Burnt alive

Source: The National, Thursday, February 7, 2013

By JAMES APA GUMUNO

A YOUNG mother of a baby girl was burnt alive in front of a crowd in Mt Hagen, Western Highlands, yesterday.
Relatives of a boy she was accused of killing through sorcery, tortured her with a hot iron rod, stripped her naked, tied up her hands and legs and threw her into the fire.
Police and hospital staff who arrived at the scene could not save her.
They later took her body away in an ambulance.
The mother of one, identified as Kepari Leniata, 20, from Paiala in Porgera district, Enga, was married to a man from Laiagam. Their daughter is only eight months old.
Provincial police commander Supt Kaiglo Ambane condemned the killing, saying police were treating the case as murder and would charge those responsible.
Ambane said police knew those involved and would arrest them soon.
Head bishop of Gut Nius Lutheran church David Piso also condemned the killing, saying taking a life was against the teachings of the Bible and the laws of the country.
“Sorcery and sorcery-related killings are growing and the government needs to come up with a law to stop such practice,” he said.
Piso said many innocent and helpless people had been killed and tortured.
Witnesses in Enga and Southern Highlands told The National yesterday that the relatives of the boy stripped the woman before marching her to the Warakum road junction at about 5am.
They tied her legs and arms and threw her into a pile of burning tyres.
The relatives, from Muritaka in Laiagam district spared  the lives of two other women from Gumine in Chimbu as they had also been accused of sorcery.
Police rescued one of the women but the other was still missing.
Sources said the two women admitted that they practised sorcery but did not kill the boy.
They blamed Leniata who later admitted to the boy’s relatives that she killed him.
The relatives then tortured the woman in her house with a hot iron rod, burning her all over her body before taking her to the main road, stripping and burning her.
 Police said the boy had been complaining of pains in the stomach and chest and was taken to the Mt Hagen hospital on Tuesday morning.
He died in the afternoon.

Sode: PNGSDP is run by the people of PNG

Source: The National, Thursday,  February 7, 2013 

 

By MALUM NALU

PNG Sustainable Development Program (PNGSDP) Ltd chief executive David Sode said the company was controlled by Papua New Guineans for Papua New Guineans.
He said this after Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and the Ok Tedi Mine Impacted Area Association (OTMIAA) said that PNGSDP was still being run on remote control by BHP Billiton.
“We control our own destiny,” Sode said yesterday.

David Sode

“We are an independent company and we are not controlled by the State of Papua New Guinea or by BHP Billiton.
“However, we are committed to work with government’s development focus where we can find alignment.
“We have a board and management dominated by Papua New Guineans, all of whom are competent, professional directors and managers.”
Sode said PNGSDP’s sole objective was to provide social and economic development in PNG, and especially in Western.
It has a formal mandate from the state, BHP and Western people to carry out its “important and highly successful developmental work”.
“We are here for the long term,” Sode said.
“We are committed to serving the needs of people we can reasonably reach.
“All the value in Ok Tedi goes to the state and to PNGSDP.
“We remain committed to deliver our programmes to the very people we are mandated to serve.
“No third party benefits in any way from Ok Tedi.”
“The structure of PNGSDP and its processes, agreed to by the state and BHP Billiton under the Ninth Supplemental Agreement, are directed towards ensuring that the full benefits from Ok Tedi flow to the people and provides long term financial security to the people of Western province on a scale unprecedented in PNG.
Sode encouraged the state and BHP to deal with their issues themselves so that the maximum benefits continued to flow to the nation and to Western.
“We acknowledge the people who have welcomed us and continue to support our development programmes all over PNG and Western,” he said.  

PNG firm NBPOL named as a global sustainability leader

By Jemima Garrett for Pacific Beat 

Updated Wed Feb 6, 2013 6:36pm AEDT

Papua New Guinea's biggest palm oil producer has been named as the world's leading sustainable agricultural company by a London-based independent assessment organisation.

New Britain Palm Oil, which has farms in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, was ranked number one among agricultural companies.
The FFD Projects director James Hulse says it was the only company to score well in all categories.
"In terms of all of those, it is certified, it is engaging with its suppliers and it is working with the community and within the community to really try and improve best practice as to how it goes about its plantations," he said.
"New Britain Palm Oil are one of the few companies to have a fully integrated, segregated, supply chain that I believe is almost entirely RSPO certified."
The Forest Footprint Disclosure Project ranked 100 companies from every region of the world, including Colgate-Palmolive, Gucci and Heinz, in its 2012 assessment.
Backed by $US 13 trillion in invested capital, the FFD Project engages with smallholders, and works with them to improve yields and reduce the area of land that needs to be farmed.
It rates agricultural companies highly if they have independently verified sustainable certification of their products.
The FFD Project also rates the timber industry, oil and gas, cattle producers and many others.

