KEITH JACKSON
| Generated with AI assistance from Claude*

Papua New Guinea and Australian Prime Minister’s XIIIs,  Santos National Football Stadium,  Port Moresby 2024 (NRL.com)

NOOSA - After two years of meticulous planning, a landmark moment in rugby league will unfold today when Papua New Guinea will officially receive a National Rugby League (NRL) licence, marking its ground-breaking entry into the Australian national competition.

The historic announcement will be made at a meeting between Peter V'landys, chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission, and the prime ministers of Papua New Guinea and Australia—James Marape and Anthony Albanese.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

Natasha Turia Moka

CANBERRA – Papua New Guinean PhD student, Natasha Turia Moka, attending an Australasian aid conference in Canberra, has won a contest that challenged speakers to come up with a good idea to improve Australia’s aid program.

They were then given three minutes to present their ideas to the conference, the winner being decided by an online poll of the 500 people at the conference.

KEITH JACKSON
| Generated with AI assistance from Claude*

Keith Jackson - "Basic tasks like reading, writing, editing or managing website communications can become extraordinarily demanding"

Keith Jackson, the publisher and editor of PNG Attitude, has been navigating life with severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) since 2001. Diagnosed with a condition that significantly impacts his daily life, Keith has been largely housebound since 2020. Despite the cognitive and physical challenges of his illness, he remains committed to maintaining PNG Attitude and supporting Papua New Guinean literature.

While ME/CFS does not threaten his life, it substantially limits Keith's abilities. It affects his reading, writing and occasionally his speech. As his health permits, he continues to produce the blog on a reduced scale and continues to participate in projects championing PNG authors and their literary works - Claude

OALA MOI
| Chief Legal Officer | PNG National Information and Communications Technology Authority

Oala Moi, now a senior lawyer in Papua New Guinea and a talented songwriter, is also a long-standing friend of PNG Attitude. I hope someone in our vast network can put Oala in touch with a member of the Sinclair family or their repesentatives - KJ

PORT MORESBY - I would like to rely on your network for the name and contact details of a legal or family representative of the late James Sinclair’s estate.

PNG Attitude recorded his passing in an obituary published on 10 October 2017, ‘Jim Sinclair OBE, recorder of PNG's colonial history, dies at 89’.

CHRIS BARRETT
| Brisbane Times ($) | Extract

Anthony Albanese & James Marape - billion kina footie deal 'nothing to do with China' (James Marape website)

BRISBANE - The launching of a National Rugby League team in Papua New Guinea has “nothing to do with China”, according to the Pacific nation’s foreign minister, Justin Tkatchenko.

Tkatchenko yesterday revealed new details about the NRL competition’s historic expansion to include PNG, Australia’s nearest neighbour.

MARIAN FAA
| ABC Papua New Guinea correspondent

Western Province Governor, Taboi Awi Yoto (pictured), a key figure in project negotiations, says the Commerce Department is lead agent in the project.  Environmental law firm managing director, Peter Bosip, says this is highly irregular

PORT MORESBY - An ABC investigation has linked the Australian businessmen behind PNG's largest agroforestry project to key figures in a massive Indigenous land grab scandal in the country's Western Province more than a decade ago.

PNG prime minister James Marape announced the $1.8 billion development in late October, saying it was an "historical moment" for his country.

EDITED BY KEITH JACKSON

“We are not happy to be in the region. We are still trying to find our security from Asia rather than in Asia” — former Australian prime minister Paul Keating, National Press Club, Canberra, 27 November 2021. Artwork by Thanh Trúc, founder of the political news site, pristine.press, and writer on her personal political website at lethanhtruc.com (Pearls & Irritations)

We’ll pay countries to take in 80,000 unwanted
From The Monthly and Yahoo News

Laws giving the Australian government sweeping powers to deport non-citizens - and to pay countries to accept them - was one of more than 30 bills passed in a frantic last day of federal parliament yesterday. The Labor government and Coalition opposition joined forces to ensure passage of the bill.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

Sir Peter Ipatas (PNG Business News)

PORT MORESBY - A seventh attempt to mount a challenge against prime minister James Marape got underway yesterday in Papua New Guinea’s parliament.

Acting Speaker Koni Iguan informed parliament that he had received a motion for another vote of no confidence against Marape when parliament met for its November 2024 sitting.

Daulo Pass c mid-1964. Jackson proudly models the official uniform of the time

NOTES TO PICTURE I
| November 2024

From Patrick (Big Pat) Levo, biknem raita, PNG Post-Courier

Dearest King Kit Esquire,

Venerable mountaineer, lost in paradise, pig squealer and pork chopper.

We are looking for this fair young man, who once ranched at our rubber farm,

(Our last bag of elastic for the condom factory is missing.)

NEWS DESK
| Bougainville News

President Toroama (left) leads officials and landowners after signing the Panguna land access agreement (Bougainville News)

BUKA – More than 300 traditional landowners from Panguna have signed a Land Access and Compensation Agreement (LACA) with Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), marking a significant milestone in the exploration phase of the resurrected copper and gold mine .

The signing followed the Autonomous Bougainville Government’s (ABG) decision in January to grant BCL with an exploration licence.

EMMA BUBOLA
| New York Times | Extracts

Link here to read the complete article

The PNG government has tried for many years - so far unsuccessfully - to rid the country of sorcery-related violence, which mainly targets women (Ann Braun)

PORT MORESBY & VANIMO - In Papua New Guinea, when a sudden death, illness or other tragic event hits a community, alleged culprits are sometimes identified by a person nicknamed the glass man.

He does so by burning a bamboo stick and interpreting the direction of the smoke. Multiple people can be accused and rounded up simultaneously.

KEITH JACKSON

Dr John Waiko (Pang Media via YouTube)

The distinguished academic, writer and politician, John Dademo Waiko, died yesterday at the age of 79.

Waiko was born in the village of Tabara in Oro Province on the lands of the Binandare people.

He once said his parents had been reluctant to send him to school because they feared he would not be able to look after them in their old age.

NEWS DESK
| Academia Nomad

PORT MORESBY - The remains of the late Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu, who received the Victoria Cross after fighting against the Japanese in Bougainville in 1944, will be repatriated from East New Britain to Fiji next year.

The Victoria Cross is the highest British and Commonwealth military honour.

ALLAN BIRD MP
| Academia Nomad

Papua New Guinea's annual real (orange) GDP and nominal (blue) GDP, 2017-2023

WEWAK - This graph, recently released by National Statistics Office, shows clearly that Papua New Guinea’s real gross domestic product (the orange line) has remained fairly stagnant over the past five years.

Real GDP is the money value, adjusted for inflation, of all goods and services produced within PNG, typically over a year.

EDDIE TANAGO PAINE
| Act Now

PORT MORESBY - A concerning analysis by community advocacy group Act Now has revealed that almost all District Development Authorities (DDAs) in Papua New Guinea are failing to make crucial information available thereby hindering governance, accountability and service delivery.

Despite each District receiving K20 million annually for service and infrastructure improvements, as of July 2024 the analysis reveals that, of 96 DDA’s across the country: