Wet, wet, wet Christmas 2008 as waves strike

Giant waves hit Vanimo, West Sepik (Sandaun) province

Refugees in Wewak flee their homes in Wewak, East Sepik province

Damaged house in Wewak, East Sepik province

Vehicle drives through seawater-covered road in Wewak, East Sepik province

It was a wet, wet, wet 2008 Christmas for over 30, 000 struck by severe sea swells in the maritime provinces of Papua New Guinea.
Severe sea swells were reported in New Ireland, East Sepik, Manus, Bougainville, West Sepik, Morobe and isolated parts of Madang.
A majority of the affected populations were found in Manus, East Sepik, New Ireland and Bougainville.
New Ireland reported 118 internally-displaced persons when the population on Tench Island had to be evacuated to neighboring Emirau Island with some Tench islanders, especially students, taken back to Kavieng.
New Ireland also reported the most number of houses damaged or destroyed.
This year will be the second year in two years when disaster struck at about the same time.
In November 2007, Tropical Cyclone Guba devastated Oro province, leaving thousands homeless with major infrastructure including roads and bridges washed away.
The maritime provinces are not an isolated case as parts of the Highlands region also had their fair share with landslides along the Simbu section of the Okuk Highway, which cut off supply routes to Western Highlands, Enga and the Southern Highlands.
Unlike the Oro experience, no state of emergency was declared in the maritime provinces.
In fact, this event and its aftermath were managed as a national disaster under the auspices of the Disaster Management Act.
The Government of Papua New Guinea (GoPNG) coordinated disaster response activities through the National Disaster Centre in Port Moresby and the respective provincial disaster centres.
Minister responsible for disasters Job Pomat MP, chairman of the national disaster committee Manasupe Zurenuoc, and acting director of the National Disaster Centre Martin Mose were instrumental in coordinating GoPNG, donor, and both NGO and INGO assistance.
Provinces coordinated disaster response activities in partnership with the National Disaster Centre and through their provincial disaster centres, and under the leadership of their provincial administrators.
A majority of the response agencies worked through the provincial disaster centres.
Disaster response activities were supported by UN agencies, AusAID, USAID, NZAID, and JICA. Response agencies included provincial administrations and provincial disaster centres, the PNG Red Cross, and national and international NGOs such as CARE, WVI, SC, Oxfam, ADRA, and Caritas PNG.
All agencies were also involved in undertaking damage and needs assessments.
On December 17, 2008, Mr Zurenuoc expressed confidence in the way provinces had managed their response activities and hinted to the media cease of the response phase sooner than expected.
At a small ceremony on December 22 to receive emergency relief items from the Japanese Ambassador H.E. Hajime Hishiyama, Mr Zurenuoc announced the end of disaster response and encouraged partners to shift to early recovery.
Although this year’s sea swell disaster was short lived, its effects were extensive as can be seen by the demand for rehabilitation and reconstruction activities in New Ireland and Manus.
As soon as sea swells hit, the National Disaster Centre received firsthand reports on December 9, 2008, from witnesses in Kavieng, Buka, and Bogia in the Madang province.
Each province has a provincial disaster committee with the provincial administrator as chairperson.
In some provinces, this committee went to work immediately and operated out of its provincial disaster centre.
The National Executive Council met on December 11, 2008, and approved up to K50 million, with which K20m was to be made available for disaster relief, response, and recovery purposes.
The K20m was released to the Department of Provincial and Local Government Affairs on December 14, 2008.
This amount was later transferred to the National Disaster General Trust Account after scheduled closure of all government accounts on December 16.
Affected provinces have now begun drawing down on this funding, and in close consultation with the National Disaster Centre.
Provinces have done so after providing extensive damage and needs assessment reports together with an expenditure budget.

Quotation of The Day

It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.

