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PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (December 28, 1998 - PACNEWS)---A gradual breakdown in family ties in Port Moresby is placing unnecessary burdens on social workers looking after people suffering from the dreaded HIV-AIDS disease.

A senior medical social worker at the Port Moresby General Hospital, Tessie Soi, made the observation after her 15 years experience in trying to counsel patients, some of whom suffer from AIDS.

She says the common PNG kinship, called the 'wantok system' where people care for each other is not practiced in Port Moresby, as people tend to neglect relatives or friends suffering from HIV-AIDS.

She says this neglect is happening because people are ignorant about the effects of AIDS on healthy people.

Soi says a major task for her and other social workers in Papua New Guinea in the new year would be to educate people about the disease, and to encourage them to love and care for the HIV-AIDS patients.

PNG recorded up to 1,142...

NOUMEA, New Caledonia (January 1, 1999 - Radio Australia)---A British ecology student has discovered a new species of gecko during a conservation trip to the Pacific.

Julia Jones, a 21-year-old undergraduate at Cambridge University, spotted the lizard in a rock crack 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) up Mount Ignambi in New Caledonia.

She says she instantly realized she might be looking at a new species of the Bavayia gecko because of its large size - about 16-centimeter in length- and distinctive toe structure.

Confirmation that the gecko was a new species was made by the Australian Museum in Sydney.

FUNDING

By Fili Sagapolutele

PAGO PAGO, American Samoa (December 31, 1998 - Samoa News)---There is a possibility that the Federal Highway Administration in Honolulu will not provide funding for the Nu‘uuli Drainage Improvement Project, according the agency's Division Administrator Abraham Wong.

Wong responded to a Samoa News inquiry yesterday regarding the federally funded project that has proceeded in reviewing bids according to the local preference law, despite warnings from the federal agency that they will not allow a local preference on Federal-aid Highway projects.

Under the American Samoa Government's (ASG) local preference law, any project of $1.5 million or less can only be bid on by on-island construction companies, which many believe to be a clear violation of the Federal Government Discriminatory act.

"There is a possibility that we will not participate if the (local preference) law applies," said Wong in a telephone interview from...

NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga (December 31, 1998 - PACNEWS)---Tonga's King Taufa‘ahau Tupou has stressed the importance of developing the Pacific kingdom's shipping industry.

In his Christmas and New Year message, he says there is a need to build a bigger slip way where local ships can be maintained and serviced, including the government's oil tanker, and passenger and fishing vessels.

He says this will save them the costly expense of going abroad for services.

The King says local marine engineers can provide quality services, as well as build ships locally.

In other points in his message, he says Tongans could study vegetable gardening in the government's newly acquired property of Tau‘akipulu in San Francisco, California.

He says growers in Tonga and other Pacific Island nations should plant two types of watermelons that can be sold to Japan, to get higher export revenue.