Tagata atu motu

Magazine Programme for Pacific and about people.

South Pacific Forum:
The 1995 South Pacific Forum was held in Papua New Guinea and was attended by journalist Sam Thompson of Te Reo o Aotearoa. He says that Sitiveni Rabuka was disappointed at some aspects of the meeting, that it was mainly dominated by nuclear issues and other priority issues were scaled down. Spoke about a "logging" issues that Rabuka felt was important, mentions the "NGO" security, and funding. According to Elma Ma'ua there are at least seven hundred different languages spoken in Papua New Guinea, Papuan and Melanesian. Pidgin was used in trade and has become the common language and English is widely understood. PNG exports coconut, coffee, cocoa, palm oil, rubber and tea. Today Papua NG celebrates their 20th birthday, and in Auckland, celebrations are well underway at Manukau Institute, where performance and Dinner will take place.

- Trish Reid MIT Inter-national Manager speaks with Elma about the celebrations.

- Salum Muligan PNG student at MIT talks about PNG's Independence issue.

Marshall-Islands:
Ninety-three candidates will contest thirty-three seats for Parliament, and it is not easy to predict how the votes will go according to Giff Johnson.

New PI Scholarship:
Increasing the number of Pacific statisticians is a long-term aim of a new scholarship on offer from Statistics NZ for Pacific students.

- Len Cook (Government Statistician) who explains how the scholarship came about.