Sophocles (496 BC-406 BC)

The Year in Pictures - The Burning Down of Best Buy (Burns Philip) Lae

Best Buy Shop in Lae, one of the city’s landmarks, went up in flames at about 12am on Monday, December 8, 208,  and the fire was finally put out by 4am.
This was the site of the historical Burns Philip store which was an icon of Lae for many years.
By about 1am looters were already drunk and looking for more liquor till daybreak.
Before the fire reached the rear where the liquor shop is, looters were already breaking down the windows and doors and helping themselves to anything they could lay their hands on.
They included street people to security guards.
Lae town streets were chock-a-block with people that particular morning.
Many of them were drunk from the cold and boiled beer.

An eventful year for Papua New Guinea

And this blog helps to bring the news – good or bad – to you

Whether you spent 2008 with your nose buried in the politics or business section of your favorite newspaper, there were some major headlines on the front page that no one missed.

From the series of BSP bank robberies around the country to the atrocious murder of businessman Sir George Constantinou at the notorious Tete Settlement, Gerehu, it’s been hard to tear our eyes away from the life-changing events unfolding before us.

This is particularly in relation to the development of the massive gas, petroleum and mineral deposits of this country.

Are we going to be the ‘Arabs’ of the Pacific?

It is, however, a paradox that we are a rich country and yet are so poor, and our women and children continue to die for want of better health services as well as education.

I hope all of you, the many thousands of readers of this blog from all corners of Papua New Guinea and the world through the wonders of the Internet, have had a wonderful Christmas with your families and all the best for New Year 2009.

I had a quite Christmas period with my four children, watched VCDs, and read a lot of literature classics by Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities and Hard Times – to refresh my mind for 2009.

I am an avid reader of the classic works of literature, which I read over and over again, because it helps in a lot in my work as a journalist and editor.

 The year had a little something to offer everyone.

Maybe you were reading about the stock market's rocky trajectory and a massively flailing global economy - or that of Oshen’s career.

Perhaps you scanned the news for the latest updates on the LNG project, or you might've been focused on the US presidential elections.

The 2008 Paralympics event marked a significant new era for PNG as disabled athlete Francis Kompaon won the country’s first-ever silver medal at such an event and a K250, 000 bonus from the government.

The country’s first ever medal in an Olympic event was like setting foot on the moon – “one small step for a man but a giant step for PNG”.

Ryan Pini he made PNG proud with a brilliant performance in the 100m butterfly finals by splashing stroke for stroke alongside a  host of super stars including probably the world’s greatest-ever swimmer and record-breaking American Michael Phelps.

Pini was the flag bearer for Papua New Guinea at the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Pini ranked first in the third heat of the men's 100m freestyle, but did not make a qualifying time for the semi finals.

He also competed in heats for the 200m freestyle.

Pini competed in the 100m butterfly, where he was Papua New Guinea's most-widely anticipated chance at attaining a first Olympic medal.

He competed in the finals, and finished eighth overall, in a tough line-up which included American big fish Michael Phelps, who took gold.

Pini was the first Papua New Guinean ever to swim an Olympic final.

Remember how the Kumuls raised our pulses by leading Great Britain at one stage of their World Cup rugby league game in Australia but gave it away?

They continued to win hearts with commendable performances against eventual winners New Zealand and Australia.

Every year has its share of memorable news stories, but in 2008, many events transpired that'll have history textbook editors scrambling.

And if you haven't been keeping news clippings for your scrapbook, you might've forgotten what happened earlier this year.

That's where this blog comes in.

We're not just daily ‘bad news’ stories about rapes, murders, bank robberies, so on and so forth about.

We're ‘good news’ harbingers too – about the many positive developments in the country.

From Asia to Europe, North America to Africa, and even the land down under, the world was humming with activity.

And Papua New Guinea was no exception.

So pour a cup of coffee, settle into your most comfortable chair and read about some of the many memorable moments from 2008 that'll be recorded in the annals of history.

