FIFA corruption concerns prompt Oceania probe into David Chung


thedailystar.net | April 9, 2018

The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) said Monday it will investigate "potential wrongdoings" after a FIFA audit into construction of its lavish new Auckland headquarters raised corruption concerns.
The move comes after the sudden resignation of OFC president David Chung two days before a meeting to discuss the FIFA findings.
Chung resigned on Friday citing "personal reasons", but FIFA subsequently revealed its audit had uncovered "potential irregularities" in the Auckland project.
FIFA said it had temporarily suspended OFC funding, part of a zero-tolerance approach to corruption introduced in response to numerous scandals that have tarnished its reputation in recent years.
The OFC said it agreed to meet all FIFA requirements to resume funding, conduct a forensic audit of the case and carry out its own investigation.
"The OFC Executive Committee has appointed an external lawyer to lead an internal investigation into potential wrongdoings and to take legal action if required," it said in a statement.
The FIFA audit raised concerns about construction of a sports hub in Auckland that Chung said would become "The Home of Football" in the Pacific region.
With a reported budget of NZ$15 million ($10.9 million), it was a pet project of Chung, the head of Papua New Guinea football who had led the OFC since 2010.
The New York Times reported that Chung and former OFC general secretary Tai Nicholas awarded contracts for the scheme without tender to companies with no track record in the area.
It claimed the audit showed many of the companies were set up just before the contracts were awarded and questioned their relationship with those driving the project.
The newspaper alleged the OFC's executive committee was planning to suspend Chung for "gross dereliction of duty or an act of improper conduct" at a meeting on Sunday before he fell on his sword.
Nicholas quietly resigned in December, also citing personal reasons.
The OFC has long had issues with governance and transparency.
Chung's predecessor Reynald Temarii of Tahiti was forced out in 2010 after being implicated in a vote-selling scandal during an undercover newspaper sting.
In November, former Guam FA president Richard Lai, who served on FIFA's auditing body, was barred from football for life after admitting to accepting almost $1 million on kickbacks.
OFC's current headquarters in Auckland, opened only eight years ago, is named after former president Charlie Dempsey, who created an uproar in 2000 during the vote to award the 2006 World Cup.
Dempsey had been instructed by Oceania to vote for South Africa but abstained from the final ballot, effectively handing the 2006 tournament to Germany.
He later said he withdrew after being placed under "intolerable pressure" but never fully explained his actions.
Reports in German media in 2015 alleged Dempsey had been paid $250,000 on the eve of the vote by a sports marketing firm linked to the German bid.

Australian minister launches Adventist project in Papua New Guinea

by Darren Yorio, adventistreview.org
April 9, 2018

ADRA initiative seeks to improve water supply, climate resilience, and adult literacy.

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop launched an Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) Papua New Guinea (PNG) community empowerment project in the Kavieng District, New Ireland Province, on March 21, 2018.

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop with Florence of Naliut, who shared her experience as beneficiary of ADRA PNG's literacy program. Photo: ADRA PNG

The ADRA-managed Inclusive Community Empowerment Project (ICEMP) will provide a clean water supply, greater resilience to climate change, and improved adult literacy for more than 12,000 people in the area.
The event was significant as it was the first time that a PNG Incentive Fund project is officially launched in the country by an Australian Federal Minister.
The Incentive Fund provides grants to high-performing organisations to improve service delivery and provide economic opportunities for the people of PNG.
 It is funded by the Australian Government.
The official launch included the signing of the project agreement by Australian High Commissioner to PNG Bruce Davis, and ADRA PNG Board chairman and Papua New Guinea Union Mission president Kepsie Elodo.
Bishop was welcomed with a traditional New Ireland “Sing-sing” dance and met with recipients of the project. She acknowledged the work of ADRA — the humanitarian arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church — in PNG and expressed her passion for seeing more women and girls empowered in communities in Kavieng District, with improved opportunities for learning and sustainable livelihoods.
ICEMP is a 30-month project that was developed closely with representatives of the local community, who identified key issues affecting the livelihoods of their villages, particularly for women and girls, including water and sanitation, literacy, and climate change.
Communities also proposed the integration of leadership and governance programs to promote more women into leadership roles with the goal of improving household income levels.
ADRA PNG acknowledged the support of the Australian Government, which provided a 3.7 million PNG kinas grant to the project (about 1.14 million US dollars).
ADRA PNG is also grateful for the support of ADRA Australia in providing match funding and program effectiveness support.