Risky business

New Britain Palm Oil was a foundation member of the industry certification body, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, but it has found the process is expensive.
"I think there are financial advantage to becoming RSPO certified," Mr Hulse said.
"There have been a number of studies done that show, yes, there has been an investment but, yes, there has been a return in terms of improved yields and lower input costs."
Mr Hulse says companies need to be aware of the risks of being associated with deforestation.
"There are big reputational risks for companies. There are also legislation risks We are starting to see with logging around the world Europe the US and obviously Australia is now working on its own illegal logging laws, and we've also got operational risk.
"These are food commodities that are operating under increased supply constraints and increased demands, from population growth, from changing diet and also from climate change and it is causing a massive squeeze - you know the world missed the credit crunch but I don't think it is going to miss the commodity crunch.
"It is a well understood theme among investors. So really a lot of what we are doing is about supply chain management for companies. It is about risk management within the context of feeding the world and not expanding into deforested lands."

Carbon footprint

Oil palm plantations are one of the biggest threats to tropical rainforests.
Deforestation accounts for 15 per cent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions and takes a toll on biodiversity.
Big companies and their investors are increasingly seeing it as a risk to their reputation.
In June 2012 the FFD Project merged with the Carbon Disclosure Project create the world's largest natural capital disclosure system covering the carbon, water and forests.
Mr Hulse says it is important that the issues are understood separately, and that with deforestation there are global supply chains.
"A lot of companies aren't actually aware of what is going on within their supply chains," he said.
"What we would like to do is bring them together to look a little bit more realistically at how companies use natural capital and how they impact on the environment more generally.
"And the Carbon Disclosure Project obviously gives us some huge reach - it has been backed by more than half the world's investable capital. There are 4,000 companies around the world that are reporting to it. The scale of the CDP is going to be hugely important for us to get the message across."

ANZ to help push financial inclusion goal in PNG

Source: The National,Wednesday, February 6, 2013 

 

ANZ bank chief executive officer Mike Smith has assured Treasurer Don Polye that the bank will assist Papua New Guinea in areas of “financial inclusion” and “financial literacy”.
He gave the assurance in a remark at a breakfast meeting of the Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday.
Polye said his department and the Bank of PNG was going out in a big way to promote financial inclusion at grassroots level and asked if ANZ had any policies in this area.
“I think it’s a very important point,” Smith said,
“Certainly, ANZ wishes to continue to invest in Papua New Guinea.
“I think it’s absolutely right that financial inclusion should be a high priority for the country.
“I think the issue is how fast it can effectively be created, how you can bring banking products and banking services to the wider population.
“That, of course, is helped enormously by technology.
“I think if you had asked if this was possible 20 years ago when banks relied enormously on branch networks, it was a much more difficult thing to do.”
Smith said the other important thing, one in which ANZ had played a part in a number of countries, was the whole issue of financial literacy.
“I think the opportunity you have in this country (to promote financial literacy) is quite extraordinary,” he said.
“I think it has to be based on the whole education system.
“As a bank in Papua New Guinea, we will certainly take our role seriously and help you with that process.”
 The POMCCI, meantime, has welcomed Smith’s positive outlook on PNG.
“Your presentations have always been thought-provoking, certainly they’ve always been positive,” vice-president Ken Dunn told Smith.
“The business community appreciates the interest that ANZ is showing in Papua New Guinea and the effort you put into improving your banking system.”

Simberi produces 13,000oz of gold

Source: The National,Wednesday, February 6, 2013

By MALUM NALU

SIMBERI gold mine in New Ireland produced 13,291 ounces of gold in the fourth quarter of last year at a cash operating cost of US$1,253 per ounce, according to the company’s quarterly report released yesterday.
Simberi is a significant, long-term development project , which is poised to increase production to approximately 75,000oz of gold in the financial year to June 2013.
The mine was developed by Allied Gold Mining PLC between 2004 and 2012, when it was acquired by St Barbara Ltd.
An expansion project is underway to further lift production to an estimated 100,000oz of gold per annum.
The December 2012 quarterly report said the operation experienced some unexpected downtime in the mill and this led to a reduced throughput for the quarter.
“Recoveries increased from 83% to 89% and, as the processing plant reliability improves, gold production is expected to improve in line with the second-half guidance.
“The ore milled reduced from 464,000 tonnes to 432,000 tonnes for the quarter.
“Two new leach tanks were commissioned in December and will be fully operational and in use from this month.
“The grade of ore milled remained unchanged for the quarter at 1.1 grammes per tonne (g/t) gold.
“Improved mine planning and more efficient mining operations resulted in an increase in ore mined from 504,000 tonnes to 592,000 tonnes for the quarter.
“The delivery of additional trucking and excavator capacity to the operation next month will see these volumes increase further to meet the increased milling capacity once the oxide project is commissioned.”
The report said expansion was being achieved through the installation of a new semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill, two new leach tanks, additional elution circuit and improved tailings treatment facilities.
“All of the major components are now on site and erection of steel work is progressing satisfactorily,” it said.
“Final civil works are near complete.” 
 