 

An eventful year for Lae

Captions: 1. Evangelical Lutheran Church of PNG Head Bishop Dr Wesley Kigasung...his death brought together a fragmented church, city, province and country.2. Dr Kigasung's body is hoisted by six PNG Defence Force pall-bearers at Sir Ignatius Kilage Stadium.3. The sad remains of Best Buy, formerly Burns Philip, store in Lae. It was burned down earlier this month, bringing an end to a part of Lae history.
By conservative estimates, half of its residents would not be able to recall the garden city that was Lae.
This was a city, and before that a town, that was lined with flower beds running along its residential, business and industrial zones’ streets. The beauty of the streets gave Lae the glamour and serenity of a metropolitan city by the harbour of a sprawling valley that retreated for miles into the Madang and Eastern Highlands mountains, a feeling unlike any other.
Now an incongruent mosaic of industrial establishments, potholed streets, bushy over growths, and semi-permanent houses, clustered around concrete edifices, and colonial architecture, Lae has become a huge urban settlement of more than 300, 000 people.
In a nutshell Lae is a city of contrasts.
Throughout the year, the events that have happened in the city have shown the attitude of a people who are living in the computer age and practicing Stone Age beliefs.
To start the year off, the indigenous Ahi tribe’s local level government area was gripped with fear of a man-eating alien. The Komodo dragon, native to the Indonesian island of Komodo, could never have left its home except for the imaginations of several old women and the marketing skills of journalists.
There was much consternation and fear fuelled by newspaper images downloaded from the internet that irrelevantly, the military was called in with much media hype. Furtively, scientists from the Department of Environment and Conservation slipped into the bushes of Kamkumung, Butibam and Yanga and declared: “Nothing.”
The entire episode was a hoax. It showed the frightening scale a rumour could gain.
Perhaps because of the high level of ethnic mix of blue collar workers for its many factories, most of whom are at best semi-literate and ill-informed, what is more but not relevant is read into a situation.
Only last year, immediately after April 1, the entire population of Lae panicked when rumours spread that the sea at the end of the old Lae airport had retreated. Its return would flatten Lae – and Top Town, nearly 100 metres above sea level!
Thousands of school children ran away from classes. Several primary school teachers hopped on PMVs and headed for the Highlands.
Years before, in 2000, a similar incident sent people packing their belongings and heading for the mountains in droves.
No contrast was more obvious than in the attitudes of people. It was disconcerting to see the medieval practice of burning witches at the stake being carried out when a woman was burnt at the stake and her tortured body left for police to remove to the Angau Memorial Hospital morgue after it was claimed that she had kept the tongue of a youth salted in a banana leaf near her bedside fireplace at Tent City on the outskirts of the city.
To contrast that heathen ritual, the people showed a sign of religious fervour unlike any ever displayed in Lae when Dr Wesley Kigasung, head bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea, died in May. Symphathisers lined the 50km from Nadzab airport to the church headquarters at Ampo.
That unity in religion had come off the back of an ethnic clash that clearly showed the fracture in the neighbourhoods. Eastern Highlanders had fought with Engans at Kamkumung and Morobeans fought with Sepiks at Malahang.
All throughout the year there were sporadic unrelated clashes and towards Christmas, the Western Highlanders and Eastern Highlanders closed the violent aspect of the year.
The ethnic and cultural melting pot that is Lae, coupled with the level of education and the economic status of each individual, has given the city its peculiar problems.
In town, the graduate engineers, doctors and accountants, the cream of university graduates catch a rickety old PMV bus to work. They can’t afford to buy a vehicle because of the high cost of fuel and the even higher cost of overhead charges on vehicle parts that are rendered by the potholes.
While waiting for the K50 million road works to be completed, the educated and the uneducated masses have to live in settlements at Hunter, Malahang, Bumayong, Kamkumung and the Miles areas. There virtually is not enough affordable housing in Lae.
The professionals, according to the PMV bus conductors, can not read. So they shout in their faces: “Eriku, Boundary, 1, 2, 3, 4.”
In the meantime, local Ahi landowners, have to fight for claims to the Lae land. It is a bitter dispute that divides clans and families.
One of the major disputes is over the land at the old Lae airport which has been divided into urban development leases.
Another development, that of the US$100 million Lae port, awaits start.
Here settlers are still waiting to be reestablished in other areas in Lae or be repatriated to their villages, particularly in the East Sepik and the Highlands provinces.
Economic developments in Lae and Morobe province in general have been enhanced by the rebuilding of the old Bulolo airport to cater for flights to the former gold town that would be the hub for the operation of the mine at Hidden Valley in Wau and the exploration at Wafi in Mumeng.
The Bulolo district is now rising to its old heights with the election of a young Member of Parliament who is showing the way for leaders throughout the country.
Exceptionally young and very inexperienced politician, businessman Sam Basil clicked into action barely a week after taking his oath of office as a Parliamentarian in Sept 2007.
 Now, he is the toast of the entire Bulolo district, and the envy of all Morobeans, after putting water supplies in his rural villages, linking them by road and telecommunications, building police house, and then demanding and being given 50% of the provincial government’s cut from the Hidden Valley Gold mine.
He was aiming to improve the lot of his people.
The economic survival of the worker was touted by students at the country’s premier technological institute. Students at the University of Technology through their representative council and its umbrella organisation the National Union of Students boycotted classes to push the government into establishing the Minimum Wages board hearings, whose report will be tabled to the government in the second week of next year.
While the students did well for their parents and working relatives, and their future, they could not help but get back into the ages old practice of ethnic rivalry. It seemed an end-of-year routine when the fight between Sepiks and Highlanders disrupted classes and left one dead and many unable to sit for their final examinations.
As the year raced to the end, nature took its toll, as a tidal surge left 5000 Siassi islanders and Sialum villagers without homes, food and water. Their lives are slowly being rebuilt.
What can not be rebuilt though is the epitome of trade and all things good and European, and a hallmark to the legacy of the colonial era, the former Burns Philp department store, which lay in ruins.

