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 (1971) to 15 May 1989 (1989-05-15), when mining operations were officially halted due to militant activity. The mine has remained closed since then.

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...)

Chinese people in Papua New Guinea included, as of 2008, only about 1,000 of the "old Chinese"—locally born descendants of late 19th- and early 20th-century immigrants—remain in the country; most have moved to Australia. However, their numbers have been bolstered significantly by new arrivals from overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and later from mainland China. There are also a few migrants from the Republic of China on Taiwan. (Full article...)

The New Guinea Air Warning Wireless, also known as the "New Guinea Air Warning Wireless Company", "NGAWW", or "The Spotters", was a unique signals unit of the Australian Army formed in January 1942 in Port Moresby, Territory of Papua, during World War II, to provide early warning of Japanese air attack, and subsequently providing surveillance of shipping and ground-based troops. During the first month of operations 16 stations were established, with positions set up along the Papuan coast as well as in the mountains near Port Moresby. They often operated behind Japanese lines and were at risk of being captured by the Japanese due to the nature of their operations, while a number of outstations were over-run and the men manning them killed. By the end of 1942 the company was maintaining 61 operational stations and had a strength of 180 men.

Eventually, at its peak in late 1944 there were more than 150 spotter stations deployed on islands and mainland territories throughout Papua, New Guinea and Dutch New Guinea. The company's headquarters moved to Nadzab in June 1944, by which time stations had been established as far as Hollandia. However, in September 1944 the Australian military decided that it would not agree to American requests for the unit to serve outside the Australian area of operations and it was subsequently withdrawn after being left without a future operational role. Returning to Australia, it was disbanded in April 1945. Many of its members received awards for their actions, with the company having the distinction of being Australia's most highly decorated signals unit of World War II. (Full article...)

The New Guinea crocodile (Crocodylus novaeguineae) is a small species of crocodile found on the island of New Guinea north of the mountain ridge that runs along the centre of the island. The population found south of the mountain ridge, formerly considered a genetically distinct population, is now considered a distinct species, Hall's New Guinea crocodile (C. halli). In the past it included the Philippine crocodile, C. n. mindorensis, as a subspecies, but today they are regarded as separate species. The habitat of the New Guinea crocodile is mostly freshwater swamps and lakes. It is most active at night when it feeds on fish and a range of other small animals. A female crocodile lays a clutch of eggs in a nest composed of vegetation and she lies up nearby to guard the nest. There is some degree of parental care for newly hatched juveniles. This crocodile was over-hunted for its valuable skin in the mid 20th century, but conservation measures have since been put in place, it is reared in ranches and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists it as being of "Least Concern". (Full article...)

East New Britain is a province of Papua New Guinea, consisting of the north-eastern part of the island of New Britain and the Duke of York Islands. The capital of the province is Kokopo, not far from the old capital of Rabaul, which was largely destroyed in a volcanic eruption in 1994. East New Britain covers a total land area of 15,816 square kilometres (6,107 sq mi), and the province's population was reported as 220,133 in the 2000 census, rising to 328,369 in the 2011 count. Provincial coastal waters extend over an area of 104,000 square metres (26 acres). The province's only land border is with West New Britain Province to the west, and it also shares a maritime border with New Ireland Province to the east.

East New Britain has a dual economy: a cash economy operates side by side with the subsistence-farming sector. The main crops produced for export are cocoa and copra. Tourism continues to be an increasingly important sector of the provincial economy. (Full article...)

The Landing at Aitape (code-named Operation Persecution) was a battle of the Western New Guinea campaign of World War II. American and Allied forces undertook an amphibious landing on 22 April 1944 at Aitape on northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The amphibious landing was undertaken simultaneously with the landings at Humboldt and Tanahmerah Bays to secure Hollandia to isolate the Japanese 18th Army at Wewak. Operations in the area to consolidate the landing continued until 4 May, although US and Japanese forces fought further actions in western New Guinea following a Japanese counter-offensive that lasted until early August 1944. Aitape was subsequently developed into an Allied base of operations and was used by Australian forces throughout late 1944 and into 1945 during the Aitape–Wewak campaign. (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 their public sector on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"). Those countries are then ranked by their score; the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. In the 2022 Index, Papua New Guinea scored 30 and ranked 130th. For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 90 (ranked 1), the average score was 43, and the worst score was 12 (ranked 180). For comparison with regional scores, the highest score among the countries of the Asia Pacific region was 87, the average score was 45 and the lowest score was 17.

