PNGBLOGS

By PNG-EXPOSED The ‘new’ Panguna Landowners Association, led by its Chairman, Lawrence Daveona – a Port Moresby based businessman and civil servant – is holding itself out as the true representative body for landowners on Bougainville. And, to that end, the association has put itself in the box-seat to negotiate the mine’s reopening [1] with Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL). But there is more to this political coup than meets the eye. PNGexposed can confirm that the group’s Chairman, Mr Daveona, has received thousands of kina in payments from the European Shareholders of Bougainville Copper (ESBC), a body set up by BCL’s European investors to lobby for the mine’s reopening. These payments have been made by ESBC’s President, Axel G Sturm. According to The Australian , Mr Sturm is “possibly the company’s largest individual shareholder”. He has been agitating for the mine’s reopening from his home in the Principality of Andorra, a notorious tax-haven and secrecy jurisdiction

By PNG-EXPOSED The ‘new’ Panguna Landowners Association, led by its Chairman, Lawrence Daveona – a Port Moresby based businessman and civil servant – is holding itself out as the true representative body for landowners on Bougainville. And, to that end, the association has put itself in the box-seat to negotiate the mine’s reopening [1] with Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL). But there is more to this political coup than meets the eye. PNGexposed can confirm that the group’s Chairman, Mr Daveona, has received thousands of kina in payments from the European Shareholders of Bougainville Copper (ESBC), a body set up by BCL’s European investors to lobby for the mine’s reopening. These payments have been made by ESBC’s President, Axel G Sturm. According to The Australian , Mr Sturm is “possibly the company’s largest individual shareholder”. He has been agitating for the mine’s reopening from his home in the Principality of Andorra, a notorious tax-haven and secrecy jurisd

Melbourne Age Here is a good news story from Papua New Guinea: Australia's nearest neighbour has dodged the bullet of what the World Health Organisation feared could become an AIDS pandemic as deadly as those which have devastated parts of Africa. Several years ago there were predictions that as many as one in 20 of PNG's population of 7 million could become infected with HIV, amid signs that the disease was spreading unchecked across parts of the highlands region. Now the epidemic is being contained, most of those infected are receiving lifesaving treatment and health workers are optimistic that this can be reduced to another manageable public health challenge. ''It is good news. We now know that this is a concentrated epidemic, not a generalised epidemic. The disaster that was predicted hasn't happened,'' says Dr Geoff Clark, a former WHO official who is now the Australian Agency for International Development's program director for health and HIV in PN

Melbourne Age Here is a good news story from Papua New Guinea: Australia's nearest neighbour has dodged the bullet of what the World Health Organisation feared could become an AIDS pandemic as deadly as those which have devastated parts of Africa. Several years ago there were predictions that as many as one in 20 of PNG's population of 7 million could become infected with HIV, amid signs that the disease was spreading unchecked across parts of the highlands region. Now the epidemic is being contained, most of those infected are receiving lifesaving treatment and health workers are optimistic that this can be reduced to another manageable public health challenge. ''It is good news. We now know that this is a concentrated epidemic, not a generalised epidemic. The disaster that was predicted hasn't happened,'' says Dr Geoff Clark, a former WHO official who is now the Australian Agency for International Development's program director for health and H

Anthony Mambu By HILDA WAYNE in Perth, Western Australia Australian union’s fight for ‘Aussie jobs’ and campaign against skilled migration and overseas 457 workers has created what has been termed as xenophobia as it is not the foreign workers but the resources companies who are at the forefront of employing these workers with much needed skills and experience. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard added to the “crackdown” on foreign workers saying that she would “fight to stop foreign workers being put at the front of the queue with Australian workers at the back.” However this view is not shared by many within the resources industry and business leaders in Australia. Former Queensland treasurer and current Nimrod Resources chairman Keith DeLacy said in a recent media report that the protests against foreign workers will do more harm than good to the Australian economy. “There never seems to be any balance. It just seems to come across as an anti-business agenda and no doubt playing to

Anthony Mambu By HILDA WAYNE in Perth, Western Australia Australian union’s fight for ‘Aussie jobs’ and campaign against skilled migration and overseas 457 workers has created what has been termed as xenophobia as it is not the foreign workers but the resources companies who are at the forefront of employing these workers with much needed skills and experience. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard added to the “crackdown” on foreign workers saying that she would “fight to stop foreign workers being put at the front of the queue with Australian workers at the back.” However this view is not shared by many within the resources industry and business leaders in Australia. Former Queensland treasurer and current Nimrod Resources chairman Keith DeLacy said in a recent media report that the protests against foreign workers will do more harm than good to the Australian economy. “There never seems to be any balance. It just seems to come across as an anti-business agenda and no doubt

By BELDEN NAMAH, MP In the light of the Extradition Treaty signed between the Government of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, there has never been on record any citizen of this country living in Indonesia that would warrant such the action taken by both governments. UNHCR confirms over 9,000 West Papuan Refugees living in Papua New Guinea make up our demography; where a good number of them are wanted by the Indonesian government. It is very clear that the signed Extradition Treaty was initiated by the Indonesian government to extradite those wanted by their own government. We must defend and protect our stock with reference to six (6) Melanesian societies that are part of the global community. They are; PNG, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and West Papua. The signing of the extradition treaty will in no way protect our Melanesian brothers and sisters who deserve nothing less than their own political freedom. The constant torture and killings of West Papuans by Indonesian so