Yellow Poincianas light up Port Moresby

It's that time of the year again and all over Port Moresby, Yellow Poincianas are lighting the city and showering them with petals.It’s a beautiful sight, and at Gerehu where I live, even more so when I take my children to the playground.Yellow Poincianas come into bloom around November and last into the early New Year.

Information below from http://www.floridata.com/ref/P/pelt_pte.cfm.

Description

Yellow poinciana is a very showy flowering tree up to 50' tall, with wide-spreading branches that form an umbrella-like crown up to 25' across. The stems and twigs are rusty-red tomentose (fuzzy). The leaves are bipinnate (twice compound), about 2' long with 8-20 pairs of 3/4"-long oblong leaflets. The fragrant flowers are clustered on upright stalks (racemes, actually) about 18" long. Each flower is about an inch and a half across with translucent yellow, strangely-crinkled petals. The flowers have conspicuous orange stamens and each petal has a reddish brown mark in the center. They are followed by purplish brown, flattened, oblong seed pods, 3-4" long, which remain on the tree until the next flowering season.

Location

Yellow poinciana is native to coastal areas from Sri Lanka through the Malay archipelago and Indonesia to northern Australia. It has escaped from cultivation and established itself in disturbed areas in southern Florida and Hawaii.

Culture

Light: Does well in semi-shade, but can tolerate full sun if well-watered.

Moisture: Needs moist, but well-drained soil.

Hardiness: USDA Zones 10 - 11.

Propagation: Propagation of yellow poinciana is by seeds that must be treated before they will germinate. In nature, the seeds would have passed through the gut of a bird or mammal before germinating in a pile of rich "compost." We simulate that process with scarification (use a file or sandpaper), or a two-minute immersion in dilute acid or boiling water.

 Usage

Yellow poincianas are usually planted as specimen trees or as shade trees. They are used as street trees in tropical cities, and commonly planted for shade in tropical and subtropical gardens. They are fast-growing and vigorous, but they cannot tolerate frost.

Features

The name poinciana also is used for three other showy subtropical trees or shrubs in the bean family: Royal poinciana (Delonix regia), also called flame tree or flamboyant tree; dwarf poinciana (Caesalpinia pulcherrima), also called Barbados pride or peacock flower; and another dwarf poinciana (C. gilliesii), also called bird-of-paradise bush.

 

 

Business activity blossoms in 2008 despite tough conditions

Captions: 1. World class Process Plant at Lihir Gold Mine in New Ireland province. Picture courtesy of LGL. 2. Aerial view of Porgera Gold Mine. Picture courtese of Porgera Gold Mine. 3. Gas...the future of Papua New Guinea. Picture courtesy of Oil Search Limited.

