At the end of February 2014, there were at least 76 political prisoners in Papuan jails.

Simon Konkas | President – New Hanover Forum, Kavieng Branch

Environment Advocate and President of Lovongai Local Level Government, Hon. John Aini was arrested and charged by Kavieng Police and currently on K200 bail for threatening to kill Malaysians involved in logging and to destroy logging company machinery on Lovongai Island.

The President has admitted to the charges.

Stolen logs continue to be shipped overseas under the watchful gaze of politicians, bureaucrats and the police while landowners look on wondering what justice and the law mean for them.

The SABL Commission of Inquiry has declared 66 leases covering some 5 million hectares of land to be illegal. But the government and its agencies are ignoring the findings and allowing foreign logging companies to continue stealing valuable timber resources.

From PNGExposed

Peter O’Neill’s handling of the illegal SABL land grab shows he is impotent in the face of Malaysian logging company control of PNG politicians and officials.

University of Adelaide researchers have helped create a new industry for Papua New Guinea (PNG) farmers based on producing charcoal from locally grown firewood crops. 

A six-year project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and working with PNG researchers and landholders, has seen the development of successful small businesses surrounding the production and selling of charcoal from new quick-growing tree crops.

Sourced from PNG EDGE

The PNG-Eco Forestry Forum has called on the Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to appoint a new and neutral chairman for the Ministerial Committee reviewing the Special Agriculture Business Lease (SABL) commission of inquiry report.

Having Forestry and Climate Change Minister Patrick Pruaith in charge was like “giving the keys of the blood bank to Dracula’’, the forum said.

By Catherine Wilson for Inter Press Service

Photo: Villagers in Papua New Guinea point to their village destroyed in a landslide from a quarry being excavated for a liquefied natural gas project. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

Aisake Casimira

Parlt passes ICAC Bill with 91-0 vote

By Isaac Nicholas in the Post Courier

PARLIAMENT has passed the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) Bill with an overwhelming 91-0 votes.

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, who introduced the Bill, said that was the first hurdle towards realising the establishment of an anti-corruption body.

By Pasifika Wardrobes

The Special Agriculture Business Lease (SABL) is still an outstanding matter before the O’Neill led government, and the much talked about delay into addressing this massive corrupt scheme has prompted the blame game.

The blame game started when there was a delay by the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the SABL, and when one of the three commissioners in the inquiry failed to produce his report.