ADRA PNG is part of ADRA International, which delivers relief and development assistance to individuals through an international network with presence in more than 130 countries, regardless of their ethnicity, political affiliation, or religious association. By partnering with communities, organisations, and governments, ADRA is able to improve the quality of life of millions through disaster response, community health, livelihood and agriculture, social justice, and other impact areas.

As the oldest publishing platform of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Adventist Review (est. 1849) provides inspiration and information to the global church through a variety of media, including print, websites, apps, and audio and video platforms.Content appearing on any of the Adventist Review platforms has been selected because it is deemed useful to the purposes and mission of the journal to inform, educate, and inspire the denomination it serves.Unless identified as created by “Adventist Review” or a designated member of the Adventist Review staff, content is assumed to express the viewpoints of the author or creator of the content.

High risk of disease outbreaks in earthquake-hit Papua New Guinea - UNICEF and WHO

UNICEF

PORT MORESBY, 9 April 2018 – UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have cautioned about the high potential of waterborne and vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks in earthquake-affected areas of Papua New Guinea.

Rihanna Sam (4 years old) is from Mendi and is suffereing an infection in her femur after her leg was broken during the earthquake.© UNICEF/UN0184899/Mepham

Major concerns include watery diarrhoea due to water contamination from landslides, poor sanitation and personal hygiene management; and the vaccine-preventable diseases due to already low immunisation coverage in the Highlands region.
According to the National Department of Health (NDOH), about 70-80 per cent of children in the severely-affected provinces are not protected against preventable diseases – with routine measles coverage in Southern Highlands and Hela provinces in 2016 just 18.2 per cent and 27.6 per cent, respectively.
”At this stage of the emergency response, it is critical to restore the delivery of basic health services to the affected communities, such as the immunisation of children, said Dr Luo Dapeng, WHO Representative in PNG.
“We will continue to work closely with the NDOH, provincial health authorities and partners to respond to these risks and to prevent a secondary emergency arising from disease outbreaks”.
Karen Allen, UNICEF Representative for PNG, said that the current situation of children and families is a perfect situation for the emergence of disease outbreaks.
“We are really worried because a majority of children in the affected areas already have low immunity,” said Allen.
 “Now, as they are living in the crowded shelters with poor-hygiene conditions, inadequate clean water and little knowledge to protect themselves, children are becoming much more vulnerable to diseases, including vaccine-preventable and water-borne diseases.”
The February 26 earthquake of 7.5 magnitude and its hundreds of aftershocks have caused severe damage to nearly 65 per cent of health facilities in Hela and Southern Highland provinces.
About 13 per cent of health facilities remain closed.
However, most of the health facilities that re-opened can only attend to emergency services.
The Government estimates that 270,000 people are in need of urgent assistance. About 125,000 of them are children, of which 55,000 are children under five years old.
UNICEF and WHO are supporting the Government to conduct a measles and rubella immunisation campaign for children under five years old in the earthquake-hit areas in order to curb the risk of potential outbreaks.
 In addition, basic medical supplies and essential medicines for maternal and newborn health will be provided to ensure pregnant women and newborns have medical support for pregnancy related care. Just a few days after the earthquakes, UNICEF has distributed vaccines to the affected communities to protect some 31,700 children against measles and rubella, pertussis, pneumonia and tuberculosis.
In the Southern Highlands, the Provincial Health Authority (PHA) with support from WHO sent nine mobile teams by helicopter to vaccinate children in remote settlements referred to as care centers.
WHO has also supported the two provinces of Hela and Southern Highlands in establishing the Health Emergency Operation Center and the installation of surveillance systems to detect unusual disease reports.
 Local health authorities and community members have been trained to rapidly respond to disease outbreaks.
UNICEF and WHO are also stepping up the effort to improve water and sanitation system and hygiene practice in the affected areas. Hygiene kits and water purification tablets have been distributed to affected communities, while emergency pit latrines and rain water collection tanks are being built.
 At temporary shelters and child-friendly spaces, children also learn to protect themselves through hygiene-promotion activities.

