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GUADALCANAL, Solomon Islands (May 31, 1999 - Radio Australia)--Tensions are still high in Solomon Islands Guadalcanal Province with a continuing threat of militant activities.

Radio Australia's George Atkins reports:

"Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulafa‘alu has told journalists that this is despite the recent reconciliation ceremony held in Honiara, for the people of Malaita and Guadalcanal Provinces who have been involved in an ethnic row."

"He says militant activities continue to occur in North-West Guadalcanal, North Gualalcanal, North-East Guadalcanal and Central Guadalcanal, but it has been quiet on the Weather coast of the island where the hard-core leaders of the so-called Guadalcanal Liberation Army come from."

"Mr Ulafa‘alu has confirmed that people from other provinces have either joined the militants, or have been taking advantage of the ethnic tension on the Guadalcanal Province. He says these are mainly youth who had arrived in Honiara,...

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (May 31, 1999 - PACNEWS)---Joseph Kabui has been elected President of the newly established Bougainville Peoples Congress (BPC).

Kabui was elected with an overwhelming majority of 77 of the 87 possible votes.

Kabui's nearest rival, fellow co-chairman and former Premier, Gerard Sinato, managed the other 10 votes.

Kabui dedicated his election to the Congress, the people of Bougainville, the United Nations, the Peace Monitoring Group, and non-governmental organizations involved in the peace process on Bougainville.

After the election, Kabui appointed 29 members to the Congressional Executive Council.

"The election of the Bougainville Peoples Congress and the installment of myself as its President is a victory for the people, victory for democracy, victory for peace, victory for reconciliation and victory for development and progress for not only the people of Bougainville, but for the region as a whole," he said....

By Giff Johnson

Honolulu, Hawai‘i (May 29, 1999 - Marshall Islands Journal)---A team of U.S. military investigators left an isolated Pacific atoll in Kiribati empty handed earlier this week after a three-week search failed to turn up the remains of 21 Marines who were killed in a raid on a Japanese base in 1942.

Despite testimony from five elder residents of Makin Atoll in the Republic of Kiribati -- including several who said they had participated in the burial of the American Marines in 1942 -- a team of officials from the Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu were unable to locate any bones despite an exhaustive excavation of a large area, said Lt. Col. Kevin Krejcarek, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Pacific Command in Honolulu.

"Five old timers said they knew where the burial site was, but no remains were discovered," Krejcarek said.

Makin is the northern-most atoll in the Kiribati group, which borders the Marshalls, located about...

VANIMO, Papua New Guinea (May 29, 1999 Kabar-Irian /Jakarta Post)---An Irianese separatist guerrilla group did not release 11 hostages abducted from Arso village in Irian Jaya on May 11 as expected, an official said.

In a recent visit to Jayapura, chief of the Papuan defense forces, Brig. Gen. Jerry Singirok, said the hostages would be released by the rebels on May 28.

Indonesia's consul to this town in Papua's Sandaun province, Budi Santoso, told reporters here that the group's leader, Hans Bomay, has not given a new date for the release of the hostages, most of whom are migrant women.

The Indonesian authorities, who earlier said Bomay took the hostages across the border to Papua New Guinea, have asked Papuan Prime Minister Bill Skate to help secure their release.

High-ranking Papuan officials, including Skate and Singirok, were also waiting to witness the release of the 11 Irianese hostages on Friday, Santoso said.

"Brig. Gen. Jerry Singirok is...