THE first major PNG initiative for Uncle Sam in 2008 is in the offing. Good morning! US Ambassador Leslie Rowe will not only launch the first PNG-USA Alumni Association AGM today at 9am, but will announce the restoration of the legendary Fulbright Scholarship programme in PNG.
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MANY would claim that the Fulbright is one of the world’s most influential awards. A Fulbright scholarship for up to two years of graduate level study and research in the USA will be offered to a PNG candidate beginning in academic year 2009. The Fulbright programme was created to strengthen understanding and enhance the bonds between the USA and other countries; its reintroduction in PNG is most warmly welcomed.
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JAMES William Fulbright was a 41-year-old transportation industry expert at the end of WWII. Elected in 1946 as a senator in Arkansas, he became the longest serving chairman of the US foreign relations committee, holding that important office from 1959 to 1974.
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LATER in his appointment, he became troubled by the escalating Vietnam war; although in 1964, he had cleared the way for president Johnston to more actively pursue that war, he finally publicly challenged “the old myths and new realities” of American foreign policy and warned against “the arrogance of power”.
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WE urge suitable Papua New Guineans to apply for a Fulbright scholarship; creating international bonds should be one of the world’s top current priorities. For further details of the Fulbright and of this morning’s Alumni AGM, ring Carolyn Ive at 321 1455.
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GREAT news for young Thomas Peter from Simbu – thanks to generous donors, he’s been enrolled at Lae Primary. But we can’t help wondering how the five-year-old was identified as a “street kid”, described as “one of the youngest drawn in by the Salvation Army’s street level ministry programme”.
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THE accompanying picture of young Thomas, proud as Punch but a little over-awed, also shows both his mother Nona and father Peter accompanying their son to school. Yes, they are unemployed, but how could their five-year-old son have become a “street kid”? Surely the youngster had not been deserted by his parents? Cheers!
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- Dee Nesenolis