Source: The National

           Joint Media Release

O’Neil Government has NOT protected the Interests of Customary Landowners

June 3^rd 2014

Source: PNG Village

Solwara Location Map

Nautilus Minerals looks to increasing the number of young Papua New Guinean workers trained to operate remotely operated machines for deep see mining for the Solwara 1 Project.

This is the massage from the company’s Country Manager Mr. Mel Togolo at a conference in Port Moresby today.

Source: The National

THE seafloor production tools for the Solwara 1 project by Nautilus Minerals are 90% complete with production expected in 2016, country manager Mel Togolo said.

He said the project has been gaining momentum since the company and the state signed an agreement in April.

Providing an update on the project last Friday, Togolo said the second tool has been assembled and the final tool would be assembled this month.

Picture source: Radio Australia online

Dr. Lati Lati, a Samoan academic lecturer in politics at the University of Otago, says there is a concerted effort in the Pacific to free up land for investment.

He elaborates that those efforts are encouraged by organizations like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

In a press release on the 28^th of May 2014, the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary stated that they would not rely on the Australian Government sanctioned independent investigation into the killing of Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati at the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre.

Deputy Police Commissioner Simon Kauba raised serious concerns at the lack of cooperation by the relevant Australian Government agencies involved, the service providers at the Manus Detention Centre, the asylum seekers and most importantly the security firm G4S.

Source: Mining Weekly

Employees of Soil Machine Dynamics (SMD) work on a subsea mining machine being built for Nautilus Minerals at Wallsend, northern England April 14, 2014.

Prospective Canadian deep-sea miner Nautilus Minerals on Wednesday announced that it had started building its second seafloor production tool (SPT), the collecting machine (CM), at third-party manufacturer Soil Machine Dynamics’ (SMD) facility at Newcastle upon Tyne, in the UK.

Source: PNG Loop

State minister and member for Yangoru Saussia Richard Maru is against the Special Agriculture and Business Lease (SABL) device being used to acquire customary land in the country.

Source: PNG Mine Watch

The Pacific Conference of Churches has supported calls from a PNG church for a halt to Deep Sea Mining (DSM).

About 1.2 million members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea (ELCPNG) have said no to Experimental Seabed Mining after its synod on Karkar Island, Madang Province.

The members have also given their church leaders approval to address the issue with the PNG Government.