Nautilus remains optimistic

Australian Mining magazine reports that Nautilus Minerals’ interim CEO and President Michael Johnston remains optimistic about resolving its dispute with the PNG Government.

‘We had a number of very good meetings with senior politicians and I’m quite confident that we will get resolution to this dispute in the not too distant future,’ he is quoted as saying in a conference call last week.

Fiji trade unions get political

In what is shaping up as the first major threat to Fiji’s six-year-old military regime, the Fiji Council of Trade Unions has declared it intends to set up a political party in defiance of a ban on unionists being involved in politics. Radio Australia interviews the organisation’s President, Felix Anthony.

Shootings in neighbouring Papua province

There are fears that two separate shooting incidents in Indonesian province of Papua, which shares a land border with PNG, signal a serious escalation in tensions in the restive region.

PNG CEO Survey on Radio Australia

Business Advantage International’s Andrew Wilkins spoke to Jemima Garrett of Radio Australia about the results of the 2013 PNG 100 CEO Survey.

Australia’s Pacific policy criticised

On The Lowy Institute’s Interpreter blog this week, Professor Wadan Narsey, Adjunct Professor at The Cairns Institute, examines a recent paper criticising Australia’s foreign policy in the Pacific.

China–US rivalry in the Pacific

The East-West Center reports on a recent address given by longtime senior US Diplomat J. Stapleton Roy on the need for China and the US ‘to arrest the current drift in …  relations toward strategic rivalry.’