, trans national corporations and their effect on human development, and proposals for a nuclear free Pacific.

In an interview with the daily La Depeche de Tahiti, the vice-president of French

Polynesia’s Government

Council Francis Sanford said he believed politicians should

be ’absolutely open’ about

their financial interests. Suiting the action to the word he gave the paper’s reporter Christine Bourne a full rundown on his own sources of income, i must set an example, and I have

nothing to hide,’ said Mr San ford.

The 68-year-old leader also admitted in the interview that he was beginning to feel some concern about* finding a suc cessor for his job, which is roughly equivalent of that of

prime minister.

The Federal Bureau of Investi gation will continue to play a role when the new Micronesian states shed most of their links with the United States, accord ing to Glenn L. Young, special agent in charge of the Honolulu FBI office.

Young, accompanied by

Darwin B. Green, who heads the Guam FBI office, was speaking in Saipan in March during a visit to the Northern Marianas.

He said that the Honolulu office, which has jurisdiction over two million square miles in the Pacific, deals mainly with foreign counter-intelli gence and white collar crime.

He said he expects that the FBI will have jurisdiction over counter-intelligence and poss ibly bank robberies when the free association states of the Marshalls, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau emerge from the Trust Territory.

These 14 West Samoans are among 19 Samoan students recently enrolled at the University of Newcastle, Australia, under the Australian Governments’ South Pacific Aid Programme. Six are studying Engineer ing, four Science, seven Arts, one Economics and one Mathematics. The 19 are Misses C. Ahmu, Laugao Nafanua, M. Meredith, T. Naseri, S. L. Niko, K. Sapolu, Messrs R. Charles, U Fepulea’i, N. A. L. Lam Sam, T. T. Leilua, H. A. Mulipola, E. Mulinuu, A. Niumata, S. Pulenatoa, I. Punivalu, T. Sami, M S.

Siamomua, T. Ugapo and Dr D. T. Mailei.