FEAST OR FAMINE

The Post-Courier (6 July 2012, http://www.postcourier.com ) says cannibals will be prosecuted on murder charges. Police apprehended 29 cult followers in the Bogia district of Madang during a morning raid on Wednesday. The Madang provincial police commander, superintendant Anthony Wagambie Jnr, said more arrests are likely. Witnesses are being interviewed by the Criminal Investigations Division officers. The arrests were the result of information provided to the police on a cult group that had attracted a large following in the region. Information revealed that the group had established initiation houses which were turning out large groups of “graduands” including several women. After a spate of murders in the region, police initially suspected a cult group that believes in magic or spiritual rituals, but when they raided four camps they discovered cannibalistic acts. Twelve of the 29 arrested are believed to be the murderers and the rest allegedly cannibalized th...

On May 8, 2012, treasurer, Wayne Swan, announced the Australian budget for 2012-2013, by declaring that it is returning to surplus, as promised, which is said to confirm the country’s strong economy against global comparisons. One of the features of the budget was the “slowdown” or “deferral” of its foreign aid commitment target by 12 months, in an effort to return the budget to surplus over the upcoming financial year (ABC Radio Australia, 8 May 2012). Australia’s overall foreign aid budget for 2012-13 will rise by 4% from 2011-2012, but won’t reach its target of 0.38% of the gross national income (GNI). This is a budget of $7.7 billion by 2015-16, with the delay expected to save the government $2.9 billion over four years on previous forecasted (and promised) figures. Even with the saving, the treasurer said it was the largest foreign aid budget in Australia’s history, and that this government (a Julia Gillard Labor government) has increased aid by 60% on ...

  A bilum is a hand-made string or woolen bag, traditional to the Papua New Guinea culture.   Typically women knot or crochet them with natural or dyed material. They can be small, and worn around the neck, or medium to large and worn across the shoulder. Many elders still carry the bilum in the traditional way, with the long handle across their foreheads and the weight hanging down their back. Mothers often carry their babies in bilums. Bilums were commonly used in the Maprik and Wosera area of East Sepik Province, but are now widespread. They come in different patterns, each pattern resembling a certain tribe or clan. The bilum concept spread down to the coast and to the Highlands in the last decade especially when women realized made them as a source of regular income.

Trained Village Health Volunteers are critical in Papua New Guinea communities. The Post-Courier ( www.postcourier.com.pg ) highlights their key multiple roles including birth attendants, anti-malarial medicine and bed-net distributors, providers of family planning information and advice, alert to preventative measures, health administrators, nutritional needs assessors, recommenders of regular health checks, immunization administrators, health campaigners, and health data collectors. Health Department initiatives aim to empower communities to monitor and respond to their own health needs, to keep their communities clean and healthy, and to be advocates for health and well-being. VHVs also link communities to appropriate government services and health facilities. Diseases and ailments such as malaria, influenza, diarrhoea, and skin problems are still common in communities, requiring prompt interventions. Rural and remote communities also have many challenges, such as dist...

A fascinating variety of ceremonial and ritualistic masks, predominantly made from wood, can be found throughout Papua New Guinea. Masks can also be made of cane and clay, or decorated with shells, tusks, and rope (mainly threaded through nostril apertures). They can also be of various sizes, from quite small to large decorative pieces about six metres high, either oval or even as totem masks. They are incredibly expressive and distinctive, of earthy tones or brightly coloured, textual or lacquered. The carving and paint work are also quite intriguing. Some are intended to be fierce and aggressive, while others are representative of ancestors, animals, or for performance. The photographs were taken at the Ela Beach craft market in Port Moresby.

The National reports that one of the most remote schools in the East Sepik province of Papua New Guinea is in desperate need of an elementary teacher. The capital of East Sepik is Wewak. Wei Elementary School is on Wei Island in the Wewak Islands – three and a half hours away from Wewak by boat! The school has been without a teacher for more than four months since the previous female teacher left due to family reasons. The community is appealing to the provincial education office in Wewak to find a teacher so that their children can continue their education. The school was established in 2010 and has more than 80 students for elementary and year one. The only government service on Wei Island is the elementary school and plans are underway to have a permanent classroom. In other remote regions, quality teacher accommodation hopes to attract teachers to isolated locations. For example, two new teacher houses for permanent teaching staff were opened last week in th...

A policy advocacy forum held in Port Moresby last week announced that there are too many education-related policies collecting dust on the shelves (The National newspaper in Papua New Guinea). The NGO, PNG Education Advocacy Network, organized a one-day forum last week that brought government, the private sector, other education NGOs, and partners together with the aim of charting the course for Papua New Guinea to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for education before 2015. The network's role is to discuss policies and gaps that are lacking or not yet inclusive in the overarching Universal Basic Education policy in order to prompt the incoming government (after the election concludes on July 6) to ensure education for all. There are six focus areas for education: (1) early childhood care and education, (2) primary education for all, (3) continuing education and life skills, (4) literacy, (5) gender equality, and (6) quality education. Among the policies not...

