The Fiji Times excerpts from June 1

THE Fiji Government planned an action to reduce a possible major sugar crop loss expected in 1972 because of inadequate drainage of some cane fields. Poor drainage was blamed for allowing heavy rain late in 1971 to damage ratoon cane crops at Sigatoka and Rakiraki.

THE Fiji Marine Department ship Degei II was expected to arrive in Suva from Rotuma with an Auckland yacht in tow. She was the 17-tonne Mapu, owned by the E.B Stallard, a retired Auckland marine engineer. The Mapu was on her way from Lautoka to Honolulu when she hit a reef near Oinafa in Rotuma.

MUCH of increased Australia aid for Fiji would go into agriculture, particularly rice irrigation, the Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara told the House of Representatives. The Prime Minister returned to Suva after a 10-day official visit to Australia. He told the House he had welcomed the visit as an opportunity to explain and confirm the new relationship Fiji had established with Australia since independence.

POLICE searched for a thief who escaped with more than $800 from Narseys Ltd’s department store in Suva while it was closed for lunch. The theft was discovered when the shop assistants reopened the store for business.

HOTELS, travel agencies, cruise excursions operators, taxi companies and airlines provided an extra 6750 jobs by 1976, according to the Fiji Visitors Bureau.

A newsletter from the bureau says that between 1972 and 1976, the duration of Development Plan Six, the hotel industry alone would need 5460 people to service an extra 4200 rooms. About 2700 people were employed directly in hotels then, the newsletter added.

MORE than 350 workmen were sterilised in Suva in 1971 to prevent them from having more children. An increasing number of women each year had chosen sterilisation, but the male operation remained unpopular in Fiji. An article in the Fiji School of Medicine Journal said.

GAOL for journalists who offended the dignity of politicians was advocated by Leader of the Opposition, Siddiq Koya in the House of Representatives. Mr Koya directed a particular warning to the editor and the staff of the Fiji Times. He said he wanted to remind the newspaper’s staff members they could be gaoled for contempt of Parliament.

THE 1972 general election cost at least $105,000 according to a schedule of extra expenditure tabled in the House of Representatives. The original estimate of the cost was $75,000 and the House confirmed the extra spending of $30,000.

TWO men swam through shark-infested waters near Levuka. They set off on their dangerous swim after the Government medical ship Vuaicake struck a reef near Levuka Passage. The ship was still aground on the main Levuka reef about half a mile from the passage. They were the Eastern Division medical officer, Dr Aisea Erasito and a member of the crew.

THE Government had planned a new route for a road to link Savusavu and Labasa and open up parts of Vanua Levu. The Minister for Communications, Works and Tourism, Ratu Penaia Ganilau said it would be built as a continuation of the Savusavu West Coast Rd on which work had already begun.

THE Fiji Government had decided on tough action in its campaign of protest against French nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific. It did not allow French naval ships and military aircraft on test assignments to use Fiji port and aviation facilities during the new test period.

THE Pacific Islands Producers’ Association (PIPA) continued to operate as an independent organisation for at least a further three years. Delegates attended the seventh conference of PIPA decided this at Rarotonga, the centre of the Cook Islands.

LAND speculators face a tax of up to 50 per cent on land sales profits under the terms of a Bill published by the Fiji Government. The tax, ranging from 35 per cent to 50 per cent, will apply to speculative land sales transacted after a week.

UTA aircraft were overflying Nadi because police could not guarantee their security on the ground, the UTA general manager for Fiji said. Three UTA planes had overflown Nadi and four more were due to do so.

The UTA manager, Dominique Texier said it was not the union ban which was making the overflying necessary, but lack of adequate police security.

FIJIAN landowners at Vuna in Taveuni had interfered with work by a Suva firm of surveyors trying to locate a planter’s property boundaries. A team of surveyors from the same firm met opposition from the Fijians at Lovoni in Ovalau while doing work there earlier.

A YOUNG woman teacher was terrorised by a gang of young men while she and her baby were alone at home in Nadi. Pratima Chandra, who taught at Tilak High School in Lautoka, said she telephoned the police but they did not arrive. Mrs Chandra said the five men had been loitering near her home at Nakavu since Friday.

A NEW corps of young officers was being trained as part of a plan to build up the strength of the Royal Military Forces. The General Staff Officer (Class II) Major Bill Masi said there were a number of vacancies of officers.

THE Central Traffic Authority had designated 27 speed limit sectors on Queens Rd and Kings Rd in Viti Levu. One of the sectors was Queens Rd through Lami, near Suva upon which a 40-mile-an-hour speed limit had been imposed. At Korotogo, where police had recorded cars travelling at more than 100 miles an hour, a 40-mile-an hour limit covered the entire road between the main entrance to the Tubukula Beach Hotel and the western side of Korotogo Village.