‘Buai-spet’ as a metaphor in today’s Papua New Guinea
JOHN FOWKE I AM INDEBTED FOR THESE PHOTOS to my old friend and workmate, Malum Nalu. The big building is the new, luxurious Grand Papua Hotel, of 20 storeys, recently opened upon the site of what was...
View ArticleToowoomba warms to 'passionate' PNG cricket team
NEV MADSEN | Toowoomba Chronicle CRICKETERS IN THE QUEENSLAND town of Toowoomba got a special treat on Sunday when Peter Anderson and his team of Papua New Guinean cricketers turned up for their first...
View ArticleYobawandaruanem: the tall tree of our cultural heritage
MICHAEL DOM MY ESSAY YESTERDAY on education in poetry (about which Radio Australia will interview me later this week) put me in a contemplative mood about my lack of knowledge of my own people’s...
View ArticleBye-bye Belden & Jeffrey, welcome to brave new PNG
PHIL FITZPATRICK SOMETIMES IN LIFE you get a distinct impression that the tide has changed and things will never be the same again. The more perceptive baby boomers who lived through the 1960s will...
View ArticleMartin Hadlow appointed new AMIC secretary–general
MARTIN HADLOW, LATELY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR and foundation Director of the Centre for Communication and Social Change in the School of Journalism and Communication at The University of Queensland, has...
View ArticleThe blackbird era: Queensland labour trade, 1863-1906
JOHN FOWKE THE PRACTICE OF RECRUITING Islander labour for the Queensland’s nascent sugar industry has come into focus in PNG Attitude recently. The trade has always been regarded as controversial, at...
View ArticleNew vocation: ‘boi blo Minister’ or ‘boi blo Secretary’
BERNARD YEGIORA PAPUA NEW GUINEA AS A NATION is changing at a rapid pace. One can see all this changes through careful observation. A more interesting change is the rise of political cronies and how...
View ArticleTransparency applauds Speaker for revealing abuse
Radio New Zealand International TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL in Papua New Guinea has applauded the Speaker Theo Zurenuoc for revealing that senior officers of parliament have been mismanaging large...
View ArticlePast times: How the Bougainville psyche was subverted
LEONARD ROKA | Supported by the Jeff Febi Writing Fellowship ‘Deprive a people of their ethnicity, their culture, and you deprive them of their sense of direction or purpose’ — Francis M Deng IN RECENT...
View ArticleJackson PR Associates consults to PNG & Australia
THERE ARE MANY NAMES well known to PNG Attitude readers in a company recently established to provide public relations services in Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific. Jackson PR Associates...
View ArticlePreventable illnesses push up child mortality rate
Radio New Zealand International AN INCREASE IN THE NUMBER of Papua New Guinean children dying from preventable illnesses is being attributed to an historical failure to invest in health services. The...
View ArticleThe sadly deteriorated roads of Murray Barracks
ROBIN SUANG | Picture and Story MURRAY BARRACKS HAS BEEN the headquarters of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force for a very long time since the days of colonial rule. For far too long, its roads have...
View ArticleDemocracy may be detrimental to Melanesian society
DON TAPIO THE FIRST AND MOST COMMON misconception prevalent among international critics of leadership in Papua New Guinea is the attempt to analyse the prevalent behaviour using existing comparative...
View ArticleTake funds out of health & education says minister
KEITH JACKSON JUST WHAT IS Papua New Guinea trade minister Richard Maru (pictured) on about? He’s just given some gratuitous advice to the New Zealand government that less of its aid should be directed...
View ArticleWhy does mining always end up like this?
PHIL FITZPATRICK THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN traditional landowners and mining and petroleum companies in Papua New Guinea, whether Australian, American or Asian, usually starts out well but inevitably...
View ArticleStorytelling is in the blood for PNG’s writers
DRUSILLA MODJESKA | The Australian THERE'S NOT OFTEN GOOD NEWS in our papers about Papua New Guinea, and when it comes to local writing there's no news at all. PNG writing flourished in the years...
View ArticleKairu Laho: journalist & public relations director
PETER KRANZ IT WAS WITH SADNESS that I read of the death of Kairu Laho. Kairu was an effective and talented public relations director at the University of Papua New Guinea for 10 years and I remember...
View ArticleBHP urged to hand over control of development firm
Radio Australia PETER O’NEILL, THE PRIME MINISTER of Papua New Guinea, has demanded that BHP Billiton give his government control over board appointments to the PNG Sustainable Development Program Ltd....
View ArticleThorny dilemmas: The diplomacy of decolonisation
NIC MACLELLAN | NewMatilda.com THE SUCCESSFUL BID for a rotating seat on the UN Security Council places Australia in an interesting place. Over the next few years, we’ll be in the spotlight as the...
View ArticleThe disaster of failed decentralisation in PNG
ROBIN SUANG DECENTRALISATION IS NOT ONLY about provincial governments, it is about giving power back to the villages. If we can break the hold of the centralised bureaucratic machinery, as in the case...
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