PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Michael Dom and Paul Oates took issue with a comment I made about ethics and religion following an article by Chris Overland about the inexorable rise of stupidity in the 21st century, ‘The inexorable rise of the 21st century stupid’.

In my comment I wrote that you don’t “necessarily need religions to decide on what is right and what is wrong. All you need is a functioning brain."

EDITED STATEMENT
| Pacific Media Watch

AUCKLAND - The New Zealand-based media research and publishing group, Asia Pacific Media Network, has called for an “urgent rethink” on Papua New Guinea’s draft media development policy.

The Network said the PNG government’s proposed regulation plan for the country’s media council and journalists threatened a free press.

Winnie Kiap CBE, PNG’s ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2011-22, and nominee for Governor-General

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

PORT MORESBY - The position of Governor General in Papua New Guinea becomes vacant in February as Grand Chief Bob Dadae’s six-year tenure comes to an end.

In the history books, Sir Bob will be remembered as the only PNG Governor-General who served under the reign of both Queen Elizabeth ꓲꓲ and King Charles ꓲꓲꓲ.

And on Thursday his successor will be elected by the PNG parliament.

There has been much discussion in PNG recently about which women would qualify to be the first to hold this high office. Winnie Kiap is a leading contender.

DOMINICA ARE

LAE - He may have been hungry and desperate. He may have been dying to drink alcohol. He may have been just looking for luck.

He may have planned my day for this. Perhaps hiding in the thick grass, or behind the trees. Ready to pounce.

As I walked past, the street was quite empty.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Across many parts of the world people are enjoying - or enduring - the Christmas season.

This Christian celebration has long been stripped of its religious meaning in most of the capitalist Western world.

At best, it is a time for people to get together and enjoy the company of their family and friends.

But mostly it is a time too often devoted to over indulgence and conspicuous consumption.

Huge efforts are made to encourage people to spend as if there will be no tomorrow.

Inevitably, tomorrow is when the bills become due.

The media breathlessly reports new record retail sales over Christmas and the New Year as if this meant something significant or was an inherently good thing.

The fact that it is very frequently a bad thing for many people as they get deeper in debt is usually ignored, at least for a while.

Soon enough, the same media will again be breathlessly reporting the dire personal consequences of overspending: the same spending it previously so enthusiastically reported if not actively endorsed.

Readers will gather that I am no fan of what Christmas has now become.

I perceive it as a gigantic festival of licensed excess and indulgence very similar to the Roman Festival of Saturnalia upon which the Christian ritual is based.

It is nevertheless a time of reflection for many people and most of us have a much to reflect upon as we struggle to understand how the world has quite suddenly gone to hell in a host of ways.

Of course, the obvious immediate cause of the sudden deterioration in circumstances for so many people is the Covid 19 pandemic.

This continues to rage across the globe largely unabated, even though large scale public vaccination campaigns ameliorated its worst effects in most cases.

At last report the World Health Organisation calculated that 6.7 million people had died from Covid, although many credible authorities think this is a gross underestimate because the process of counting has been flawed or, very commonly, governments haven’t bothered to count.

Amongst epidemiologists there is a broad consensus that at least 15 million have died so far and that this number is going to continue the increase in 2023 and probably beyond.

Right now, China is experiencing what appears to be the worst outbreak of Covid ever witnessed.

This is the end result of several years of determined but futile efforts to suppress the disease, sometimes applying draconian restrictions on personal freedom.

In the face of increasingly angry public protests these restrictions have been removed and the disease is reportedly running rampant.

I have seen reports that China is experiencing 37 million cases each day.

The official position is that there have been only a handful of deaths but the pictures of bodies piling up in funeral homes tell another story.

Meanwhile, in Europe the worst industrial scale war since the end of World War II continues to rage in Ukraine.

Russia’s coyly named ‘Special Military Operation’ has morphed into a grinding war of attrition.

Ukraine’s valiant people have so far withstood daily attacks on civilian targets as they have defeated Russia in the Battles of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson and are currently holding their own in the Battle of Bakhmut.

This latest battle is shaping up to be a modern version of the Battle of Stalingrad, except that this time it is the Russians who seem to be fighting a futile and staggeringly costly action for no obviously useful strategic purpose.

No one knows how this war will proceed in 2023 except that it seems clear that it will continue.

For Russia at least there is no plausible exit strategy that does not leave it gravely and irremediably weakened and diminished.