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...)

German New Guinea (German: Deutsch-Neuguinea) consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, became a German protectorate in 1884. Other island groups were added subsequently. The Bismarck Archipelago (New Britain, New Ireland and several smaller islands), and the North Solomon Islands were declared a German protectorate in 1885. The Caroline Islands, Palau, and the Mariana Islands (except for Guam) were bought from Spain in 1899. German New Guinea annexed the formerly separate German Protectorate of Marshall Islands, which also included Nauru, in 1906. German Samoa, though part of the German colonial empire, was not part of German New Guinea.

Following the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and nearby islands fell to Australian forces, while Japan occupied most of the remaining German possessions in the Pacific. The mainland part of German New Guinea (Kaiser-Wilhelmsland), the Bismarck Archipelago and the North Solomon Islands are now part of Papua New Guinea. The Northern Mariana Islands are an unincorporated territory of the United States. The Carolines (as the Federated States of Micronesia), the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Palau are independent countries.

The islands to the east of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, on annexation, were renamed the Bismarck Archipelago (formerly the New Britannia Archipelago) and the two largest islands renamed Neupommern ('New Pomerania', today's New Britain) and Neumecklenburg ('New Mecklenburg', now New Ireland). Due to their accessibility by water, however, these outlying islands were, and have remained, the most economically viable part of the territory. (Full article...)

The New Guinea Volunteer Rifles (NGVR) was an infantry battalion of the Australian Army. It was initially raised as a unit of the Militia from white Australian and European expatriates in New Guinea upon the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, before being activated for full-time service following the Japanese landings in early 1942. NGVR personnel then helped rescue survivors of Lark Force from Rabaul in February and March 1942. Between March and May, the NGVR monitored the Japanese bases which had been established in the Huon Gulf region, being the only Allied force in the area until the arrival of Kanga Force at Wau in May. The battalion subsequently established observation posts overlooking the main approaches and reported on Japanese movements.

Later, it inflicted significant casualties on the Japanese in a series of raids, and led them to believe that they faced a much larger opposing force. On 29 June, the NGVR and the newly arrived 2/5th Independent Company carried out a highly successful attack on the Japanese garrison in Salamaua, killing at least 113 men. When the focus shifted to the Milne Bay and Kokoda Track battles of August and September, the NGVR continued to man its posts overlooking the Japanese base areas. The Japanese were subsequently defeated in the Battle of Wau in January and February 1943, relieving the pressure on the NGVR. The battalion was disbanded in April 1943 due to attrition.

In the years immediately following the war the Australian Army considered re-establishing a military presence in Papua New Guinea (PNG), although there was some opposition among white settlers to the raising of native units. As an interim measure, the re-establishment of the NGVR was approved in July 1949. The unit reformed as the Papua New Guinea Volunteer Rifles (PNGVR) on 16 March 1951, initially as a whites-only reserve unit of the Citizen Military Forces (CMF). In March 1951 a PNGVR detachment assisted in relief operations following the eruption of Mount Lamington, which killed 3,466 people and left more than 5,000 homeless. Between 1951 and 1953 PNGVR elements were established in all the main centres of Papua New Guinea. (Full article...)

The indigenous peoples of Western New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, commonly called Papuans, are Melanesians. There is genetic evidence for two major historical lineages in New Guinea and neighboring islands: a first wave from the Malay Archipelago perhaps 50,000 years ago when New Guinea and Australia were a single landmass called Sahul and, much later, a wave of Austronesian people from the north who introduced Austronesian languages and pigs about 3,500 years ago. They also left a small but significant genetic trace in many coastal Papuan peoples.

Linguistically, Papuans speak languages from the many families of non-Austronesian languages that are found only on New Guinea and neighboring islands, as well as Austronesian languages along parts of the coast, and recently developed creoles such as Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, Unserdeutsch, and Papuan Malay.

The term "Papuan" is used in a wider sense in linguistics and anthropology. In linguistics, "Papuan languages" is a cover term for the diverse, mutually unrelated, non-Austronesian language families spoken in Melanesia, the Torres Strait Islands, and parts of Wallacea. In anthropology, "Papuan" is often used to denote the highly diverse aboriginal populations of Melanesia and Wallacea prior to the arrival of Austronesian-speakers, and the dominant genetic traces of these populations in the current ethnic groups of these areas. (Full article...)

