Pacific Islands Report

PNG tries to improve tourist image

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea—Improving the country’s reputation as a tourist destination will not be an easy job, according to Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta.

He said his country has much to offer international visitors, but its law and order problems scare people off. The recent rape of an American tourist and the robbery of visitors along the World War II Kokoda Trail are the ultimate deterrent to overseas visitors, he said.

To help solve the crime problem, Sir Mekere said “more money will be devoted to law and order in the 2001 budget.”

Tobacco giants want Marshalls’ suit tossed out

MAJURO, Marshall Islands—Four U.S. tobacco firms have asked the Supreme Court to stop a court battle in which the Marshall Islands government is seeking $ 9 billion in damages.

The firms charged that Marshall Islands High Court Judge H. Dee Johnson was helping the government to extort huge sums of money from the U.S. tobacco industry. They said Judge Johnson dismissed several of their motions without providing any legal basis or reasoning for the rulings.

But Radio Australia reports that attorneys for the Marshall Islands say the U.S. tobacco industry “is acting like a bully” in trying to get the Supreme Court to throw out the lawsuit.

TV could ruin Cook Islands culture, says arts chief

RAROTONGA, Cook Islands—The Director of the National Cultural Center, Carmen Temata, has claimed that television is eroding the local culture.

Younger people in particular, she said, are being heavily influenced by what’s on television and “That’s not a good thing.”
The area of most concern, Temata added, is that of language:

U.S. unlikely to meet chemical weapons deadline

WASHINGTON. D.C.—The 2007 deadline for destroying chemical weapons stockpiles is not likely to be met according to government officials.

The General Accounting Office announced that only some 18 percent of the 31,496 tons of nerve gas, mustard gas and other chemicals to be destroyed have been incinerated since the project began in the 1980s. It faulted the Army’s management for the delay in the $15 billion project.

Most of the destruction of chemical weapons so far has taken place at Johnston Island in the central Pacific and in the state of Utah.

The Johnston Island incinerator, located 625 miles southwest of Hawaii, is scheduled to be shut down next year, once all the weapons stockpiled on the island are destroyed.

PNG schools face closure as supplies run out

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea—Many schools throughout the country have run out of essential school materials and will be forced to close down according to the Catholic Education Secretariat.

Many schools have not received any materials since the start of the academic year, Secretariat head Arnold Wau said, and classes already are into their second term.

Wau blamed the situation on inefficient, centralized government administration in the capital.