Inside

• SHIPS, ATOMS AND SELF-DETERMINATION Heads of government from 14 nations attended the 1983 meeting of the South Pacific Forum held this year in Canberra. Angus Smales describes the clash between Australia and New Zealand over aid for the Pacific Forum Shipping Line, the caution displayed towards proposals for a nuclear-free Pacific, and the continuation of pressures for self determination in New Caledonia 13 • ISLANDS COMMODITY PRICES PICK UP Good news for Papua New Guinea and Fiji: spot prices on the international market for some mining and agricultural commodities produced by them have doubled in the past year. 11 • PAPUA NEW GUINEA-IRIAN JAVA BORDER Papua New Guinea is to set up a troop base at the Ok Tedi mining port of Kiunga, and increase patrols of the Irian Jaya border, according to PNG Deputy Prime Minister Paias Wingti . 18 • COOK ISLANDS 1983: THE YEAR OF VOTING REPEATEDLY Cook Islanders go to the polls on November 2 for their second general election this year.

Trevor Clarke in Rarotonga tells the story 19 • NEW CALEDONIAN STUDENTS TELL OF FIJI TRIP In a remarkable series of letters and poems, 14 students from Havila School, Lifou Island, New Caledonia, tell the world how much they loved their visit to Fiji earlier this year. 21 • TALES OF VIKING LATE-COMERS TO THE PACIFIC Marie-Therese and Bengt Danielsson explain the absence of the great Viking navigators from the Pacific during the centuries of European discovery, but also reveal a range of little known 19th-century activities in the region by seaborne Swedish traders . 31 • THE U.S. IN MICRONESIA Robert C. Kiste analyses the U.S. presence in Micronesia since 1947, and in a lighter vein Floyd K. Takeuchi gives a delightful account of how U.S. and other foreign influences have affected the names given by Micronesian parents to their children 37, 41

Books 43 Child of Bounty 21 Cook Islands 19 Deaths 65 Fiji 11, 20, 21, 23 Islands Press 51 Kiribati 43 Letters 7 Micronesia 37 New Caledonia 11, 21, 30 Noumea Notebook 30 Pacific Navigation 21, 31 Pacific Report 5 Palau 20 Papua New Guinea 11, 18, 23, 45 People 27

Political Currents 13 Postmark Papeete 31 Report from Vanuatu 36 Seabirds 49 Shipping schedules 53 Solomon Islands 52 South Pacific Forum 13 The Month 30 Tonga 57 Tradewinds 57 Travel 52 Tuvalu 43 Vanuatu 36 View from Honolulu 37 Western Samoa 11, 50 Yachts 59