This Month’s Features

• A SHEDDING OF ISLANDS For the first time, an accurate and detailed account of how the United States abandoned long-standing claims to 25 Pacific islands 13 • ARTS Jimmy and Gwenda Cornell conclude their two-part review of the Third South Pacific Festival of Arts with a close look at the contribution of actors, musicians, carvers and canoe-builders 15 • VANUATU— How Papua New Guinea troops restored government control on the former secessionist island of Espiritu Santo 19 • POLITICAL CURRENTS Bengt Danielsson takes time out from a European tour for a visit to Copenhagen where the United Nations Mid-Decade Conference and Forum for Women were under way. He found that representatives of Pacific women were in good voice 21 • AUSTRALIA IN THE PACIFIC What’s going on in the field of Australian aid to the South Pacific, and Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, spelling out government attitudes to the region at a revealing news conference in Suva 29 • BOOKS Sir John Gunther reviews a new book on the impact of World War II on the villagers of Papua New Guinea, and Dr Grant McCall writes on two unequal works on Easter Island 53 • TRAVEL Writer lan Downs writes on New Caledonia as a tourist destination and finds it good 59 • YESTERDAY Noting the recent British military presence on Vanuatu’s troubled southern island of Tanna, Ron Adams recalls much bloodier feats of British arms there 100 years ago and more 63 • TRADEWINDS The enemy is often invisible in this New Zealand war ..67

Cover: Vanuatu representative Hilda Uni pictured at the Copenhagen women’s conference. Story p2l.

Photo: Bengt Danielsson.

American Samoa 48 Australian in the Pacific 29 Books 53 Cook Islands 69 Deaths 81 Easter Island 55 Festival of Arts 14 Fiji 25, 45,48, 71 French Polynesia 23 Hawaii 57 Islands Press 26 Letters 7 New Caledonia 59 New Zealand 67 Palau 71

Papua New Guinea 22,23, 25,53,69,72 People 49 Political Currents 21 Ships 71 Shipping Services 79 Tonga 57 Tradewinds 67 Tradewinds Intelligence 70 Travel 59 Tropicalities 45 US drops Islands claims 13 Vanuatu 19, 45, 63, 67 Western Samoa 47 Yachts 7 4 Yesterday 63