Papua New Guinea (PNG) is to deploy foreign fighter jets and special forces to protect world leaders attending the APEC summit next month in the crime-plagued capital, Port Moresby, officials said.
The government is planning a massive security operation for the summit that opens on Nov. 17, which will attract representatives from 21 nations.
Attendees are to include Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US Vice President Mike Pence, who is not even expected to sleep in the city, but stay overnight in Australia.
Due to a shortage of hotel accommodation, many of the 15,000 delegates are to bunk down on three cruise liners docked in the port, presenting the authorities with additional security complications.
Although the threat posed by terrorism in Papua New Guinea is considered minimal, the Melanesian nation’s reputation for lawlessness and violent crime precedes it.
To ensure delegates are safe from crime and potential terror attacks, the government has enlisted military help from Australia and the US to ensure the capital’s streets are safe.
“It’s a major undertaking, but it’s very, very important when it comes to promoting the country economy-wise,” Papua New Guinean Minister for APEC Justin Tkatchenko said. “We’ve never had leaders like this before ever come to this area. The whole world will be watching.”
More than a third of Papua New Guinea’s 8.5 million population lives below the poverty line, while tribal and political violence is a recurring problem, particularly in the Highlands region.
Notorious street gangs known as raskols have made carjackings common and the nation has among the highest rates of rape and domestic violence in the world.
About half the capital’s population live in squatter settlements.
“Tribal violence, street violence, gender-based violence — it’s just eating the fabric of our society,” National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop said.
The Economist Intelligence Unit this year ranked Port Moresby 136th out of 140 on its list of the world’s most livable cities.
Australia is bankrolling much of the security operation and has deployed about 1,500 military personnel, including special forces, to Port Moresby.
Australian F/A-18 Super Hornets and surveillance aircraft are set to patrol the skies over Port Moresby, with Canberra also sending warships to protect the cruise liners.
The US Coast Guard has been assigned to provide “inshore security” in the capital.
Tkatchenko told parliament “we are working with our partners so that we can deploy fighter jets in our skies, enhance maritime security and deliver joint special forces operations.”
The government has passed laws allowing international security personnel to use lethal force if necessary to deal with an “imminent threat” during the summit, a move former Papua New Guinean Defence Force commander Jerry Singirok said could impinge on the nation’s sovereignty.
Canberra-based military think tank the Australia Defence Association said that without such foreign security contributions, developing nations such as Papua New Guinea would never be able to host APEC summits.
“That wouldn’t be good from a strategic level or a political level,” Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James said.
James believed the huge numbers of police and military in Port Moresby for the summit would keep crime to a minimum.
“There’ll be so many security personnel on the streets that it’s not going to be a problem,” he said.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS