Sports Minister Hon. Don Polye has commended the Papua New Guinea Guinea Kumuls for a sterling performance despite going down to Tonga 24- 18 in their World Cup match yesterday morning. He says the match has proven that the Kumuls are right up there with the best in the world and strengthens PNG’s bid for inclusion in the Australian NRL competition. “I was up early this morning to watch the game on TV with thousands of patriotic Papua New Guineans in every corner of our country, from Daru to Kavieng, and from Vanimo to Alotau,” Minister Polye said. “The Kumuls again brought us together as one nation, one people, one country. “Tonga was so lucky to escape with the win in what has been the most-exciting clash of the World Cup so far. “We went in as underdogs, against a highly-rated Tongan side full of NRL stars – and one of the World Cup favorites - and overcame a 12-point difference to level 18-18, only for Tonga to win with a frantic try three minutes from time. “I, like all Papua New Guineans, am disappointed that Rodrick Tai was controversially denied a try in the corner in the second half, which could have swung the game our way. “However, we can all be so proud of the Kumuls, and I commend coach Stanley Tepend and the entire team for showing the world what we are made of. “The match certainly proves that the Kumuls are right up there with the best in the world and shows that we have what it takes to be in the NRL.”

The exercise on recording and documenting the different customs of Papua New Guinea was launched at Bereina station, in the Kairuku District, Central Province this week. Lead agency, the Constitutional and Law Reform Commission (CLRC), began the exercise with the recording of the customs of Nara, Gabadi, Kuni, Kuni-Maipa, Roro-Waima, Mekeo, and Kaopo language groups by interviewing elders, chiefs, community leaders and village court magistrates this week. CLRC Secretary Dr. Manage Matui said the exercise is part of CLRC’s mandate on developing the Underlying Law or the indigenous legal system, or jurisprudence of PNG. The customs including the customary laws, values, principles, languages and practices collected throughout the country will be pooled together and made accessible to the courts to apply after endorsement by the Parliament, Dr. Matui added. “The courts will determine whether the custom is good or bad but our job is to record everything on your custom, as they are,’’ Dr. Matui said   The project in the Kairuku district is the first custom recording proper, after CLRC facilitated 34 pilot projects in selected provinces from 2016 to 2019. The exercise will continue to Rigo District next week and subsequently cover the rest of the districts of Central Province as well as the Motu-Koitabu villages by the end of 2024 before venturing into other provinces. “While it is not late, the need for recording, documenting, and preserving our customs is more urgent now than before and we must act now,” CLRC Commissioner Dr. Dora Kuir-Ayius, who officiated at the launch, said. Dr. Ayius added that even though our Forefathers adopted the English Common Law at Independence in 1975, their original intention was the creation and development of our own customs that would eventually replace the English common law to suit our purpose and context. She further added that little have been done since then, as we continue to lose our customs as a result of changes brought on by modernization. Dr. Matui said that the exercise on the recording of all the customs of PNG, is a mammoth task, but he added that he was thankful to the government for the funding supporting and for giving due recognition to the importance of this exercise in Nation building. Dr. Matui also acknowledged the support and cooperation of key stakeholders, including the Department for Justice and Attorney General, Public Solicitor, State Solicitor PNG Judiciary, UPNG School of Law, and National Museum and Art Gallery.