The geo-political consequences of Vladimir Putin’s war will be profound and enduring long after his death (hopefully soon).

The positive side effects of the war, if they may be named as such, include the revival and expansion of the NATO alliance, the irrevocable reorientation of Ukraine to Western Europe and the clear evidence for other adventurist authoritarian powers that the democratic world is willing and able to devote huge resources in defence of the values of personal freedom, the rule of law and the right to national self determination.

Despite this, it seems the Chinese leadership has failed to fully grasp the strategic implications of Putin’s war or, at the very least, unwisely chosen to assume that they could not suffer the same fate in relation to any military action against Taiwan.

Only last week China staged a provocative series of naval manoeuvres 250 kilometres off the coast of Japan.

No action could be more calculated to arouse anxiety and anger in Japan which, according to national mythology, has twice been preserved from Chinese invasion by the intervention of the cyclonic Divine Wind, Kamikaze.

The result of China’s provocations is that Japan decided to hugely increase its defence spending, including arming itself with a host of high technology weapons systems including stealth aircraft, submarines and large numbers of long range missiles.

It is hard to understand why the Chinese did not foresee this reaction. Their protests about Japan’s arms build-up ring rather hollow.

Meanwhile in Europe, the UK and the USA, the economic and social pressures now being generated by the strategic situation, together with cost of living problems associated with the profoundly inequitable and unfair neo-liberal capitalist system, continue to create varying degrees of political instability.

There seems to be no country in Europe that is unaffected in some way and the political class is struggling to cope with surging anger and resentment that is expressing itself as increasing support for both the extreme left and right of the political spectrum.

For example, Italy has recently seen the election of a neo-fascist or, perhaps more accurately, ultra-nationalist government, while Hungary is being ruled by an authoritarian, right wing government that is distinctly illiberal.

The problems in the US have been described comprehensively in this and other media and do not require repeating here.

Suffice to say that these appear no closer to resolution, with the policy chasm between Democrats and Republicans still seeming unbridgeable.

As with Europe, the extremists of left and right seem to be able to dominate the political discourse, especially through social media.

Meanwhile, the situation in the Middle East remains febrile and apparently hopeless. It continues to be a proverbial viper’s nest of intrigues, plots, sectarian hatreds, personal feuds and violence.

By comparison to the rest of the world, Oceania seems to be a haven of calm, although the political situation remains volatile in Solomon Islands, Fiji and some parts of Papua New Guinea.

As for Australia, the Albanese government appears to have ushered in a return to some sort of normality, where government ministers seem to properly understand their roles and behave and sound at least sensible most of the time.

This is a huge relief after nearly 10 years of conservative misrule which reached its apex in the dysfunctional and corrupt Morrison government.

So what are our collective prospects for 2023?

It is hard to imagine that things are destined to improve a great deal.

The pandemic seems likely to rage on, with China experiencing previously unimaginable levels of illness and death as a consequence.

This is likely to have unpredictable economic and social effects for China and the wider world.

The war in Ukraine may become much worse before serious talk about a peace settlement is possible.

Russia’s military has been grievously weakened but is still capable of inflicting great violence.

Ukraine’s military is better trained, better led, better armed, better equipped and tactically more adept.

That said, it is not yet powerful enough to comprehensively defeat Russia and stalemate seems probable for the foreseeable future.

The various political, economic and social problems besetting Europe, UK and US are destined to continue unless a consensus emerges about the structure and leadership of a post-globalisation world – and the role of the various actors in that world.

And I will not discuss how things will work out in the Middle East. What would be the point?

In South East Asia and Oceania, nations seem to be mostly getting along, keeping a weather eye upon the manoeuvres and machinations of the great powers as they jockey for influence and control of events.

Papua New Guinea must try to deal with an increasingly lawless population, notably in the Highlands, and the perennial problem of what to do about Bougainville and other regions that may seek greater autonomy.

This already difficult task is compounded by the continuation of what I have previously described as the ‘rotating elected kleptocracy’ which is its parliament.

Not all of its members are entirely self-interested or corrupt but far too many are to have much confidence in effective governance.

So the best advice seems to be treading warily in the world, hoping for the best and planning for the worst.

What other choice is there?

May your God go with you as we venture into the unknowns of 2023.

