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By Aldwin R. Fajardo

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (February 3, 2000 – Saipan Tribune)---Airport managers from islands around the Pacific will gather next week in Palau to discuss aviation safety in a three-day annual conference funded by the Federal Aviation Administration, a ranking ports official announced yesterday.

Commonwealth Ports Authority Executive Director Carlos H. Salas is scheduled to leave for the Palauan capital of Koror with four other Northern Marianas airport officials to attend the meeting.

Saipan hosted the annual event in 1997. It was held in Guam in 1998 and in Honolulu last year.

The conference, which will be held from February 9 to 11, 2000, is expected to gather aviation officials from Hawai‘i, Guam, Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Airport managers from the Republic of Marshall Islands will also attend as guests.

Mr. Salas said the workshop is also aimed at discussing future improvements and continued...

JAKARTA (February 3, 2000 - Indonesian Observer/Kabar Irian)---The trial of Free Papua Movement (OPM) leader Theys Eluay, charged with sedition, kicked off this week in Irian Jaya, a defense lawyer said yesterday.

Theys is facing a possible 15 years in jail for illegally raising the separatist OPM Morning Star flag in July 1998.

One of his defense lawyers, Semi Latunusa, was quoted by AP as saying the trial started on Tuesday in the territory’s provincial capital Jayapura.

Irian Jaya province, which occupies the western half of New Guinea Island, is also known as West Papua. President Abdurrahman Wahid recently said the province could be renamed Papua.

Theys is one of three separatists facing prosecution for the flag raising. The trial of the other two started last month.

Former president Suharto outlawed the OPM and directed security forces to prosecute anyone who raises its flag.

The new reformist government has released a number of...

By Vaaimamao Poufa

PAGO PAGO, American Samoa (February 2, 2000 – Samoa News)---Director of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs Danny Aranza said the legislature’s highest priority is to conduct an independent, accurate audit of the American Samoa government.

Aranza sat down for over an hour with about a dozen legislators and gathered input about the concerns of individual Fono members.

Aranza said his office interacts with the Governor's Office primarily, but he thought it would be helpful to spend some time with the Fono.

Aranza explained to the Fono members that the purpose of his trip to American Samoa was to maximize the benefits that will hopefully flow from President Clinton's Inter Agency Task Force on Insular Areas.

The group, composed of federal agencies, will meet with territorial governors later this month.

Aranza hopes enough advance work will have been completed to allow new and positive ground to be...

By Jan Tenbruggencate

HONOLULU, Hawai‘i (January 31, 2000 – The Honolulu Advertiser)---The diversity of native life forms in Hawai‘i is amazing, considering the archipelago’s isolation.

Perhaps even more remarkable is how far many of those species have been able to go.

One of the most prominent trees in the Hawaiian forest is the ‘ohi‘a. On a recent visit to New Zealand, I found a couple of species of the same genus of trees, complete with red starburst flowers. Down there, one of them is called ‘rata.’

In the Southern Ocean, Stewart Island (which lies south across the Foveaux Strait from New Zealand’s South Island) is cool in summer by Hawai‘i’s standard. The moderating effect of the ocean around it tends to inhibit snow and ice, but it still gets good and cold in the winter. It lies at 47 degrees south, nearly twice as far from the equator as Hawai‘i is.

Perhaps because of the limited freezing, plants that survive in upland forests in the...