A SME owner has thanked the BSP Financial Group Limited for collaborating, recognising and acknowledging SMEs efforts, especially women in business who continue to break barriers and create opportunities for other local businesses. CEO of EmStret Holdings Limited – Vani Nades made these remarks when presented the 2022 SME Awards First Runner-up Award in Port Moresby this week (Tuesday 18th October 2022) during the BSP Leadership and SME Immersion presentation by Australian Rugby League Club - The Brisbane Broncos. The award comprises a K20, 000 cheque with BSP Merchandise and an evening with BSP Staff, fellow SMEs and Brisbane Broncos Club Chief Executive Officer, Dave Donaghy , Management Team and the former Queensland and Club Legend Scott Prince and three current Broncos Players Keenan Palasia, Delouise Hoeter and Ethan Quai –Ward. The event saw 20 BSP SMEs celebrate the journey of Vani Nades and her team from Emstret – one that began as Nades’s solo consultancy business five years ago, and has since grown to have almost 20 staff. “Being an entrepreneur and having to receive this award is not easy. When you have a business, you have to go all out. Many people played a part in my journey, not just me alone. The challenges at the end of the day is we have to keep pushing ourselves and be one step ahead,” Nades said. “Thank you very much BSP for involving us SMEs. There is potential out there, women doing amazing things. The award here represents women who are hustling out there so that our SMEs can have a space to come and collaborate, connect and create opportunities. This came in timely, this is going to help me to build my working space and build it for all other entrepreneurs in PNG. There is so many great people out there, let’s bring them forward and build the nation together,” she added. BSP Group Retail General Manager Daniel Faunt said the Community Partnership between BSP and the Broncos go back to 2020, that focus on Financial Literacy – creating a savings culture among children, Leadership development among staff and SME. “We are particularly pleased that 20 of our SMEs are present tonight. SMEs are a core part of our bank. We do bank an entire core population of our bank. We also have 34 of staff under the BSP Leadership Management Development Program talents – the likes of our Group GM HR Hari Rabura and Digital GM Nuni Kulu, two successful participants of the BSP leadership development program. We also have other upcoming leaders present tonight,” Mr Faunt added. The Brisbane Broncos representatives and management arrived in Port Moresby on Monday and have been going around BSP branches in NCD, schools for Financial Literacy sessions and sporting facilities to continue the partnership BSP has with surrounding community.

As further proof that you can now 3D-print anything, a company called Natural Machines has introduced a 3D printer for food. The “Foodini,” as it’s called, isn’t too different from a regular 3D printer, but instead of printing with plastics, it deploys edible ingredients squeezed out of stainless steel capsules: “It’s the same technology,” says Lynette Kucsma, co-founder of Natural Machines, “but with plastics there’s just one melting point, whereas with food it’s different temperatures, consistencies and textures. Also, gravity works a little bit against us, as food doesn’t hold the shape as well as plastic.” The Barcelona-based startup behind the machine says it’s the only one of its kind capable of printing a wide range of dishes, from sweet to savory. “In essence, this is a mini food manufacturing plant shrunk down to the size of an oven,” Kucsma said, pointing out that at least in the initial stage the printer will be targeted mostly at professional kitchen users, with a consumer version to follow, at a projected retail price of around $1,000. In principle, the Foodini sounds like the ultimate laziness aid: press a button to print your ravioli. But Natural Machines is quick to point out that it’s designed to take care only of the difficult and time-consuming parts of food preparation that discourage people from cooking at home, and that it promotes healthy eating by requiring fresh ingredients prepared before printing. Nevertheless, the company is working with major food manufacturers to create pre-packaged plastic capsules that can just be loaded into the machine to make food, even though they assure these will be free of preservatives, with a shelf life limited to five days. The printing process is slow, but faster than regular 3D printing. Other than being capable of creating complex designs, such as very detailed cake decorations or food arranged in unusual shapes, the Foodini can be useful for recipes that require precision and dexterity, like homemade pizza or filled pasta. Currently, the device only prints the food, which must be then cooked as usual. But a future model will also cook the preparation and produce it ready to eat. The idea also comes with a social element too. “There’s a touchscreen on the front that connects to a recipe site in the cloud, so it’s an internet-of-things, connected kitchen appliance,” said Kucsma. Users will also be able to control the device remotely using a smartphone, and share their recipes with the community. That is, if people don’t balk at the idea of eating printed food. “We have done tests and everybody liked the food,” explains Kucsma. “Take the microwave oven, for example: in the 70s, people were a bit fearful about it, they thought food could be poisoned with radiation or something, but fast forward 30 years, and there’s one in every household. This is real food, with real fresh ingredients, it’s just prepared using a new technology.” Source: CNN

Awareness on HIV and AIDS needs to go out to prevent more people from getting infected with HIV, says Margaret Marabe, a long-time advocate on HIV. Ms Marabe says there was a lot of awareness years ago, but this has drastically gone down. “Communities must do awareness so people can go for HIV test,’’ she says. “Churches can ask us to come and do awareness and conduct (counselling and HIV) tests”. She says many people, including school-aged children are getting infected with HIV, awareness needs to go out everywhere, including schools and villages or rural communities. She says those who are concerned that they have HIV must not be afraid to go for a HIV test because there is a treatment that can help prolong their lives. Ms Marabe has been on HIV treatment for 18 years now, but she was diagnosed with the virus earlier in 1997. This was when she was seriously ill and admitted at a hospital. Her condition was described as being in stage four. “I had a big sore (on my side) and I could not eat and speak,’’ she says. Through faith and care of her sister, she recovered. Then in 2004, she became one of the first HIV people to be put on treatment when antiretroviral therapy (ARV) was introduced at the Heduru clinic, Port Moresby. Her son was then small and she hoped that she would lived to see him grow up. Next month, she is joyfully expecting her first grand child from him. Ms Marabe says unlike before, there is no stigma and discrimination today. “There is no stigma and discrimination in HIV. What people have is ‘self-stigma’’. Currently, Ms Marabe is working in HIV counselling and testing with Hope Worldwide PNG. Ms Marabe was one of the 22 participants of the recent Provider Initiated Counselling and Testing (PICT) organised and run by the National Department of Health with support from the World Vision and Global Fund. It was held at Tuhava, 30 minute drive outside Port Moresby.

