pn946. Papua New Guinea landslide disaster: at least 2,000 dead

At least 2,000 people   have been killed in a major landslide in the remote Highlands province of Enga 600 km NW of the capital Port Moresby when the side of a mountain collapsed on Friday.  Aid rushed to the area is impeded by nearby tribal fighting. This article provides a good coverage while this article provides some additional detail.

Meanwhile, in the capital, it is unclear whether the existing government will remain in power.  A  vote of confidence in parliament today could see PM Marape toppled.

pn933. Papua New Guinea wants security treaty with Australia - defence minister Marles

 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Wednesday Papua New Guinea had proposed a security treaty between both countries amid increasing tensions in the Pacific islands after China struck a security pact with neighbouring Solomon Islands.

PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko also told ABC Television he had discussed a security treaty with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong during her visit to Port Moresby on Tuesday, while Wong told ABC the discussions were in a "very early stage."

The Solomon Islands has had a tense relationship with the United States and its Pacific allies since striking a security pact with China in April. Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific island countries have said security needs should be met within the region.

"This is an idea that has been put forward by PNG," Marles told ABC radio on Wednesday.

"We have been making it really clear we want to be as close to PNG as we can be. We want to build on the already close military to military relationship that we have with Papua New Guinea, which we see as one of the most important military to military relationships that we have," he added.

Papua New Guinea is Australia's closest northern neighbour, separated by only a few kilometres, and a former colony, but has increasing trade and investment ties with China.

China failed to reach a sweeping trade and security pact with 10 Pacific nations including PNG in June.

Australia and the United States are funding the upgrade of a naval base on PNG's Manus Island, after a failed Chinese offer to redevelop a naval base in 2018.

Chinese navy vessels transit through the narrow Torres Strait separating Australia and PNG, with the activity becoming a point of friction in February when a Chinese ship directed a laser at an Australian military surveillance aircraft in flight over Australia's northern approaches.

The Solomon Islands, which has maritime borders with PNG and Australia, on Tuesday said it was suspending port visits by foreign navies until it puts in place a new approval process.

Marles declined to comment directly on whether Australia had been notified of the moratorium on port visits, after the United States government received notice a week after a U.S. coast guard vessel was unable to make a port call in Honiara.

"We want to see Australia be the natural partner of choice for the countries of the Pacific, that is not something that we take for granted," he said.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa) -- 

pn842. Papua New Guinea’s Growth Conundrum by Stephen Howes**

National elections will be held in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the middle of 2022. Elections are held every five years and are very popular events. Though voting is voluntary, voter turnout is just below that of Australia, where voting is compulsory. An extraordinary number of political candidates compete for office. The average number of candidates per seat grew from 8 in 1977 to 30 in 2017.

 

Prof. Howes

In the 2017 elections, 111 men but no women were elected. It is possible but unlikely that special measures will be put in place before the 2022 elections to ensure that that result is not repeated this year. If not, the only remaining hope is that at least a few of the growing number of women who stand at elections are successful at the hustings.

It is impossible to predict election results, as there are no opinion polls and party structures are very fluid. But James Marape, Prime Minister since 2019 when he ousted Peter O’Neill in a mid-term vote of no confidence, is the favourite, simply because he is the incumbent.

PM James Marape

pn803. Pacific Snippets: Fiji, West Papua, NZCID, Vanuatu, New Caledonia,Covid in PNG and Fiji, China talks to PNG

Former coup leader and PM Sitiveni Rabuka is headhunting SODELPA leaders to join his People's Alliance party, and there are calls Viliame Govoka to stand down as SODELPA head. All such moves could weaken the Opposition as parties prepare for the 2022 elections.  

As fighting flares between Indonesian and independence armed forces, West Papuans flee across the border in their thousands into Sepik, PNG. 

Sir Michael Somare dead (pn694)

'Statesman of the Pacific' — Jacinda Ardern praises Papua New Guinea's first PM, dead at 84

4:23PM • SOURCE:  AAP | 1 NEWS

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Former Papua New Guinea prime minister Michael Somare has died in Port Moresby aged 84.

PNG's New PM Calls for Unity

PM James Marape pm402

The difficulties forming a new government —as one faction fought with another— after the recent elections reflects something of the difficulties facing PNG. Tribal loyalties are stronger than national loyalty and notions of national unity. Political parties are based more on personal, local and tribal identities than agreement on general principles or policies. All this in a large, fragmented country of 5 million people, over 800 indigneous languages and three lingua franca. Many parts of the country are barely connected by road, and each has  had a very different exposure to "modern" influences. It is little wonder that concepts such as party, unity and nation have not yet firmly jelled.

--ACW

UPNG in Turmoil

The University of Papua New Guinea has for a long time

pn299

been in need of far-reaching reform. But not all change is good, and what has happened this year at UPNG has taken the university in the wrong direction.

In late January, the Higher Education Minister, Pila Niningi, dissolved the UPNG Council, appointed a new interim council, and put in his own choice of vice-chancellor, all on the grounds that the old council was not performing.

The Way it Was: Australia’s Apartheid in PNG

This is an invaluable reprint of a 2009 article by the esteemed late Pacific academic and commentator Professor Ron Crocombe who spent most of his adult life in the Cook Islands, PNG, Fiji and other Pacific Islands. -- ACW

District Officers or Kiap (Tok Pisin from the German Kapitan)  had immense powers.
  pn77

 MANY of Australia’s colonial and post-colonial policies and practices are a major factor in the problems of Papua New Guinea today, and cause some Papua New Guinean leaders to have serious reservations about their Australian counterparts.

Despite being a colony from the 1890s, Australia ensured that Papua did not get its first high school until international pressure led to its opening in 1955. Very few others were built for a long time in a country of similar size and population to New Zealand.