PNG set to establish new agency

By SIONI RUMA
PAPUA New Guinea marked another milestone on Monday when it took another development initiative in presenting the final option paper for a human rights commission to be established.
“The human rights commission formation is an important proposal for the Government because it underpins not only the protection of human rights but the promotion of democracy, realising Papua New Guineans international human rights obligation together with education and infrastructure developments in PNG,” Secretary for Community Development Joseph Klapat said during the presentation of the final option paper.
Chief Ombudsman Ila Geno also gave his support for the establishment of the human rights commission and assured that the Ombudsman Commission would help and work hand in hand with the the Attorney-General Office and other law enforcing bodies to promote and protect human rights.
Presenter of the final option paper Dorothy Mimiko, a legal officer from the State Solicitor’s Office, said it was essential for a human rights commission to be put in place because it would be providing human rights statistics to other statutory bodies and NGOs like United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) and world conferences.

NIP sets aside K200,000 for bicycle subsidy project
THE New Ireland provincial government has set aside K200,000 in its 2008 provincial budget to fund the bicycle subsidy project to allow everyone to make use of public roads.
Governor Sir Julius Chan said this during the 35th graduation day of the Manggai High School outside Kavieng recently.
He said road sealing and maintenance cost millions of kina but only a fraction of the population, who were well off, used and enjoyed the services at the expense of the majority.
Therefore, he said to enable and make everyone make use of the roads, the provincial government had set aside K200,000 in its 2008 provincial budget to fund the bicycle subsidy project.
He said millions of kina that the Government committed on maintenance of roads was sacrificed on projects such as aid posts, medicine, classrooms and other projects that would otherwise be funded and made available to people not accessible by roads and in outer islands.

Media sees negative stories as good news: Sir Paulias
MEDIA organisations see negative stories as good news to make the headlines while positive stories get less priority.
Governor-General Sir Paulias Matane said this in his keynote address to the Centre for Democratic Institution (CDI) Pacific Parliamentary dialogue in Goroka last Tuesday.
He said at a separate press conference, that Papua New Guinea was one of the best places on earth.
“I have been to seven continents of the World and I am confident to say that PNG, was the most beautiful place on Earth.
“Our land is so rich with natural resources, we can cultivate, consume our products and sell the surplus to the rest of the world,” Sir Paulias said.
He said Papua New Guineans are very good people with only a few doing some of the negative things, but generally they are some of the most friendly, kind and generous people found on Earth.
“To the media, bad news is good news and good news is no news that is why PNG gets negative publicity abroad,” he said.
He added that PNG was not as bad as it may have been reported in the media and wished overseas visitors a safe stay in the country for the three-day dialogue.
Sir Paulias challenged various media outlets to change their reporting styles to make PNG become more progressive.
He joined Eastern Highlands Governor Malcom Smith-Kela to welcome Parliamentarians for around the Pacific including New Zealand, Australia and Timor Leste with senior officials to PNG for the dialogue.
Sir Paulias also said selecting Goroka as the venue for the 9th annual CDI dialogue, is not a mistake because it is one of the beautiful places found in PNG.

Boost for Busamang
THE Busamang Primary School’s effort to improve its education standard will get a major boost next year.
The head teacher of the school Michael Musalu said that a double storey building for classrooms and teachers’ houses would be built next year.
Mr Musalu said the projects were to cater for the increase in student intake from outlying schools in the Salamaua area and was supposed to start this year but was delayed.
Busamang, besides Buakap Primary School, is a central Top Up school to many other community schools in the Salamaua area and enrols students from Labu Talec, Wabubu of Kaiva and Sabaiya.
The news to built the new classrooms was boosted by a donation of 50 chairs by its sister school Huonville Primary School and assurance from Huon district education official Otto Namani that they would furnish the new classrooms and teachers’ houses.
Huonville principal Orama Gaitu valued the 50 chairs at around K2000. Mr Namani said when the new buildings are up Huon district education office would furnish them.
All these good news were revealed at the 36th graduation and the 4th Grade 8 graduation of the school last Tuesday.
A total of 37 Grade 8 students graduated and 26 have been offered places at Salamaua High School to continue Grade Nine.

Suspects released due to lack of evidence
The two suspects from the Kote area of Finschhafen district who were detained on allegations relating to ‘suspicious murders’ have been released by police in Finschhafen district due to insufficient evidence.
Police said formal complaints have been laid by several complainants from that area but the suspects were not arrested and were released from police custody last week.
They said they had advised the health extension officer and the programme advisor at the Kote Health centre to provide medical reports of those unexplained deaths.
“We cannot charge or arrest the suspects because they (complainants) have to provide documents proving the allegations,” police in Finschhafen told The National yesterday.
The allegations had been taken seriously by the Finschhafen district administration last month.
The deaths had been attributed to sorcery in three parishes of the Kote area including Zemesa, Wemo and Sasibona where it was reported that seven men died of unexplained sicknesses.
The investigating team and police had been investigation more than 20 villages in the three parishes over allegations of sorcery.
But police said they would not arrest or charge those suspected by the investigation team until sufficient documents were provided by the team.

Academic sponsors top students and donates to local uni centre

By FRANK RAI
AN academic from the University of PNG’s (UPNG) School of Law, donated K20,000 to four Grade 10 dux students of Siassi High School last Friday as sponsorship package for five years.
He also made a donation to the newly opened Siassi sub-centre of the UPNG Morobe university centre, by sponsoring 30 students in semester one next year.
Dr Eric Kwa , a senior law lecturer, was guest speaker at the 35th Grade 10 graduation of Siassi High School.
He challenged staff and students to be serious about education.
“Take responsibility for your own education and be successful in your lives so that you can be able to bring back your knowledge and expertise to this island for development,” he said.
It was the first time anyone had personally given such a large amount of money.
Last Friday also saw the opening of the Siassi sub-centre of the UPNG Morobe university centre.

World Vision donates food to Oro
WORLD Vision PNG has purchased more than 37 metric tonnes of essential food items as part of its contribution towards the disaster-stricken Oro province.
World Vision purchased 22 metric tonnes of rice, 13 tonnes of tinned fish, 2,200L of vegetable oil, 15 cartons of salt and 30 cartons of multi-purpose soap.
These items have been packed and are waiting at the wharf in Port Moresby to be shipped to Oro on a PNG Defence Force boat.
World Vision Australia and World Vision New Zealand have pledged a total of K300,000, which would be programmed through World Vision PNG to be used for purchasing and distribution of essential relief goods for Oro.

Brew sold openly
HOMEBREW is being sold at the informal sector market in the heart of Mt Hagen city.
City manager Richard Culligan said people were doing this even though it was illegal to trade in illicit liquor.
Mr Culligan said these vendors were doing it despite repeated warnings he had sent out.
He said the vendors put the bottles of homebrew in the open, but hide them when city council workers or police came around.