Briefs

NZ and Fiji to co-operate on nuclear test

monitoring station

New Zealand and Fiji are considering joining forces to build a nuclear test monitoring station in Fiji, NZ Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Phil Goff said.

It is to be built as part of a global network of 300 such stations to help verify

compliance with the Comprehensive

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Goff said in a statement.

He said New Zealand had developed the expertise to establish the stations and was in the process of becoming the first country in the world to have them verified bythe Provisional Treaty Secretariat in Vienna.

“We certainly look forward to sharing thatexpertise with Fiji.

“It helps to keep the Pacific at the forefront ofglobal efforts to control nuclear weapons,” he said.

“IT demonstrates that our region can move aheadwith the advancement of global initiatives, for the benefitof all countries worldwide.”

Fiji was the first country to ratify the test ban treaty when it was adopted in 1996. The possibility of bilateral trade between the two countries.

Head of French Polynesia sentenced again

for graft

The President of French Polynesia’s local government, Gaston Flosse, was convicted in January of graft for the second time in six weeks.

A French court gave him an eight-month

suspended jail sentence and fined him 150,000 francs ($A36,600) on charges of misuse of company funds.

He was found guilty of charging trips to Air Oceania airline between 1992-93, but was cleared of misappropriation.

A court last November gave Flosse a two-year suspended sentence for corruption and declared him ineligible for public office for a year after he was found guilty of receiving more than 2.7 million francs ($A655,788) for ignoring illegal gambling houses in his Tahiti constituency from 1988 to 1992.

A member of the French Senate for President Jacques Chirac’s Gaullist RPR party, Flosse, 68, has appealed against the earlier sentence, which cannot be effective until appeals have been exhausted.

FIJI considers sedition charges against

Korem The Fiji government is considering charging convicted Californian fraudster David Korem with sedition after he tried to incite the Fijian island of Rotuma to break away from the republic, a senior government official said Monday.

“We’re talking to the state lawyers to see if we can still slam a sedition charge on him outside the country,” acting secretary for Home Affairs George Konrote said.

The home affairs ministry is investigating how Korem was able to enter Fiji. It also wants to ensure Korem will not be able to re-enter the country by declaring him persona non grata.

Korem heads the so-called “Dominion of Melchizedek”, described by the US State Department as an Internet operation “fraudulent in intent and practice”. He entered Fiji using a Melchizedek diplomatic passport.

Cook Islands signs opens skies agreement with NZ The Cook Islands has signed a new open skies air services agreement with New Zealand, ministers announced.

NZ transport minister Mark Gosche said the agreement, the first New Zealand had signed with a Pacific Island country, provides for the possible development of new airline operators using Rarotonga-New Zealand route.

Consotium to reduce cost of natural disasters A new international consortium designed to reduce the human and economic costs of natural disasters in the developing world was launched in Washington last month by the World Bank and an international coalition of governments, international organizations, private insurance companies, universities, and non-governmental organizations.

The aim of the ProVention Consortium, as the partnership is known, will be to equip developing countries with the means to better cope with natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes and floods, and

reduce the loss of life and destruction they cause.

In 1998, natural disasters killed more than 50,000 people and destroyed sUS6sbillion worth of property and infrastructure. Some 95 per cent of disaster-related deaths occurred in developing countries, where the poorest of the poor are the worst affected. The World Bank has lent more than $l9 billion for post-disaster reconstruction over the last 20 years, often more than once to the same country after successive disasters.

Relief funds for Vanuatu The South Pacific Forum Secretariat has released FJ$2O,OOO from a regional disaster relief fund to help the Government of Vanuatu with relief efforts following an earthquake and tsunami last November.

The cheque of F 520,000 was presented to Vanuatu’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Serge Vohor, by the Acting Secretary General of the Forum Secretariat, losefa Maiava, during a meeting at the Suva-based Forum Secretariat. Vanuatu declared a disaster zone in parts of the south-west of Pentecost Island late last year following an earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, and a tsunami on 27 November 1999.

The disaster left a number of people killed and dozens injured, along with extensive crop and property damage in parts of the Malampa and Penama pro-vinces.

The Regional Natural Disaster Relief Fund was established in 1976 and is administered by the Forum Secretariat.

The fund provides a modest source of financial relief in the wake of natural disasters in the Forum Island Countries (Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu).

Landing of second Internet cable delayed The Narrabeen, Australia landing of the main-lay of the Southern Cross Cable Network’s second high-capacity link was delayed in January.

The cable directly links Australia to the heart of the Internet and spans the Pacific to

North America.

The cable was winched ashore in north Sydney through a one kilometre conduit from the cable ship Vercors, which then began its 3665 km journey to Laucala Bay, Fiji. A second ship began the two-part Fiji- Hawaii segment last month.

Southern Cross Asia Pacific marketing director, Ross Pfeffer said this was the first many milestones in for the company.

Last year the company laid over 13,500 km of cable for phase one of operations.

Nauru combats money laundering President of Nauru, Rene Harris has reaffirmed his government’s commitment to revise Nauru’s financial services regime in accord with international standards, to combat claims of abuse of Nauru’s offshore banks for money laundering.

Nauru is the smallest and newest member of the United Nations and the Commonwealth.

Harris welcomed recent talks with the US Government to identify and combat illegal use of Nauru’s offshore banking system.

He also declared the the republic was against criminal activities and pledged an immediate review of banking services, beginning with the suspension of the country’s offshore banking services.

Arsonist attack on Solomon Islands cabinet home Another man was kidnapped in the Solomon Islands after an arson attack on the house of Forests Minister, Hilda Kari. The Minister was not at home during the early morning attack.

Assistant Police Commissioner (Operations) Wilfred Akao said the man, who works for the cabinet minister, was forcibly taken by the group, believed to be militants belonging to the Isatambu Freedom Fighters.

Police know the identities of the men and were pursuing them.

Akao said one of them is believed to be one of the militant leaders, Harold Keke, on the run from police since‘late last year.

Keke who was free on bail failed to turn up to court for a charge of attempted murder.