People last-minute shopping in Kokopo ahead of the coronavirus lockdown (Kalolaine Fainu,  The Guardian)

LYANNE TOGIBA
| Guardian Australia

PORT MORESBY - Four thousand nurses are expected to participate in strikes across Papua New Guinea this week over concerns that the Pacific nation lacks the medical supplies and funding to handle a potential coronavirus outbreak.

The industrial action follows a sit-in by nearly 600 nurses in the capital of Port Moresby on Thursday over concerns about the lack of personal protective equipment for medical staff.

Agriculture Minister John Simon - swine fever was suspected in February when 336 pigs in died in Mendi

NEWS DESK
| PNG Today

PORT MORESBY - The multi-million pork industry in PNG is under threat with the African swine fever now in the country.

The swine fever is a virus which causes a hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rates in domestic pigs, killing pigs in large numbers as quickly as a week after infection.

Dr Mathias Sapuri - More than 6,000 cases of interest but PNG is doing very little coronavirus testing

KEITH JACKSON

PORT MORESBY – Dr Mathias Sapuri, chairman of Papua New Guinea’s medical board, says he believes that coronavirus is already present in the country.

“Our two closest neighbours, Indonesia and Australia, are climbing exponentially with Covid-19 cases,” he said, “and so they are serious risk to us especially after the PNG lock down period.

ADRIAN ROLLINS
| Canberra Times | Edited

CANBERRA - At his meeting with fellow G20 leaders on Friday, Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison called for international focus on the plight of Pacific island nations and said Australia was "reconfiguring" its development assistance to support the operation of critical health services and manage the economic impact.

According to the ABC, this includes the reallocation of $22 million of existing aid commitments toward a COVID-19 support package for the Papua New Guinea government.

Michael Dom - "Picks up the ordinary and mundane, and projects it on to a page and makes us see what we are unable see on our own"

STEVEN WINDUO

26 Sonnets: Contemporary Papua New Guinean Poetry, by Michael Dom, JDT Publications, March 2020, 66pp. ISBN-13: 979-8621-24-062-2

Free download 26 Sonnets eBook by Michael Dom

PORT MORESBY - I have great respect and admiration for the bold and measured language in Michael Dom’s poetry.

Reading this collection assured me that Dom is willing to take up forms of poetry that are structured and articulated through very specific rules of construction.

Some of the stone tools and art from the Waim site (UNSW - Ben Shaw)

ASHLEY COWIE
| Ancient Origins | Edited

With thanks to Fr Garry Roche who brought this important research to our attention

DUBLIN - Scientists have unearthed ancient artifacts in the Papua New Guinea highlands that settle a longstanding archaeological argument regarding the emergence of complex culture in PNG.

About 10,000 years ago, the climate changed to better suit the planting of crops and the Neolithic revolution that brought about agriculture emerged in different parts of the world at different times.

Behrouz Boochani would have made a great Australian

PHIL FITZPATRICK

No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison  by Behrouz Boochani, Picador, 2018, ISBN: 9781760555382, 374 pages, AU$15 from Amazon Australia.

TUMBY BAY - I’ve been holding off reading this book for a while. I’m not really sure why.

Perhaps it’s because I couldn’t face the misery and the pathos of that I thought it would depict. Perhaps it’s because of the sense of shame that I thought it would provoke.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – In the extract from his book, ‘You’ll Never Work Again – The Great Safety Charade’, Bernard Corden has given us a great example of where letting the market rip, unfettered by effective regulation, combined with blindingly obvious conflicts of interest, leads to disaster in the service of accumulating vast profits.

And, once again, "the weak suffer what they must".

Author Daniel Kumbon in Manus before his failed attempt to return to his family in Wabag. He is now in Port Moresby

DANIEL KUMBON

PORT MORESBY - The woman next door continues to pray day and night pleading with God to take this pestilence away from Papua New Guinea because the people are innocent, they did nothing to bring the virus into the country.

Alone in her house, she prays and sings worship songs in both Tok Pisin and the Enga language.

Street market - a large part of Papua New Guinea's daily trade and commerce relies on the informal economy

BUSA JEREMIAH WENOGO

PORT MORESBY - As the spread of coronavirus claims thousands of lives throughout the world it has also brought economic hardship to many countries.

