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Cover photo by Dr. Mike King of the Forum Fisheries Agency. The image is of a ni-Vanuatu fisherman showing off his catch of deep water snappers caught on his drop line. Jan.- Feb. 1994

A decade ago, founding publisher and editor Bruce Jensen opened the January/February issue with some sobering figures in his Publisher's Report. He gets his figures from an SPC report called The State of Pacific Children. Every year, 19,000 children under age 5 die in the Pacific and 20 percent in that same age group are malnourished. That's health, but in education the report says that 40 percent of Pacific children fail to complete primary education and only 20 percent complete secondary. As he notes, all this despite massive aid infusions and direct subsidies to French and American territories.

Fiji's Sitiveni Rabuka government had just fallen in November and, at last, Palauans approved the Compact with the U.S. by a margin of two to one. Clinton Administration assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Winston Lord-whose post is currently held by James Kelley-spoke to Island leaders at the Joint Commercial Commission at its inaugural meeting in Washington, D.C. Lord said he hoped for a "new Pacific community built on shared strength, shared prosperity and a shared commitment of democratic values." Great Britain announces its withdrawal from the South Pacific Commission, these days known as the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. Gaston Flosse, then as now president of French Polynesia, returned from Paris announcing new infusions of French money for the Territory. Plus ça change?