Nauru walks away from meet $50m richer

By lan Williams

AT least one small island walked away from Barbados richer than when it went. At the newly-opened Australian High Commission in Barbados, Austra lia’s Development and Pacific Affairs Minister Gordon Bilney and President Bernard Dowiyogo of Nauru signed an agreement pledging Asso million over

the next 20 years. The agreement follows last August’s South Pacific Forum in Nauru, where the two countries announced a total SIO7 mil lion out of court settlement of the three year case brought by Nauru at the International Court ofjustice. The case claimed damages for environmental damage caused by phosphate mining on the island while it was under Australian administration as, first a League of

Nations mandate and then as a UN trust territory, until it gained indepen dence in 1968.

Canberra has already paid 40 million and will pay an additional AS 17 million by August 31 this year. Earlier this year the blow for the Australian Treasury was softened when the UK and New Zealand agreed to contribute AS24 million of that. □