The 1999 edition of the Guinness book has sparked controversy by describing the island, which has 3,500 aboriginal inhabitants, as the most likely place on earth to die young through violence or suicide.

``Palm Island off Queensland, Australia, has been designated the most violent place on earth outside a combat zone,'' said the book, which is published in 37 languages and in 40 countries.

``The island's murder rate is currently 15 times higher than that of the entire state of Queensland and the life expectancy if the 3,500 inhabitants is 40 years.

``Palm Island also has the highest rate of youth suicide per capita in the world today: since 1994 there has been a total of 40 suicide fatalities on the island and the community is now burying one youth a day."

The book sourced its claimsto an article published by the Sunday Times of LondoN earlier this year and rejected at the time by community leaders.

Palm Island, which is close to a number of resort islands depicted by the tourisM Industry as tropical paradises, has had an ugly reputation in Australia for decad es because of alcohol abuse, poverty and violence.

However, the Queensland government says it has been aware of the problems for many years and, although Palm Island is far from perfect, it insists the Guinness Boo K's description is outrageous and unjustified.

State aboriginal policy minister Judy Spence said she was very angry about the Entry, which she said was based on a very "flimsy" report in the Sunday Times.

She said the government did not deny that Palm Island was a violent place, addinG: "It can be violent at Times, especially for women and children."

She said that like many other Aboriginal communities, Palm Island had a disproportionately high crime rate as well as poor health and education, theerosion of cul tural values and low levels of self esteem.

But the entry in the Guinness Book of Records should be ignored as a "totally inaccurate and outrageous account".

"The figures that are quoted there simply don'T add up," Spence said. "They arenonsense, they are inaccurate and they don'T help anyone."

"I was on Palm Island last week. I felt perfectly safe. I didn'T feel threatenedfor one moment - people welcomed me. This report is insulting to the people of Pal M Island who are working very hard to improve their situation."

Sylvia Reuben, the representative on Palm Island of the Australian government'sAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, said she too was very angry.

"People put up stats that they think will be headline news whenever they want to. They can pick and they can choose and that is what is happening here."

A conference in Cairns last week was told the Palm Island community had made biginroads into fighting crime by pioneering a system by which offenders were diverteD From the criminal Justice system and dealt with by a group of elders.