Solomon Island

Manasseh Sogavare made the announcement at the graduation ceremony at a school for disabled people in Honiara last week.

The school was started by a Christian mission in 2010.

But Mr Sogavare said a more concerted effort was needed between the government and different institutions to give proper attention to a neglected section of the population.

While little detail about the policy has been revealed, Mr Sogavare says it will help the government put in place the necessary resources towards helping people with disabilities.

Photo: RNZI Koroi Hawkins

It says the quake was 85 kilometres south south west of Dadali, and 160 kilometres west north west of the capital, Honiara.

The USGS located the quake at a depth of 10 kilometres.

The finding is one of many to feature in a report by the aid agency Save The Children, based on a wide ranging exploration of child trafficking practices in the Solomons.

Researchers discovered that some logging site managers have been finding children for some of their laregely foreign workforce, and there are also reports of girls being recruited for sexual exploitation in Honiara schools.

The Solomons High Commission in Suva has confirmed that the action saying 28 of the students are being terminated for failing all four courses for the semester and the rest are being suspended for failing 3 of 4 courses.

All implicated students bar a few who are being regraded will be flying back to Honiara this weekend.

The Solomon Islands Ministry of Education says government scholarship grants come from public and donor funding and their recipients are expected to perform.

Solomon Islands Minister of Culture and Tourism Bartholomew Parapolo opened the meeting which began at the Heritage Park Hotel.

The meeting is divided into two parts beginning with senior officials who include all Provincial Secretaries and chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. 

The second session on Thursday will be the Ministers Council Meeting to be chaired by the Minister of Culture and Tourism with his counterparts from the 9 Provincial Governments.

This month, Cyclone Raquel became the first July cyclone in Australia's eastern region since the satellite era began in the early 1970s.

Jess Carey, a spokesman from the Bureau of Meteorology's Queensland office, said there was only about a one in five chance that the low over the islands would develop into a cyclone.

Conditions were not yet conducive for the low to form into a cyclone-strength storm but they might be “enhanced” over the weekend or early next week, Carey said. 

The secretary general of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, Octo Mote, says membership is needed to highlight the human rights abuses in the Indonesian region.

The leaders of the MSG, representing Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Kanaks of New Caledonia, meet this week in Honiara.

At least two of the countries are pushing for the ULMWP to get observer status.

Mr Mote says the decision is for the leaders to make.

Among the marchers were community leaders, politicians, church ministers and youth advocates.

Journalists estimated the crowd at over 200 that marched from the town's central market to the main government building, not far from the office of Prime Minister Mannaseh Sogavare.

One of Sogavare's daughters and a niece were among the pro-West Papua marchers, and it came a day after Sogavare announced that his government would not support the West Papua pro-independence's application for full membership of the MSG.