Damning assessment of PNG elections

On Radio Australia’s website, the ABC’s PNG correspondent Liam Fox considers the ‘damning assessment’ of last year’s National Elections in Papua New Guinea by two different groups of election observers.

PNG enters a different league

Elsewhere on the ABC, the ‘Pacific Beat’ program interviews the General Manager of PNG’s national cricket team about playing in the South Australia Premier League later this year. This is apparently the first time a PNG side has been accepted into an Australian domestic competition. Will the NRL be next?

PNG offers ‘adrenalin rush’

The front cover of the Autumn edition of the Australian Financial Review’s ‘Sophisticated Traveller’ magazine promises no less than 113 of the hottest global destinations. PNG makes the ‘Adrenalin Rush’ category, with diving in Kimbe Bay, while the Solomon Islands as a whole features in the ‘Step Back in Time’ category (wifi not included).

Tourism visa charges pilloried

However, a recent post on the website of The Economist about the logic of countries charging for tourist visas may strike a chord with some in PNG’s tourism industry, pointing out that

 ‘It is probably safe to assume that the 2,500 British visitors who paid £50 [K158] to enter Sierra Leone in 2011 generated far less revenue for the country’s economy, and created fewer hospitality jobs, than the 111,000 visitors who paid nothing to enter [its West African neighbour] Gambia.’

Funny business in Europe

Just when you thought Greece’s reputation couldn’t sink any further, last week it suffered the ignominy of being reclassified as an ‘emerging market’ by a major US fund manager.

Elsewhere in Europe, a sense of nihilism seems to have come over voters disillusioned by the continent’s economic woes: last week no less than one quarter of Italian voters (8.7 million) voted for comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo in the country’s general election.