Businesses and governments face a bleak future with economic activities shutting down and the movement of people becoming more restrictive.

In Papua New Guinea the government recently introduced a state of emergency after a foreign mine worker travelling to PNG’s second biggest city Lae tested positive for the virus.

WARDLEY D I BARRY

Many young women are becoming victims of revenge porn. In Papua New Guinea, one nude photo is enough to turn you into a whore or porn star. The stigma sticks and it can be a traumatising experience for the women. I hope this poem can help people understand and sympathise with victims. More importantly, I hope victims know that there are people who see their worth - WDIB

Am I a whore now for loving you?
Am I a bitch, too, for trusting you?

Australian businessman Gerry Harvey - bragging about doing well out of coronavirus panic and exulting in other people's distress

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - There is an interesting and still underlying debate going on about what will happen once the COVID-19 crisis abates.

On the one hand there is the expected conservative view that everything should return to normal.

This is promulgated by most politicians in Australia and elsewhere and seems to be the accepted view of businesses and the public at large.

Map of the Sepik region by Bill Brown

ROB PARER

BRISBANE - In 1970 we sold our Vanimo stores and bulk fuel depot to Steamships Trading Company.

Mr Lee, the manager of Steamships Madang, had approached us to negotiate the transaction. He was such a fine person to deal with.

Then, 36 years later, Steamships, by now owned by the British multinational Swire Group of Hong Kong, also purchased our stores at Aitape.

Consultant Wendy Lee and participants at the climate resilience development planning workshop (Peter Kinjap)

PETER SOLO KINJAP

PORT MORESBY - Papua New Guinea's Climate Change and Development Authority (CCDA) is implementing a K93 million Climate Investment Fund grant to secure greater climate resilience in small islands and atolls.

The project started in 2016 and will end in 2021 in Bougainville, Manus, Morobe, East New Britain and Milne Bay.

PNG Defence Force personnel have been assigned to assist in the fight against coronavirus (Alexander Nara)

SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country

LAE - So it’s a global pandemic with well over 16,000 dead already, 380,000 infected and less than 103,000 recovered.

It was a national health worry. But within days, it became a national emergency.

The prime minister taking advice from the National Security Council, a state of emergency declared and police commissioner David Manning appointed emergency controller.

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - While a number of conspiracy theorists, alarmists, doomsayers and social media terrorists have tried to insinuate that there is a link between the coronavirus epidemic and climate change, more level-headed minds have been trying to alert us to the connection between the health of the planet and the health of humanity for some time.

In 1993 the Norwegian physician, Per Fugelli, wrote: "The patient Earth is sick. Global environmental disruptions can have serious consequences for human health. It's time for doctors to give a world diagnosis and advise on treatment."

Rabaul Queen survivors await rescue - 246 were picked up; as many as 500 died

BERNARD CORDEN

Extract from ‘You’ll Never Work Again – The Great Safety Charade’ by Bernard Paul Corden, self published, 2019, 1058 pp. A thorough examination from global sources of how corporate barons – large and small – so often place their employees and the public at unconscionable risk. Download 'The Great Safety Charade'

BRISBANE - On 2nd February 2012 the MV Rabaul Queen ferry capsized and sank with the loss of approximately 150 passengers in treacherous waters off the northern coast of Papua New Guinea.

Despite holding a current but somewhat superficial seaworthiness certificate, the congested, overloaded, listing and dilapidated rust bucket departed from Kimbe in West New Britain the previous day.

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - One thing is becoming abundantly clear as the coronavirus epidemic rapidly escalates.

And this is that any government based on an ideology of neo-liberalism is the worst possible model to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.

This is most apparent in the USA, the home of laissez faire capitalism, where confusion reigns supreme and the virus is uncontrollably rampant.

But it is also becoming evident in Australia.

At the moment there are huge queues of people outside Centrelink offices who have lost their jobs because of the lockdown of businesses.

A G SATORI

PORT MORESBY - Belief in the supernatural is real for a Papua New Guinean - a belief that runs in parallel with other introduced beliefs, be they Christianity or another religion, even atheism.

Most Papua New Guineans talk about all their beliefs in the same breath.

