Countries with lowest immunisation rates averaged across measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and hepatitis B vaccines, 2019

STEPHEN HOWES & KINGTAU MAMBON
| DevPolicy Blog

CANBERRA - The World Bank reports data immunisation coverage for nearly all countries in relation to three vaccines: measles; combined diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus (DPT); and hepatitis B.

For all three, the most recent data (2019) show that Papua New Guinea has the lowest vaccination rates in the world for infants: 37% for measles, 35% for DPT and 35% for hepatitis B.

SIMON PENTANU

The Earth is getting warmer
Sea levels are rising
It’s happening now, as you read this
And it will continue as we continue
to argue, “by how much”
For the future of humanity
it’s a question of survival

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY – It happened when we were still absorbing dire warnings in the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and reeling from the latest Covid-19 outbreaks in NSW and Victoria.

That’s when the Taliban strolled into Kabul and took Afghanistan back after 20 years of occupation by the Americans and their allies, including Australia.

A western NSW vaccination clinic in Dubbo. Indigenous communities are pleading for vaccine, the supply of which the Morrison government constantly lies about (Photo - Ben Wilkins)

NOOSA - It was the slightest of deceits, as unnecessary as it was sly, but nothing out of the ordinary from a person whose honour is tarnished and competency unaccounted for.

I write of the premier of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, who bears much responsibility, together with her soulmate the prime minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, for steering an entire nation into a position of great danger.

KEITH JACKSON

Download here the full civil society report on the implementation of preventive measures of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption in Papua New Guinea

NOOSA – A report by Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) on how the Papua New Guinea government is meeting its obligations under the United Nations Convention against corruption has highlighted “a multitude of deficiencies hindering the successful implementation” of the Convention.

In summary the TIPNG report concludes that the PNG government has been only partially compliant with its obligations.

GREGORY BABLIS
| Ples Singsing

Patterning the water
Ripples
Bouncing off the surface
Reflections
Rolling to the shallows

Waves
Doorway to a safer place
Coral lagoon
Giving cooling shade
Trees
Sulka spirit of place

ROBERT FORSTER

NORTHUMBRIA – Keith Jackson writes and I too have begun to worry that many people under the age of 40 have lost resilience, stoicism replaced with almost permanent protestations of victimhood.

Or who exhibit grievances with so much of what is said to them or by being exposed to unavoidable circumstances like the Covid pandemic.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - As an historian I have a special interest in the causes, courses and consequences of war.

And I am especially interested in the character, motivation and achievements of those who end up as leaders.

JOSEPH TAMBURE

Mister, you pledged roads tomorrow
We’ve been awaiting them for years
With tired mountain bags and legs

Mister, you pledged us bridges
But nothing happened at all
Except logs placed by village men

Nightfall on the University of Technology campus, Lae (Elizha Maino)

ISO YAWI

FICTION - When I first entered university, I came with huge expectations to the University of Technology.

All that was in my mind was keeping my eyes on the books, attending lectures, passing the examinations and graduating with high grades.

That’s what I intended to do. It was in my mind and it was in my heart.

GREGORY BABLIS
| Ples Singsing

I’ve battled you most of my life
In health, I am winning
But damn you give me so much strife
When your death zone I’m entering
Warmth leaves my body
Like a soul unmooring from its host
The flashes you give are hot yet chilly
I feel half human, half ghost.

Hot or cold, I cannot tell
In the night and in the day
I’m freezing my ass off in hell
No time for work or play

KEITH JACKSON

The 'Afore Highway' from Oro Bay, described as "a reasonable gravel track with some challenging sections" is to be upgraded as part of the Mangalas project

NOOSA –Governor Gary Juffa has won the support of prime minister James Marape in establishing the innovative Managalas forest carbon pilot project in the Afore region, located between the Owen Stanley and Hydrographers ranges in Oro Province.

The project, billed as ‘a sustainable integrated land development’ will both conserve rainforest and reforest the grassed plains with cash crops including coffee and coconuts.

Scott Morrison and Gladys Berejiklian - incompetent politicians who are existential threats to Australia

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – This piece starts in Papua New Guinea, the place that taught me what resilience really means.

After my arrival in the country in 1963, one of the attributes that quickly endeared me to Papua New Guineans was their tenacity; even if it tended to be a tenacity conditional on whether people were convinced that what they were asked to do was meaningful.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – In an insightful piece, ‘A Place, A Time & Lessons Learned’, Jim Moore writes that “we humans share so many common traits and characteristics that transcend time and place [and] we need to recognise that we don't know it all... that we’re not members of an exceptional tribe”.

