people

American Samoa’s Palauni Tuiasosopo was elected the new secretary-general of the South Pacific Commission at the South Pacific Conference in Honiara in October.

He replaces Solomon Is lands’ Francis Bugotu.

Pope John Paul II has appointed a new bishop coad jutor in Papua New Guinea.

Fr Paul-Jean Marx, member of the Congregation Missionar ies of the Sacred Heart, and parish priest of St Paul’s at Putei (Toaripi region) has been named Bishop Coadjutor of the Most Rev Virgil Copas, Archbishop-Bishop of Kerema.

Fr Marx was born in 1935 in Mutzig (France). In 1961 he joined the Congregation of Mis sionaries of the Sacred Heart and was ordained priest in 1963.

He came to PNG in 1964 and was entrusted with Bema missionary station in the Gulf Province until 1969. Since then he has been parish priest of St Paul’s at Putei and Director of the Catechetical Training Centre in that parish.

Besides French (his mother tongue), he speaks English, German, Melanesian Pidgin and two local languages (of Kamea and Toaripi regions). Fr Marx is a pioneer of the evangelisation in the moun tainous area of Gulf Province.

Jioji Kotabalavu, secretary to the Fiji Cabinet, former Fiji Ambassador to Japan and for mer secretary for Foreign Affairs, has been appointed the first executive director of the Committee for Co-ordination of Joint Prospecting for Mineral Resources in South Pacific Offshore Areas (CCOP/

Sopac).

Michael Howell. British Con sul-General in Frankfurt, West Germany, has been appointed Britain’s High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, succeed ing Arthur Collins. High Com missioner in PNG since Janu ary, 1982. Mr Howell, who has also served in Berlin, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, will take

up his new post in January. Mr Collins will take up a new appointment at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Graeme Ammundsen, until re cently New Zealand Ambassa dor to Bahrain, has been appointed NZ High Commis sioner to Tonga, succeeding Priscilla Williams, who left Tonga at the end of October and will go to Australia early next year as Deputy High Com

missioner. Mr Ammundsen was High Commissioner in Solomon Islands in 1978-80.

Chris Gorring, general manager of the Sheraton-Perth Hotel in Western Australia, has been appointed general manager of the 300-room Sheraton-Fiji resort, scheduled to open in mid- 1987. The new resort, to cost SF3S milion, will have a 600seat convention centre, four restaurants and a nightclub.

Dirk Anthony Ballendorf is a Fulbright Visiting Fellow in Micronesian History at Mac quarie University, New South Wales, Australia, Dr Ballendorf was bom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1939, and was educated at the public schools there. He attended Temple University and graduated from West Chester University as a history teacher, spending the following two years, 1961-63, as a Peace

Signalman Dave Tenni of Broadmeadows, Victoria, Australia, makes some friends in Western Samoa before the Australian Army survey project Operation Anon. Signalman Tenni, based with the 2nd Signal Regiment, Watsonia, Victoria, provided communications for a team from Randwick, NSW-based 2nd Field Survey Regiment, who staged through Western Samoa before beginning their survey work for the Kiribati Government. They are providing data for topographic maps of the Gilbert, Line and Phoenix Island Groups and identifying Kiribati’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, a project of Australia’s Defence Co-operation Program. - Picture courtesy of Australian Army, Public Relations, NSW.

Corps Volunteer in the Philip pines.

He received his further education and administrative training at Howard University, 1963-65, and at Harvard, 1968-71. Subsequently, he served as director of planning for the Pennsylvania Office of Higher Education at Harris burg, and president of the Community College of Mic ronesia at Ponape in the East ern Caroline Islands.

He has been Associate Pro fessor of History and Microne sian Studies at the University of Guam’s Micronesian Area Re search Center since 1979, and was director of the centre for five years (1979-84). He was incorrectly described as the pre sent director in PIM (Oct. p. 51).

Dr Michael Graves is now director.

In addition to writing for both popular media and professional journals, including PIM, Dr Bal lendorf has been the editor of Glimpses magazine, a regional quarterly published at Guam.

In a little more than a year, the Sydney-based Tour Associates have produced “startling results in marketing Western Samoa to Australian travellers”, according to the Australian monthly The

Business Bulletin.

The magazine writes that the company’s entry into the field happily coincided with the in troduction of a direct air service by Polynesian Airlines between Sydney and Apia, the capital of Western Samoa.

Taofi Atoa, the managing director of Tour Associates, is the guiding force behind this wholesale agency’s Pacific in volvement. She joined Tour Associates in February, 1984

and immediately put her know ledge of the South Pacific to work. She was born in Western Samoa, educated in New Zea land, and cut her teeth on informing Australia about the area she loves the South Pacific.

As the former representative of the Samoa Tourist Bureau in Australia, Taofi undertook a task that seemed impossible when access to Western Samoa was next to impossible for most of the prospects she approached. Access became feasible when the weekly direct service was introduced by Polynesian Airlines.

The first West Indian circumna vigators are on special leave

from their government jobs to do the thing again. Harold and Kwailan la Borde are accom panied this time by their two sons.

Mr and Mrs La Borde began their sailing experience 25 years ago in the Humming Bird I, an 8-metre boat without an engine.

Their first voyage around the world was in 1969 on the Humming Bird 11.

The couple spent eight months in Fiji in 1970. Mrs La Borde was expecting their second child Andre and she flew to New Zealand to give birth while their older son, Pierre, attended Marist Primary School.

Mr La Borde was in Fiji for the Independence celebrations in 1970.

When they returned home in 1973, they began building the yacht they are now using . . .

Humming Bird 111. It took them eight years to build and Mrs La Borde said it cost them a lot of money.

Mr La Borde said the whole project was spread out so they did not feel much.

Humming Bird 111 is 16.7 metres long, and was used as a training project to teach young Trinidadians boat-building.

The couple said the ultimate challenge of this passage is to sail around Cape Horn.

Mr La Borde likened the sailing of Cape Horn to the conquering of Mount Everest by mountaineers. Joanna Berwick in The Fiji Times.

Taofi Atoa ... “startling results”.

Dirk Anthony Ballendorf

Narsi Raniga, Fiji’s secretary for foreign affairs, who has been appointed Fiji’s Acting High Commissioner to India, will visit that country three times a year until a permanent appointment is made.