Nautilus bulk cutter arrives at Tyneside (UK)

Dredging Today

Subsea vehicle designer and manufacturer SMD were awarded the contract to build the world’s first deep sea mining tools for Nautilus Minerals in 2007.
 
The contract included three subsea mining machines with the associated control and launch and recovery systems.
Tuesday, July 2, saw the first major milestone in the production of the mining vehicles with the arrival of the chassis of the bulk cutter (BC) at SMD’s main production facility in Wallsend.
The chassis, which was fabricated by Davy Markham in Sheffield, was delivered complete with double ended drive tracks which were manufactured by Caterpillar in Italy.
The bulk cutter is the heaviest of the three vehicles, weighing 310 Tonnes when fully assembled; the chassis weighs 70 Tonnes.
Nautilus intends to use the vehicles at its first project, known as Solwara 1, off the coast of Papua New Guinea in approximately 1600m of water.
Land based mineral deposits are being depleted at an increasing rate as developing economies grow, creating an undeniable opportunity for subsea mining.
Most of the recent land discoveries of copper deposits yield ore grades of less than 2%, while Nautilus’ Solwara site offers ore grades up to 7%.
In addition to the increased ore grade, sea floor resources lie on or very close to the sea bed, unlike land based deposits which require removal of large expanses of overburden.
The excavation and collection has been split into three individual tasks which will each be carried out by a different vehicle.
The auxiliary cutter is designed as the pioneering machine which prepares the rugged sea bed for the more powerful bulk cutter.
 These two machines gather the excavated material; the third vehicle, the Collection Machine will collect the cut material by drawing it in as seawater slurry with internal pumps and pushing it thought a flexible pipe to the production ship via a subsea pump and riser system.
The bulk cutter has a large traverse excavating drum with just under one megawatt of electrically driven cutting power.
As well as the three vehicles, SMD is providing the large launch and recovery ‘A’ frame and winch systems to allow deployment from the production ship.
After arrival in SMD’s production facility, assembly, commissioning and factory testing of the bulk cutter will continue through to November 2013.
SMD’s Lorna Doxsey (Nautilus Project Director) commented: “This is a first of type in sub-sea mining and demonstrates SMD’s ongoing innovative approach to engineering excellence.
"Working closely with the client, Nautilus Minerals, SMD has achieved design close-out for this unique equipment for sub-sea mining.
"With phase 1 fabrication completed, we now embark on phase 2.
"This moves the tracked chassis through assembly and factory acceptance tests, before continuing through pre-delivery testing to demonstrate operational compliance.
"The BC will be followed by the auxiliary cutter and collection machine.
" Thanks to all involved to date and here’s to delivery of the successfully completed suite of machines.”

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Quintessential Resources has drilling success, high grade copper/silver in PNG

Proactive Investors

Thursday, July 04, 2013

Quintessential Resources (ASX:QRL) has been rewarded from drilling in Papua New Guinea with the highest grade intercept of 3.0 metres of 2.61% copper + 68.0g/t silver + 0.10 g/t gold at its Irak Prospect in the Enga Province.
These results from the Northern Skarn outcrop have been traced locally for approximately 500 metres total and it was originally discovered by Quintessential in the third quarter of 2012.
Peak outcrop assay values since then have been 15.9% copper and 303 g/t silver and it averaged 1.48% copper + 45 g/t silver + 0.23 g/t gold + 126 ppm molybdenum in 69 samples.
The samples were prepared in Lae, Papua New Guinea and were analysed by SGS Geochem in Townsville, QLD.
Further geological mapping and sampling is required to trace the mineralisation further east and determine additional drill targets.
Quintessential's drilling equipment remains at site, ready for the next round of exploration.
Managing director of Quintessential Paige McNeil will be significantly encouraged by these results following on from earlier outcrop assay results.

New Australian Aid Minister Melissa Parke brushes aside claims her appointment could upset Indonesia

