On the 21st of February 2011, we posted a letter by a very concerned Australian Citizen, Trevor Freestone, addressed to Julie Bishop, regarding the serious governance issues facing PNG. Below is the response from Honorable Julie Bishop, MP, and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Australian Parliament:

By Lydia Kailap*

THERE ARE THREE kinds of raskols in Papua New Guinea: street raskols; nasty street raskols; and the real raskols.

From a Special Correspondent*

Papua New Guinea suffers chronically from the way in which state equity participation is negotiated in major resource extraction projects.

A combination of the worst possible behaviour from international resource companies, which is as bad in PNG as it is in any country in the world, abetted by the incompetence of the National Government in negotiating equity participation, means that PNG ends up seeing its resources shipped offshore with the lowest possible returns to the Nation.

The World Bank is on a mission to encourage sweat-shop style factories in Papua New Guinea and we need to tell them NO!

By PMIZ Watcher

The Environmental Impact Assessment for the government's Pacific Marine Industrial Zone in Madang paints a terrible picture of the likely social and environmental impacts of the project.

The 39-page EIS was prepared by the Department of Commerce and Industry in June 2010 and submitted to the Department of Environment and Conservation.

Spotted by PMIZ Watcher in the Post Courier

By John Fowke

By PMIZ Watcher

The signing of the Approval in Principle for the controversial Pacific Marine Industrial Park in Madang has been held in Port Moresby despite being scheduled to be held in Madang.

The move has angered local Kananam people who say it is just one more example of the government hiding behind secret deals.

By Nou Vada, UPNG student

On the fourth day of the 2011 academic year, the UPNG SRC has sanctioned a petition by members of the student body requesting an explanation from the administration on the 8% increase in school fee and then the subsequent introduction of a Two Hundred and Fifty Kina bond fee payable by every residential student which was never mentioned of or advertised until students old and new started flocking back to school mid February and were informed by UPNG Accounts personnel to pay extra.