PNGBLOGS

EAST ASIA FORUM Papua New Guinea’s political dramas have intensified in the 10 weeks that Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare has spent in intensive care in Singapore’s Raffles Hospital. Only on 22 June did Arthur Somare, the Minister for Public Enterprises, tell Parliament that his 75-year-old father had undergone a heart valve operation plus two further emergency operations. Last Friday, 24 June he stated that the family had decided he would be told he could not return to his job and should resign, and late last week the government made a snap decision to adjourn Parliament for five weeks till August, which will give it some time to resolve its internal divisions. In May a government minister was chastised for insensitive ambition for angling to replace the nation’s founding PM while he was ill, but since then the power plays are becoming increasingly evident. The current Opposition is not the main force here — it makes up only 21 of the 109 MPs, and a vote of no confidence is unlikel

EAST ASIA FORUM Papua New Guinea’s political dramas have intensified in the 10 weeks that Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare has spent in intensive care in Singapore’s Raffles Hospital. Only on 22 June did Arthur Somare, the Minister for Public Enterprises, tell Parliament that his 75-year-old father had undergone a heart valve operation plus two further emergency operations. Last Friday, 24 June he stated that the family had decided he would be told he could not return to his job and should resign, and late last week the government made a snap decision to adjourn Parliament for five weeks till August, which will give it some time to resolve its internal divisions. In May a government minister was chastised for insensitive ambition for angling to replace the nation’s founding PM while he was ill, but since then the power plays are becoming increasingly evident. The current Opposition is not the main force here — it makes up only 21 of the 109 MPs, and a vote of no confidence is unli

Who will speak Iniai in 2050? Or Faiwol? Moskona? Wahgi? Probably no-one, as the languages of New Guinea - the world's greatest linguistic reservoir - are disappearing in a tide of indifference. Yoseph Wally, an anthropologist at Cendrawasih University in Jayapura keeps his ears open when he visits villages to hear what language the locals are speaking. "It's Indonesian more and more. Only the oldest people still speak in the local dialect," he said. In some villages he visits, not a single person can understand a word of the traditional language. "Certain languages disappeared very quickly, like Muris, which was spoken in an area near here until about 15 years ago ," he said. New Guinea is home to more than 1,000 languages - around 800 in Papua New Guinea and 200 in Indonesian Papua - but most have fewer than 1,000 speakers, often centred around a village or cluster of hamlets. Some 80 percent of New Guinea's people live in rural areas and many tribes,

Who will speak Iniai in 2050? Or Faiwol? Moskona? Wahgi? Probably no-one, as the languages of New Guinea - the world's greatest linguistic reservoir - are disappearing in a tide of indifference. Yoseph Wally, an anthropologist at Cendrawasih University in Jayapura keeps his ears open when he visits villages to hear what language the locals are speaking. "It's Indonesian more and more. Only the oldest people still speak in the local dialect," he said. In some villages he visits, not a single person can understand a word of the traditional language. "Certain languages disappeared very quickly, like Muris, which was spoken in an area near here until about 15 years ago ," he said. New Guinea is home to more than 1,000 languages - around 800 in Papua New Guinea and 200 in Indonesian Papua - but most have fewer than 1,000 speakers, often centred around a village or cluster of hamlets. Some 80 percent of New Guinea's people live in rural areas and many tr

One of PNG’s most pressing needs is creating jobs and income earning opportunities for the burgeoning young population; one might say “school-leavers”, except in PNG nearly half of the school-aged youth have never had the chance to attend school, while the recent literacy survey reports that more than half the population is illiterate; this is a poor indictment of the country’s development focus and performance, especially when there’s enough to dish out on executive jets and mate’s airlines, but not apparently to maintain rural airstrips or support third level operators, like MAF, which provide essential and life-saving services to remote communities. PNG has long had a dual (two speed) economy, with urban and enclave industries on one side, and agriculture and the rest on the other, but now this duality is becoming accentuated, even three speed, with the development of LNG. Once the relative brief (though challenging) construction phase (ending 2014) is complete, direct employment fr

One of PNG’s most pressing needs is creating jobs and income earning opportunities for the burgeoning young population; one might say “school-leavers”, except in PNG nearly half of the school-aged youth have never had the chance to attend school, while the recent literacy survey reports that more than half the population is illiterate; this is a poor indictment of the country’s development focus and performance, especially when there’s enough to dish out on executive jets and mate’s airlines, but not apparently to maintain rural airstrips or support third level operators, like MAF, which provide essential and life-saving services to remote communities. PNG has long had a dual (two speed) economy, with urban and enclave industries on one side, and agriculture and the rest on the other, but now this duality is becoming accentuated, even three speed, with the development of LNG. Once the relative brief (though challenging) construction phase (ending 2014) is complete, direct employment

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd will attempt to kick-start negotiations with Papua New Guinea on a possible asylum seeker deal as the government faces continued pressure on delays in its swap agreement with Malaysia. Speaking on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Bali on Thursday, Mr Rudd said he would meet with his counterpart from Papua New Guinea, Ano Pala, over the coming days. But he also played down the possibility of any real headway being made in a possible deal with Papua New Guinea. "Given the political circumstances in Port Moresby at the moment and the possibility of a transition to new political leadership in Port Moresby, we have to be cautious as to how we proceed with that," Mr Rudd said. "But I stand ready to assist in whatever human way I can between now and the 1st of August," he added, referring to surgery he will undergo next month to replace his aortic valve. The future of the government in Papua New Guinea remains unclear following the retiremen

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd will attempt to kick-start negotiations with Papua New Guinea on a possible asylum seeker deal as the government faces continued pressure on delays in its swap agreement with Malaysia. Speaking on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Bali on Thursday, Mr Rudd said he would meet with his counterpart from Papua New Guinea, Ano Pala, over the coming days. But he also played down the possibility of any real headway being made in a possible deal with Papua New Guinea. "Given the political circumstances in Port Moresby at the moment and the possibility of a transition to new political leadership in Port Moresby, we have to be cautious as to how we proceed with that," Mr Rudd said. "But I stand ready to assist in whatever human way I can between now and the 1st of August," he added, referring to surgery he will undergo next month to replace his aortic valve. The future of the government in Papua New Guinea remains unclear following the reti

The $US15 billion Exxon-Mobil Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project stands to be the largest resource project in PNG’s history.  Projections indicate that Government revenues accruing from the project could be as high as K2bn for the first ten years of production (2014-2024) and K3bn thereafter – representing a 22 per cent and 33 per cent increase to total revenue and grants in the 2011 Budget, respectively.  These revenues have the potential to greatly increase funding for social service delivery which, despite improvements over recent years, is still chronically inadequate for large parts of the population. In some measure, a lack of service delivery is a result of weak public sector capacity to implement expenditure plans. It is also because real per capita funding for key items such as health, education and infrastructure persisted along a long term decline during the first 30 years of independence. Since 2002, the Government has made significant progress in reversing th