Vanuatu looks set to elect its first female politician in more than 10 years as results from the country's snap election roll in. Gloria Julia King is in the running to win one of eight rural seats in Efate, Vanuatu's main island. She says it would be a huge victory for female empowerment and she wants to inspire other women to follow her lead. "Being able to carry a female voice into parliament, let's all people in Vanuatu know that there is a female voice up there representing them," she said. Official results from last Thursday's vote are expected in the coming weeks. Source: ABC Pacific

Papua New Guinea’s potential final path to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ became clear last week following the draw for the qualifying Play-Off Tournament to be played in New Zealand in February 2023. Papua New Guinea have been drawn in Group C – alongside Chinese Taipei, Paraguay and Panama – following the draw at the Home of FIFA in Zurich, Switzerland on Friday, October 14. Papua New Guinea will take on Panama in the Group C semi-finals at North Harbour Stadium in Auckland on February 19. Chinese Taipei face Paraguay in the other semi-final clash at Waikato Stadium in Hamilton earlier the same day. The winners of those two fixtures will face each other in the final on February 23 in Hamilton – with the winners qualifying for next year’s World Cup, hosted by Australia and New Zealand. Source: Oceania Football Confederation 

The BSP Financial Group’s Limited (BSP) Community partners and Australian professional rugby league club, the Brisbane Broncos Management and a few current players are in the country for few days visit as part of their community engagement drive with BSP. This partnership focuses on both parties working together in three key areas within the BSP operations; Education through Financial Literacy, SME and Leadership. Led by the Brisbane Broncos Club Chief Executive Officer, Dave Donaghy , Management Team and the former Queensland and Club Legend Scott Prince and three NRL Players Keenan Palasia, Delouise Hoeter and Ethan Quai –Ward were in country on Monday 17th October, 2022. Team started their visit on arrival to the Bomana War Cemetery. Yesterday (Tuesday 18th October 2022) the BSP staff at the Waigani Head office were privileged to have them show up to share few moments and take pictures and signed few autographs before visiting Gordons International School for the School Financial Literacy appointment. The visit to Gordons International School saw Brisbane Broncos promoting financial literacy and emphasising on the importance of saving by making appearances, meeting the students and presenting limited edition co-branded BSP and Brisbane Broncos merchandise. The Banks partnership with such reputable club is not only in rugby league but also in business and community programs, which is beneficial for both parties. Over the next few days, the team will visit few more BSP Branches, schools and sporting facilities to continue the partnership BSP has with community.

A six week combined security forces operation will begin soon in the National Capital District targeting hot spots and criminal activities, said acting Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP)Special Operations Donald Yamasombi. Following the dissatisfaction expressed by the Prime Minister on the lawlessness in NCD, Commissioner of Police David Manning appointed Mr Yamasombi to support the Divisional Commander of NCD/Central, Mr Anthony Wagambie Jnr, in his crime fight strategies in the city. “In that regard I’ve done a supplementary operation order in relation to what the NCD Divisional Commander has already instituted on the ground,” says Mr Yamasombi. He said resources will be made available from his wing to fully support the NCD/Central Command. “We will be targeting known hotspots within the city,” said Mr Yamasombi. He said all suspects apprehended during this operation will be carefully profiled.  “We will get their fingerprints, photographs and full details of who they are. This should help us in the long run to keep tag of people who commit crimes in the city because a lot of times these are the same people who keep doing the same thing over and over but no proper tags were kept on them. People must now feel the full force of the law,” said Mr Yamasombi. The Specialist Operations Wing consist of the Special Services Division (SSD), Dog Unit, Water Police and the Police Band. Mr Yamasombi said all these directorates have sufficient manpower and they will be committed to this exercise. “The city has three zones, so each zone will be assigned a directorate and have them rotate the units from within these policing zones in the city after a week. The bandsmen will be divided between the three directorates to beef up numbers in this exercise. “This will also help us see what difference we can make in terms of the capabilities we have and so the resources these directorates have will be committed to the zone we place them in. “On the flip side, I will also be able to see the effectiveness of these Directorates. This will be a testing time for our men as well,” said Mr Yamasombi. He said Police will also be executing warrants so all offences will be specified in order to obtain warrant on all forms of offences. “Under the instructions already issued to the Crimes Division is to have prosecutors to apply to the magistrates in court upon successful conviction of suspects to have them repatriated back to their home provinces. “There is a provision under the District Courts Act for the magistrates to exercise so we will be invoking that to have people who are convicted in the city to be repatriated back to their home provinces,” says Mr Yamasombi. He said the PNG Defence Force and the Correctional Services have been put on notice and they will come on board in this operation as soon as the necessary legal instruments are signed.

