A hostile crowd gathers in Kaugere, Port Moresby, after a young man was fatally knifed. The mob later torched several houses owned by Engan residents (Photo: Courtesy Hon Justin Tkatchenko's Facebook)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA –Papua New Guinea has underestimated its population by nearly half, research by United Nations and British experts have found.

Previous estimates, based on the last census 12 years ago, had put the population at about nine million.

The properties before they were destroyed. Daniel Kumbon feels the pain of personal loss after writing about tribal warfare for years 

DANIEL KUMBON

PORT MORESBY – For nearly 40 years, I have been reporting about the consequences of tribal warfare which every year continues to claim hundreds of lives and destruction to property in Enga.

I never thought the threat of tribal warfare would reach me and my Aimbarep tribe. But right now, as I write, this evil scourge is knocking on my door.

I am desperately trying to repel it from here in Port Moresby, where I am seeking medical treatment.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - I have spent many decades studying the wise, wonderful, astonishing, strange and all too often terrible and cruel behaviours of human beings as, collectively, we have created what we call history.

One thing is obvious. History does not follow a predictable and linear trajectory by which we collectively reach progressively higher levels of economic success and enlightened civilisation.

In fact, a feature of history is how good we are at engineering the collapse of elaborate, successful and productive civilisations.

MEDIA RELEASES
| Act Now PNG | Edited Extracts

PORT MORESBY - More than 30 large-scale logging projects in Papua New Guinea appear to be operating in defiance of a court ban issued by the deputy chief justice in June 2021.

Together the logging operations accounted for 40% of PNG’s total log exports in the 12 months to June 2022.

Anthony Walep is a lawyer assisting the Alliance of Solwara Warriors and the Centre for Environmental Law and Human Rights (CELCOR)

PAUL OEKA
| PNG Business News

MADANG - The Alliance of Solwara Warriors, a coalition of coastal communities, has appealed to the Papua New Guinea government to cancel seabed mining and exploration licenses in the country.

The Alliance also called for the termination of Nautilus Minerals’ mining license, which is still active even though the company went bankrupt in 2019.

Centre, Jerry Ubase (Secretary, Community Development & Religion Department); right, Wesley Serber (Aramba Development Foundation); with  members of organisations working to prevent family and gender violence   (Lydia Kaia,  UNDP PNG)

NEWSLETTER
| United Nations Development Program PNG

PORT MORESBY - Wesley Serber is a man on a mission, determined to end the cruelty and abuse caused by sorcery accusation-related violence (SARV) in the remote communities of the South Fly region of Papua New Guinea.

A large number of sorcery accusation-related violence cases use glasman or glasmeri (akin to witchdoctors) to falsely and maliciously accuse men and women of sorcery for financial gain.

PRISILLA MANOVE
| Prisilla’s Notes

GOROKA - In the remote and rugged highlands of Papua New Guinea, traditional Indigenous communities have practiced sustainable farming techniques for centuries.

Kuk in Western Highlands Province is one of the first places on earth where people started farming.

BRENDAN CRABB & MIKE TOOLE

 "The nurses would spend hours sitting with their dying patients holding their hands
ensuring they weren’t alone in their final minutes of life" - Emma Reardon

MELBOURNE - The arrival just over a year ago of the new and different-looking Omicron variant of Covid-19 brought much hope that this would usher in the end of the pandemic.

That hope was based on two assumptions: that Omicron led to milder disease than earlier variants, and that its extraordinary capacity to spread fast would mean that the wider population would rapidly be exposed to this ‘milder’ virus and further boost the immunity that 95% of Australian adults already had through two doses of the vaccine.

HOGANDE KIAFULI

LAE - The Jimi District in Jiwaka Province is one of the most remote areas in Papua New Guinea.

I have travelled to Middle and Upper Jimi on my way to Kompiam and experienced firsthand the struggles of access that the people of Jimi have when it comes to accessing primary medical services.

Jimi district represents the many rural and remote (some very isolated) places in PNG where accessing primary medical care is limited by poor road access.