James Marape and health minister Jelta Wong

KEITH JACKSON

PORT MORESBY – Following the detection of the first coronavirus case in Papua New Guinea late last week, in an emergency meeting yesterday the national executive council decided on the implementation of a series of tough measures to stop or slow the spread of the disease through the country.

“This is not just a health issue but a national security issue,” prime minister James Marape said in a public statement, adding that it will have profound effects on the economy, law and order and education.

Val Murphy

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The sad new has arrived from fellow ex-chalkie Leo Carroll that the indomitable Val Murphy died in Perth on Friday.

Val was a bear of a man whose appearance told you all you needed to know about his approach to rugby league.

DANIEL KUMBON

WABAG - Alois Alapyala Yolape often thanks Fr George Schubbe publicly, even though the priest is dead, for playing an important role in getting him elected for the Monokam council ward in the Ambum Valley 57 years ago.

Recently, he again acknowledged Fr Schubbe at a new church opening at Leptenges near Sirunki, where his late mother was born.

Simon Jackson; Will coronavirus forge a new realisation of the world as it is, or reinforce the bastions of privilege?

SIMON JACKSON

AUCKLAND - Like many people who have lived deeply in developing countries and been exposed to crises people in 'developed' nations see only on TV or at the movies, an observation by Chris Overland in PNG Attitude yesterday hit home for me.

Amongst much else worth thinking about, Chris wrote in 'Coronavirus: A warning from history', that whatever else awaits us in the aftermath of this coronavirus epidemic, “we will not be able to sit here, fat, dumb and happy, while bad things happen to other people."

Wutung entry point at the border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea (RNZ - Johnny Blades)

NEWS DESK
| Radio New Zealand | Edited extract

AUCKLAND –Members of parliament in Papua New Guinea's Sepik region say they'll fund bolstered surveillance of the international border with Indonesia.

West Sepik province hosts the main land access point between PNG and Indonesia where coronavirus cases are surging.

Indian pangolin. Some people believe coronavirus entered the human domain because the pangolin  (found in Africa and Asia) is considered a delicacy in China

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - I spent 32 years working in various capacities within the health, hospital and aged care sector.

It was a continuous learning experience for me and one which, despite the anxiety and distress it sometimes generated, was richly rewarding in providing insights into the nature of humanity.

A fascinating part of my long term learning experience was working in the public and environmental health division of South Australia’s department of health.

The double talk of aid and corruption (C Gado)

ROLAND RAJAH & ALEXANDRE DAYANT
| DevPolicy Blog

CANBERRA - Is development aid an effective solution to lifting countries out of poverty?

Some argue that aid plays a central role in promoting economic development in the poorest countries, while others are still very sceptical.

A recent World Bank research paper has added to the debate (and garnered a lot of media attention) by drawing a strong link between World Bank aid flows to poor countries and deposits from those same countries in international financial havens like Switzerland, Singapore and the Cayman Islands.

KEITH JACKSON

PORT MORESBY – Even as Papua New Guinea's airline, Air Niugini, announced it will cease carrying inbound international passengers from midnight tomorrow, expatriate workers and their families were flooding back to Australia to escape the closure of its borders.

Australia has been a late starter in providing an adequate response to the spread of coronavirus and even now there is controversy about whether it has done enough.

Papua New Guinea joins the global aviation shut down

NEWS DESK
| NBC News

PORT MORESBY - Papua New Guinea is shutting down international flights amid Coronavirus fears.

Flights in and out of Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Sydney, Honiara and Nadi will cease next Sunday.

Prime minister James Marape said flights will be limited so as to only allow “controlled entry” from Brisbane, Cairns and Singapore.

The Cessna 180 Skywagon was a common aircraft in 1960s PNG

ED BRUMBY

MELBOURNE - In the mid-1960s, Mary and her partner, ‘Mads’ Madsen – no-one used his given forename, ran a small trade store at the top end of Angoram’s infamous Tobacco Road, a few metres from the banks of the Sepik River.

Both were in their mid- to late forties, although no-one knew for sure, and kept mostly to themselves in a small house attached to the trade store which they shared, literally, with a collection of possums and cuscuses which, as you’d expect, provided the house with a none-too-pleasant odour.