REPORT
| Transparency International Papua New Guinea (TIPNG)

Edited extracts from the Civil Society Report on the Implementation of Preventive Measures
of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in Papua New Guinea

PORT MORESBY - The overall findings of the report indicate that Papua New Guinea is only partially compliant with its obligations under the United Nations Convention against Corruption.

Furthermore, although laws and relevant agencies have been established to carry out these obligations, improvement is needed in areas where laws are inadequate and where UNCAC provisions are not strictly enforced. 

MICHAEL DOM

LAE – Census data in Papua New Guinea have always been considered less a reflection of ground truth and more a best approximation based on available reported figures from household interviews.

(Rule of Thumb: Always have the salt handy.)

Rather than arguing theoretical knowledge, I'll make an educated guestimate of what's likely in terms of rural population growth rates.

“Deep sea mining is not wanted! The PNG government should be following in the footsteps of other Pacific states like Fiji, Samoa, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia calling for a pause, moratorium or complete ban”

Alliance of Solwara members are leading the push against deep sea mining (Jonathan Mesulam)

REILLY KANAMON

PORT MORESBY - Community leaders from atolls and coastal communities in the Bismarck Archipelago and Solomon Sea region are calling for a ban on seabed mining and the cancellation of all seabed mining licenses in their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

There are hundreds of communities in New Ireland, East New Britain, Manus, Madang, Bougainville, and Milne Bay provinces whose EEZ holds the fishery and tuna stock for Papua New Guinea.

The potion we received had five warheads: to make the person dumb, have the person drop dead at work, kill his wife, cause a car accident resulting in death and to have termites destroy his home

LEONARD FONG ROKA

PANGUNA - Sorcery is a belief system that is as old as Bougainville itself. It’s an integral part of the Bougainville people.

People believe in it, talk about it, kill each other over it and our society periodically dissolves into conflict because of it.

“The legacy we want to leave our children is simple. We want them to be able to live in an environment that is clean, healthy and safe. We do not want an ocean full of toxic waste” - Reverend Yasam Aiwara

NEWS DESK
| Say No to Wafi-Golpu

LAE - A coalition of Papua New Guinean and Australian civil society organisations has launched an international campaign to stop plans to dump hundreds of millions of tonnes of mining waste into Huon Gulf.

The Say No to Wafi-Golpu DSTP group is fighting to protect the ocean, marine ecosystems and coastal communities of Huon Gulf from becoming a dumping ground for the Wafi-Golpu copper and gold mine, one of the largest in the world, operated by Newcrest Mining and Harmony Gold.

Fragile states emerged as an area of concern in the 1990s in the fields of security and development. This book (free to download) considers the dimensions of fragility that can be influenced by policy action

Children in a camp for internally displaced persons in northern Afghanistan (Eric Kanalstein, UN)

NEMATULLAH BIZHAN
| Edited extracts

PORT MORESBY - Fragile states, amongst which I number Papua New Guinea, endanger the lives of citizens and expose societies to the risk of collapse.

When this happens, famine, violent disorder and economic distress can displace millions of people, with consequent impacts on surrounding regions.

I call it a curse for many reasons but I won't discuss them all. It's a curse because it really doesn't matter which government is in place or which CEO is appointed, no one - and I mean no one - has really addressed the blackout curse

JOHN KURI

PORT MORESBY - What is it? Is it some kind of magic or witchcraft? Is it a spell or incantation?

This is Papua New Guinea - a place where black power still rules the lives of citizens in the urban centres and rural areas.

 Ten years after Julia Gillard's landmark speech on misogyny, Dr Victoria Fielding examines why not much has changed and why Australia offers no template for addressing sexism in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere

In the Australian parliament in 2012, responding to opposition leader Abbott accusing her of 'sexism', prime minister  Julia Gillard delivered a powerful speech against misogyny that gained global attention

VICTORIA FIELDING

ADELAIDE - This week, misogynist Steve Price decided to spew out his sexist opinion of the Australian women’s football league (AFLW), calling it “substandard” and that “even high school boys are better to watch”.

Price and the Herald Sun newspaper, which published his filth, don’t care about the damage this ‘opinion’ does to the AFL women players, the women and men who admire them and the young girls aspiring to be equal to their male peers.

'Operating with cash only, ignoring company or goods-and-services tax obligations, importing goods through sometimes unorthodox channels....the Fujian businesses have been unbeatable competition at the bottom end of the consumer market'

"Periodically, mobs attack and ransack Chinese stores in PNG towns, as they also have in Honiara, the Solomon Islands capital"

HAMISH McDONALD
| The Monthly | Extract

MELBOURNE - Who should Australia believe about China’s business and strategic interests in Papua New Guinea?