STEPHEN CHARTERIS

“Audacious women leaders from across the Oceanic Pacific have simply had enough [and] a re-imagined positioning of women in the Oceanic space. When this happens, women can begin to confidently resist being ‘confined physically and psychologically’ by demanding supportive, equitable and decolonised relationships” - ‘Ofakilevuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki, Enough is enough: audaciously decolonising the development and humanitarian nexus, Mitchell Oration 2022

CAIRNS – ‘Ofakilevaku (‘Ofa) Guttenbeil-Likiliki is Director of the Women & Children Crisis Centre in Tonga and a filmmaker and women’s rights activist.

In a recent speech she addressed a serious and not uncommon issue: the high-handed attitudes of those who believe they know better than people with lived experience.

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.

KANNI WIGNARAJA & DIRK WAGENER
| United Nations Development Programme

PORT MORESBY - Papua New Guinea’s natural beauty is undeniable. Home to lush tropical rainforests, magnificent mountains and pristine islands and seas, PNG is one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries, accounting for about five percent of global biodiversity.

A little-known fact is that the country’s rainforest is the third largest in the world.

PNG also lies at the heart of the Coral Triangle – a region that is home to 76% of all known coral species.

BOMAI DOO *

PORT MORESBY – I remember that morning well. It was around eight and the streets of Four Mile were filled with people, some going to work, some coming from work, plenty looking for work.

Many of the multitude were street sellers trying to make a few bucks from the crowd, or from each other.

Our bus stopped in front of Mondo clothing with the crew shrieking ‘hurry up, hurry up, this is police stop, you want us to get caught?’

The 17 million population estimate rang alarm bells in Canberra and was considered so sensitive the PNG government initially refused permission for it to be published

Koki, a suburb of Port Moresby best known for its market and other commercial activities

BEN PACKHAM & TICKY FULLERTON
| The Australian

CANBERRA - A new United Nations study has found Papua New Guinea could have a population of 17 million – almost double the official estimate.

The new population forecast would, if accurate, would slash measures of PNG’s living standards and ramp up concerns over its fragility as a nation state.

“I'm afraid to live in this country. Police officers and army men think they're above the law and that they can get away with so many things. Corruption runs rampant in these streets” - Kaliop Ingirin Tomai

Port Moresby is considered to be one of the world's least livable cities

BOMAI DOO *

PORT MORESBY – I am still on probation in my job and the pay is really not enough to live on. I spend half of it on bus fares to get to and from work.

But who am I to complain or quit my job when so many accounting graduates from the universities are roaming the streets doing nothing.

LEONARD FONG ROKA

PANGUNA - Sometime in 2017 or 2018 I wrote an article for the PNG Post-Courier office at Arawa warning people that the Panguna mine pit could turn into a lake.

Twenty years of earth being chipped away by small scale alluvial gold operations had brought the Kabarong river perilously close to breaching the pit wall.

Now, in 2022, it is happening.

“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.

We have created a civilisation capable of destroying the environment on a global scale and that is exactly what is happening.  The warning bells from history are ringing loudly but our leaders and too many of the rest of us are not listening

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – The proposal by Newcrest Mining and Harmony Gold to dump plans to dump hundreds of millions of tonnes of mining waste into Huon Gulf shows why the people of Planet Earth are collectively doomed to disaster.

There is no chance this side of hell that international capitalism will stop despoiling the planet as long as there is money to be made.

“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.

New Britain island is under threat from rapid forest loss due to agricultural conversion with over 450,000 hectares under permits for forest clearance

West New Britain dancers welcome delegates to the official launch of the sustainable development project (Clive Hawigen,  UNDP )

NEWS DESK
| United Nations Development Program

PORT MORESBY - A project has been launched in West New Britain to promote sustainable land-use.

New Britain island’s ecosystems range from dense lowland plains to a central mountainous spine with peaks of over 2,000 meters.