Still from  ABC-TV footage of what appears to be an extra-judicial killing of an Afghani civilian by an Australian SAS soldier

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Apart from the escalating disaster of the coronavirus epidemic, a couple of other unsettling items have come to my notice this week.

The first was the release of the appalling footage of an Australian SAS soldier executing an unarmed villager in Afghanistan in May 2012.

The second was an email relating to a horrible and disgusting incident involving police and defence force personnel in Papua New Guinea in 1998.

With its first possible case of coronavirus just recorded, James Marape and his government know that they face a testing time

SHANE McLEOD
| The Interpreter | Lowy Institute

SYDNEY - It’s been a volatile week for the PNG Hunters.

The Papua New Guinea rugby league team was celebrating on Sunday after staging a late comeback to clinch a 32-30 win against the Souths Logan Magpies in the first round of the Queensland Intrust Super Cup last weekend.

NEWS DESK
| EMTV

PORT MORESBY - The Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) has been put on alert as the health minister, Jelta Wong, formally declared coronavirus as a ‘quarantinable disease’ under the country’s health laws.

On Tuesday, the PNG national security council met to discuss additional control measures in light of the worsening crisis in Australia and surrounding countries.

SDA church in Goroka

NEWS DESK
| Adventist Record | Edited

MARYLAND, USA - Preachers from other parts of the South Pacific will no longer be going to Papua New Guinea for a harvest program scheduled for May.

Church officers consulted with the PNG Union Mission about the inherent risks of the coronavirus pandemic before taking the difficult decision.

Petrus and the bag

ISO YAWI

LAE - I was in the heart of Lae City this morning, at the centre of the curve of Huon Gulf on the map of Papua New Guinea.

The sun had just come out of the dawn's bilum. It was a promising day with good weather and the people were carrying out their usual early morning activities.

JEFFREY WALL
| Australian Strategic Policy Institute

CANBERRA - One of the questions frequently asked about Australia’s closest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, is whether a military, or other, coup is possible.

Over the 40-plus years of my association with PNG, my view has been consistent—it is possible but fortunately highly unlikely.

There are two reasons why I have always been confident in this assessment.

The Peië grasshopper

AISHII NOKOVANO GITEHOMA
| Transcribed by Emily Bina

KOTIYUFA VILLAGE 2013 - Gholou-e valley, before human beings arrived, was occupied by two tribes of grasshoppers. One was the dull brown coloured Ganu tribe. The other was the multi-coloured Peië.

During the dry season, as leaves of plants matured and died, the food source for grasshoppers would diminish. As the dry season got longer, the competition for good green leaves to eat became intense.

Tim Terrell and two local kiaps on the first course at Finschhafen Training Centre, 1960

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Former kiap Tim Terrell AM died in Canberra last Tuesday at the age of 90.

His passing is significant in the history of Papua New Guinea because he established the first training centre for local kiaps at Gagidu near Finschhafen in 1959-60, assisted by another kiap, Peter Foldi.

Health staff screen airline passengers at Majuro Marshall Islands (Hilary Hosia RNZ Pacific)

NEWS DESK
| RNZ Pacific | Asia Pacific Report | Pacific Media Watch

WELLINGTON, NZ - Pacific countries have further tightened border measures to try to keep the coronavirus from gaining a foothold in the islands.

Six cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in the Pacific so far – the first three in French Polynesia and, on Sunday night, three were confirmed in Guam.

ROBERT FORSTER

NORTHUMBRIA - This photograph is the most puzzling in my Papua New Guinean collection.

I tramped through the bush for almost six years and it is the only example I bumped into that had any resemblance to the totem pole so often presented as typical of Native American culture in the nineteenth century or the mumbo-jumbo, voodoo style, pagan doll depictions so readily associated with early British exploration of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Did kiaps and anthropologists who broke PNG bush much earlier than the late 1960s come across anything that was similar?

It was housed in a traditional sentry box-like structure standing at the end of a line of village houses in the Pilitu section of the Goilala Sub-District that I came upon in January 1974.

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - I’ve got a host of friends and acquaintances who don’t wholly exist. They all live just shy of the cusp of reality.

Most of them are amalgams and constructs. They contain a good bit of me, elements of people I have known or read about and a fair slab of pure imagination. In short, they are the characters in the stories I write.