Papua New Guinea poised for greater heights with gas, mining and petroleum

By JASON SOM KAUT

Nearly all sectors of the economy from building-construction, mining and petroleum, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, both formal and informal sectors have experienced increased activity.
This has had a flow-on effect that has trickled on to other sectors like wholesale, retail, the hotel industry, housing and land.
Business performance would have been more if it had not been for the world financial crisis in the latter half of the year that has resulted in many major economies now facing recession and world commodity prices fall with declining demand.
But yet PNG has managed to enter the FEED stage in the nation’s undertaking of its most ambitious and biggest investment project ever –the US$10 billion PNG Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Project.
The LNG Project has placed PNG on the world map and has captured the attention of the world’s leading mining and petroleum companies and large financial and banking organisations.
There were comments made during the recent 10th PNG Mining and Petroleum Investment Conference in Sydney, Australia that amid the world crisis PNG is one of the few shining lights in the world.
Interest in PNG’s mining and petroleum sector was evident in the record 800-plus participants at the conference where
Minister for State Enterprises Arthur Somare said the PNG LNG Project had the potential to positively change the nation’s economy and improve the living standards of its six million people.
 At its peak the project will generate revenue between US$600-800 million annually. Many speakers during the Sydney conference including PNG LNG Venture Manager Peter Graham all echoed similar sentiments.
Recently Nippon Oil Exploration (NOEX) of Japan through its affiliate Merlin Petroleum Company acquired AGL’s gas assets in PNG for US$800 million.
Being one of the joint –venture partners this has cemented confidence in the progress of PNG LNG Project.
The acquisition sees Nippon improve its stake in the project from 1.7% to 5.3%.
The formal announcement of the acquisition by AGL earlier this month was described by Government ministers and Joint Venture partners as a ‘win-win’ situation for everyone. That confirmed the widely-held view of the high-level of certainty that the PNG LNG project will proceed.
President of NOEX Makoto Koseki expressed hope that the firm can further contribute to PNG’s economic development through the acquisition through its expertise and role in two other LNG Projects in South East Asia.
“The deal imposes viability and sends a strong message of confidence in the project,” he said.
This is all amid uncertainty with the world’s financial and commodity markets.
The issue of concern is transparency and accountability and having the right policies in place.
The Government needs to explain to the people how they will benefit.
One of the few remaining major hurdles of the project is the Benefit Sharing Agreement which is planned for March 2009.
This will see the Government, developers and landowners agree on the benefits to landowners.
 Landowners have expressed desire to have an increase in royalty considering that the project will impact about 100, 000 landowners.
Record world commodity prices and good economic performance last year, windfall revenues that were rightly placed in trust accounts and the fact that our financial sector is insulated from the direct effects of the global financial market turmoil saw PNG less affected by the crisis.
According to Bank of PNG Governor Wilson Kamit this is because banks are funded primarily by domestic deposits and along with financial institutions do not have large exposures to external investments.
But the effects are starting to be felt with the latest victim being Nautilus PNG announcing less than a week ago that it would delay its seafloor mining venture in PNG and cut staff by 30% until the global economy stabilises.
There are also unconfirmed rumors that a major logging firm has sent staff home on three-months of forced-leave due to a fall in demand for its log exports in the region.
There are many mines in construction phase including the multi-billion Ramu Nickel mine while the Hidden Valley mine in Morobe province is scheduled to be in operation next year.
With the arrival of competition both Air Niugini and B-Mobile have improved performance as customers enjoy cheaper rates.
Despite a good performance the year was overshadowed by the world financial crisis and the unnecessary and brutal killing of pioneer PNG businessman and philanthropist Sir George Constantinou.
The World Bank, The Asian Development Bank and the Institute of National Affairs all cited the need for better regulations.
They raised concern on political uncertainty despite the current stability, law and order, instability in laws and regulations, corruption and poor infrastructure and public services.
Recommendations have been made to promote public-private partnerships, simplifying the system of licenses, taxes and regulations, promoting competition and the financial markets and formalising private and public sector consultation mechanisms.