As Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd lands in Port Moresby to meet with his Papua New Guinean counterpart Peter O'Neill, several conundrums are set to tax his mind and diplomatic skills. Front and centre…
Prime minister Julia Gillard returned from her first official visit to Australia’s nearest neighbour and former colony Papua New Guinea (PNG) on Saturday with little to show for it. Reports of the visit…
Allegations of sorcery-related abuse in Papua New Guinea have had increased prominence in recent days. They involve the alleged torture of six women and one man with hot irons as part of an Easter “sacrifice…
Peter Christoff: Your book, The World Until Yesterday, is really the third in a series on societies and their futures. Guns, Germs, and Steel was really a short history of everybody of the last 13,000…
American scientist and author Jared Diamond was recently in Australia promoting his 5th book The World Until Yesterday: What can we learn from traditional societies? Jared has worked extensively in New…
Most Australians hear only periodic news items about outbreaks of tuberculosis, but globally the disease remains a top killer. And the emergence of drug-resistant strains pose a major challenge to tuberculosis…
When people ask us about our research, we answer: we are working on land-use planning. We rarely receive another question. Most of the time, after seconds of embarrassed silence, people move swiftly to…
Papua New Guinea is currently in the midst of its eighth post-independence national election. The elections were due to conclude last week, but have dragged on due to poor organisation on the part of the…
Papua New Guinea has been gripped by political turmoil for almost a week now. Two men – Michale Somare and Peter O'Neill – are currently claiming to be the rightful prime minister of the nation. Both have…
Papua New Guinea’s volatile political impasse continues even after Michael Somare was today reinstated as prime minister by the Governor-General, with rival Peter O'Neill remaining holed up in Government…
“Don’t Californicate Oregon [or Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, Montana etc]” was a popular slogan in the western United States during the 1960s and ‘70s. It was a repudiation of the mindless…
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is currently in a battle with potentially preventable and treatable tuberculosis, as reported in today’s Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers. The disease has increased in the…
Professor, Program Director of Health Security and Head of Vector-borne Diseases & Tropical Public Health, Burnet Institute; Laboratory Head, Walter & Eliza Hall Institute; Adjunct Principal Research Fellow, PNG Institute of Medical Research, Burnet Institute