"Even in the hell of life, God reminds us of the beautiful gift of children. I reached out my hand as tears rolled down my eyes. Their gentle hands were rich in kindness, gratitude and smiles. I could not speak"

West Papuan refugees at Hohola with visitors from Caritas and the Catholic Bishops Conference who have supported them in Port Moresby and PNG’s border provinces (Reilly Kanamon)

REILLY KANAMON

PORT MORESBY – The plea from the West Papuan refugees in Port Moresby was resounding.

“All we long for now is a piece of land we can own. A piece of land that is all we need to rebuild ourselves, that is home to us.”

The kwila trees are considered to be ancestors and are never cut down. The Tivia clan only use the wood when the trees fall naturally. "Our belief is that when the masalai touch that sap, humans come out from that. It is the creation of our clan”

JO CHANDLER
| The Guardian | @jo_m_chandler

MADANG - In mid-May, a bulldozer began clearing a logging road into an area of largely untouched rainforest near the village of Suburam, on Papua New Guinea’s north coast, between the mountains of the Adelbert Range and the Bismarck Sea.

Towering kwila trees were among those locals say were felled by loggers. This is a coveted, high-value species that yields the rich red timber familiar in Australia as merbau.

Two new vaccines may finally turn back the ancient plague of malaria. But the arrival of the vaccines also complicates the path to ending the disease

It’s beautiful but Kenya’s Wigwa River is a breeding site for mosquitoes (Photograph by Kang-Chun Cheng)

APOORVA MANDAVILLI
| New York Times

Link here to read the complete story

NEW YORK, USA - All through childhood, Miriam Abdullah was shuttled in and out of hospitals, her thin body wracked with fever and ravaged by malaria.

She was so sick so often that her constant treatments drained her parents, who also cared for her many siblings, both financially and emotionally.

 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.

As deadly earthquakes pose catastrophic risks to communities, all levels of government have been asked to pause the Wafi-Golpu deep sea tailings pipeline proposal until consent has been given by affected communities

A large crack in a highway near Kainantu following the 7.6 magnitude Morobe earthquake that killed at least seven people

NOOSA - Following the deadly Morobe earthquake 10 days ago, a coalition of Papua New Guinean and Australian civil society organisations have called for a pause to the Wafi-Golpu gold mine project.

The quake had a magnitude of 7.6 and the organisations want the geology to be fully understood and for Morobe communities to be consulted, especially on the risks of deep sea tailings placement (DSTP) to their livelihoods and health.

KEITH JACKSON

WARD 9, WESLEY HOSPITAL, BRISBANE – A return to the keyboard. I type this haltingly, and with much error and correction.

Eight days ago, in a four hour operation, I had my seventh major spinal surgery. Two days ago I began to walk again, with acceptably little pain and great steadiness.

The House of Hope provides emotional, physical and material assistance to restore the dignity of survivors of violence and to promote their recovery and empowerment

House rules and artwork done by survivors of sorcery accusation related violence at the House of Hope. It is part of the rehabilitation process and therapy for survivors (Gerard Ng,  UNDP Papua New Guinea)

NEWS DESK
| United Nations Development Program PNG

PORT MORESBY - Since the beginning of this year, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), through its partner Catholic Diocese of Mendi, has reached over 1,000 people through 17 awareness programs on sorcery accusation related violence (SARV).

Responding to the grave human rights violations resulting from SARV in Southern Highlands Province, the Catholic Diocese of Mendi actively advocates against the practice and provides post-violence victim recovery support through a safe house – the House of Hope.

Every day there was gunfire in Enga Province. Constant reports of death and destruction poured in from almost every district. Property valued at millions of kina went up in smoke - shops, homes, schools, health facilities

DANIEL KUMBON

PORT MORESBY - I had terrible dreams, some so scary they made me sweat, in the last couple of weeks I was up there in Wabag.

Maybe my poor brain recorded so much destruction, crime, violence, atrocities and human rights violations that the events kept resurfacing in my sleep.

When they say ‘gold is a resource’, then anything in and around it is useless. The people living on the land above the gold, anything else in the ground and down the rivers are seen as a nuisance

EMMANUEL PENI
| Presentation at the Lowy Institute

SYDNEY - Papua New Guineans are proud and resilient people. We come from a bloodline of some of the most ingenious and innovative people.