By Asia editor Catherine McGrath | ABC 

The new Minister for International Development, West Australian MP Melissa Parke, has brushed aside claims her support for human rights issues could ruffle feathers in Indonesia.
Ms Parke is well known for her interest in human rights issues and has previously supported campaigners from West Papuan independence movement.
Last year, Ms Parke defied a request to Labor MPs - issued by then-trade minister Craig Emerson - to not attend an event in support the independence campaigners following Indonesian complaints.
Ms Parke would not comment on how her appointment would be viewed in Indonesia, where she has been seen as sympathetic to the West Papuan cause.
"That is not an issue I am going to canvass.
My background in human rights is well known," she said.
"My focus is on the aid programme and we are doing fantastic things together with the Indonesian government." Indonesia is the biggest recipient of Australian aid.
Ms Parke says her focus will be on promoting aid spending to Australian voters to ensure they know how funding is allocated.
"In education, for instance, we are building and renovating 2,000 junior secondary schools and training 300,000 principals," she said.
"We are going to have thousands and thousands of young Indonesians who are receiving a mainstream secular curriculum education and contributing to the economic capacity and governance of this region.
"That has to be a good thing for all of us." Professor Greg Barton, from Monash University, says it is unlikely that Ms Parke's appointment would cause concern in Indonesia.
"On the Indonesian side there is enormous difference in views across Parliament and across the Cabinet there are sharp differences of voices and opinions expressed," he said.
'Selling the message' of Australia's aid work Australia currently spends $5.7 billion on aid.
Seventy per cent of the budget is spent in the Asia Pacific region.
Ms Parke says many Australians are not aware of the Government's work and says she will work to "sell the message".
"It is a really significant part of the Government's work that perhaps not a lot of Australians know a lot about," she said "I would like to get out there and sell that message as best we can.
"Our aid programme is about saving lives and helping people out of poverty." The Government has reduced its future spending commitments, cutting from the last budget nearly $3 billion from future spending promises.
It has also taken $375 million from the aid budget over the last two years to re-direct to funding asylum seekers in Australia.
But Ms Parke says Australia's aid commitments are not being neglected.
"This Labor Government has increased our aid commitment every years since we have been in government," she said.
"This year that was a $500 million increase." Papua New Guinea an aid priority Ms Parke says Papua New Guinea is another priority for Australian aid.
She says none of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – designed to reduce poverty and help development – are being met in the country "We know PNG is facing issues when it comes to gender inequality, domestic violence [and] when it comes to literacy and health," she said.

"We know that a women in PNG is more than 200 times more likely to die from pregnancy related conditions or childbirth and that just isn't good enough." Ms Parke says there is still much to do in t

Harmony in the forest: Improving lives and the environment in Southeast Asia

From the Wilson Center:

By Swara Salih  // Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Photo Credit: Coffee farmers in Papua New Guinea, courtesy of Lisa Dabek/TKCP

How can NGOs and civil society promote environmental protection and improve people’s health and livelihoods in remote tropical forests? Two NGOs with innovative programs in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea spoke at the Wilson Center on May 30 about their efforts to simultaneously tackle these issues and highlight their intricate relationship. 
The Tree Kangaroo Conservation Project (TKCP), a project of the Seattle Woodland Park Zoo, empowers citizens in Papua New Guinea’s Huon Peninsula to manage their natural resources, improve their health, and increase their food security and income. Recognizing the link between loss of Indonesia’s natural habitat and human health, Health in Harmony works with local communities in West Kalimantan through its domestic partner organization Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI) to build their health infrastructure and increase their alternatives to logging.

Coffee and Midwives in Papua New Guinea

In 1996, TKCP began working in Papua New Guinea with the goal of creating its first national park, the YUS Conservation Area. But today, the organization has expanded to support the health and food security needs of local communities, which total around 15,000 people from 50 different villages in the region, said Lisa Dabek, senior conservation scientist and director of the program.
The indigenous people own almost all of the land on the Huon Peninsula, which significantly affects how TKCP conducts its conservation work. Huon communities hunt the tree kangaroo for food and cultural reasons, so “from the very beginning we’ve talked about each clan setting aside a portion of their hunting land, so that we were not going in and telling them to stop hunting, but we were saying there’s a need for creating a sustainable natural resource for them, for food and for cultural aspects,” Dabek said.
“All through Papua New Guinea, in every province, there is logging and mining, but we are the first conservation area,” she said. “It is the people of YUS’s job to preserve the environment for their grandchildren.” However, “because these are such remote communities,” she said, “they are not getting the services they’re supposed to get from the provincial government.”
“I’m a conservation biologist, [health care] is not my background,” Dabek said, “but I felt I could be a liaison between communities we had established a relationship with and the health department at the provincial level.”

Map: YUS Conservation Area, courtesy of K. Kuna/TKCP.

