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MELBOURNE, Australia (Radio Australia, Feb. 5) - A growing demand for crocodile skins in Asia has enabled the Aboriginal Corporation in Arnhem Land in Northern Australia to expanded its operations.

It's now selling crocodile hatchlings to farms in Queensland and Western Australia.

The Bawinanga Corporation based at Maningrida, harvests and incubates 2,000 eggs from the large native predators each wet season before selling the hatchlings.

The corporation's David Bond says it provides employment and profits for the community and traditional owners.

He says the animals are reared for the skin market in South-east Asia and Europe.

Bond said, "The top quality skins go to Europe, usually France, to be made into crocodile bags and shoes, and the lower quality skins get used throughout South-east Asia."

February 5, 2003

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

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (Radio Australia, Feb. 6) – A Papua New Guinean diplomat has been detained by police in Belgium, apparently on the orders of his own ambassador.

The diplomat, Peter Raka, is being held at a detention center at Brussels airport, awaiting deportation.

Raka, who was completing his term as first secretary at PNG's European Union mission, says he was arrested after delaying his flight back to Port Moresby.

He says he is the victim of a bureaucratic power struggle over whether or not he should be recalled.

"There's been a bit of a struggle from one side of government for me to stay and from the other side of government for me to go... in the last few weeks, and I think that's been building up. Today more or less was the final straw," said Raka.

A spokesman for PNG's foreign minister Sir Rabbie Namaliu has declined to comment.

February 6, 2003

For additional reports from Radio Australia, go to PACIFIC ISLANDS...

HONOLULU (Pacific Islands Report, Feb. 6) - A German-led scientific team reportedly has discovered a chain of 20 underwater volcanoes off Tonga that could swamp the Pacific Ocean archipelago if they erupt.

According to Agence France-Presse, the expedition leaders say the volcanoes are grouped together 200 kilometers south of the outermost islands of the kingdom.

They are said to be, rising at least 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) off the seabed in waters about 1.8 kilometers (1.2 miles) deep,

Still active, a few have a crater nearly two kilometers wide.

AFP reports that some of the volcanoes are comparable with Italy's Vesuvius, the volcano that buried the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, said expedition leader Peter Stoffers from Kiel University in northern Germany.

"They are a potential danger for the Tongan archipelago. If they erupt, they could send a tidal wave over the relatively flat region," Stoffers told AFP.

Ulrich Schwarz-Shampera, a...

HONOLULU, Hawaii (RNZI, Feb. 6) - A "modern slavery" case against Daewoosa Samoa owner, Kil Soo Lee, has begun hearing closing arguments in Hawaii.

Lee is charged, along with two former managers, for holding more than 100 imported Asian workers in involuntary servitude and forced labor at his garment factory in American Samoa.

Other charges include money laundering, attempting to bribe a bank official and making false statements.

More than 20 witnesses have testified for the federal government, including a Vietnamese employee who lost her eye in a clash in the factory between imported and local workers.

This is the first case of involuntary servitude that’s been taken to court using the United States’ two-year-old human trafficking law.

Lee’s defense lawyer, Alexander Silvert, says four charges against his client have been dismissed.

The case is being heard by a jury.

U.S. prosecutors have told the jury that the company created...