Our ancestors sailed the oceans before others did. Our ancestors invented agriculture! Let that sink in.

We're on a path to 3 degrees by the end of the century, or sooner. At 3 degrees much of planetary life would end. McGuire argues that changes to the biosphere are now at the point of no return

RICHARD HIL
| Pearls & Irritations

NORTHERN NSW - A couple of months ago I set off with my partner to the northern hemisphere for a prolonged stint in Canada.

I’ll admit I was excited and relieved to be getting away from the rain-soaked Northern Rivers.

The region had been robbed of sunlight for months on end and the trauma of the floods earlier in the year was deeply ingrained, even though I was among the lucky few whose house was spared.

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.

A communications response to the challenges of life in rural Papua New Guinea uses storytelling to change attitudes and behaviour.
“My daughters have no mother. My son has no mother. I have no wife”

A scene from It Takes A Village

GRACE HEAOA

PORT MORESBY - ‘It takes a village’ is a five-part Papua New Guinean television drama drawing attention to the plight of pregnant women and the risks of childbirth.

Rex is an emerging rugby league star in his local village and his wife, Miriam, is expecting their third child.

David Berger has been forced to submit to a Communist style re-education program and humiliation where he has to explain how he has behaved discourteously, unprofessionally and offended the community. If he does not comply, this skilled, ethical and courageous doctor will face deregistration because he told the truth

Dr David Berger - Covid truth teller who the Australian authorities are trying to silence as they seek to cover up accountability for over 10,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of seriously ill victims

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - There has been an outpouring of support for Australian doctor David Berger, whose social media activity has been censored and registration as a doctor threatened because he tells the truth about the incompetence of the Australian government’s handling of Covid.

Dr Berger has been an acute reporter, knowledgeable analyst and severe critic of how Australian governments have failed the public in their handling of Covid.

It's likely the government, particularly under Peter Dutton, acted illegally in limiting the number of partner visa places to an extraordinary degree

ABUL RIVZI
| Pearls & Irritations

CANBERRA - In 2018, I wrote about one of opposition leader Peter Dutton’s lesser known scandals – his action to egregiously limit the number of partner visas.

In 1989 and in 1996-97, parliament voted to ensure partner visa applications (more specifically spouse visa applications) were managed on a demand driven basis.

The ‘designed to fail’ policies that glisten with promises come to nought in delivery because the Whitefella wants to be able to control, constrain and interfere with the Blackfella’s interests

New South Wales Mounted Police attack Aboriginal people, Waterloo Creek, 1838

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY – I’m currently writing a history of the South Australian Aboriginal Heritage Branch, based in Adelaide, where I was employed between 1974 and 1994.

It’s tentatively called ‘Full Circle’ – the title describing a 20-year trajectory in which the Branch went from virtually nothing to journey through a period of high productivity and public recognition before finally looping back to irrelevance and obscurity, buried in a high rise city building.

A Twitter thread examining the alarming, tragic and unfinished story of Covid in Australia: where the people are now; how we got here; and what we must do to extract ourselves from this shitshow

Image by The Age

COLIN KINNER
(@ColinKinner)

BRISBANE - First, where are we right now? Some facts.

Around 50% of all Australians have had Covid, there have been 9,700 deaths from Covid and about half a million people are suffering from Long Covid.

To put that in perspective, the current death rate is around 50 people per day, and increasing.

The chainsaws had finished their day’s work. Through the silence I heard birds chirping; and the faint sad cry of a bird of paradise

DUNCAN GABI
| Auna Melo Independent Blog

WEWAK - I looked down at my feet stuck in the red clay, then raised my head. Before me a machine was constructing a new road through the thick jungle.

I could see the shape of the mechanical caterpillar munching away the forest.

I took a step and slipped, quickly rebalanced and steadied on my feet.

Drivers compete with each other for a few metres of advantage and swap insults with hand signals to assert their rights of domination

Traffic in Port Moresby

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Dervla Murphy, the Irish travel writer who died aged 90 last month, had two particular dislikes. The first was capitalism and the second was motorcars.

