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SOUTH PACIFIC POST   A colourful rainbow hung over Port Moresby amid threatening rain clouds as the Prime Minister emerged from the Waigani court room smiling and waving to supporters from the left side of his official car. A man in the crowd shouted: “Sukundumi, Sunkundumi” to Sir Michael who responded with a smile and a wave. Sir Michael had claimed at one time that he is the Sukundumi – the great Sepik River God. Ministers, departmental heads, bureaucrats and members of the public who went to hear the tribunal decision waved on the PM and his entourage as they drove through the National and Supreme court car park from the back of the court buildings. Many of the East Sepik people in Port Moresby had been camping at the Prime Minister’s official Mirigini House behind the Parliament and the National Museum and Art Gallery since Wednesday. Several landowner leaders of the resources-rich Southern High-lands Province also turned up to show their support for the Prime Minister. They contr

SOUTH PACIFIC POST   A colourful rainbow hung over Port Moresby amid threatening rain clouds as the Prime Minister emerged from the Waigani court room smiling and waving to supporters from the left side of his official car. A man in the crowd shouted: “Sukundumi, Sunkundumi” to Sir Michael who responded with a smile and a wave. Sir Michael had claimed at one time that he is the Sukundumi – the great Sepik River God. Ministers, departmental heads, bureaucrats and members of the public who went to hear the tribunal decision waved on the PM and his entourage as they drove through the National and Supreme court car park from the back of the court buildings. Many of the East Sepik people in Port Moresby had been camping at the Prime Minister’s official Mirigini House behind the Parliament and the National Museum and Art Gallery since Wednesday. Several landowner leaders of the resources-rich Southern High-lands Province also turned up to show their support for the Prime Minister. They co

SUSAN MERRELL Aripaea Salmon, father of the alleged victim in the Julian Moti case died on the island of Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu on Sunday 20 March of a heart attack. Just three days earlier on March 17, in a videoed interview, he signalled his and his family’s intentions to cease co-operating with the Australian prosecution of Moti. Asked if he, his wife or his daughter intended to travel to Australia to testify, he replied, “no”. Salmon stated that he had been “swept along” in a case not of his choosing and over which his family had little control. He said the child-sex tourism charges with which Moti had been charged had been presented to the family as a fait accompli and that none of his family had made any subsequent complaint after the case was settled in Vanuatu. He said the Australian Federal Police (AFP) told them that if they did not cooperate it would “go against them.” He also admitted that he could not be sure that the offences with which Moti was charged actually occurr

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HERALD SUN An Advertiser investigation has found AusAID is investigating 175 fraud cases across 27 countries. Documents released under Freedom of Information expose a criminal trail in some of the world's poorest countries with widespread theft of cash and forging of receipts. They also show how food and other supplies are diverted from dirt-poor communities and sold on to the black market at inflated prices. While AusAID insists it is improving fraud control, the documents also reveal police are often reluctant to charge local criminals - frustrating the agency's attempts to recover missing aid money. In one case, the Eritrean Government in 2006 seized food and other supplies from the United Nation's World Food Program, saddling Australian taxpayers with a probable loss of $1.25 million. The revelations will do little to boost public confidence in a foreign aid program that is forecast to nearly double by 2015 to $8 billion a year. Papua New Guinea has emerged as Corrupti

HERALD SUN An Advertiser investigation has found AusAID is investigating 175 fraud cases across 27 countries. Documents released under Freedom of Information expose a criminal trail in some of the world's poorest countries with widespread theft of cash and forging of receipts. They also show how food and other supplies are diverted from dirt-poor communities and sold on to the black market at inflated prices. While AusAID insists it is improving fraud control, the documents also reveal police are often reluctant to charge local criminals - frustrating the agency's attempts to recover missing aid money. In one case, the Eritrean Government in 2006 seized food and other supplies from the United Nation's World Food Program, saddling Australian taxpayers with a probable loss of $1.25 million. The revelations will do little to boost public confidence in a foreign aid program that is forecast to nearly double by 2015 to $8 billion a year. Papua New Guinea has emerged as