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Keep an eye on InterOil & George Soros

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Ed Lasky Are Barack Obama's energy policies influenced by hedge fund billionaire and political patron George Soros? The administration is derailing oil and gas exploration and development here in America while taking steps to help foreign nations develop their own energy resources. The latest beneficiary of his efforts is the island nation of New Guinea. This effort by the administration is especially galling since the Interior Department has been blaming its delay in issuing drilling permits on lack of money and staff to process the permits. Why devote the department to helping another nation reap riches? To which one may also ask — why New Guinea? Perhaps the better question might be: Who benefits from President Obama's push to help Papua New Guinea become an energy power? That answer would be George Soros, sugar daddy of the Democratic Party and long an ardent and very generous supporter of Barack Obama's political campaigns. Soros stands to massively benefit if New Guin

Keep an eye on InterOil & George Soros

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Ed Lasky Are Barack Obama's energy policies influenced by hedge fund billionaire and political patron George Soros? The administration is derailing oil and gas exploration and development here in America while taking steps to help foreign nations develop their own energy resources. The latest beneficiary of his efforts is the island nation of New Guinea. This effort by the administration is especially galling since the Interior Department has been blaming its delay in issuing drilling permits on lack of money and staff to process the permits. Why devote the department to helping another nation reap riches? To which one may also ask — why New Guinea? Perhaps the better question might be: Who benefits from President Obama's push to help Papua New Guinea become an energy power? That answer would be George Soros, sugar daddy of the Democratic Party and long an ardent and very generous supporter of Barack Obama's political campaigns. Soros stands to massively benefit if New

Papua New Guinea: The informal economy and the resource boom

John D. Conroy Towards the end of 2010, the PNG government approved a National Informal Economy Policy. The rationale for this policy was presented in a recent Pacific Economic Bulletin . It was adopted amid concern that the benefits of increasing economic activity in the resource-extraction sector — the ‘commanding heights’ of the PNG economy — will not flow efficiently or equitably to the grassroots population. A better functioning, informal economy is seen as necessary to increase the efficiency of linkages between mineral enclaves and the broader population. Among PNG’s neighbour states in Southeast Asia the informal economy is taken for granted. It is even regarded (rightly or wrongly) as an embarrassing indicator of backwardness, whose progressive elimination should be a policy objective. So it might seem odd that in PNG the ‘informal sector’ should now be subject to official encouragement. Monetised informal economic activity is thought to need facilitation and suppo

Papua New Guinea: The informal economy and the resource boom

John D. Conroy Towards the end of 2010, the PNG government approved a National Informal Economy Policy. The rationale for this policy was presented in a recent Pacific Economic Bulletin . It was adopted amid concern that the benefits of increasing economic activity in the resource-extraction sector — the ‘commanding heights’ of the PNG economy — will not flow efficiently or equitably to the grassroots population. A better functioning, informal economy is seen as necessary to increase the efficiency of linkages between mineral enclaves and the broader population. Among PNG’s neighbour states in Southeast Asia the informal economy is taken for granted. It is even regarded (rightly or wrongly) as an embarrassing indicator of backwardness, whose progressive elimination should be a policy objective. So it might seem odd that in PNG the ‘informal sector’ should now be subject to official encouragement. Monetised informal economic activity is thought to need facilitation and

The Papua New Guinea land grab

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MONGABAY During a meeting in March 2011 twenty-six experts—from biologists to social scientists to NGO staff—crafted a statement calling on the Papua New Guinea government to stop granting Special Agricultural and Business Leases. According to the group, these leases, or SABLs as they are know, circumvent Papua New Guinea’s strong community land rights laws and imperil some of the world’s most intact rainforests. To date 5.6 million hectares (13.8 million acres) of forest have been leased under SABLs, an area larger than all of Costa Rica. “Papua New Guinea is among the most biologically and culturally diverse nations on Earth. [The country's] remarkable diversity of cultural groups rely intimately on their traditional lands and forests in order to meet their needs for farming plots, forest goods, wild game, traditional and religious sites, and many other goods and services,” reads the statement , dubbed the Cairns Declaration. However, according to the declaration all

The Papua New Guinea land grab

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MONGABAY During a meeting in March 2011 twenty-six experts—from biologists to social scientists to NGO staff—crafted a statement calling on the Papua New Guinea government to stop granting Special Agricultural and Business Leases. According to the group, these leases, or SABLs as they are know, circumvent Papua New Guinea’s strong community land rights laws and imperil some of the world’s most intact rainforests. To date 5.6 million hectares (13.8 million acres) of forest have been leased under SABLs, an area larger than all of Costa Rica. “Papua New Guinea is among the most biologically and culturally diverse nations on Earth. [The country's] remarkable diversity of cultural groups rely intimately on their traditional lands and forests in order to meet their needs for farming plots, forest goods, wild game, traditional and religious sites, and many other goods and services,” reads the statement , dubbed the Cairns Declaration. However, according to the declaration a

‘Leaders corrupt’

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SOUTH PACIFIC POST MANY political leaders are corrupt and they are hypocrites, according to a Catholic Church Bishop. And a Lutheran Church Bishop described politicians as “frogs” jumping around in the Waigani swamp. However Acting Prime Minister Mr Sam Abal told Post-Courier last night that not all leaders were corrupt and “we are working on improving things”. He said church and political leaders were entitled to their views … “this is a free country, they can make their comments, But I can say we are looking forward to make improvements”. The hard-working and devout 4 Square Leader whose humble character elevated him to the top seat in government countered last night: “Not all of us are corrupt.” He admitted there had been some mistakes and failures, but overall, there is “many many more” positive achievements by the government and it was unfair to judge the government only on its mistakes. Mr Abal, the Wabag MP, will be Acting PM again starting Monday when PM Sir Michael Somare retu

‘Leaders corrupt’

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SOUTH PACIFIC POST MANY political leaders are corrupt and they are hypocrites, according to a Catholic Church Bishop. And a Lutheran Church Bishop described politicians as “frogs” jumping around in the Waigani swamp. However Acting Prime Minister Mr Sam Abal told Post-Courier last night that not all leaders were corrupt and “we are working on improving things”. He said church and political leaders were entitled to their views … “this is a free country, they can make their comments, But I can say we are looking forward to make improvements”. The hard-working and devout 4 Square Leader whose humble character elevated him to the top seat in government countered last night: “Not all of us are corrupt.” He admitted there had been some mistakes and failures, but overall, there is “many many more” positive achievements by the government and it was unfair to judge the government only on its mistakes. Mr Abal, the Wabag MP, will be Acting PM again starting Monday when PM Sir Michael Somare

Worst Parliament Ever

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SOUTH PACIFIC POST   Govt is arrogant, selfish and functions like dictatorship THE current National Parliament is the “worst” Papua New Guinea has had in the last 20 years, Lae MP and deputy opposition leader Bart Philemon said yesterday. Speaking in support of former prime minister Sir Rabbie Namaliu who said the people have lost faith in PNG’s parliamentary democracy, Mr Philemon said parliament has lost its credibility and integrity because the present government has treated it with absolute contempt and disrespect. Mr Philemon said despite the Supreme Court affirmation that confirmed parliament must sit for nine weeks in a year or 63 days, the Somare government has failed to uphold that constitutional requirement. Mr Philemon said from August 2007 when the eighth Parliament started to July 2008 the National Parliament sat for only 49 days out of the required 63 days. Then from July 2008 to July 2009 the House sat for 31 days out of 63 required by the Constitution. Mr Philemon said