Pacific Briefs

Vanuatu’s PM gets another 7 days

PORT VILA, Vanuatu (PIR) — Embattled Prime Minister Barak Sope has won at least another seven days in power.

Speaker Paul Ren Tari has adjourned Parliament for a week, saying a motion of no confidence now will be introduced for voting next Tuesday.

Opposition politicians, who have asked the Supreme Court to overturn the voting delay, have charged Sope with corruption and bringing Vanuatu to the verge of a military coup.

Solomons’ economy on verge of collapse

CANBERRA, Australia (PIR) — Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says the Solomon Islands economy is on the verge of collapse.

In a Radio Australia interview, he said he is exasperated that Prime Minister Manasseh Sogovare and other top leaders will not focus on the economic crisis.

He said the Solomons has reached the point “where the country can’t afford to import fuel to generate electricity and drive cars and the lights go out in the towns.

“The path they’re following is a complete disaster,” Downer said.

No rush for Tokelau independence

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (PIR) — Tokelau, with a population of 1,500 on three atolls north of the Samoas, is exploring a new political status. New Zealand is under pressure from the United Nations to grant its isolated territory self-government status.

But the head of the Tokelau Public Service Commission, Aleki Silau, said the people will not be rushed into making a decision.

Silau told Radio New Zealand International that a House of Tokelau has been set up to handle internal governance, while constitutional status somewhere between integration and self-government in free association with New Zealand is considered.

He said virtually no one wants full independence.

Uss Mississinewa, sunk during WWII found off Yap

YAP, Federated States of Micronesia (PIR) — A team of three divers from California located the 553-foot USS Mississinewa in Ulithi lagoon last week. The taker was the only U.S. naval ship sunk by a kaiten, a one-man Japanese suicide submarine.

The dive team, headed by Lewis “Chip” Lambert, searching in a small dive boat and using a portable sonar unit, located the vessel on a sandy bottom in 120 feet of water.

The sinking of the USS Mississinewa in 1944 took 50 lives. Forty-eight crewmembers survived.