Royal visit

The recent visit to PNG by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall generated plenty of interest in the UK media.

The Telegraph previewed the visit with one of the better travel articles we’ve seen on PNG and followed up with an excellent online photo gallery.

PNG was also featured in Lonely Planet Founder Tony Wheeler’s ‘Edgy Destinations’ in CNN’s Travel section.

Ross Garnaut

The big PNG story in the Australian media over the past few weeks has been the apparent decision of the PNG Government to ban Ross Garnaut from the country for remarks made regarding the dividends from Ok Tedi.

Writing in The Australian, Rowan Callick was mystified:

‘Garnaut told The Australian last week that politicians in PNG may be tempted “to think of better ways of using (the Ok Tedi dividends) right now rather than putting it into long-term development”. It is very strange that such an uncontroversial comment should place the government at odds with its biggest source of revenue, and potentially with the wider sector on which its future depends.’

Aviation

A couple of international developments have PNG relevance:

• Virgin Australia, which flies to PNG on a codeshare basis with Airlines PNG, made a surprise announcement that it was selling 10% of its business to Singapore Airlines but was taking majority ownership of Australian budget carrier Tiger and FIFO specialist Skywest.
• China Eastern Airlines has commenced a 12 month trial of direct flights between Cairns and Shanghai.