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By Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno

HAGÅTÑA, Guam (August 31, 2002 - Pacific Daily News)---The Guam Visitors Bureau announced yesterday it is moving forward with a plan to give away vacation money to lure more group travelers and wedding parties from Japan to Guam.

A 3-month-old law authorized the visitors bureau to spend as much as $6 million in additional promotions, including check giveaways, by borrowing that money from a lending institution.

However, GVB's efforts to establish a $6 million line of credit with a bank have stalled over certain conditions that require an amendment to local law. So while waiting for the line of credit to be finalized, the visitors bureau will finance the check giveaways with money from a GVB time certificate of deposit that will mature on Sept. 1, said Theresa R. Cruz, acting GVB general manager.

She's in charge while visitors bureau General Manager James Nelson is in China working out the details of another tourism-related...

HONIARA, Solomons Islands (August 30, 2002 – Radio Australia)---The International Monetary Fund has warned the Solomon Islands government against pursuing a proposal to adopt the Australian currency.

The Solomon Star says a report from a visiting IMF team states that the country's huge debts would make a smooth transition to the Australian dollar extremely difficult.

The IMF says the government would first have to acquire enough Australian currency to replace the Solomon Islands dollar.

It says the Central Bank would just have enough foreign exchange resources for this purpose but it would leave the nation with insufficient reserve assets to meet other liabilities.

The report has recommended that the government delay the plan until macro-economic stability is restored.

For additional reports from Radio Australia, go to PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT News/Information Links: Radio/TV News/Radio Australia.

PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM SECRETARIAT Suva, Fiji Islands

PRESS STATEMENT September 1, 2002

Statement to the Pacific Islands High Level Event

by

Hon. Laisenia Qarase Prime Minister Republic of Fiji and Chairman Pacific Islands Forum

September 1, 2002
Sandton Conference Center
World Summit on Sustainable Development
Johannesburg, South Africa

Your Excellencies, Ministers, Colleagues:

First may I thank you most sincerely for making the time to come to this important event. I am very happy to see many of our Leaders and Ministers from the Pacific this afternoon. And I am also very grateful to our partners and friends who are here with us, for their interest in and support for our region. Your attendance is a clear demonstration of your earnest desire to ensure that the outcomes of this Summit are translated into practical benefits for our people and nations in the Pacific.

Rarely do political events such as this...

By Fili Sagapolutele

PAGO PAGO, American Samoa (August 28, 2002 – Samoa News)---Approximately $15 million, frozen at the ANZ Bank in Apia and alleged to be some of the $75 million bilked out of mainland investors in a Ponzi investment scheme, was released recently from the Samoa bank and returned to the U.S. government.

"All of the money frozen in Samoa has been returned, about $15 million of it," Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl Blackstone said in a telephone interview from Seattle.

The order to freeze the $15 million, was granted by Samoa's Supreme Court in May 2000 following a motion from the Samoa Attorney General, which was based on a request from the U.S. Department of Justice.

With the $15 million returned from Samoa, Blackstone said the government has recovered over $20 million in cash and $2 million in property from the scheme.

The recovered funds will be distributed to victims of the scheme, which Blackstone said will be a "long and...