By Scott Waide

The crusty old teacher with more than 30 years under his belt sits on his hauswin and reaches for a buai. He is engaged in a serious conversation about education standards in the Oro Province.

“I’m talking about standards that have declined,”  he emphasizes in impeccable English.  I didn’t say declining. They have declined.  

By Jacob Pok

THE Commission of Inquiry into the Special Agriculture Business Lease (SABL) is investigating a foreign-owned company over the acquisition of more than two million hectares of land in Western.

The Independent Timber and Stevedoring Company, a subsidiary of a US-based company, was engaged by the government to construct a 600km Trans-Papua Highway from Kiunga into Central’s Hiritano  and through three other provinces.

Gadaisu village is in Milne Bay province near the Central province border. The village is on state land which is being developed by Tamoua Estates Ltd under a 99-year leasehold. For the past 10 years villagers had been petitioning the government to return the land to them but have not received a favourable response from the Lands Department.

Seven corporations rake in $1.81 billion dollars from foreign aid program

By Steve Lewis, The Daily Telegraph 

JUST seven corporations have raked in a staggering $1.81 billion in taxpayer-funded contracts under the booming foreign aid program.

Malaysia's leading English language newspaper, The Star, is reporting that a Malaysian company, Takaso Resources, is buying the rights to log 40,000 hectares of forest in the Inland Pomio District of New Britain Island. There is no mention of how local people have been consulted about the sale or how they will benefit from the trade in their land rights.

Takaso into timber ops in Papua New Guinea

By Yvonne Tan

By Hannah Brooks, VICE media

Papua New Guinea is currently experiencing what may be the most brazenly illegal land grab since its colonial days. Foreign corporations—specifically, logging companies—are allegedly falsifying signatures, paying off police, and lying to the government about their intentions to cut down every tree in the country.



In a coastal village setting, some two hours away from the main industrial centre in East Sepik, 75 percent of the women have taken up employment at the fish cannery. A quarter of those women have children. After three months they soon discovered that they have been away from home for too long and the husbands were getting fed up of the child caring responsibility. This responsibility eventually rested with the elder children in the family who must miss out on school.

By Martyn Namorong*

If someone asked you what violence is, you’d automatically have images of people fighting, husbands beating wives, dogs chasing cats, etc... What if I told you that if you find this article frustrating, boring, insulting, distasteful, shallow, biased, etc...? Then I’ve been violent towards you.

Jamaica to break links with Queen, says Prime Minister Simpson Miller

Jamaica's new Prime Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, has said she intends to make the island a republic, removing Queen Elizabeth as the head of state.

By Patrick Levo

Serious concerns have been expressed about the ‘modus operandi’ of the Pacific International Hospital in Port Moresby.

Public anger was raised against the private hospital after yet another avoidable death caused allegedly by the hospital’s uncompromising policy of “cash before treatment”.