Guard returns
A SECURITY guard from the Manus Island Processing Centre in Papua New Guinea has been flown back to Australia after allegedly assaulting a detainee. Australia’s Refugee Action Coalition said the guard stopped the Iranian man from moving between different parts of the compound and assaulted him when he objected.
Inflation up
THE Asian Development Bank says the Cook Islands’ inflation rate accelerated to three per cent in the 2015 financial year. Its Economic Outlook 2016 report said the increase was because of higher alcohol and tobacco taxes, and a weaker New Zealand dollar. A local economist, Vaine Wichman, says the country’s inflation rate usually hovers at or above that of New Zealand.
Rights review
SAMOA has indicated it would accept many of the recommendations made during a recent United Nations human rights review in Geneva. The Samoa Observer said the country would accept 91 of the 129 recommendations put forth at its Universal Periodic Review, which gave other countries the opportunity to openly criticise a country’s human rights record.
Legal action
RESIDENTS on a remote Cook Islands atoll are talking of taking legal action against a shipping company over what they describe as “appalling” conditions of a trip to Penrhyn last month. The Cook Islands News reports that the Pacific Schooners Ltd vessel, Tiare Taporo, had to ram a bank into the end of Omoka wharf on the April 29 after a gruelling 10-day voyage in stormy weather.
100 probed
POLICE in Papua have taken about 100 people in for questioning amid accusations they had taken tailings from a mining site in Mimika. The Jakarta Post reports 21 people were still being questioned and are alleged to have trespassed onto the mine owned by US-based gold and copper mining company Freeport Indonesia.
Supplier jailed
A MAJOR supplier of methamphetamine in the Northern Marianas has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute the drug. Yu Hua Wang, who was the alleged second in command of an organisation of drug suppliers on Saipan, was sentenced to 11 years and three months on Thursday. According to police reports, one of his colleagues sold about 98.7 grams of the drug to a confidential source of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration in 2013.
Gun law
THE couple that successfully challenged Northern Marianas gun regulations say a request to intervene in their lawsuit can’t be approved because the old law no longer exists. The legal action launched by US Navy veteran David Radich and his wife led to the CNMI’s 40-yearold Weapons Control Act being thrown out on constitutional grounds.