We humans do indeed share many common characteristics, and simultaneously our different cultures create endless opportunities for misunderstanding and conflict.

Ol narapela kain man. Young kiaps, 1960s

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY – Culture shock. It was one of the things expatriates were warned about at the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) before departing to take up positions in the then colonial Administration of the Australian Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

Culture shock describes those feelings of excitement, anxiety, confusion and uncertainty when you find yourself in a new and unfamiliar environment.

KEITH JACKSON

Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey used parliament to put reserve bank governor Leo Bakani on the spot (PNG Bulletin)

PORT MORESBY – Papua New Guinea’s Treasurer, Ian Ling-Stuckey, has sent a strong ‘please explain’ to PNG’s central bank governor, Loi Bakani.

Ling-Stuckey minced no words in asking Bakani why he had disassociated the central bank from its own Financial Analysis and Supervision Unit (FASU).

PNG petroleum minister Kerenga Kua and Esso PNG chairman Peter Larden (Lorraine Wohi)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Papua New Guinea’s petroleum minister Kerenga Kua and ExxonMobil PNG managing director Peter Larden have announced that talks will resume on the P’nyang natural gas project.

In November 2019 negotiations collapsed with the PNG government saying Exxon was unwilling to negotiate on PNG’s terms.

Sonia Paua was "determined as hell" to finish the painful treatment. "She wasn't going to give up"

ZALIKA RIZMAL & WILL JACKSON
| Pacific Beat | ABC | Edited extracts

MELBOURNE - Sonia Paua flew to Australia from Papua New Guinea to undergo medical treatment that sounds on paper like some kind of medieval torture.

When seven years old, Sonia was diagnosed with a rare and painful bone infection, chronic osteomyelitis, in her left leg.

JIM MOORE

WARRADALE – The Territory of Papua and New Guinea before independence in 1975 was a place that was unique in the experience of we outsiders who lived and worked there.

The differences between the traditional cultures we encountered and our own Western culture seemed so marked.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - The recent report of the Constitutional Law Reform Commission recommended changes to Papua New Guinea’s Constitution to officially make it a Christian country.

Such a move, should parliament endorse it as seems likely despite some strong opposition, has many intriguing possibilities.

Roche - Ukini tribe couple in Lgeg area circa 1974. The man is wearing a badge ‘Baiyer River Local Government Council – Ward Committee’ (Roche)

FR GARRETT ROCHE

MAYNOOTH - Jim Moore’s article, ‘A Baiyer court case, a good kiap reflects’, brought back some memories and some questions.

The questions simply involved my wondering what specific tribes were involved in the court case Jim presided over, and where in Baiyer the conflict occurred.

Healthcare worker at Rumginae Hospital in the North Fly District of Western Province (United Nations)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Papua New Guinea has registered nearly 18,000 Covid infections and is approaching 200 deaths but medical experts say official statistics are likely to be highly inaccurate.

This is because of unidentified deaths, sick people not seeking treatment, low levels of testing, illness and deaths unreported or attributed to other causes and poor data gathering.

Belden Namah - "We have seen the bulldozing of laws. This is bad law making. Bad laws will result"

BELDEN NAMAH
| Leader of the Opposition | Media Statement

PORT MORESBY – The Marape government has postponed parliamentary sittings so often it is now rushing laws through parliament.

During the current sitting, we have before the house a large number of proposed Constitutional laws.

Amendment to the Constitution must undergo certain processes and allow sufficient time for proper parliamentary scrutiny.

Professor Evelyn Lavu

STATEMENT
| Kirby Institute

SYDNEY - The Kirby Institute joins colleagues and friends in Papua New Guinea in mourning the sudden loss of Professor Evelyn Lavu.

Professor Lavu was the country’s most senior pathologist and an internationally recognised leader in the fight against HIV, malaria and drug-resistant tuberculosis.

CAROLINE EVARI

PORT MORESBY - The month of August is a significant month in Papua New Guinea for authors and schools.

It is during this month that schools celebrate Book Week, and this year I was privileged to launch the Book Week program at Kopkop College in Port Moresby.

Site of the Porgera gold mine in Enga Province (Porgera Joint Venture)

SIMON PENTANU

KIETA - I visited Enga Province for the first time in early July this year for a meeting between the Autonomous Bougainville Government and the Papua New Guinea National Government.

The meeting was one of a number to consult on the outcome of the Bougainville referendum on independence that showed a huge majority of Bougainvilleans favouring the creation of their own nation.