In the early 1960s she rode an old fashioned gearless pushbike from Waterford in Ireland to India. She subsequently undertook many more similar adventures on her trusty wiliwil.

'Government should tell us the facts about the effects and benefits rather than forcing people to get vaccine'

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - Public health experts agree that widespread vaccination coverage together with mask-wearing, distancing and some other protocols are the best way to end pandemics.

While vaccination is not the only protection, it is a vital component of keeping the disease under control.

While rebuilding a strong and effective aid program will take time, there are already in existence opportunities to increase funding for highly effective multilateral programs

The 30-year demolition of Australia's foreign aid budget, 1972-2022 (Australian Council for International Development)

MATT MORRIS
| Twitter | Edited

CANBERRA - Poverty reduction and the United Nations’ sustainable development goals offer a good guiding framework for development aid.

Within this, however, Australia needs to carefully prioritise its aid spending both within countries and in its global programs.

Panguna mine, derelict for 32 years following the outbreak of a 10-year civil war, becomes the main target of an ugly race for Bougainville's wealth

Bougainville rebels watch over the Panguna mine site (Encyclopaedia of New Zealand)

JUBILEE AUSTRALIA

Scramble for resources: The international race for Bougainville’s mineral wealth, Jubilee Australia Research Centre, Sydney NSW, June 2022, 44 pages. Free download here

Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd: “Scramble for Resources shines a much-needed light on the practices of the new waves of mining and exploration companies in Bougainville. Given the sheer number of Australian companies involved in this stampede for Bougainville’s resources, and the consequences for people living on the island, its findings should cause Australians to sit up and take notice”

It is time human rights and the environment were respected by Australian companies. PNG should not be a dumping ground

Emmanuel (Manu) Peni with Boe Spearim of Let's Talk, a program of Australia's National Indigenous Radio Service

EMMANUEL PENI & LUKE FLETCHER

WEWAK - In Papua New Guinea, the election campaign is heating up ahead of national general elections in July.

Part of the PNG government’s election messaging is focused on its commitment to the Wafi Golpu joint venture project – an immense proposed copper and gold mine in Morobe Province.

As with the Frieda River mine in the Sepik, there are serious concerns about how to manage the huge volume of toxic mine waste the project will produce.

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.

STEPHEN CHARTERIS

Rethinking how primary healthcare services are funded & delivered in rural PNG

CAIRNS – It was nearing dusk when we happened upon the two boys.

Relieved though I was to have found human habitation, I couldn't help observing that a shirtless boy at the front of the canoe likely had tuberculosis.

A regional tuberculosis treatment centre in PNG (World Vision)

STEVEN TRASK
| SBS News

PNG has already seen the emergence and spread of highly-drug resistant TB strains

SYDNEY - While all eyes are on the Covid-19 crisis, one of the world's deadliest diseases continues to haunt the Pacific.

Tuberculosis, or TB, is a highly-contagious airborne bacterial infection that attacks the lungs.

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.

Lydia Gah is a Nakani woman from West New Britain

BRENDAN MOUNTER
| ABC Far North

Following her divorce, Lydia pursued her education and went on to become a counsellor and social worker

TOWNSVILLE – Born prematurely in a remote village in New Britain, Lydia Gah learnt to survive from her very first breath.

But it’s her story as the survivor of a 12-year abusive marriage that she’s determined to share with the world.

NEWS DESK
| Act Now

PORT MORESBY - Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforests have enormous importance locally and internationally, but are under threat from a variety of sources including commercial logging.

The government has committed to drastically reduce the rate of commercial logging.

It has also committed to increase ‘downstream processing’ to increase financial returns by ending the export of unprocessed round logs by 2025.

Coastline near Papua New Guinea - Indonesia border (Johnny Blades, RNZ)

NEWS DESK
| Radio New Zealand

AUCKLAND - Border crossing arrangements between Papua New Guinea and Queensland through the Torres Strait have been suspended.

PNG's police commissioner and National Pandemic Response controller, David Manning, has declared the new measure under the National Pandemic Act.