Aiambak, 469 kilometres up the Fly River from the Torres Strait, is on the frontier of China’s contemporary reach into the wider world.

Allowing the market to entirely determine the distribution of wealth without the cautious restraining hand of government has hugely exaggerated the economic gap between winners and losers

Annexation of Papua, 1885

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Traditional Melanesian culture was organised in ways that were and are totally at odds with the prevailing capitalist economic system.

I would characterise the traditional way of life as being based upon a system of mutual obligation and communalism, whereby each member of a social group both contributed to the common good of the group and, in turn, received benefits from it.

Brutal torture of women accused of witchcraft goes unpunished and initiatives to end the crime make little progress. The government was supposed to fund the Sorcery National Action Plan, but it never happened

After torturing people accused of sorcery, the perpetrators burn down their homes and evict them from the village (Dickson Tanda)

IAN NEUBAUER
| Al Jazeera

SYDNEY - Reports of machete-wielding men slashing innocent bystanders, arson attacks, sexual violence against girls, and the displacement of thousands of people during last month’s election in Papua New Guinea have drawn international condemnation.

But an even more insidious form of violence continues to plague the country: sorcery-accusation-related violence (SARV), the public torture and murder of women accused of witchcraft.

As tribal conflicts unfold across the Highlands, safe access to health care is under threat. In conflict-affected parts of the country, clinics are in ruins and staff flee for their lives. These ongoing attacks are leaving many thousands without adequate access to health care

Rowena Kasunu, a missionary from the Kambia tribe in Southern Highlands Province, stands outside Katiloma village’s health-care clinic, which was attacked during a tribal fight and remains closed. The health post used to service four tribes in the area

ANDREW KOBYLINSKI
| International Committee of the Red Cross

CANBERRA - 'Fighting in Papua New Guinea? Really?' This is the usual response I get when I tell people about the work the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) undertakes in PNG alongside the PNG Red Cross.

While only four kilometres in the Torres Strait separate Australia and PNG, an understanding of the struggles faced by our next-door neighbour is distant for most Australians.

Sachs appears to be one of the New Appeasers whose starting premise is that Putin is a rational actor, not an unrepentant neo-imperialist whose territorial aspirations cannot be satisfied through negotiation or by conceding land for peace

Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron - the table perhaps symbolic of the distance between Putin's goals of empire and the New Appeasers desire for peaceful resolution

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - In his recent speech, ‘The world imperilled at the end of US leadership’, Jeffrey Sachs has advanced several propositions that are highly contestable.

Professor Sachs evidently believes that the underlying cause of the Russia-Ukraine War was the constant expansion of NATO – a military alliance of 28 European, Canada and the USA, which strongly supports NATO’s expansion.

Legislation will need to spell out the terms of Indigenous Treaties to ensure consistency with Australia's constitution and laws relating to land and access rights. This is not impossible but is bound to be complex and contentious

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - The history of Australian governments in dealing with Australia’s Indigenous peoples is very dismal indeed.

The now departed and unlamented Liberal-National Party government continued this tradition whereby weasel words were deemed an adequate substitute for meaningful action.

Almost no organisations and government agencies have an anti-corruption strategy - even those responsible for protecting integrity

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - With the help of the European Union, Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) is seeking to persuade Papua New Guinea’s government agencies to adopt and implement explicit anti-corruption and integrity strategies.

It says it is doing this in the knowledge that few government agencies, including those responsible for protecting integrity and fighting corruption, do not have an anti-corruption strategy.

The ABC’S international media development unit supports democratic governance by strengthening public interest journalism capable of holding Asia-Pacific institutions to account

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - Like so many people before him, Daniel Mee stumbled by accident upon PNG Attitude –and liked what he saw.

Not just a treasure trove of information but a network of many hundreds of people who maintain a close affiliation with Papua New Guinea.

General Austin says the US is prepared to step up to be a leader and a guarantor of a free and open Indo-Pacific. "Big powers carry big responsibilities," he says

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin addresses the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in  Singapore on Saturday  (CNN)

BRAD LENDON & OREN LIEBERMANN
| CNN | Edited extracts

SINGAPORE – On Saturday, United States defence secretary Lloyd Austin called out China and vowed the US would stand by partners after a series of coercive, aggressive and dangerous actions that he said threatened stability in Asia.