OFC appoints lawyer to probe 'potential wrongdoing' by David Chung

fresnobee.com | April 9, 2018

Amid fresh claims of financial misconduct linked to senior FIFA officials, the Oceania Football Confederation has appointed an external lawyer to lead an investigation into "potential wrongdoing."
The OFC announced the move Monday in fallout from a FIFA audit of the tendering process around a $20 million construction project at its headquarters in Auckland which caused David Chung to unexpectedly resign as president.
He also lost his position as FIFA's senior vice president.
The Malaysia-born Chung quit on Friday citing personal reasons, though after FIFA cut funding to Oceania, saying it found "potential irregularities" in the construction process.
Chung led the OFC for seven years and his resignation came only two days before the annual meeting of the 14-nation confederation's congress in Auckland.
In resigning, Chung gave up his positions as the most senior of FIFA's eight vice presidents and a member of its ruling council.
The OFC Congress decided at its weekend meeting not to appoint a new president, even on an interim basis, until it next meets in June, likely in Moscow ahead of the World Cup.
It said the confederation will be led by the executive committee until an election is held in June.
 The new president will serve until Chung's tenure would have ended in 2019.
The OFC said the lawyer it had appointed would lead an external investigation into potential wrongdoing and would take legal action if required.
"A forensic audit has been ordered to review, in detail, the processes taken in relation to the OFC Home of Football and the financial processes adopted by the OFC administration in past years," the confederation said in a statement.
 "The OFC Executive Council has pledged to cooperate with all relevant authorities throughout this process.
"OFC will set up a reform committee to review the current OFC constitution, policy and practice activity."
That committee will be confirmed in June. The statement said the OFC will make no further comment while various investigations are ongoing.
The OFC Home of Football was a project closely associated with Chung, a businessman now living in Papua New Guinea and head of the PNG soccer association since 2004.
 The confederation announced the project had a budget of $20 million, thought to be substantial for a project of its nature.
According to the New York Times, the FIFA audit found Chung and OFC secretary general Tai Nicholas, who resigned in December citing personal reasons, had hired, without issuing a tender, a company to construct the headquarters which had no experience of the work required.
The project would have included an office building, two soccer fields and other facilities.
Investigators are reported to have found close relationships between the companies advising the OFC on the project and those chosen to complete it.
The Times said all companies were set up shortly before being awarded contracts "with no track record of experience and sub-contracted their works to other companies."
It found a company set up by Chung might have had links to the one hired to work on the project.
Oceania is the sixth and smallest of FIFA's confederations and is composed of 14 nations — of which 11 are FIFA member federations — spread across the Pacific, including New Zealand.
Chung succeeded Reynald Temarii, who was forced out of the OFC presidency in 2010 after being caught in a British newspaper's undercover sting into World Cup bid vote-buying.
With important FIFA business pending for the 2026 World Cup host contest, Oceania could appoint an interim member to the FIFA Council to replace Chung at a key June 10 meeting in Moscow.
 That meeting is set to decide if both candidates — Morocco and the joint United States-Canada-Mexico bid — will go ahead to a June 13 vote of the full FIFA membership.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the OFC secretary general is Tai Nicholas, not Tai Nichols.

 'I was terrified': fears over child mental health in post-quake Papua New Guinea

by Verity Bowman, theguardian.com

April 9, 2018

Close to 25,000 under 18s suffering psychological damage in chaos and violence following catastrophic tremors, says World Health Organisation

Stanton, 10, standing on the remains of his home in Daga, Papua New Guinea. Photograph: Thomas Nybo/Unicef

