Prime Minister Peter O'Neill ... health and education facilities in "deplorable state". Photo: Pacific Scoop

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Henry Yamo

Prime Minister Peter O’Neil says Papua New Guinea has fallen short of its national goals and principles enshrined in the constitution although having come a long way as a nation after 36 years

Prime Minister O’Neil said this in his message marking the country’s Independence Day during an official flag raising ceremony in Port Moresby.

He said that after almost four decades of independence, the vast majority of Papua New Guineans were still denied basic services, remained powerless and were made to be mere recipients of government handouts. Read more »

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao ... under fire. Photo: Pagina Global

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By PMC news desk

East Timor’s opposition has called for Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to step down as his cabinet faces scrutiny over corruption claims ahead of elections, reports Agence France-Presse.

The anti-corruption commission said yesterday it had handed six dossiers to the Attorney-General’s Office, which has since called on two cabinet members for questioning.

“Because of his mistakes, I ask Xanana to step down so that we can eradicate corruption in the government. If we can’t, then we are stealing our people’s money,” Fretilin secretary-general Mari Alkatiri told party members at a congress meeting. Read more »

Fretilin's Dr Mari Alkatiri and "Luolo" (in uniform) pictured at last month's internal party vote at Farol, Dili. Photo: © Simon Roughneen

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Simon Roughneen in Dili

Land, corruption and poverty are all on the table as Timor-Leste gets into political mode ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 2012, with one controversial figure already throwing his hat into the ring.

Convicted of arming gunmen during Timor-Leste’s 2006 crisis, which threatened to destabilise the then four-year-old state, Rogerio Lobato says that he will run for president, contesting a largely-ceremonial position now held by a fellow former Timorese exile activist, Jose Ramos-Horta.

It is not clear yet whether the incumbent – who commuted Lobato’s sentence soon after the apparent assassination attempts against himself and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao in 2008 – will compete again, but Lobato, a brother of former resistance hero Nicolau. Read more »

Travel Air's first of six Fokker 50 aircraft on order from the Netherlands. They will fly between Port Moresby and their base in Madang. Photo: Travel Air

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Post Courier staff reporters in Port Moresby

Papua New Guinea’s National Planning and Monitoring Department is alleged to have paid K10 million (about NZ$5 million) to a Kokopo-based businessman – Eremas Wartoto – to start his new private airline company, Travel Air, and millions more were paid out to senior staff of the department, according to court documents.

Ministerial staff of Paul Tiensten and associates also allegedly collected millions of kina in “bogus project” payments made between March and May this year.

The details are contained in a report now filed as an affidavit before the National Court in Waigani compiled by lawyer Philemon Korowi who is acting on behalf of suspended Secretary Joseph Lelang. Read more »

Fiji Women's Crisis Centre's executive director Shamima Ali ... little done by Fiji regime to implement new law prohibiting violence against women. Photo: Gender Across Borders

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Pui-Yi Cheng

As the world’s attention focuses on the human rights revolution sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa, Amnesty International’s latest report reveals Pacific people are facing the same struggle against oppression, tyranny and corruption.

On the eve of its 50th anniversary, the organisation has launched its annual assessment of human rights worldwide, Amnesty International Report 2011: State of the World’s Human Rights, which documents abuses in 157 countries during 2010.

“Away from the international headlines, thousands of people in the Pacific are being denied social and economic opportunity, and human rights defenders have been threatened, imprisoned and tortured,” said Patrick Holmes, chief executive officer of Amnesty International Aotearoa NZ. Read more »

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Kim Bowden

Pacific-based journalists struggle to adequately play watchdog in countries rife with public and private sector corruption, according to Fiji media stalwart Shailendra Singh.

Despite highlighting a few standout cases of well-executed investigative journalism in Fiji, Singh called for more Fourth-Estate style journalism in the country during his presentation at the Media, Investigative Journalism and Technology conference held at AUT University earlier this month.

The experienced editor and media academic said one of the key reasons investigative journalism needs to be encouraged was because good governance was a major problem in the Pacific. Read more »

Illegal logging continues to eat away at Indonesia’s forests, despite the efforts of both the Indonesian government and international environmental groups. The reason? Widespread corruption, according to a new report.

Pacific Scoop
Report – By Nicholas Jones

Although illegal logging in Indonesia is decreasing, forests continue to be felled with the support of corrupt officials, says a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telapak.

According to the “rogue traders” illegal logging report, released this month, forests in Indonesia’s West Papua and Papua region “constitute the third largest remaining tropical forest wilderness in the world, after the Amazon and Congo Basin.

“As such Papua’s forests are of global significance.” Read more »

Will mistakes that were made around the Natadola development be repeated, prejudicing the potential of other developments in Fiji? (Photo by Natadola Beach Resort.)

Pacific Scoop:
Analysis – By Professor Wadan Narsey in Suva.

Saving the National Provident Fund.

Worrying news has emerged in the past month about two of Fiji’s most important institutions – the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) and the Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF).

The public have largely focused on the FNPF, after it announced a F$327 million “write down” in its investment value (with some $300 million of that due to the Natadola loan). Read more »

Press Release:
International Federation of Journalists.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is greatly concerned by reports of early violence against media personnel as the Philippines national elections begin today.

Rolando Gono, radio stringer and writer for the weekly Azilam Review in Cagayan de Oro City in Mindanao, went missing on May 9, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), an IFJ affiliate. Read more »

Pacific Press Release – Scoop Coverage of West Papua

President Obama’s upcoming visit to Indonesia (rescheduled from late March to June) will reveal to him an Indonesia substantially changed from the Indonesia of the Suharto dictatorship he knew as a boy, when he lived in that nation for a few years. Read more »