Mate Ma'a Tonga have survived a scare from a committed PNG Kumuls outfit to come away with a 24-18 win at St Helens' Totally Wicked Stadium. In the game of the World Cup to date, the Tongans broke an 18-18 deadlock with three minutes to play courtesy of a miracle try to Rabbitohs star Kaeon Koloamatangi on his Test debut. Come the 35th minute it was Tonga taking the lead when interchange forward Moeaki Fotuaika finished off some great lead-up work by Tui Lolohea and Koloamatangi to dot down under the sticks. Dolphins-bound young gun Isaiya Katoa was next to score just 90 seconds later after Moses Suli surged into the back field and found the 18-year-old looming in support to take the score to 18-6 at the break. The Kumuls hit back immediately after half-time when Ipape left four defenders in his wake and found Lachlan Lam backing up for a sensational PNG try. A huge call in the 54th minute when the video referee ruled Kumuls winger Rodrick Tai had failed to ground the ball in the corner after watching several replays. Having entered the game from the bench in the 52nd minute, David Fifita made an impact when he powered his way over the line only to be denied by desperate defence from Lam, who managed to hold him up. A mistake by Koula at dummy half in the 68th minute gave the Kumuls a golden opportunity to grab their third try and Russell made amends for his earlier bombed try when he took the final pass from Alex Johnston to cross wide out. Source: NRL.com

Members of BTS, the K-pop supergroup, are planning to undertake military service, the band’s record label confirmed Monday, with Jin, the oldest member, aiming to start the process at the end of the month. Military service is mandatory in South Korea, where almost all able-bodied men are required to serve in the army for 18 months by the time they are 28 years old. South Korea’s parliament passed a bill in 2020 allowing pop stars – namely those who “excel in popular culture and art” – to defer their service until the age of 30. With Jin turning 30 this year, and the band’s announcement of a break in June from group musical activities to pursue solo projects, members are now making plans to serve. BTS is expected to reconvene as a group around 2025, according to BIGHIT Music. The record label said it has been looking at the timing of the band’s military service, “to respect the needs of the country and for these healthy young men,” and it said the time was “now.” “Group member Jin will initiate the process as soon as his schedule for his solo release is concluded at the end of October. He will then follow the enlistment procedure of the Korean government,” the label said, adding: “Other members of the group plan to carry out their military service based on their own individual plans.” The country’s defense minister said in August that BTS might still be able to perform overseas while serving in the military, the Reuters news agency reported. Source: CNN

