Portal:New Guinea

Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) is a mining company of Papua New Guinea (PNG) that is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). BCL operated the copper, gold and silver mine at the Panguna mine on Bougainville Island in PNG from 1971 to 1989. Mining operations were officially halted on 15 May 1989, due to militant activity and the mine has remained closed since.

Mining giant Rio Tinto Group, which was historically Bougainville Copper Limited's major shareholder, exited on 30 June 2016 when it transferred its 53.8 per cent shareholding for distribution to the Autonomous Bougainville Government and the Independent State of Papua New Guinea. (Full article...)

Map of the COVID-19 pandemic in Papua New Guinea ()   10,000+ Confirmed cases   1,000–9,999 Confirmed cases   100–999 Confirmed cases   10–99 Confirmed cases   1–9 Confirmed cases

The COVID-19 pandemic in Papua New Guinea is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The virus was confirmed to have reached Papua New Guinea on 20 March 2020. On 4 May 2020, Papua New Guinea was declared COVID-19 free. However, on 20 June, the government confirmed another case of COVID-19, meaning that the disease was present again within the country.

Until early 2021, the country managed to stave off a major COVID-19 outbreak, with only 1,275 cases reported at the end of February according to Johns Hopkins University. In March cases tripled, with Prime Minister James Marape speaking of "rampant community transmission". By early May, the number of hospitalizations in the capital Port Moresby stabilized, but delays in receiving test results from regional areas were a concern.
In mid May, as the reasons for the apparent easing of the pandemic situation remained uncertain, discrepancies between government figures and higher ones from the provinces led to concerns that hundreds of COVID-19 cases had been missed in the national tally.

As of March 2022 Papua New Guinea has a total of 41,533 cumulative cases and 639 deaths. , the country had a vaccination rate of 3.5%, one of the lowest in the world. (Full article...)

New Britain from space, June 2005. Clearly visible are ash plumes from Langila and Ulawun volcanoes

New Britain (Tok Pisin: Niu Briten) is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits) and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel. The main towns of New Britain are Rabaul/Kokopo and Kimbe. The island is roughly the size of Taiwan. While the island was part of German New Guinea, it was named Neupommern ("New Pomerania").
In common with most of the Bismarcks it was largely formed by volcanic processes, and has active volcanoes including Ulawun (highest volcano nationally), Langila, the Garbuna Group, the Sulu Range, and the volcanoes Tavurvur and Vulcan of the Rabaul caldera. A major eruption of Tavurvur in 1994 destroyed the East New Britain provincial capital of Rabaul. Most of the town still lies under metres of ash, and the capital has been moved to nearby Kokopo. (Full article...)

The geography of Papua New Guinea describes the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, the islands of New Ireland, New Britain and Bougainville, and smaller nearby islands. Together these make up the nation of Papua New Guinea in tropical Oceania, located in the western edge of the Pacific Ocean.

Papua New Guinea is largely mountainous, and much of it is covered with tropical rainforest. The New Guinea Highlands run the length of New Guinea, and the highest areas receive snowfall—a rarity in the tropics. Within Papua New Guinea Mount Wilhelm is the highest peak, at 4,509 m (14,793 ft). There are several major rivers, notably the Sepik River, which is 1,126 km (700 mi) long, which winds through lowland swamp plains to the north coast, and the Fly River at 1,050 km (650 mi) in length, which flows through one of the largest swamplands in the world to the south coast. The Highlands consist of a number of smaller ranges running west to east, such as the Finisterre Range which dominates the Huon Peninsula to the north of the city of Lae. At 462,840 km² (178,700 sq mi) it is the world's third largest island country.

Papua New Guinea has one land border—that which divides the island of New Guinea. Across the 820 km (509 mi) border is the Papua province of Indonesia, which contains most of the western half of the island (West Papua was split off in 2003, and forms the remainder). Papua New Guinea's border with Indonesia is not straight; the border loops slightly to the west along the Fly River in the south-central part of New Guinea, on the western edge of Papua New Guinea's Western Province. There are maritime borders with Australia to the south and Solomon Islands to the southeast. (Full article...)

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is officially known as the Independent State of Papua New Guinea after gaining absolute independence from Australia on September 16, 1975. PNG is the largest country in the South Pacific region and comprises the eastern side of New Guinea including its islands. Crime in Papua New Guinea, both violent and non-violent have contributed to the developing country's crime rate being one of the highest in the world.

Crime throughout the country, particularly violence-related, has been influenced mainly by rapid social, political and economic changes. An increased rate of unemployment has resulted in poverty in rural areas, while a sequential shift towards urban areas has created cultural friction. This has become a long-term concern hindering the growth of the economy. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's liveability index, Papua New Guinea ranks 136th out of 140 countries as of 2017, indicating that many aspects of living in the country are relatively unsecure.

