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PAPUA NEW GUINEA’S WORST ELECTION EVER: WHAT’S GONE WRONG?

MELBOURNE, Australia (July 3, 2002 Radio Australia/Asia Pacific/Pacific Beat)---Inadequacies of the common roll, violence, corruption, logistics and transport are just some of the problem crippling this year’s national general elections.

Voting has been extended to a third week, the Electoral Commission has asked the Government for more money, and the Government and the Commission have been locked into a war of words over who’s to blame.

The difficulties of running a national election in PNG are widely acknowledged – but why has this one gone so horribly wrong?

Julia Scott complied this report.

As the final ballots are being cast in Papua New Guinea’s national general elections, most observers are declaring Election 2002 the worst election ever.

One of the most troubled regions of the country has been the Highlands, where voting has been extended by an extra week beyond the...

By Michael Field

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (July 3, 2002 – Agence France-Presse)---A Pacific territory is demanding the United States return an atoll the size of New York's Central Park, which was annexed on the strength of the claim of an American who sold its people into slavery at ten dollars a head.

Although New Zealand and the U.S. regard the issue as dead, Tokelau is deploying a new weapon: music group Te Vaka and a sad-sweet song, Haloa Olohega (Poor Olohega).

Olohega or Swains Island, an 800 acre U.S. atoll 224 miles north of American Samoa, was part of Tokelau, a three-atoll New Zealand colony of 1,500 people 100 miles further north who live on just four square miles of scattered land.

Olohega, the highest of the atolls, was a thriving community, as witnessed by the 31 star mounds or pre-historic rock platforms built by the inhabitants for cultural events.

But in 1856 an American, Eli Hutchinson Jennings, with Samoan wife Malia, arrived at...

SUVA, Fiji Islands (July 3, 2002 - PINA Nius Online)---Fiji will welcome leaders to this month's African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) summit at Nadi with Fijian ceremonies and Fijian and Indian cultural performances, the government said yesterday.

Heads of state, leaders and delegates attending the 3rd summit of the 78-nation ACP group are expected to begin arriving in Nadi on the 14th and 15th of this month.

The ACP has a major trade and aid partnership with the European Union (EU).

One of the major focuses of the July 16-19 Nadi summit will be finalizing preparations for important Economic Partnership Agreements negotiations with the EU, which begin in September.

Pacific Islands members of the ACP group are: the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Federal States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

On July 16th informal bilateral and pre-summit meetings...

TROPICAL STORM CHATA‘AN TO PASS GUAM FRIDAY

By Mark-Alexander Pieper and Steve Limtiaco

HAGÅTÑA, Guam (July 4, 2002 - Pacific Daily News)---The Office of Civil Defense is readying the island for the onset of Tropical Storm Chata'an, which is expected to pass just south of Guam Friday afternoon.

"It would just about have to be a direct hit, or very close to one, for typhoon-force winds to affect the island," barring any "unexpected developments," said Mike Middlebrooke, senior forecaster at the Guam National Weather Service office.

The storm is expected to make its closest approach to Guam by mid-afternoon, about 40 miles south of Hagåtña, he said.

The approaching storm has forced the cancellation of several events, including many of today's Fourth of July celebrations.

Joe Javellana, acting Civil Defense administrator, yesterday said temporary shelters were being prepped "as we speak."

Gov. Carl Gutierrez yesterday asked the...