Charlie Lynn argues it's about time the Kokoda Track came under the management of locals not imported park rangers

CHARLIE LYNN

SYDNEY – The Australian foreign affairs department (DFAT) 'Kokoda Initiative' has managed the Kokoda Trail through their surrogate Kokoda Track Authority for the past 11 years at a cost of more than $50 million (K105 million).

But in that time they have not been able to identify a single Papua New Guinean with the expertise to maintain the trail in a safe condition and protect the local environment.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - In late 1969, I was summoned to the Assistant District Commissioner’s office in Kerema and told I was to prepare to go immediately on patrol in the mountains lying to the north of the town.

I was to be accompanied by three aid post orderlies and several police. Our task was to identify and treat people suffering from the Hong Kong Influenza, which was running rampant across the world and had finally reached Papua New Guinea.

Professional policing should never involve unlawful conduct, especially torture - which they glibly call "interrogation"

LYDIA KAILAP

KIMBE - The common practice of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary picking up youths going about their legitimate business in the street, throwing them in the back of a police 10-seater and belting them to try and get information (torture), that they may or may not have, has to stop.

Police Minister Bryan Kramer, your officers cannot expect our youth to respect the rights of others, and not steal from them or harm them, if they themselves are victims of illegal violence from police officers.

The spread of coronoavirus seems to have spared PNG so far, but nevertheless the economy will suffer a big hit

SCOTT WAIDE
| EMTV | Extracts

LAE - Papua New Guinea may need to review its economic outlook for the medium term as global economies contend with the wide-ranging impacts of coronavirus.

While Papua New Guineans have been debating the preparedness of the health system, and bracing for a possible outbreak, the economic burden brought on by the global pandemic could further cripple efforts to contain the spread of the disease.

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - The government of Papua New Guinea has been meeting to discuss the possible impacts on the nation of the coronavirus (Covid-19).

So far the emphasis seems to be centred on economic matters and how revenue losses from any downturn in resource income will affect the bottom line of the budget.

SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country

LAE - There is no other way to say this to the government of Papua New Guinea.

Prime Minister, you need to issue the orders to shut down our borders starting with our international airports.

Community consultation at Karawara Island,  East New Britain (BRCC)

PETER SOLO KINJAP

PORT MORESBY - Papua New Guinea was identified as one of the most vulnerable countries in the wake of global climate crisis.

Lack of basic government services in the most remote parts of the country have further deteriorated since then and the current coronavirus crisis may increase PNG’s vulnerability.

Cr Paul Kiap Kurai (sitting) as a schoolboy in 1975, his father, Joseph (Bosboi) Kurai towering over him

DANIEL KUMBON

WABAG – That night in Wapenamanda, Mathew Kandamaine had a strange dream in which he saw his father, Joseph Kurai Tapus, come to his house and ask for a single K5 note so he could attend a party in heaven specially prepared for him.

Early next morning, Mathew woke with a start. He was glad the dream wasn’t real. But he had a sinking feeling, worrying it might turn out to be true.

He shared it with his wife, from Ialibu in the Southern Highlands.

As Mathew and his wife finished talking, they heard a car honk its horn several times from where it was parked on the highway near his home.

One of his brothers, Timothy, had driven their father down from Wabag. Mathew’s heart sank when he saw his father. But Joseph Kurai Tapus was his normal self.

Tumby Bay - a fine place to be born and  to die - but cast my ashes to the winds, writes the much travelled Phil Fitzpatrick

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - It is not so long ago that people were born in one place and remained there for their whole lives.

This can still happen, as we know, but many people now pass through multiple places over the course of a lifetime.

In places like Papua New Guinea it is still common for people to spend their lives in one area, just as it is in rural regions of Australia.

UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima greeted by outreach workers at Begabari HIV Clinic

NEWS DESK
| UNAIDS

PORT MORESBY - There are around 45,000 people living with HIV in Papua New Guinea, with marginalised groups such as sex workers, other women who exchange sex for money, goods and protection, gay men and other men who have sex with men, and transgender women most affected.

However, less than half of the people who belong to those vulnerable groups have ever taken a test to know their HIV status.