GUAM
While a chronic shortage of doctors is a problem all Pacific countries are struggling with, Guam appears to be particularly vulnerable. The
problem on the Micronesian island is that, because there's no medical
school, students have to study on the United States mainland. And many
of them are opting not to return after graduation, moving on to what
they see as better prospects in more developed countries. Encouraging
newly qualified doctors to return to the island's only public hospital,
the Guam Memorial, has become something of a mission for one Guam doctor.
Pacific Beat
PNG
A recent report by a New York based human rights group paints a
disturbing picture of brutality by the police in Papua New Guinea. The
Human Rights Watch report found almost every child who comes into
contact with the police is beaten, or worse, and that there's an
institutional culture of violence within the PNG force. It calls for
urgent action by the P-N-G government to address the violence, and for
major aid donors like Australia to demand more accountability from the
Papua New Guinean police.
Pacific Beat
PACIFIC Guest-worker Concept
A plan to bring Pacific island guest workers to Australia could help the
economies of island countries by providing them with remittances. That's
according to Professor Stewart Firth, from the State, Society and
Governance in Melanesia Project at the Australian National University in
Canberra. He's arguing that Australia could provide millions of dollars
in remittances for Melanesian countries, just as Polynesian communities
in New Zealand help their countries of origin by sending money home.
Pacific Beat
FRENCH POLYNESIA: Coconut power a reality - almost
It may sound like science-fiction, but in French Polynesia a diesel
motor powered by coconut oil may be just around the corner. In the
course of an agricultural fair which took place in Tahiti last week,
local company Technopro displayed a machine which was able to create
bio-diesel fuel from copra oil. The company brought the machine over
from the United States, assuring locals that it means business. While the idea of using oil to power cars and machinery is not new in the Pacific, the government of French Polynesia now appears to be interested.
Pacific Beat
COOK IS: Rare bird staves off extinction A little bird has battled cyclones, predators and destruction of its Cook Islands habitat and appears to have staved off extinction. The annual count of the rare Kakerori birds, or the Raratonga Flycatcher, proves that numbers have increased from an alarming low of 29 birds in the 1980s to nearly 300 this year. While the results of this year's
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