"Indo-Pacific countries shouldn't face political intimidation, economic coercion or harassment by maritime militias," Austin said in a keynote speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier defence conference.

Most Pacific Island nations, including Papua New Guinea and Fiji, have not voiced opposition to the China-Solomons agreement and understand its context

National flags of Solomon Islands and China flutter in Tiananmen Square, Beijing (Reuters)

GORDON NANAU
| East Asia Forum

SUVA - A draft security agreement between Solomon Islands and China was leaked on social media on 24 March 2022, sparking anxious reactions locally and internationally.

On 19 April, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin announced the agreement had been signed, and this was confirmed by Solomon Islands foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele.

Neo-liberalism's inherent flaws and contradictions have created mountainous debt and numerous socio-economic dysfunctions which have left the world’s economic and financial systems dangerously exposed

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - As an historian I am very wary about trying to predict the future based upon what has happened in the past or even what is happening in the present.

The record of those who predict the future with confidence is that they have been almost invariably wrong.

The people of Milne Bay have a point. They have the makings of prosperity and connectivity. But a road from the capital would not necessarily bring them anything but strife

JOHN GREENSHIELDS

ADELAIDE – Not long ago, Papua New Guinea’s prime minister James Marape convened a stakeholder meeting to discuss Connect PNG – a 20-year plan to increase strategic road connections across the country.

Australian high commissioner Jon Philp told the meeting that Australia continued to support strategic and high-quality infrastructure projects as a tool to promote economic prosperity.

PNG will soon likely have a parliament of 118 seats with no women, one of only four national parliaments to present such a misogynistic face to the world

PNG politics - it's a man's, man's, man's, man's world

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - It would be easier to solve the Riddle of Tanglewood Manor than to extract from any reliable source precise and authoritative information about the election of Papua New Guinea’s 11th parliament.

But this we can be sure of. The election will extend for two weeks from 8 - 22 July. It will be for 118 seats. It will elect 22 governors and 96 MPs. That’s about it. Unless there’s a change.

When Bougainville people sense a threat, or get the notion they might be dispossessed of land, they will fight and protect it with their lives if they have to

"Let us ensure our agreements hold because if we do the same thing over and over and expect a different result, our hopes will collapse like the benches around the mine pit"

SIMON PENTANU MP
| Bougainville News

KIETA - The benches that wound around the Panguna mine were a conspicuous feature of the humungous pit are still visible but either collapsing because of erosion by slow-seeping water or perhaps just tired of lying around with no purpose.

The pit is a massive ‘dingkung’ (hole) on Bougainville’s landscape; it is also a massive statement that people are capable of gutting the Earth’s resources and leaving the land wasted and torn when the riches have been extracted and shipped away.

As women make their mark across Papua New Guinea’s public service, the country is still shamed by its total lack of female national MPs

Emily Kelton has just retired from one of the most senior electoral positions in Papua New Guinea, but she sees not one woman holding a seat in the 111-member national parliament. Perhaps this will change with the election of a new 117-member parliament in July

MY LAND, MY COUNTRY

LAE – According to many candidates who stand for election in Papua New Guinea, politics and parliament is a “man’s place”.

So where do the half of the PNG population who are women fit in?

It is an uncomfortable question, an irritating rhetorical question - one to which we already know the answer. Too often it’s the wrong answer.

Washington is acting like Taiwan is already a fully-fledged ally and is willing to risk a regional war that can easily spin out of control

ALEX LO
| South China Morning Post

HONG KONG - For Washington, containing China is more important than risking the lives of millions of people in the Asia-Pacific region.

Such a war will, after all, be fought on the other side of the world, so far as ordinary Americans – already sold on the evil of communist China and the benevolence of their own country – are concerned.

Anthony Albanese has to prove himself capable of sorting out the considerable mess that Scott Morrison has left behind

KEITH JACKSON

If Albanese exercises democracy and wisdom in the cabinet room, we will have the best government we can have - and nobody can hope for anything more than that

NOOSA - Yesterday’s man under pressure has survived to become today’s hero – and I’m going to explain why.

For many Australians, the Labor Party’s win in Saturday’s national election seemed an unlikely victory.

Throughout his period as opposition leader, Anthony (Albo) Albanese had sought to present a target so small that nobody could take clear aim at it.

