A 2 Year Journey for 1 Man

You all would’ve seen it already. The News that our firebrand politician Anderson Agiru will be taking a 2 year journey into the unknown to seek the treasures of K600 million for his province. Now that’s being proactive, isn’t it?!

So some questions:

1. How many people will be going on this 2 year journey with him?
2. What sort of lifestyle will he be living when he’s in the wilderness?
3. What are the cost comparisons of seeking that same financing through international financial advisors?
4. Is Arthur Somare’s personally sought financing from Abu Dhabi the new trend for all politicians seeking international finance?
5. Will Governor Anderson make good use of our private jet or will he use other transport?

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ANDREW ALPHONSE (National Newspaper Monday 8th February 2010)

SOUTHERN Highlands Governor Anderson Agiru is taking leave of office for two years.

He announced last week he has delegated the powers performed by the governor to his deputy and Mendi MP Pr Isaac Joseph.

This means that Pr Joseph is now the acting Governor of the province.

Mr Agiru made the announcement last Wednesday at the Agiru Centre in Mendi during a special provincial assembly sitting to pass this year’s provincial government budget.

Mr Agiru said he had decided to hand the province’s top post to Pr Joseph to oversee the running of the province in the next two years as he (Agiru) needed time to travel abroad to find K600 million for impact projects in the province.

The State has committed this money to the province during the PNG LNG project’s umbrella benefits sharing agreement (UBSA) in Kokopo last May.

Mr Agiru said he was now armed with a “treasury note” from the Department of Finance and Treasury to raise this K600 million.

Several major impact and infrastructural projects to be funded include the new Kikori to Ialibu Highway sealing project (K100 million), a new highway that would connect Gulf, Southern Highlands and the Sepik area (K100 million), Hela city development (K100 million), Tari international airport, Mendi airport relocation and the townships development of Mendi, Tari, Nipa, Ialibu, Kagua, Margarima, Komo, Koroba and Lake Kopiago.

The K600 million commitment from the State was not factored into the 2010 SHP budget because it is a one-off fund from the National Government.

The money, earmarked for these major infrastructural developments in the province under the LNG project, will give direct benefits to the people.

Mr Agiru since he had been given a “treasury note” by the State to raise K600 million bond, he needed time to look for this money.

He said, therefore, it was imperative that Pr Joseph took the reins during his absence while Komo-Margarima MP Francis Potape will be his deputy. When contacted yesterday for comments, Pr Joseph thanked Mr Agiru for delegating the powers to him and Mr Potape. He said Mr Agiru had set the blueprint for the province as budgets were tied to projects and infrastructure developments under the on-going reconstruction, restoration and rehabilitation programme in the province. Pr Joseph said there was no room for free cash-handouts and false claim culture, adding that he and Mr Potape would ensure the goals and vision are achieved.

He said he and Mr Potape were Mr Agiru’s lieutenants and they would work to ensure that the budget was implemented according to the plan and that the province was progressing forward while Mr Agiru continued to work in securing funds for the provincial project.

What a Con!

By Paul Oates

So called ‘Developed’ countries could well note a report in PNG’s The National. The PNG Environment and Conservation Secretary, Dr Wari Iamo says PNG will reduce it’s carbon emissions by 60% in 10 years and by 100% in 40 years. The methodology to achieve this reduction must surely be revolutionary. Exactly who is in charge of measuring PNG’s carbon emissions and how this would be done was not detailed however.

Elsewhere, it was reported that ‘Carbon Cowboys’ have now created a scam and tricked German Carbon Creditors into releasing their confidential data base details and diverted some of the millions on offer into false bank accounts.

The process of buying carbon credits appears to some to be a simple equation. Electricity producers can continue to produce electricity from coal but buy carbon credits from those selling them to ‘offset’ the carbon dioxide so produced and being releasing into the atmosphere. Exactly how this will reduce the overall carbon emissions is unclear and the cost of ‘buying’ carbon credits will just be passed onto the consumer as a simple, new impost.

Those ’selling’ carbon credits don’t seem to have any guaranteed methodology of ensuring that the ‘credits’ they are selling can either be verified or audited. Those nations who still have rainforests were very quick to reject any external auditing of their forest resources proposed at Copenhagen.