The centralised geographical location of Papua New Guinea has also seen the rise of non-violent, organised crime; specifically, corruption contributing substantially to increased crime statistics within the major cities of Port Moresby, Mount Hagen, Lae and Goroka. The geographically appealing qualities of Papua New Guinea and its surrounding islands also promote illegal drug and human trafficking as critical issues. (Full article...)

Map of the Kaluli's territory

The Kaluli are a clan of indigenous peoples who live in the rain forests of the Great Papuan Plateau in Papua New Guinea. The Kaluli, who numbered approximately 2,000 people in 1987, are the most numerous and well documented by post-contact ethnographers and missionaries among the four language-clans of Bosavi kalu ("men or people of Bosavi") that speak non-Austronesian languages. Their numbers are thought to have declined precipitously following post-contact disease epidemics in the 1940s, and have not rebounded due to high infant mortality rates and periodic influenza outbreaks. The Kaluli are mostly monolingual in an ergative language. (Full article...)

The monarchy of Papua New Guinea is a system of government in which a hereditary monarch is the sovereign and head of state of Papua New Guinea. The current Papua New Guinean monarch and head of state, since 8 September 2022, is King Charles III. As sovereign, he is the personal embodiment of the Papua New Guinean Crown. Although the person of the sovereign is equally shared with 14 other independent countries within the Commonwealth of Nations, each country's monarchy is separate and legally distinct. As a result, the current monarch is officially titled King of Papua New Guinea and, in this capacity, he and other members of the royal family undertake public and private functions domestically and abroad as representatives of Papua New Guinea. However, the King is the only member of the royal family with any constitutional role.

All executive authority is vested in the monarch, and royal approval is required for letters patent and Orders in Council to have legal effect. But the authority for these acts stems from the country's populace, in which sovereignty is vested, and the monarch's direct participation in any of these areas of governance is limited. Most of the powers are exercised by the elected members of parliament, the ministers of the Crown generally drawn from amongst them, and the judges and justices of the peace. Other powers vested in the Crown, such as the appointment of a prime minister, are significant but are treated only as reserve powers and as an important security part of the role of the monarchy.

The Crown today primarily functions as a guarantor of continuous and stable governance and a nonpartisan safeguard against the abuse of power. While some powers are exercisable only by the sovereign, most of the monarch's operational and ceremonial duties are exercised by his representative, the governor-general of Papua New Guinea. (Full article...)

The West New Guinea dispute (1950–1962), also known as the West Irian dispute, was a diplomatic and political conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia over the territory of Dutch New Guinea. While the Netherlands had ceded sovereignty over most of the Dutch East Indies to Indonesia on 27 December 1949 following an independence struggle, it retained control over its colony on the western half of New Guinea. The Indonesian government claimed this territory as well, on the basis that it had belonged to the Dutch East Indies and that the new Republic of Indonesia was the legitimate successor to the former Dutch colony.

During the first phase of the dispute (1950–1954), Indonesia pursued bilateral negotiations with the Netherlands. During the second phase (1954–1958), Indonesia attempted to raise support for its territorial claims in the United Nations General Assembly. During the third phase (1960–1962), Indonesia pursued a policy of confrontation against the Netherlands which combined diplomatic, political, and economic pressure with limited military force. The final stage of the confrontation with Indonesia also involved a planned military invasion of the territory. The Indonesians also secured military weapons and political and military support from the Soviet Union, which induced the United States to intervene in the conflict as a third-party mediator between Indonesia and the Netherlands. Following the New York Agreement on 15 August 1962, the Netherlands, under U.S. pressure, handed West New Guinea over to a United Nations Temporary Executive Authority, which subsequently handed the territory over to Indonesia on 1 May 1963. Following a controversial plebiscite in 1969, West New Guinea was formally integrated into Indonesia. (Full article...)

Papua New Guinea is home to several protected areas, which receive protection because of their environmental, cultural or similar value.

The total area of Papua New Guinea protected territories is 14,330 km² (5,530 sq mi), which amounts to approximately 3.07% of the country's territory. The total number of protected areas as 2018 is 71.

The effort by the PNG government to protect biodiversity has resulted in 44 existing terrestrial protected areas using the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) categories. These protected areas account for 1.6% of the total land area. A study of biodiversity identified a further 398 areas as candidates for conservation. This would increase the total protected areas to 16.8% of the total country area. (Full article...)