Bougainville Island (Tok Pisin: Bogenvil) is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. It was previously the main landmass in the German Empire-associated North Solomons. Its land area is 9,300 km² (3,600 sq mi). The population of the whole province, including nearby islets such as the Carterets, is approximately 300,000 (2019 census). The highest point is Mount Balbi, on the main island, at 2,715 m (8,907 ft). The much smaller Buka Island, c. 500 km² (190 sq mi), lies to the north, across the 400–500 m (1,300–1,600 ft) wide Buka Strait. Even though the strait is narrow, there is no bridge across it, but there is a regular ferry service between the key settlements on either side. The main airport (or airstrip) in the north is in the town of Buka.

Bougainville is the largest island in the Solomon Islands archipelago. Most of the islands in this archipelago (which are primarily concentrated in the southern and eastern portions of it) are part of the politically independent Solomon Islands. Two of these islands—the closely connected Shortland Islands—are less than 9 km (5.6 mi) south or southeast of Bougainville, and about 30 km (19 mi) west of Choiseul, one of the settlements of which, Poroporo, faces Bougainville.

Buka has an outcropping that is 175 km (109 mi) from New Ireland. Among the large islands of Papua New Guinea, New Ireland is the closest to Buka. (Full article...)

The Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Papua New Guinea. It originated from the Australian Army land forces of the territory of Papua New Guinea before independence, coming into being in January 1973 and having its antecedents in the Pacific Islands Regiment. The PNGDF is a small force, numbering around 3,600 personnel, and consists of a Land Element, an Air Element and a Maritime Element. It is a joint force tasked with defending Papua New Guinea and its territories against external attack, as well as having secondary functions including national-building and internal security tasks.

Defence accounts for less than 2% of GDP, while also receiving significant assistance and training support from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and other nations. The Defence White Paper 2013 has ambitious plans to increase the force to 5,000 personnel and double defence spending to 3% by 2017 and by 2030 have 10,000 personnel.

The PNGDF Land Element includes two infantry battalions, an engineer battalion, a signal squadron, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit, and a preventive medicine platoon. The Air Element is a small air wing operating a light transport aircraft and two leased helicopters. The Maritime Element consists of four Pacific-class patrol boats and two Balikpapan-class landing craft. The army is under the direct command of Headquarters PNGDF, while the air wing and navy have their own commanding officers. The PNGDF does not have a Commander-in-Chief but rather a Commander who advises the Minister for Defence. The PNGDF is under the control of the National Executive Council through the Minister for Defence. (Full article...)

Seth Jafeth Rumkorem (1933 – 2010) was a West Papuan military officer and independence activist. He chose to defect from the Indonesian Army to the Free Papua Movement (OPM) after witnessing electoral fraud and human rights abuses conducted by the former. He quickly became the leader of the movement's armed wing and was among the signatories of the proclamation of the Republic of West Papua.
He went into exile to Greece, after an attempt to secure weapons for OPM went wrong. He eventually relocated to the Netherlands, where he continued his activism until his death in 2010. (Full article...)

Lae (/ˈlɑːeɪ, ˈleɪi/) is the capital of Morobe Province and is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is located near the delta of the Markham River and at the start of the Highlands Highway, which is the main land transport corridor between the Highlands Region and the coast. Lae is the largest cargo port of the country and is the industrial hub of Papua New Guinea. The city is known as the Garden City and home of the University of Technology. (Full article...)

Agriculture in Papua New Guinea has more than a 7,000 years old history, and developed out of pre-agricultural plant/food collecting and cultivation traditions of local hunter-gatherers. Currently around 85% of Papua New Guinea's population lives from semi-subsistence agriculture. 86% of all food energy consumed in Papua New Guinea is locally sourced.

Papua New Guinea produces and exports agricultural, timber, and fish products. Agriculture in 2017 accounted for 22.1% of the GDP and supported more than 80% of the population. Cash crops ranked by value are coffee, oil, cocoa, copra, tea, rubber, and sugar. The timber industry was not active in 1998, due to low world prices, but rebounded in 1999. About 40% of the country is covered with timber rich trees, and a domestic woodworking industry has been slow to develop. 99% of fishing exports are either tuna or tuna byproduct. Papua New Guinea has the largest yam market in Asia. (Full article...)