As many as 25,000 children in Papua New Guinea are in desperate need of psychological support following a series of devastating earthquakes, warned the World Health Organisation.
The PNG government estimates 270,000 people are in need of urgent assistance, including 125,000 children. Of these, 15% to 20% need psychological help, the WHO said. The 7.5 magnitude earthquake on 26 February was followed by almost 200 aftershock tremors in the last 40 days. Some of these have reached a magnitude of 6.5.
According to Kate Dischino of Americares, a charity working in the country, the aftershocks and lack of stability are causing significant psychological issues.
“The need for mental healthcare is much greater than anyone had anticipated.
"It’s been nearly 45 days since the first earthquake happened and people are still uncertain how they’re going to see their families and where they’re going to sleep at night.
"The aftershocks are truly frightening, so mental health and psychosocial survival becomes more of a priority every day.”
Among those worst affected are children. Karen Allen, Unicef representative to PNG, said lack of water and shelter and threat of disease compound mental trauma, adding to the suffering caused by ongoing violence in the country.
“Children are still being confronted by fear, loss, confusion, family separation, deteriorated living conditions and disruption of social and school activities. "Psychological damage among children should not be overlooked.
" It can have a negative impact on brain development, mental health and overall wellbeing in the long run.”
Children who have suffered trauma have an increased risk of delayed development, mental health disorders, depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide, she added.
“I was terrified when the earth started shaking,” Stanton, 10, told Unicef, standing on the remains of his home in Daga, after the earthquakes destroyed seven out of ten homes in the village.
 “I tried to run far away, but it was dark and I was confused.”
Stanton managed to escape but said his family had been left with nothing.
Existing tensions in the area are worsening the situation.
There has been a renewed outbreak of violence in Hela province, one of the worst hit by the earthquake, with animosity aggravated by poor mental health and scarce resources.
 Thousands have been displaced and are unable to return to their villages.
“It is children who are witness to this and sometimes even become involved in it, either as victims in some cases – when they’re shot or they’re slashed – or sometimes the men put the weapons in the hands of children,” said Allen.
“There are children even under the age of 10 running around with weapons.
"It’s this normalisation of extreme violence that will affect children the most.”
Before the earthquake, children in PNG were already at high risk of violence and abuse.
 According to Unicef, about 75% of children report experiences of physical abuse and about 80% experience emotional abuse during their lifetime.
A recent Médecins Sans Frontières report showed that 12,000 cases of family and sexual violence are treated each year in Tari Family Support Centre, Hela province.
With 100 schools affected and five totally destroyed, 15,000 children are out of school. Unicef has responded by creating child-friendly spaces, intended to provide both emotional and educational support.
Unicef child protection specialist Ali Aulia Ramly said these safe temporary learning spaces would help give local children the support they need.
“The teachers and volunteers are trained to assist children in expressing their feelings and emotions and to process [them] in a culturally appropriate way.
*We are building their resilience.”

Aftershocks hit Papua New Guinea as it recovers from a remote major earthquake

by Sabin Zahirovic, theconversation.com
April 8, 2018

Another powerful aftershock hit Papua New Guinea this weekend as the recovery effort continues following February’s deadly magnitude 7.5 earthquake, with many thousands of people dependent on humanitarian aid.

Ten-year-old Stanton in the ruins of his home following the earthquake that hit Papua New Guinea in February. EPA/Thomas Nybo/UNICEF

Aid organisations such as CARE Australia and UNICEF are still seeking donations. The Australian government has sent medical staff and other support to help.
Some have criticised the PNG government’s efforts as “too slow”.

Read more: The science of landslides, and why they're so devastating in PNG

But the earthquake highlights the challenge for emerging economies like PNG in deploying relief efforts into remote areas to deal with natural disasters.
And the same geological features that make PNG a rich source of mineral deposits are also part of its earthquake problem.

The earthquake hits

The February earthquake struck the western Highlands provinces of the Pacific island nation, and a series of aftershocks, including several of magnitude 6 or more, continued to shake the region during the following weeks.
Although parts of PNG are particularly earthquake-prone (especially in the north and the islands, along the plate boundary), February’s earthquake was quite exceptional.
It occurred in a usually less active part of the plate boundary and was remarkably powerful when compared with the short (modern) instrumental earthquake record. The strength and frequency of the aftershocks has posed an additional threat to local populations and key economic infrastructure.

Distribution of the aftershocks magnitude since the main quake (as of April 9, 2018). The size and colour (small to large, yellow to red) indicate aftershock magnitude and the number of days after main shock. The white shaded ellipse represents the area of greatest slip during the main shock. Green diamonds represent the main gas fields. USGS/Gilles Brocard, Author provided

On average 10-20 major earthquakes (magnitudes 7 and greater) occur on Earth every year.
Most of them occur far from densely populated regions, such that only a few draw media attention.
The mountainous regions of New Guinea, known as the fold and thrust belt, have been geologically active for millions of years.
But the long recurrence interval of major earthquakes (every few centuries) combined with the short period of the instrument records (just a few decades) gives us the false impression that seismicity is uncommon in this region.
The February earthquake occurred due to the activation of a major fault system in the forested foothills, between the Papuan highlands to the north and the Fly River lowlands to the south.