TKCP began outreach efforts to local communities, visiting villages with volunteer doctors and meeting with the provincial government and local health care workers.  TKCP also enlisted the aid of Joan Castro of the BALANCED Project and PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc., to help the TKCP team train health workers and midwives. Eventually, TKCP developed the Healthy Village, Healthy Forest Project to provide health training and medical treatment in the YUS area in partnership with the Papua New Guinea Medical Research Institute and district and provincial health departments.
The project provides immunizations for children under five; training for village birth attendants and health workers; and workshops in which they discuss the importance of family health and the links between conservation and health. “It’s been very fascinating for all of us to have these discussions in the communities,” Dabek said, “because you can talk about how you need healthy water; you need enough wildlife in the forest to be able to hunt to feed your family: all of these links that sometimes don’t get talked about in conservation projects.”
TKCP also added training on more sustainable and profitable agriculture, Dabek said. Farmers now more frequently set aside land for conservation, instead of depleting it quickly and clearing new spaces, for example. TKCP also put coffee farmers in contact with Caffé Vita, a coffee roasting company in Seattle, which now buys coffee from local farmers, tripling their income and allowing them to more easily pay school and health care costs, Dabek noted.
“I think it’s so vital to link population, health, and environment with local communities that are trying to do conservation work,” she said.

Family and Forest Health in Indonesia

In Indonesia’s Gunung Palung National Park, Health in Harmony confronts similar challenges. “In Borneo they had experienced the most rapid decimation of rainforests anywhere in the world,” said Managing Director Michelle Bussard:

Poor health and grinding poverty push human populations to engage in illegal logging for survival. When families in Indonesia must log tropical forests to pay for basic needs such as health care, the impacts are manifold: habitat for rare and endangered species is destroyed; fields are flooded and crops destroyed; increased standing water increases the incidence of diseases like malaria and dengue fever; and the degradation of global air quality impacts all of us across the planet.

To conserve the forest, Health in Harmony’s local partner ASRI works closely with local communities, assigning 30 “forest guardians” from the villages to discourage excessive logging and promote alternative means of work, such as farming. As a result, logging has declined as a primary source of income. Citing the results of a community survey, Bussard said that in 2008, 33 percent of households surveyed said they had benefitted from logging; by 2012, that number had decreased to 13 percent.
Additionally, 78 percent of respondents who said that logging still contributed to their household incomes said they could afford their daily necessities without logging. Fifty-two percent of former loggers are now organic farmers, making more income than they did before. In 2007, the average monthly income was less than $100 a month, Bussard said; in 2012, it had increased to $144. Farming is now the primary source of income for around 67.4 percent of individuals surveyed.

Health in Harmony opened Clinic ASRI in 2007 to increase access to health care. Besides providing care where it was missing before, ASRI also makes it easier for households to afford it. ASRI never turns down patients; they have the option to pay through barter and they can receive significant discounts if they’re from a community with no illegal logging in the last month. The still-nascent clinic treats as many as 60 patients a day and 34,000 patients to date, Bussard said. It also provides midwife training, access to family planning, and child immunizations.
Based on the results of a five-year survey, Bussard said they found that although ASRI is sometimes overburdened, they have still made significant progress improving many health indicators. Child immunizations have increased by 25 percent, and child mortality has “significantly decreased,” she said. Access to family planning has improved, with the average number of individuals per household dipping from 4.79 to 4.23, and the number of people that know about HIV/AIDS has increased to 42 percent from less than 20 percent.
Bussard said they have been cognizant of working within cultural parameters, particularly in regards to family planning. “Operating in the country that we operate in, which is predominantly Muslim, it is a topic that has to be addressed with the utmost care and diplomacy,” she said. The communities requested more midwives, who now “not only are attending more and more births, but they are the liaisons in the community, helping families to better understand family planning as they want to.”
“It’s really important to us that these questions arise organically and are embraced within the context of community and the midwifery training that goes on,” said Bussard.

Creative Partnerships for Integration

These cross-sector, integrated development interventions would not be possible without cooperation – with communities, government, donors, and other organizations.
“This work is not just the Woodland Park Zoo’s or the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program’s work,” said Dabek. “It’s really done in partnership with many different organizations and specifically I want to point out Conservation International, who is one of our major partners, and the BALANCED project, which is funded by USAID.”
When looking for funding for the ASRI clinic, Health in Harmony staff made a presentation at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture that inspired some professors to teach a class on how to sustainably build the clinic without depleting the rainforest. The class was a success, generating an innovative, preliminary design after three semesters that was further modified by Vera Yusnita, an Indonesian architect working for ASRI, and Roberto Cipriano, an architect who left his job in New York City to volunteer time towards the completion of the plans. Construction is still underway on the new building.
Both speakers also stressed the importance of listening to specific community needs and adapting to them. “The underpinning of [the model] is listening to the community,” Bussard said, “and designing solutions in and with communities that are sustainable over time.”
 Event Resources: 

• Lisa Dabek’s Presentation
• Photo Gallery

PNG opposition challenges constitution changes

By Eoin Blackwell, AAP Papua New Guinea Correspondent 

PAPUA New Guinea's opposition will launch court action to stop a constitutional amendment it says will remove parliament's ability to keep government accountable.