'As a fighting machine the US military remains without peer'

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Martin Hadlow's comments, ‘Taliban had time, and are not so benign’, are both informed and pertinent.

There has been much hysterical commentary in the media about the sudden collapse of the Afghan government and of the USA's precipitous and badly planned withdrawal.

Hand-compiling the Kabul Weekly newspaper (Martin Hadlow)

MARTIN HADLOW

SAMFORD VALLEY - After living and working for long periods in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, I align myself with those who would consider themselves 'professional optimists.'

However, even my optimism was tempered when I read Tony Kevin's view of the Taliban and how it operates, 'The Afghanistan disaster, Russia & China'.

Front page Post-Courier pic from the Hanuabada Hawks v Magani-Badili PRL grand final, 1974. Hawks won 44-29. Richard was probably there

RICHARD E JONES

BENDIGO - When we (my wife and I) lived in Port Moresby during the 1960s and 70s there were five member clubs of the Papuan Rugby League (PRL).

These were Kone Tigers (gold and black), Paga (light blue), Magani-Badili (maroon), DCA or Department of Civil Aviation (white with a blue V) and Hanuabada Hawks (green and white — mainly green).

MAI SATO & MATTHEW GOLDBERG
| Monash University | The Conversation

MELBOURNE - On 30 July, the Papua New Guinea supreme court of quashed the national court’s temporary stay of executions for all people sentenced to death.

The judgment has cleared a major obstacle to carrying out death sentences for the first time in nearly 70 years. It makes execution a real possibility for 15 individuals who are on death row.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE –The notion that Papua New Guinea should declare itself a Christian state is an appalling mistake.

It is both irrelevant and a specious argument that 70% of those consulted supported the proposed change, given that almost all of them will have been Christians.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Jim Moore’s excellent piece, ‘A Baiyer court case. A good kiap reflects’, accurately describes the situation confronting any kiap when trying to administer the law in a fair and just way in those pre-independence years in Papua New Guinea.

When I went to PNG in 1969 I was 18 years old and knew virtually nothing about life generally.

Waiting room at Mt Hagen hospital (Mark Dozier,  AFP)

JOHNNY BLADES
| Radio New Zealand Pacific

AUCKLAND - The heat on Papua New Guinea's hospitals appears to have eased, but some worry the country could still be asleep to the full extent of its Covid-19 outbreak.

Earlier this year, soaring case numbers stretched PNG's health system and workforce to the limit.

MELISSA COADE
| The Mandarin | Edited extracts

MELBOURNE - A global initiative to deliver two billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine to developing nations by the end of the year is half a billion doses short as reports emerge that Australia took hundreds of thousands of Pfizer doses from the Covax stockpile for domestic needs.

Covax was established to ensure that safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines reached the world’s high-risk and vulnerable populations in 92 low-middle income countries and economies.

A Tagali warlord presents his Mac58 and M16 at a Hela gun surrender. Technology has made clan warfare much more lethal

JIM MOORE

WARRADALE - Among the boxes of stuff in my shed, I dug up a document I had kept because I wanted to prove I had not embellished a story.

The document was a carbon copy of a Local Court case I heard at Baiyer River in the Western Highlands nearly 50 years ago, on 10 December 1971.

Chairman Kevin Isifu presents the 'Declare PNG as a Christian Country Review' to prime minister James Marape

NEWS DESK
| PNG Bulletin Online

PORT MORESBY – If Papua New Guinea is constitutionally declared a Christian country, this will not change the rights of people to follow other religions, faiths or beliefs, says Constitutional Law Reform Commission (CLRC) chairman Kevin Isifu.

Mr Isufu made these remarks when presenting the final report of a review investigating whether the Constitution should be changed to declare PNG a Christian country.

China was one of the first countries to recognise the Taliban's Islamic government In Afghanistan. "We respect the people's decision," said a spokesman

TONY KEVIN
| John Menadue’s Pearls & Irritations

CANBERRA - The fall of the Ashraf Ghani regime in Kabul came very suddenly but was entirely predictable.

Neighbouring great powers China and Russia had been quietly preparing for this expected outcome for months.

Russia has in practical ways been reaffirming its reliable security obligations to the ‘Stans’ on Afghanistan’s northern border and has doubtless engaged in informal diplomacy with Taliban contacts.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - The title to this piece comes from a book written by H G Wells and published in 1933.

In his book, Wells made a number of predictions about how the world would develop in the aftermath of World War I.

Some of his predictions were correct, notably regarding the development and use of air power to influence the outcome of warfare, especially strategic bombing.