Voting commenced in Papua New Guinea on June 23 and will conclude on Friday July 6. Jiwaka and Hela are the country’s two new provinces after they broke away from Southern and Western Highlands this year, so it will be the first time for them to vote in their own provincial election. They will begin to vote on Friday June 29. Jiwaka province has about 150,000 eligible voters in the new electorate. Election materials will be airlifted by helicopter to the remote Jimi district to ensure everyone can cast their vote. Due to many remote regions, the New Zealand High Commission has provided funding to hire boats to deliver election material to Milne Bay and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. The National and the Post-Courier reported some election complaints and delays. Polling in Northern and Milne Bay provinces were affected by bad weather and late payment of police officers. Ballot papers were reported to be delivered late (after midday) to some polling stations in...

  Canberra Times (June 25) reports that domestic tourism to Australia’s capital, Canberra, continues to rise, whereas international backpackers are decreasing. Tourism Research Australia (TRA) issued its latest domestic and overseas tourism statistics yesterday. International backpackers decreased 31,000 in the first quarter of this year, from January to March, in comparison with 36,000 over the same period last year, indicating a decrease of 13.9%. These international backpackers spent $344 million during the first three months this year. T RA reported 450,000 Australians visited the Australian Capital Territory on overnight trips in the first quarter. This figure is a 17.5% increase on the same period in 2011. The tourists visiting Canberra for day trips (not staying overnight) also increased in the first quarter. This year 505,000 day-trippers visited Canberra, up by 29.5% on the same period last year. TRA indicated that people coming to Canberra for day t...

On 19 June, the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced the results of the population census, conducted on August 9, 2011. The nation’s population increased from 19,855,287 in 2006 to 21,507,717 on census night, an increase of 8.3%. The median age of Australians is now 37 years (35 years in 2006), with 24.6% born overseas (21.9% in 2006), 69.8% born in Australia (72.6% in 2006) with 76.8% speaking English at home (80% in 2006). People over 60 years increased, but there was also a rapid growth in the late 20s age range, due to high levels of immigration. In addition, the number of under-five-year-olds also increased due to higher birth rates in recent years. The percentages of women with three children decreased across all age groups, and percentages of women with four children also decreased reflecting a trend to postpone starting a family and to have smaller families than in previous years. There are 548,370 Torres Strait Islanders which is 2.5% of the Austral...

Just as Tahrir Square in Cairo is the focus of political rallies and demonstrations, so too is Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia. Estimating the number of people in crowds, whether political or concert audiences, can vary widely, depending on the organization conducting the count. Social Science in the Caucasus (May 31, 2012), a blogsite of The Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), discusses the controversy in the counting of supporters in Freedom Square at the Bidzina Ivanishvili political rally on May 27. The CRRC said the Georgian police estimated the crowd at 30,000 which differed from the Ivanishvili’s supporters' count of 300,000 and that of independent observers that suggested the figure was 80,000 ( http://crrc-caucasus.blogspot.com.au/2012_05_01_archive.html )   T he CRRC article discussed a robust method for counting crowds – originally suggested by Berkeley journalism professor, Herbert Jacobs, in the 1960s. According to the Jacob’s Method,...

Canberra Times (June 19, 2002) reported that Tyrannosaurus Bataar bones may be returned to Mongolia after they were detected allegedly stolen and smuggled in America. The United States Government said the bones were allegedly stolen from Mongolia and smuggled into the US - the smugglers claiming that they originated in the United Kingdom. The smugglers originally stated that the nearly complete skeleton was worth $15,000 on the customs forms, and then sold it at auction for $1.05 million on May 20. The auction proceeded even though the president of Mongolia obtained a restraining order in a Texas court, stating that the skeleton was stolen from the Gobi desert. The government’s palaeontologists concluded that the bones were native to the Gobi region and could only have been discovered there. The Tyrannosaurus Bataar lived about 70 million years ago and were first discovered in 1946. From 1924, the Mongolian government enacted laws making any dinosaur bones or skeletons found in...

New Scientist (June 16, 2012) reveals the loss of 147 brains from a research laboratory – not stolen, but damaged due to freezer failure. The world’s largest repository of human brains had freezer failure on May 31, leading to the loss of brains for research, including a rare collection of 53 brains from donors with autism. Researchers at the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, only noticed the thaw when they opened the door because both the temperature reading and the two alarms failed to register the problem. The temperature display still read minus 79 degrees Celsius, and the rising temperature failed to trigger two alarm systems on separate circuits. Camera footage showed that the technical failures were not due to foul play. Currently two internal investigations are underway to determine the cause and why the early warning systems failed. However, all may not be totally lost. All 53 autistic brains and 12 others h...

Most people strive for peace and happiness – and so do most countries. Would you rather be peaceful than happy, or are they the same? The Institute for Economics and Peace in Sydney, Australia, released its latest Global Peace Index on June 12. It declared that over the past year, the world has become more peaceful. Militarisation and conflict have decreased after two years of increased global conflict, it reported. Only North Africa and the Middle East were less peaceful during the past year. ( http://economicsandpeace.org/research/iep-indices-data/global-peace-index ) The Global Peace Index (GPI) is an attempt to measure the relative position of nations and regions in relation to their peacefulness, first launched in 2007. It ranks 158 nations according to their “absence of violence” and is composed of 23 indicators such as their level of military expenditure, relations with adjacent countries, and the percentage of their people in prison, using data from various UN and ...