Aerial view of the Fly River

The Fly River is the third longest river in the island of New Guinea, after the Sepik River and Mamberamo River, with a total length of 1,060 km (660 mi). It is the largest by volume of discharge in Oceania, the largest in the world without a single dam in its catchment, and overall the 20th-largest primary river in the world by discharge volume. It is located in the southwest of Papua New Guinea and in the South Papua province of Indonesia. It rises in the Victor Emanuel Range arm of the Star Mountains, and crosses the south-western lowlands before flowing into the Gulf of Papua in a large delta. The Fly-Strickland River system has a total length of 1,220 km (760 mi), making it the longest river system of an island in the world. The 824 km (512 mi) Strickland River is the longest and largest tributary of Fly River, making it the farthest distance source of the Fly River. (Full article...)

Corruption is rife in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
According to The Economist, "PNG's governments are notorious for corruption, and ever run the risk of turning the state into a fully-fledged kleptocracy".

Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index scores 180 countries according to the perceived corruption of the public sector and then ranks those countries by their score. A low score earns a high ranking, and signals a perception of a corrupt public sector. In the 2021 Index, Papua New Guinea scored 31 out of 100 possible and ranked 124 out of 180 countries; for comparison, the best score was 88 (ranked 1), and the worst score was 11 (ranked 180).

Papua New Guinea is below the satisfactory levels set by the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), according to a report submitted by Transparency International Papua New Guinea (TIPNG) in 2011. TIPNG’s report found that in many cases, anti-corruption bodies in PNG were restricted by shortcomings in financial resources. (Full article...)

A 25-pounder of the 2/1st Field Regiment is unloaded from a Dakota on the airfield at Wau. The gun was assembled and fired at Japanese positions around Wau later that day.

The Battle of Wau, 29 January – 4 February 1943, was a battle in the New Guinea campaign of World War II. Forces of the Empire of Japan sailed from Rabaul and crossed the Solomon Sea and, despite Allied air attacks, successfully reached Lae, where they disembarked. Japanese troops then advanced overland on Wau, an Australian base that potentially threatened the Japanese positions at Salamaua and Lae. A race developed between the Japanese moving overland, hampered by the terrain, and the Australians, moving by air, hampered by the weather. By the time the Japanese reached the Wau area after a trek over the mountains, the Australian defenders had been greatly reinforced by air. In the battle that followed, despite achieving tactical surprise by approaching from an unexpected direction, the Japanese attackers were unable to capture Wau. (Full article...)

District map of Bougainville (North Solomons)

The Bougainville conflict, also known as the Bougainville Civil War, was a multi-layered armed conflict fought from 1988 to 1998 in the North Solomons Province of Papua New Guinea (PNG) between PNG and the secessionist forces of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), and between the BRA and other armed groups on Bougainville. The conflict was described by Bougainvillean President John Momis as the largest conflict in Oceania since the end of World War II in 1945, with an estimated 15,000–20,000 Bougainvilleans dead, although lower estimates place the toll at around 1,000–2,000.

Hostilities concluded under the Bougainville Peace Agreement in 1998. The national (PNG) government agreed to the founding of the Autonomous Bougainville Government and to certain rights and authorities which the autonomous government would have over what became known as Bougainville Province, which includes outlying small islands in addition to Bougainville Island itself. (Full article...)

Eastern brown snake, NSW, Australia

The eastern brown snake (Pseudonaja textilis), often referred to as the common brown snake, is a species of highly venomous snake in the family Elapidae. The species is native to eastern and central Australia and southern New Guinea. It was first described by André Marie Constant Duméril, Gabriel Bibron, and Auguste Duméril in 1854. The adult eastern brown snake has a slender build and can grow to 2 m (7 ft) in length. The colour of its surface ranges from pale brown to black, while its underside is pale cream-yellow, often with orange or grey splotches. The eastern brown snake is found in most habitats except dense forests, often in farmland and on the outskirts of urban areas, as such places are populated by its main prey, the house mouse. The species is oviparous. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the snake as a least-concern species, though its status in New Guinea is unclear.

It is considered the world's second-most venomous land snake after the inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus), based on its LD₅₀ value (subcutaneous) in mice. The main effects of its venom are on the circulatory system—coagulopathy, haemorrhage (bleeding), cardiovascular collapse, and cardiac arrest. One of the main components of the venom is the prothrombinase complex pseutarin-C, which breaks down prothrombin. (Full article...)

The Papua New Guinea national football team is the national team of Papua New Guinea and is controlled by the Papua New Guinea Football Association. Its nickname is the Kapuls, which is Tok Pisin for Cuscus.

Papua New Guinea's highest ever FIFA ranking was 153, in June 2017. As of June 2019, the country was ranked 171 out of 211 countries. This was a drop of 2 places from May 2019. Papua New Guinea had previously left the FIFA rankings, having not competed in a match between July 2007 and August 2011. Their matches at the 2015 Pacific Games saw them return to the rankings, and they competed in the 2016 OFC Nations Cup in June 2016; they reached the final, but lost to New Zealand 4–2 on penalties after the score was tied at 0–0 after extra time. (Full article...)