PNG extends ban on no-confidence vote

By Eoin Blackwell, AAP Papua New Guinea Correspondent

 

PAPUA New Guinea's parliament has voted to extend a ban on votes of no confidence to 30 months into a government's five-year term.

PNG's opposition backed away from supporting the law, saying it will take the matter to the Supreme Court to undo it.
The bill passed into law in PNG's single House of Parliament on Tuesday with a vote of 90 to 14, well above the 74 votes needed to make the constitutional change.
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said the law - which extends the ban from the previous 18 months - will give government more time to do its job instead of shoring up numbers to defend itself politically.
"This is not about increasing my power," Mr O'Neill said.
"It is about locking in to place the long-term political stability our nation, especially our people, have been denied for so long.

"It is a reform our people have been calling for - and most certainly our business sector, and our investors, have been calling for."
Debate on the law was gagged following a statement by Mr O'Neill and an opposition member.
Opposition leader Belden Namah and most of his 15-strong team voted against the bill, just four months after announcing their support for the measure, and he said he will follow through with court action.
One member of the opposition voted with the government.
"By this afternoon or tomorrow morning, we will file a Supreme Court reference because we have cited that in that particular amendment, it wasn't done properly," he said, telling reporters the law was not documented properly.
The man who just eight months ago was Mr O'Neill's deputy said the law was not about stability, but about concentrating power in the PM.
"What has happened now - those who voted for the bill - have become insignificant," he told journalists following the vote.
"They have weakened their own bargaining and negotiating power for projects in their districts. It's as simple as that.
"They have put themselves into voluntary exile ... from now on, Peter O'Neill is the most powerful man in the country."
PNG has lost two prime ministers to votes of no confidence since independence in 1975 - Sir Michael Somare and Paias Wingti.
However, the threat of a vote has been a significant part of the Pacific nation's political makeup, causing its prime ministers to become entrenched in money politics to keep colleagues on side.

South Sydney Rabbitohs expecting a big crowd for trial match against PNG Kumuls

By Josh Massoud  The Daily Telegraph

TRADITIONALLY a cardinal and mrytle affair, Saturday night's Return to Redfern trial clash will feature some very different faces.

Rabbitohs officials expecting hundreds of raucous Papuans to cheer on the visiting Kumuls, whose every move will also be evaluated by talent scouts from rival NRL outfits.

South Sydney's Bryson Goodwin with Papua New Guinea rugby league players (L to R) Glenn Nami, Israel Eliab, Joshia Abavu, Esau Siune and Dion Aiye at Redfern Oval ahead of their trial match this week. Picture: Brett Costello Source: The Daily Telegraph

Despite being the only nation to declare rugby league its No. 1 sport, PNG remains virgin territory for most recruitment officers.
The 20-strong squad that will tackle Souths this weekend is wholly comprised of PNG residents, with some based in remote highland regions where brutal 'eye-for-an-eye' tribal customs still reign supreme.
Dreadlocked prop Esau Siune hails from the village of Kundiawa in Simbu province, which is likely to be banned from hosting matches in this year's local competition because of repeated violence.
It's little wonder Rabbitohs three-quarter Bryson Goodwin was anticipating a physical contest after coming face-to-face with Siune and his team mates at Redfern yesterday.
"I'm sure they are going to be hard to play," he said.
"They've even got a guy nick-named the mini jukebox because he produces so many big hits.
"They'll be energetic and enthusiastic."
Recruitment officers learned that much last weekend, when they watched the Kumuls win the Cabramatta International Nines tournament after conceding just two tries.
Along with Siune, halves Dion Aiye and Israel Eliab attracted interest from Sydney-based player agents that could pave the way for NRL contracts.
PNG coach Adrian Lam expects more recruitment officers to flock to Redfern for Saturday night's game.
"From what I've heard there will be about six clubs with recruitment officers here," Lam said.
"I don't know why clubs haven't concentrated on Papua New Guinea more.
"They've become very familiar with the Pacific islands, but no-one from PNG really gets picked-up unless they come to school in Australia first."
About 2,000 tickets remain available for the clash - one of seven trials being held this weekend.
Friday night's Manly-Cronulla hit-out at Brookvale Oval will boast the most high-profile players, with the Sharks rolling out all their new recruits barring Luke Lewis (oblique tear).
Michael Gordon, Chris Heighington, Beau Ryan and Jono Wright have all been included in the 31-man squad, along with established Sharks Wade Graham, Ben Ross, Isaac de Gois and Anthony Tupou.
Canberra have named stars Josh Dugan, Jarrod Croker, Sam Williams and Josh McCrone for Saturday night's game against Melbourne in Geelong, while Canterbury and Newtown will round out the weekend's action with the annual Back to Belmore fixture.
Wests Tigers also tackle Penrith in Bathurst, where the Panthers have named a slightly stronger team that includes first graders Clint Newton, Blake Austin and Nathan Smith.