Esso Highlands Limited, operator of the PNG LNG Project, has opened the door to greater infrastructure development in Papua New Guinea. Image: LNGWorldNews.com

Poor infrastructure, poverty and taxation laws present significant challenges to New Zealand investors in Papua New Guinea. But a trade mission is this week looking at positive new opportunities, reports Greg Asciutto.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Greg Asciutto

New Zealand is poised to join Papua New Guinea’s development surge with a batch of new infrastructure projects, if a new trade delegation takes advantage of new opportunities.

A group of 30 New Zealand representatives with public and private-sector interests yesterday began a week-long mission to Papua New Guinea.

For the fifth time in the past two years, the NZ  Papua New Guinea Business Council has organised a mission that reflects the growing economic relationship between the Pacific nations. Read more »

Doreen Kupar, a champion of Solomon Islands women rights, speaking at the launch in Honiara. Image: BC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Ingrid Leary in Honiara

For years, female survivors of domestic violence in the Solomon Islands have been afraid of saying anything in public, unable to find a way to stand up to the oppressive abuse they experience on a regular basis at home.

Now, however, all that could change, thanks to a striking display of physical theatre which is giving women the courage to come forward.

The Stage of Change theatre workshop was launched in Honiara at the weekend. Read more »

Backgrounder on the debate over self-determination in French Polynesia. Report by Caroline Lafargue. Video by Radio Australia.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Rochelle Ferguson

The UN General Assembly has voted to add French Polynesia to its list of territories that should be decolonised, affirming the right of the islanders to “self-determination and independence”.

French Polynesia joins 16 other territories on the decolonisation list, including the British-ruled Falkland Islands and the US Virgin Islands.

Though the measure is largely symbolic, it calls on the French government to “facilitate rapid progress” towards self-determination. It was passed by consensus in the 193-member UN assembly. Read more »

New Zealand journalist Jon Stephenson and BBC television reporter Bilal Sarwary discuss Afghanistan last night. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Daniel Drageset of Pacific Media Watch

Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary has hailed media freedom as one of the accomplishments in Afghanistan over the last decade.

The Kabul-based reporter working for the BBC expressed this view at a Pacific Media Centre seminar in AUT University last night.

In a Q&A session with New Zealand journalist Jon Stephenson, who has also done extensive reporting in Afghanistan, Sarwary noted the big steps Afghanistan has taken in media freedom. Read more »

PNG Defence Force soldiers in a training exercise. Image: Lowy Institute/PMW

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Gorethy Kenneth in Port Moresby

A 19-year-old man is receiving treatment for gunshot wounds after about five Papua New Guinea soldiers allegedly opened fire on him and two other West Papuans.

The Indonesian Consul to Papua New Guinea, Jahar Gultom, announced in a statement yesterday that the PNG Defence Force would investigate the shooting.

PNGDF soldiers apparently shot Eduard Aritahano in the leg during the early hours of Wednesday morning in Lido Village near Vanimo town in Sandaun Province. Read more »

The man who started it all … Sitiveni Rabuka as he was then. Image: Pacific Scoop

Pacific Scoop:
Commentary – By Graham Davis

The 26th anniversary of the first 1987 Coup has revived some traumatic memories for many of us who lived through it – the shock, the air of menace, the violence, the feeling that Fiji would never be the same again.

Tens of thousands of our best and smartest people simply decided there and then that there was no future for themselves and their families and packed up and left. The exodus was so dramatic that it soon altered the entire racial balance in Fiji.

The Indo-Fijians – or Indians as they were then called – were once in the majority. But so many of them fled to New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the US that the “Fijians” – as the i’Taukei were then known – gained the ascendancy and remain the dominant racial grouping. Read more »

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Oktovianus Pogau in Jayapura

Victor Yeimo, chairman of the National Committee of West Papua, has been arrested along with three other activists – student Yongky Ulimpa (23), student Ely Kobak (17)  and Marten Manggaprouw (30) and had not been released late today.

“Until this afternoon, Victor Yeimo with three other activists were arrested by the police and has not been released,” said KNPB spokesman Wim Medlama when contacted by suarapapua.com.

According to Wim, the last information received after he was arrested, Yeimo had been separated from the three other activists for the next police interrogation. Read more »

Tahiti”s Gaston Flosse … back in power, but for how long? Image: RFI

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Thibault Marais in Pape’ete

Despite veteran politician Gaston Flosse’s court case controversies, his Tahoeraa Huiraatira party has regained power in French Polynesia because a majority of 62,000 voters believe it could handle the economic crisis better than pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru’s party.

Although there are no official figures on this issue it is clear unemployment rate has reached unprecedented highs in Tahiti.

There is also an increasing number of homeless in Tahiti’s sprawling capital city, Pape’ete. Read more »

Samoa’s Gatoloaifaana Amataga Alesana-Gidlow … seeks a NZ ban on fatty meat exports to the Pacific. Image: IISD

At last month’s Pacific parliamentary forum in Wellington, delegates from around the region called for New Zealand to stop exporting fatty meat to the Pacific. The fatty offcuts being exported have been partially blamed for the rise of non-communicable diseases in the Pacific. But Holly Ryan reports for Asia-Pacific Journalism on other concerns.

Pacific Scoop:
Backgrounder – By Holly Ryan

While non-communicable diseases in the Pacific have been on the rise over the last few decades and are partially blamed on the dumping of cheap, fatty food in the region, shortages of healthy locally grown foods are also a problem.

Fatty food supplies from New Zealand again faced controversy at last month’s Pacific Parliamentary and Politics Forum with calls for such exports to be banned.

“All we can do is keep reminding the government and ministries to not back off and to keep pushing for change,” says Cook Islands Democratic Party MP Selina Napa, who was among those at the forum. Read more »

West Papuan Benny Wenda and PNG student journalist Henry Yamo … “Pacific Scoop deserves praise for keeping an eye on Papua and other trouble spots in the Pacific.” Image: Del Abceded/PMC

“Journalism is in crisis in the Pacific region and this is reaching a new level of intensity,” says one editor. But independent Pacific Scoop challenges the status quo. Jane Jeffries reports for Asia-Pacific Journalism.

Pacific Scoop
Report – By Jane Jeffries

Pacific Scoop exposes New Zealand to Pacific issues and gives a fresh voice to people in the region on a wide range of topics including health, human rights, media and social justice, say journalists and media commentators.

This regional independent news website provides a strong platform for Pacific issues to be heard and debated. Mainstream media no longer report widely on Pacific issues so it plays a vital role, say the media analysts.

Pacific Scoop and its founding partner, Wellington-based Scoop Media Limited, last month announced a new $5000 internship to fund a postgraduate student journalist to report and edit for the service. Read more »