In the winter of 2019, a number of children living in India's Jammu region began falling sick with what many thought was a mysterious illness. The children, suffering from cough and cold, had been prescribed a cough syrup by local doctors. Instead of recovering, they fell seriously ill, vomiting, running high fever and kidneys shutting down. By the time the mystery was solved, 11 children, aged between two months and six years, had died. Tests found that three samples of the cough syrup, made by an Indian drug company called Digital Vision, contained diethylene glycol or DEG, an industrial solvent used in the making of paints, ink, brake fluids. Kidney failure is common after consuming this poisonous alcohol. Earlier this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) put out a global warning over four India-made cough syrups thought to be linked to the deaths of 66 children in The Gambia. Lab analysis of the samples of a syrup made by a 32-year-old firm called Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited confirmed the presence of "unacceptable amounts" of diethylene glycol and another toxic alcohol called ethylene glycol. The tainted drugs and the tragic deaths again shone a spotlight on India's $42bn - half of the revenues come from exports - drug manufacturing industry. Some 3,000 firms operate 10,000 pharmaceutical factories making generics (copies of branded medicines that usually sell for a fraction of their price), over-the-counter medicines, vaccines and ingredients in what is one of the world's largest drug-making countries. Although India imports 70% of the active ingredient chemicals for its medicines from China, it is trying to make more of them at home. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has championed India as the "pharmacy of the world". India's traditional expertise in making generics has helped make it a formidable low-cost maker of drugs and become a global manufacturing base. Some 40% of over-the-counter and generic medicines sold in the US and a quarter of all medicines dispensed in the UK come from India. The country supplies some two-thirds of anti-retroviral drugs globally to fight HIV. Outside the USA, India has the most number of drug making plants - 800 - that are compliant with the US health and safety requirements. Yet such breathless growth - the industry has been running at a clip of over 9% every year for nearly a decade - has been clouded by allegations of problems of quality and weak regulation. Many believe that India has always battled a flood of counterfeit drugs, mostly sold in small towns and villages. But analysts say the physicians and patients are possibly conflating sub-standard drugs with what they think are fake medicines. State-run drug testing labs in many states are under-funded, short-staffed and poorly equipped. Regulatory oversight and enforcement is unsurprisingly spotty, analysts say. In 2014, India's top drug regulator famously told a newspaper: "If I follow US standards I will have to shut almost all drug facilities." More than 70 people, mostly children, have died in five separate mass poisoning incidents related to drugs spiked with DEG since 1972. In 2013, after a seven-year long investigation, top Indian drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories was ordered to pay a record $500m fine in the US, the biggest handed down to a generic drug maker for improper manufacturing, storing and testing of drugs. Official government records reveal that between 2007 and 2020, more than 7,500 drugs sampled in just three of India's 28 states and three union territories had failed quality tests and had been declared drugs "not of standard quality" or inferior, research by Dinesh Thakur, a former Indian drug executive-turned-public health expert, found. These drugs failed tests for not having enough of ingredient chemicals, impaired ability to dissolve in the patients' blood or were found to be contaminated. Each failed sample typically represents a batch of the medicine, which in turn could run into hundreds of thousands of tablets, capsules and injections. "The total number of patients affected by such inferior drugs possibly runs into hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions over the last decade," says Mr Thakur, co-author of The Truth Pill, a piercing look at drug regulation in India. Mr Thakur says he worries that many Indian firms are not following "good manufacturing practices" or GMP, a drug industry term to refer to testing for quality control. He believes that the DEG-related incidents had occurred at home - and now abroad - because some firms "quite often fail to test either the raw materials or the final formulation before shipping it to the market". "Given the sheer quality of drugs detected as "not of standard quality" over the last decade from the open market it is obvious that a large number of manufacturing facilities are completely flouting quality and process control procedures that form the core of 'good manufacturing practices'" says Mr Thakur. That's not all. Using right to information law, Mr Thakur found many of India's state-owned drug testing labs lacked key equipment. Drug sampling practices, he noted, date back to a colonial 1875 law where inspectors pick up a small number of random samples from the market. India has been debating a law to recall drugs that have been found to be inferior from the market since nearly half a century. "All it has are guidelines, which many state regulators seem to be unaware of. Have you ever heard of a drug recalled in India?" says Mr Thakur. It is difficult to understand the scale of the problem - many of India's drug factories are indeed world-class. Physicians say they largely trust India-made drugs. Dr Rahul Baxi, a Mumbai-based diabetologist, told me that only once in recent years he became suspicious about a drug when glucose levels of a patient shot up after he switched off from branded drug to a cheaper generic. But he suspects that there could be counterfeit or inferior drugs being sold in small towns and villages. "Many of my patients that come from far flung parts of India buy six months of prescribed drugs from pharmacies in the city because they say they don't trust drugs available in their areas," Dr Baxi said. After the deaths of the children in The Gambia, India claimed that its federal regulator was "robust" and sought more details from the WHO on the causality of the deaths with the exported cough syrup. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates medical products in the US, posts inspection status of firms supplying drugs to the US and warning letters. A spokesperson told me that its policies ensure that "companies - regardless of where the are located - meet the FDA's strict standards for producing medicines for US patients that are high quality, safe and effective". A pharmaceutical industry leader, insisting on anonymity, told me that "although some countries do have very rigid quality standards", India's drugs were completely safe. "We are not defending the mishaps," he said, "but these are aberrations". Mr Thakur says: "An aberration should only happen once. You can't play with people's lives".   Source: BBC