Neu: 2001-09-17 Contents of this issue: 1. Aviation Talks 2. Tourism Course 3. Review Team Departs 4. Nauru Is On 5. Taro Loss ======================================================================== September 17th, 2001 1. Aviation Talks: Ministers and senior officials from the 16-member Pacific Island Forum countries meet in Apia, Samoa this week to set future directions for regional aviation policy. The meetings on September 18-19 will consider proposals for regional cooperation in air services, safety regulation and oversight, management o upper airspace, and air freight. Deliberations will be structured around the general theme of "regional integration through policy cooperation". Ministers and officials will consider a draft Pacific Islands Air Services Agreement designed to facilitate creation of a single regional aviation market to strengthen Forum island country airlines, stimulate growth, and build a framework for expanded tourism and investment in the region "Aviation in the Pacific has been confronted with many difficult challenges recently, yet it is also faced with great opportunities," said the Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Noel Levi. "Expanding tourism, export of high-value commodities, increasing regional integration in trade, and vastly improved communications set the stage for development. "We have come to think of aviation as an essential service, and people are looking to ensure its improvement. Forum policy meetings provide an avenue for our concerted regional efforts, and we are embarking on one this week tha will have far-reaching effects," Mr Levi said. 2. Tourism Course: The South Pacific Tourism Organisation is conducting a tourism and hospitality workshop on Niue, starting this week. Two trainers from Fiji are conducting sessions on hospitality and food and beverage. About 25 participants will take part. Those who complete the course will receive an internationally recognised certificate. The workshop is being held at Matavai Resort. 3. Review Team Departs: A US military and civilian team of 13 updating Niue's disaster readiness plan has left the island after a two week review. Leader Lt Colonel Robert Sweeney said he was impressed with the infrastructure and the national disaster plan already in place on the island.He said the team had looked at the potential for all sorts of natural disasters and what could be done to minimise disruptions after such events. The team will present Niue with a report of its review and recommendations. It will also provide a database of facilities and locations which would assistoutside support services in the event of a national disaster. A representative from SOPAC in Suva was also part of the team. 4. Nauru Is On: Hundreds of unwanted asylum seekers were waiting on Monday to disembark from an Australian navy ship onto the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru after a court overturned an earlier ruling that they must be returned to Australia. The full bench of the Federal Court upheld an Australian government appeal against an earlier ruling by Federal Court judge Tony North that 433 mostly Afghan boatpeople, rescued by the Norwegian freighter Tampa on August 26, must be sent to Australia. "The appeals will be allowed and the orders made by Justice North set aside," Chief Justice Michael Black told the court. Black dissented in the 2-1 decision to overturn North's ruling. North last week ruled the Australian government acted illegally in using troops to storm the Tampa and reject the asylum seekers after a diplomatic standoff with Norway and Indonesia, which also refused to accept them after they were rescued from a sinking Indonesian ferry. "The majority has also concluded that the rescuees were not detained by the Commonwealth (of Australia), or their freedom restricted by anything that the Commonwealth did," Black said. Australia loaded them onto the troop carrier HMAS Manoora off its tiny Indian Ocean outpost of Christmas Island and sent them thousands of kilometres to Nauru, where they arrived earlier on Monday. Nauru has agreed to receive and process 283 of the 433 Tampa asylum seekers, with New Zealand agreeing to take 150. Australia will payNauru $NZ25million to accommodate the refugees. 5. Taro Loss: The controversial Moui Faka Niue taro exporting project funded by NZODA collapsed in 1999 with outstanding debits of $405,000 said the Audit NZ report recently tabled in the Legislative Assembly. The NZODA contributed to the project on the basis that the finance used to pay taro growers would be part of a revolving fund. However, agents and wholesalers on Niue and in Ne Zealand failed to honour their accounts and the Moui Faka Niue programme collapsed. Taro exporting was then taken over by the island's Department of Agriculture and was later handed over to the Niue Growers Association. However claims of mismanagement have resulted in the exporting venture being taken back by the government. Audit NZ said it was unlikely the bulk of the $400,000 owing would ever be collected. __END__