Australia collides

The Papuan highlands have risen due to the collision between the Australian and Caroline/Pacific tectonic plates over the past five million years.
Despite this collision, the Australian plate continues to move at about 7 cm a year to the northeast, in geological terms a quite remarkable speed, leading to a build-up of strain in the continental crust.
Much of this strain is released at the plate boundary along northern New Guinea, usually with more frequent but less powerful swarms of earthquakes. It is this motion, driven by the churning interior of our planet, that leads to major adjustments to the GPS datum and reference coordinates for the entire Australian continent.
But few people are aware that this very motion of the Australian continent is what causes the seismic and volcanic activity in New Guinea and parts of Southeast Asia.
As Australia moves northward, the entire New Guinea margin acts as a bulldozer, collecting Pacific islands, seamounts and other topographic features. New Guinea represents the leading edge of the advancing Australian continent, which causes continental crust to fold and crumple over a broad region.
This is a well-known process in plate tectonics, where the oceanic plates are known to behave quite rigidly, whereas the continental regions tend to deform over broader diffuse boundaries that resemble plasticine over geological timeframes.
But the continental deformation process results in poorly defined (often due to the thick tropical vegetation cover) and intermittently active fault systems in the continent.
Over the duration of mountain building in the past five million years, the areas of highest deformation have shifted across the range.
Today most of the deformation in PNG takes place north of the mountainous area, where it generates a lot of earthquakes.

Underground riches at risk

Some substantial crumpling of the continental crust still occurs across the southern foothills.
The folding and thrusting has generated geologically young folds, within which a large part of PNG’s gas and oil wealth has accumulated.
The intense tectonic activity has also led to the enrichment of mineral resources, including mines sourcing gold, copper, silver, nickel, cobalt and a suite of other ore types.
It is this tectonic activity that determines the delicate interplay of economic benefits from raw materials, and the often-devastating and usually-unpredictable effects of natural disasters on society.
Although the February earthquake occurred at the very heart of one of the largest and newest gas fields in the country, the industrial installations, at the highest international standards, have not suffered major damage from the tremors.
But the ongoing disaster triggered a temporary halt in gas extraction, as the facilities require inspections and repairs. Unfortunately, and unusually, the earthquakes have struck in some of the most remote parts of the country.

Coping with disaster

Hela province is one of the poorest in PNG and its people are unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with a disaster of this scale. As many as half a million people were reported to be affected by the earthquake. At least 145 people reported killed.

Read more: Five active volcanoes on my Asia Pacific 'Ring of Fire' watch-list right now

The Highlands Highway, the one real road into the region, was badly damaged and this is the major source of food and medicines.
 Many feeder roads have gone.
Papua New Guineans are resilient but it is likely that more external assistance will be needed to ensure that a physical disaster does not become a greater human tragedy.
Even so the full extent of the disaster has still to be revealed, while aftershocks continue to trigger secondary hazards including major landslides that have isolated a large number of communities.
Not only are local communities facing the immediate hazards of further earthquakes and landslides, they face a protracted and costly recovery ahead.

The Conversation is an independent news organisation that sources articles from academia.

Can Manus island go from detention centre to tourism hot spot?

Travel Weekly
travelweekly.com.au
April 9, 2018

The Australian government is funding a study to help develop tourism on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
The island, which was previously used by the government to detain asylum seekers, is still home to around 600 refugees and asylum seekers.
Four asylum seekers have died on the island, with two more deaths in Australia after contracting fatal illness on the island, reports the ABC, and many more have been victim to violent assaults including at the hands of the PNG police and Defence forces.
The treatment of asylum seekers on the island has prompted condemnation from branches of the UN, reports SBS.
The study is being conducted through aid contractor Abt Associates and will review the tourism industry on the island, aiming to identify “strengths, weaknesses and area of growth”.
The contractor is advertising for a six-month advisor role which will pay around $146,000 plus allowances, reports the ABC.
The advisor will be in charge of producing a 12-year tourism plan as well as collating a database of the natural and man-made sites on the island and advertise them on a new promotional website.
The island’s government had requested Australia’s help in boosting tourism, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to help generate jobs and economic growth.
Manus has only two hotels, with one currently used to house guards for the asylum seeker accommodation that replaced the detention centre, the ABC said.
The chief executive of PNG’s Tourism Promotion Authority Jerry Agus, said the island has great potential for tourism.
“It’s not about what you hear about and what you read in the papers.” he told the ABC.
“One of the greatest areas of strength they have in terms of tourism is diving, surfing is one of them, and there’s a lot war relics in Manus Island as well.”