People Briefs
People Briefs
Leiataua B. Alailima, special assistant to American Sämoa Governor Tauese Sunia, was named as Homeland Security Advisor for the Territory and will run the newly established Territorial Office of Homeland Security that was set up in the wake of last year’s terrorist attacks in the U.S.
Kwajalein landowners have hired former U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston to help them get a new deal for the Kwajalein missile testing range. Johnston, a 24-year Senator from Louisiana, now runs a legal and consulting firm in Washington.
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Sämoa’s first contemporary female novelist, Sia Figiel, who wrote the acclaimed book, Where We Once Belonged, has been named by the University of Hawai‘i’s English Department as its Distinguished Visiting Writer beginning with the fall term in August. Figiel won the prestigious Commonwealth Writer’s award for best first book in the Asia/South Pacific region when Where We Once Belonged was published in 1997. It has since been translated into six languages.
Anita Sukola was confirmed in May by the Guam Legislature to fill a Superior Court judicial post vacated by Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, who now serves on Guam’s Supreme Court. Sukola previously worked in the Public Defender’s office, and for the Port Authority of Guam and the Chamorro Land Commission.
Sämoa’s Minister of Lands, Surveys and Environment Tuala Sale Tagaloa announced the establishment in early June of a marine sanctuary for whales, dolphins, turtles and sharks, saying it is another indication of Sämoa’s support for the Convention on Biological Diversity and worldwide efforts for the sustainable management of marine resources. The sanctuary covers Sämoa’s entire 200 mile exclusive economic zone.
A week-long visit to the People’s Republic of China by Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase has resulted in the PRC providing $3.5 million that is expected to be used to buy two ships to service outer islands in Fiji.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark took the opportunity of Sämoa’s 40th anniversary of independence to apologize for New Zealand’s past misdeeds as colonial ruler. “We are truly sorry for what happened all those years,” Clarke said in a speech that was carried live throughout Sämoa and American Sämoa by the Sämoa government owned Radio 2AP. Attending ceremonies in Sämoa, Clark expressed regret for the deaths of close to 20 percent of the Sämoan population during an influenza epidemic brought to Sämoa by a New Zealand ship in 1918.
I’o Tuakeu-Lindsay was named program delivery manager and Pisaina Leilua-Lei Sam to the position of business support manager at the South Pacific Regional Environment Program in Apia, Sämoa. Director Tamari‘i Tutangata made the announced in late May. The two new staff form part of a four-person senior management team under SPREP’s new organizational structure implemented last year.
Dr. David Hanlon will become the new director of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies in the University of Hawaii’s School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies on August 1. He succeeds Dr. Robert C. Kiste, who is retiring after 24 years. (See story on page 20.) Hanlon is an historian and a long-time UH faculty member.
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Wedding bells could be clanging for Fiji’s controversial Chief Justice, Sir Timoci Tuivaga, a genial widower with a passion for golf. The 20th of this month is to be the date for his wedding to lawyer Raijieli Baba, daughter of deposed deputy prime minister, Dr. Tupeni Baba.
Rear-admiral Yoji Koda from the Japanese naval forces visited French Polynesia in June. The admiral is director, operations and plans department, at the maritime staff office and met the commander of French armed forces in French Polynesia. The main theme of this visit was developing a better relationship between the naval forces of France and Japan in the Pacific, said the French armed forces’ public relations office in Papeete.
President Daniel Arap Moi is expected to lead a 23-member Kenyan delegation to the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) summit in Nadi this month. This was confirmed by Fiji’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while commending the encouraging response to official invitations from the Fiji Government to ACP leaders.
IN MEMORIUM
A member of Sämoa’s Council of Deputies, Mataia Vesesio Eropa, II, died in late May. The three council members take turns standing in for the head of state, effectively making them deputy heads of state. The former member of parliament was 60.