ABUL RIZVI
| Pearls & Irritations | Edited

Exploitation and abuse of Pacific Islands workers will be turbocharged as their numbers are being ramped up

CANBERRA - One of the symptoms of exploitation in the Pacific Access Labour Migration Scheme (PALMS) is the number of workers who abscond from their employer and apply for asylum.

Since late 2019, over 3,500 people from the Pacific Islands and Timor-Leste have applied for asylum.

Unloading a plane at the remote Marawaka airstrip

PRISILLA MANOVE

The silent crisis facing women and girls in rural Papua New Guinea

GOROKA - Last year in May, from Queens Pads PNG here in Goroka, I picked up a large box covered in black tape. The contents of this box were 300 reusable sanitary pads.

Reusable sanitary pads are a big step up from the disposable one-time use sanitary pads currently dominating what is termed the feminine hygiene market.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - While Phil Fitzpatrick's hypothesis in Dividing Not Blending: Multiculturalism in Oz, is broadly correct, I think it is wrong to say categorically that Australia is an unsuccessful multicultural society.

It would be more accurate to describe multiculturalism in Australia as emerging or evolving, presenting a society in which many of the institutional structures and arrangements have yet to adapt to emerging social and ethnographic realities.

Suspicion towards Chinese people has grown since the virus emerged in Wuhan (AFP)

SU-LIN TAN
| South China Morning Post

It's easy for some politicians to deny racism in Australia when they are not members of  targeted ethnic groups

SYDNEY – Another war is tearing through Australia’s civil society: a war of discrimination, racism and suspicion.

For three consecutive years, Australian politicians have commemorated Anzac Day, a time of remembrance of its war dead, with war-cries.

STEPHEN CHARTERIS

CAIRNS - In Abraham Lincoln’s time, messaging was limited to horse and rider and, as electronics became better understood, the telegraph.

News slowly developed as a commodity but, back then, it was largely confined to industrialised countries.

An event of significance happening in mid-19th century India might have appeared as a footnote in the London Times many weeks after the event.

Philippines new president Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr was an indulged youth whose excesses came at the expense of the ordinary people of the Philippines who suffered under his father's ruthless rule

MARTIN HADLOW

SAMFORD VALLEY, QLD -The result of this week's presidential election in the Philippines are a reminder of the adage that ‘those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it’.

With the son of the former dictator and looter of the nation’s resources, Ferdinand Marcos Sr, winning the presidency in a landslide this week, the wheel of history turns and brings to mind the worst excesses of the past.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - The eminent journalist Scott Waide has accused the disgraced EMTV network of failing to provide a proper news service to Papua New Guinea after it sacked its entire news team in February.

The journalists had taken a stand against politically-inspired censorship triggered by coverage of the fraudulent misdeeds of a well-connected government crony.

Dr Shailendra Singh - "Social media can be empowering and liberating" (Dialogue Fiji)

SHAILENDRA SINGH
| Asia Pacific Review | Edited

SUVA - Social media is a mixed bag, with both democratic and undemocratic tendencies. But then few things in life are perfect.

And in that regard social media poses a major dilemma. Not just in Fiji, but many countries that are grappling with how best to tackle it.

This includes even developed countries like Australia.

Illustration by Simon Kneebone

GARRY LUHRS

“I always like to firm up vinaigrettes with some facts” – Garry Luhrs

The email came with a tantalising opener, “Hi Keith - I would like this scandal to be advertised far and wide.” In my business, it doesn’t come more pulse-racing than that. The missive came from former kiap and forever humourist Garry Luhrs, but it had a serious message. “This misappropriation of aged care funds is right across the board. Every provider appears to have front trotters and snouts in the trough. They seem to be creaming up to 70% of the funds as administrative expenses. This requires a Royal Commission. Any assistance that you can provide will be greatly appreciated.” So folks, if after reading Garry’s revelations you find you’ve had a similar experience, just drop him an email or a note in the Comments section and make sure Garry adds your case to the growing list - KJ

WUNDOWIE, WA - Greetings and salutations, survivors of the great PNG experiment who are still on the perch!

Lend me your eyes and ears. I am in search of volunteers who would like to be recruited to accompany me on my last patrol.

Like Don Quixote I have picked up my drooping old lance and am setting out on this last epic patrol to tilt once more at the windmills of an uncaring bureaucracy.