JOE KETAN
| Edited extracts

MT HAGEN - It is widely accepted that people have been living on the island of New Guinea for at least 50,000 years BP (before present).

The ancestors of New Guinea Highlanders were among the earliest Papuan language speakers to arrive in the Pacific region.

The dome of the Bahá’í House of Worship has become a prominent landmark in the Waigani area of Port Moresby (Shannon Ambu)

OFFICE OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
| Bahá’í World News Service

PORT MORESBY - A major milestone has been reached with the completion of the complex steel structure of the Bahá’í House of Worship in Port Moresby.

This development comes after hundreds of steel components were individually positioned and linked with nine steel meshes to complete the dome structure on which the support frame was raised.

Democracy will have to do better than this... Panicked Afghans storm an aircraft as they try to leave Kabul after its seizure by the Taliban

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - While I endorse Governor Gary Juffa's sentiments in ‘The world is ours, let’s act that way', I am afraid 'ordinary people' will not retake possession of their particular worlds any time soon.

In places like China, theocratic Iran and newly Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, the world will belong to armed minorities who will impose their world view upon the great majority.

MICHAEL DOM

Thoughts in a day
are a measure,
acts are of being,
etched in its matrix,
as you and I are.

Dreams, the emancipation
of formless thought
awaiting conception
in the now and here
Who dares, lives them

Scrutineers watch as ballots are counted in Lae,  2017 (Terence Wood)

TERENCE WOOD
| DevPolicy Blog

CANBERRA - Papua New Guinea is set to hold elections halfway through next year.

Unlike many developing countries, PNG did not lapse into autocracy in the wake of independence. Its history of regular elections is something to be proud of.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - According to a recent study by the PNG National Research Institute (NRI), public servants trained in ethics and values-based leadership are sceptical that these courses can improve workplace behaviour.

Each year since 2015, with the aim of improving ethics on the job, selected groups of PNG public servants have been attending ethics and leadership courses at the Pacific Institute of Leadership and Governance.

PNG mining minister Johnson Tuke, who falsely claims PNG mining is sustainable & has trouble wearing a face mask,  poses with ambassador Jernej Videtic of the European Union, which is trying to convince PNG that 'green mining' is a thing

DUNCAN GABI

MADANG – At a meeting to discuss sustainable mining with European Union ambassador to PNG, Jernej Videtic, Papua New Guinea’s mining minister Johnson Tuke claimed his government is mindful of the impact mining has on the environment and people’s livelihoods.

Tuke also claimed the PNG government is addressing these issues by updating its regulatory framework and demanding investors introduce modern and sustainable technologies to diminish the negative impact of mining on the environment.

These claims were totally wrong. They were without truth.

Governor Gary Juffa and friends relax after a meeting of the People's Movement for Change

GOVERNOR GARY JUFFA

ORO - I say this often, but it cannot be said enough, although I’m confident that eventually many people will understand, and act upon their understanding, in due time.

I pity those who do not wish to understand and cannot see this reality, so let us focus on helping them understand.

Peter Aitsi - Over a period of years 90% of government agencies have failed to report on how they have spent billions of kina in public funds

MEDIA ROOM
| Transparency International PNG

PORT MORESBY – On Tuesday, as Papua New Guinea’s parliament reconvened on Tuesday following a six-month break, Transparency International PNG took the opportunity to highlight multiple failures in accountability by government agencies.

Transparency’s has made public an ‘Accountability Scorecard’ that reveals that the majority of public bodies in PNG had not submitted annual financial statements required by law under the Public Finance Act, with many not reporting for multiple years.

James Marape - The question of Bougainville independence is more challenging than Covid-19, the economy or any other issue

NEWS DESK
| Radio New Zealand

AUCKLAND – Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape says the possible independence of Bougainville is the greatest challenge Papua New Guinea faces.

The sanctity of the union of PNG as one country is very important, Mr Marape said, and the Bougainville issue was bigger than Covid-19, the economy or other challenges.

Fallen Leaf (Simon Pentanu)

SIMON PENTANU

Mountains may fall,
Hills may be no more
Oceans may evaporate,
but the seas keep rising.

A man he quickly comes and goes,
A woman she always lasts and stays.
We will always bear,
be born and die,
but keep multiplying unabated.

Who would want to have these three as family? Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott and Peter Dutton share a cruel joke at the expense of Pacific islanders, their attitudes and hypocrisy on public view

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - On behalf of all concerned people in Australia I would like to extend a sincere apology to the nations and people of the South Pacific.

We apologise for the misguided, inadequate, cowardly and reckless actions of our Australian federal government in failing to take seriously the dire consequences to you of climate change.