Scoop Foreign Correspondent
Helen In Honiara

Helen is greeted by a group of Bamboo warriors and musicians

Helen meets with Pacific leaders at the Solomon Islands Parliament House

Inside the Solomon Islands house of Parliament

Scoop photographer Jason Dorday on the back of a NZ High Commission Truck in downtown Honiara

In recent months in downtown Honiara a "beautification committee" has been hard at work painting the planters and the telegraph poles.

Helen moves on to meet with Finance officials and Pacific Leaders in the Finance Fale

Helen with the PM of Samoa in the Finance Fale

Helen talks to Kiwi police officers during a visit to the White River Police Station

Two cute kids at White River Police Post…

.. get asked for their names by a Kiwi photographer

Meanwhile…

…the ever present Royal Solomon Islands Police…

… guard the Prime Minister and her entourage, not that the security situation in the Solomons is other than benign anymore.

Rove central police station and prison. This image, taken from the gate, shows soldiers from RAMSI on duty outside the barbed wire encased enclosure. While Helen and guests walked around the perimeter of the prison, media were left at the gate, and police at the gate were less then forthcoming about why this was so.

However according to the word in the street, local media and newspaper reports Scoop can divulge that in early October a riot broke out after prisoners refused to be locked down in protest at conditions in the prison.

According to some reports they wanted to watch TV. Things turned nasty and prisoners have since had their mosquito nets confiscated because they were using them as slingshots. The prison itself was recently privatised and is now being run by a company owned by Australian Media Baron Kerry Packer.

As we are locked out of the prison visit, we cross the road to visit a peace memorial on the Honiara waterfront instead. The memorial records the names of police officers from RAMSI and the RSIP who have died in the course of duty. To date only one member of RAMSI an Australian police officer has been killed in the line of duty.

Underneath the memorial several tonnes of weapons turned in by armed gangs have been interred in concrete.

Nearing the end of the day Helen Clark visited RAMSI and held an end of the day press conference with her Pacific Island colleagues including (pictured) Sir Allan Kemakeza (image by Jason Dorday)