Stanley Gene blasts through the pack (Love Rugby League)

CLARRIE BURKE

When Dr Clarrie Burke died in January 2019, there was an outpouring of grief in Papua New Guinea and Australia for a man who spent his life “in the service of educating and uplifting others”, as one PNG Attitude reader wrote. This article was published in September 2012 in Una Voce, the journal of the PNG Association of Australia (since renamed Kundu), titled ‘The times they began a’changing’ - KJ

BRISBANE - The time: 3 pm; date: August 14; year: 1960.

Anyone living in or visiting Port Moresby in the hours leading up to that time would have reckoned with the endless unbroken lines of cars and swollen streams of ‘native’* people on foot being directed by traffic police from both sides of Hubert Murray Highway into Lahara Avenue.

When grass roots Papua New Guineans were asked about Australia and China, the results were not too flash for PNG's former colonial master

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - On the back of Australia's disastrous drubbing by China in the Solomon Islands, new research from Papua New Guinea has delivered more bad news for the Morrison government.

In 2021, a coalition of Papua New Guinean researchers embarked on an unprecedented endeavour.

The aged care home - privatisation is privation

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - When you crack the Bible’s ‘threescore years and ten’ something strange happens – you begin to fade from view.

If my elderly next door neighbour is anything to go by, when you progress to your eighties you are all but invisible.

I can see him but no one else seems to.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – In his thoughtful exposition, ‘What should we do with Bougainville’, Joe Ketan neatly outlines what is described as a 'wicked' policy problem, meaning one for which there is no good solution.

It is abundantly clear that, if Bougainville's demand for independence is not acceded to by the Papua New Guinean parliament, it is likely a unilateral declaration of independence will be declared by an angry and frustrated Autonomous Bougainville Government.

Dependency Theory

STEPHEN CHARTERIS

CAIRNS – “We have the local knowledge, we live it -” Dr Momia Teariki-Tautea, PNG Attitude, 29 March 2022

I thank the doctor for his truism, but I would ask whether Papua New Guineans have applied it?

I suggest the knowledge Dr Teariki-Tautea speaks of is ignored by nearly all administrative arms of the PNG government.

The architect John Amory-designed residence in Warrawee sold to Lynda Babao for K16 million

A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

CANBERRA - In August 2020, the Australian media reported that former prime minister Peter O’Neill’s wife, Lynda Babao, had bought a $6 million (K16 million) house at Warrawee on Sydney’s upper north shore.

A few months before, another Sydney residence associated with the family had been quietly sold for $12.35 million (K33 million).

Solomons prime minister Manasseh Sogavare and China's premier Li Keqiang in the Great Hall of the People, 9 October 2019 (Thomas Peter, Reuters)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - The Australian government and its tame media are displaying shock and indignation this morning as details come to light about Solomon Islands agreeing to cooperate with China in policing and security, roles historically performed by Australia.

In early February, PNG Attitude reported on extensive negotiations between the two countries that covered a long shopping list including almost every sector and industry in the Solomons.

1,300 people had sought refuge in this theatre in Mariupol, bombed earlier this week. Only 130 have been rescued

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – The ugly war in Ukraine is not proceeding according to Vladimir Putin’s wishes.

The result so far is a strategic failure that seems to be engendering a situation within Russia that is quite unstable.

Dictatorships rest largely upon an ability to enforce control by inspiring fear, and they employ large security apparatuses to do this.

Sylvia Pascoe - “I’m not the type of person that sees an issue and just walks away from it”  (Godfree Kaptigau,  The Guardian)

LEANNE JORARI
| Guardian News & Media Ltd | Edited
|  Supported by the Judith Nielson Institute for Journalism & Ideas

PORT MORESBY – In June, entrepreneur Sylvia Pascoe will attempt to take her leadership to the highest level by contesting the country’s national election.

Pascoe, who began the Port Moresby city markets, is passionate about creating opportunities for business owners and entrepreneurs, especially other women.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

PORT MORESBY - Following the 2021 Port Moresby Northwest by-election, we conducted a small survey among 120 UPNG students and working class residents of the electorate.

One of the questions we asked was about the criteria they used to cast their votes in the by-election.

CAROLINE MIMBS NYCE
| Senior Associate Editor, The Atlantic

WASHINGTON DC - One year has passed since a gunman took the lives of six Asian women and two others at spas in the Atlanta area.

The shooting spurred new activism and awareness around violence against the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in the United States.