Prime Minister Peter O'Neill on the weekend announced his government will push a series of amendments to the constitution which will force motions of no confidence to be made public three months before the vote.

The government is also seeking to mandate the amount of parliamentary sitting days in a move the opposition says will limit sitting days from 63 to 40.

"This is not only dictatorial but a dangerous abuse and violation of our national constitution," Opposition Public Enterprises spokesman Tobias Kulang said in a statement.

"All members have taken an oath to uphold and protect the constitution and we call on intellectual MPs and former prime ministers to lead the way in defending the spirit and intentions of the constitution." Mr Kulang said the wording of the amendment to alter the sitting days means MPs will theoretically sit for the first forty days of a year and not meet again.

He said the opposition will launch legal action to stop the ammendments being debated in parliament.

Mr O'Neill leads a coalition of more than 95 MPs in PNG's 111 seat, single House of Parliament.

Three of those MPs are former prime ministers - Sir Michael Somare, Sir Julius Chan and Paias Wingti.

Mr O'Neill said on the weekend the amendments are aimed at stopping others from abusing parliamentary process.

Under the changes, a vote of no confidence will also require a third of parliament to back it instead of the currently required 10th of parliament.

"The amendment allows the vote of no confidence process to occur in an open and transparent manner," Mr O'Neill said.

 "It allows more time for Parliament and the public to assess and debate whether the notice has merit. It ensures wider consultation." The Prime Minister says the amendments will also make clearer the number of days Parliament must sit every year, and will remove ambiguities he says were used to congest sittings and prolong adjournments.

"By clearly defining the sitting days in a year, the government can plan its legislative programs for Parliament in an orderly manner," he said.

"A clearer sitting timetable improves administration and helps to reduce costs." Shortly after winning the 2012 election, Mr O'Neill convinced his parliamentary backers to pass a 30 month ban on votes of no confidence during a government's five year term.

That amendment followed almost a year of political instability sparked in mid 2011 by the removal of Sir Michael Somare as Prime Minister by Mr O'Neill and his supporters.

Jewish WWII hero who 'killed 600 Japanese' in PNG dies

Commanders thought anti-Semitism kept him from Medal of Honor 

Did the American government refuse to honor a World War II veteran who was regarded as a war hero by the British Empire, because he was Jewish?
The question apparently still lingered in David Rubitsky’s mind when he died, penniless, June 28 at a nursing home in East Moline, Ill., the local Quad-City Times reported.
Rubitsky’s commanders claim he single-handedly killed 500 to 600 Japanese soldiers while guarding a military outpost in Papua New Guinea during the Battle of Buna in December 1942.

According to Rubitsky’s account, he defended the bunker with a 30-cal. machine gun, a .45-cal. pistol, a rifle and grenades.
In a WND column in 2001, WND CEO and Editor Joseph Farah told Rubitsky’s story when the veteran was still lobbying for a Medal of Honor:

Rubitsky spent a total of 21 hours in the bunker — including nine under heavy siege. The Japanese army attacked from three different directions — the north, south and west. His bunker had slits on all sides, making it possible for him to respond to an attack from any direction. He switched from gun to gun and threw grenades at the enemy, while the Japanese alternately charged his position and shelled it with light artillery.

When the fighting was over, Rubitsky was bleeding from the mouth, nose and elsewhere and suffering from multiple concussions from the shelling. But the Japanese were a lot worse off.

