Pacific Islands Briefs

Over one-third live below poverty in PNG

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea—Thirty-five percent of the Papua New Guinea population lives below the poverty line, which is considerable higher than in neighboring Pacific countries, a seminar on social development was told Sunday.

Home Affairs Department secretary Joseph Sukwianomb said 93.5 percent of those identified as poor live in rural areas.

He said successive government policy failures, leading to high levels of inflation and low wage growth, have made the poverty situation “distinctively worse in 1999.”

French rower quits Pacific journey

AUCKLAND, New Zealand—A French rower attempting to sail solo across the Pacific from New Zealand to Chile has abandoned the journey on the advice of his doctor.
Jo Le Guen, 53, left Wellington February 3, hoping to reach Cape Horn by early May.
However, doctors told him by phone that infected wounds in his feet were likely to worsen and his feet might have to be amputated if he continued.

As a result, Le Guen has left his boat, and now is on board a container ship, the Palliser Bay.

Plan to store plutonium in Pacific dropped

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Businessman Alex Copson has abandoned a plan to store up to 200,000 tons of weapons-grade plutonium on Wake Island, more than 2,000 miles west of Hawaii.

Copson, who has proposed for several years storing nuclear waste and weapons in various parts of the Pacific, said he now has dropped the idea entirely because of opposition from regional countries.

He tried to reduce opposition to his plan by announcing that $1 billion would be set aside as an environmental and educational trust fund for the Pacific Islands region. But the proposal was rejected on environmental grounds.

NZ’s new commonwealth chief takes office

LONDON, England—The new secretary-general of the Commonwealth, Don McKinnon, has taken office with a traditional Maori welcoming ceremony at the organization’s headquarters in London.

Mr. McKinnon, a former New Zealand foreign minister, has taken over from retiring Commonwealth chief, Emeka Anyaoku, of Nigeria, who led the 54-member world body for the past decade.

Mr. McKinnon was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 for his part in helping resolve the Bougainville secessionist uprising.

New Caledonia agreement postponed

NOUMEA, New Caledonia—The signing of an agreement governing future relations between the French Pacific territories of Wallis and Futuna and New Caledonia has been postponed.

New Caledonia’s status under the Noumea Accord has led to changes in the administration of what were previously joint territorial services, such as maritime affairs, civil aviation, and justice.

The agreement was to have been signed March 31, but negotiators have yet to agree on whether Wallis and Futuna citizens would be allowed to work in New Caledonia.