Tagata atu motu.

The Cook Islands is preparing to host one of this years's major regional events,The South Pacific Festival of the Arts, in October.

Helping to lay the ground work is Jon Jonassen, the permanent secretary of the Cook Islands Ministry for Cultural Development.

He's been in NZ recently, accompanying a delegation of Cook Islands elders who made a symbolic visit to view waka or canoes at North Island Māori marae.

Duration.........19'58"

Phillip Muller , former director of the Honiara-based Forum Fisheries Agency has taken up a new post in Suva.
He has become the director of the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission., a low profile organisation which is expected to become much more prominent as the region's mineral wealth is exploited.

Phillip Muller says he is confident a balanced approach can be evolved in most cases, however any project which is too damaging to the environmment will just get shut down.