Rubitsky was invited in 2001 to Buckingham Palace to receive a decree, signed by the queen, naming him an honorary Member of the British Empire after the government of Papua New Guinea commissioned a historian who concluded Rubitsky was telling the truth.
Rubitsky’s company commander, Capt. Joseph M. Stehling, recommended Rubitsky for the Medal of Honor after surveying the battle site. The recommendation reached battalion commander Lt. Col. Herbert A. Smith, who passed it on to Col. John W. Mott, the division’s chief of staff.
According to Smith, Mott said, “You mean a Jew for the Congressional Medal of Honor?”
Mott then laughed and walked away, Smith said.
Farah noted in his column that Rubitsky considered his Medal of Honor effort to be a matter of principle.
“What really matters is why I didn’t get the medal,” he said. “I’m doing it for the principle and the truth, not the medal and not the money. It’s for every man, whether black, green, or purple. If he wears the uniform, he should get what’s coming to him. He shouldn’t have to fight for it.”
In 1986, when Rubitsky’s former commanders discovered he had not been awarded the medal, they got several lawmakers and the Anti-Defamation League to take up the cause.
After an investigation, however, the U.S. Army announced in 1989 there was insufficient evidence to support Rubitsky’s claim.
Nevertheless, Rubitsky’s son, Dennis, said his father told him, “If you ever went to New Guinea and said you’re a Rubitsky, they’d treat you like a king.”
Dennis Rubitsky said a movie was going to be made about his father, with Kirk Douglas playing him and Douglas’ son playing him as a younger man, but Kirk Douglas became ill and the project was halted.
“Steven Spielberg wanted to buy the rights to the movie, but that didn’t happen. At this point, I don’t know whether that movie ever will be made,” he told the Quad-City Times.
“The only thing he was disappointed about was not getting the Medal of Honor from his own country.

Rudd set for Indonesia talks

By Madeleine Coorey (AFP)

SYDNEY — Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd heads to Indonesia this week for his first foreign trip since retaking the leadership, but one in which the thorny domestic issue of asylum-seekers is set to figure prominently.
Would-be refugees risking their lives journeying to Australia by boat, often from transit hubs in Indonesia, are a key issue for the upcoming election.
Australia has tried to stem the flow with punitive policies banishing asylum-seekers to the remote Pacific Islands of Nauru and Papua New Guinea, but thousands have arrived by boat since and scores more have died trying.
Rudd has already drawn Indonesia into the domestic debate, pouring scorn on his election rival opposition leader Tony Abbott and his plan to "turn back" the boats, saying this risked a diplomatic incident with Jakarta.
"I really wonder if he is trying to risk conflict with Indonesia... there have been some pretty rough times in the relationship, I never want to see that again," Rudd told reporters in Canberra.
The jetsetting former foreign minister and ex-diplomat will take the prickly issue abroad this week, hoping to emphasise his leadership credentials after three years in exile which ended last month with his dramatic toppling of Julia Gillard.
Rudd won a 57-45 leadership ballot of Labor lawmakers fearing crushing defeat at the polls in September, where the politically-sensitive issue of asylum-seekers is expected to loom large.
Zareh Ghazarian, who lectures in politics at Melbourne's Monash University, said Rudd would be looking to consolidate Australia's relationship with Indonesia in the two-day visit beginning Thursday.
But he said the trip could also be used by Rudd to "advance his domestic political objectives" ahead of the yet-to-be announced election date.
Ghazarian told AFP Rudd wanted "to be seen to be a Prime Minister who is in control of Australia's foreign affairs and is comfortable dealing with our foreign neighbours and is addressing important issues".
"And the most important one of them all, at this point of time in terms of domestic politics, is asylum seekers and boat arrivals," he added.
With some 13,105 boat people arriving in Australia since January 1 -- the largest group of them from Iran with 4,361 arrivals -- Ghazarian said the approach highlights Rudd's new pragmatism.
"Asylum-seeker policy is something that has been shown in the polls to really be hurting Labor in a number of important swinging seats, especially in western Sydney," he said.
"So if he is able to somehow ameliorate those voters' concerns by being seen to be a bit more tough on border security, then it is not going to do any harm to Labor's prospects."
Given the record influx of arrivals, the government has reportedly asked new Immigration Minister Tony Burke to consider other options, including stricter assessments and how to repatriate those deemed to be economic migrants.
The conservative opposition has labelled Rudd's comments on conflict with Indonesia reckless, but Abbott said this week the Prime Minister had "finally woken up to the fact that the vast majority of these people are not fair dinkum refugees".
"They're economic migrants pure and simple," Abbott said.
"Now I can understand why people from horrible countries would want to come to Australia. I can understand that. But they've got to come in the front door not the back door."
Professor Vedi Hadiz, Professor of Asian Societies and Politics at Murdoch University in Perth, said Rudd distancing himself from Abbott's policy of turning back the boats was welcome.
"And I think that just by distancing himself from Abbott, Rudd would make quite a lot of political mileage," he said.
Hadiz said Indonesia would be receptive of the idea of a clamp down on people-smuggling given it strains Indonesia's border controls.
But he added any attempt to deal with people-smuggling effectively would have to be a regional effort.
"It's not really even what Australia does or what Indonesia does, it has to be Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq and of course that's a huge effort," he said