So can someone explain how carbon credits and emmissions trading schemes will effectively guarantee any reduction in carbon dioxide emissions or future greenhouse pollution? The whole process seems to be a sham of the greatest proportions. With electronic bank transfers and offshore bank accounts, those operating these carbon credit schemes seem to have an open door to manipulate the consumers and those with forests and play both sides off against each other while making millions in the process. What a con!
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PNG ready to submit carbon targets to UN
Source: The National
By PATRICK TALU
PAPUA New Guinea has formalised its emission reduction targets (ERT) to comply with the Copenhagen Accord in reducing carbon emissions by 60% come 2020 and 100% by 2050.
Environment and Conservation Secretary, Dr Wari Iamo, said PNG was ready to submit its ERT to the UN together with its emission mitigation action plans.
Dr Iamo told The National yesterday by phone that PNG was focusing on the reduced emission on deforestation and degradation (REDD) initiative.
“To facilitate the REDD initiative, the Annex One nations (industrialised nations) have already committed K3 billion – K5 billion to the coalition of rainforest nations, including PNG.
“These funds are going to be used to create awareness, establishment of institutional capacities financing and technology transfer, pilot projects, laws and policy framework for REDD initiative and other necessary works,” Dr Iamo said.
Meanwhile, the EU last month formalised its support for the Copenhagen Accord on climate change and presented its commitments for ERT to the UN.
In a statement released from the EU country office in Port Moresby on Monday, a joint letter signed by the Spanish presidency of the council and the European commission has formally notified the EU’s willingness to be associated with the Accord and submitted  information on EU’s established greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for 2020.
Commission president José Manuel Barroso said: “The EU is determined to move ahead rapidly with implementing the Copenhagen Accord to make progress towards the agreement that we need to hold global warming below 2°C.
“The accord provides a basis on which to build the future agreement and I therefore urge all countries to associate themselves with it and notify ambitious emission targets or actions for inclusion as we are doing.”
The accord was the main outcome of the UN climate change conference held in Copenhagen from Dec 7 – 19.
The accord was negotiated by 28 developed and developing countries and the EC which account for 80% of the GHG emission.

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Hackers Steal Millions in Carbon Credits

* By Kim Zetter Email Author
* February 3, 2010 |

Credit card numbers are so passe. Today’s hackers know the real powerhouse data to steal is emission certificates.

That’s exactly what hackers went after last week when they obtained unauthorized access to online accounts where companies maintain their carbon credits, according to the German newspaper Der Spiegel.

The hackers launched a targeted phishing attack against employees of numerous companies in Europe, New Zealand and Japan, which appeared to come from the German Emissions Trading Authority. The workers were told that their companies needed to re-register their accounts with the Authority, where carbon credits and transactions are recorded.

When workers entered their credentials into a bogus web page linked in the e-mail, the hackers were able to hi-jack the credentials to access the companies’ Trading Authority accounts and transfer their carbon credits to two other accounts controlled by the hackers.

Under environmental cap-and-trade laws, there’s a limit to the greenhouse gases companies can emit. Companies that exceed this limit can purchase so-called carbon credits from entities that produce fewer greenhouse emissions than the limit provides them.

The scheme has produced a robust market for the trade of credits. More than 8 million tons of CO2 emissions worth $130 billion were traded in Europe last year.

According to the BBC, it’s estimated the hackers stole 250,000 carbon credit permits from six companies worth more than $4 million. At least seven out of 2,000 German firms that were targeted in the phishing scam fell for it. One of these unidentified firms reportedly lost $2.1 million in credits in the fraud.

The credits were resold for an undisclosed sum. The buyers, who likely believed the transactions were legitimate, haven’t been named.

The German Emissions Trading Authority has suspended access to its databases for a week while an investigation is underway.

The fraud is the latest example of hacks aimed at gaming environment controls. A year ago, hackers penetrated the Brazilian government’s quota data for Brazilian rain forest products – allowing the illegal poaching of more than 1.7 million cubic feet of timber.

First Sighting of My Baby

16 weeks into the pregnancy and I was truly overcome by a magical feeling when I saw my baby for the first time. Okay its not actual sight but an image created by sound and light but at least some sign that everything is all good so far.

But Wow, to think that we can create life just like that. So small and yet already so active, watch the video below and see it move around and everything. I’d like to imagine that its a sign of future traits that its gonna be some ‘Disco Baby’ that likes to party like me, or that it will be some great rugby player and actually play for the Pukpuks unlike myself. But of course its probably just because we were probing with the scan or because we just had lunch before we came over to the doctors’. I wonder if the baby is dreaming or even awake yet?

We can’t tell the sex just yet but funnily enough everyone else who has seen this video thinks that because its active its going to be a boy. But I don’t know, you can never really tell can you?

Piracy case to shake up global fight

By Bronwyn Herbert and Tim Leslie ABC

A Federal Court ruling in favour of internet service provider iiNet could have international ramifications for the fight against illegal content.

The Australian film and television industry today lost its case against iiNet, whose customers downloaded pirated movies and TV programs.

In a landmark judgement, Justice Dennis Cowdroy ruled the internet service provider (ISP) was not liable for the downloading habits of its customers.

RMIT University’s general counsel John Lambrick says today’s ruling will see ISPs breathing a sigh of relief.
“It was held that there was no question there had been some unauthorised use by some of the account holders and they were in breach of copyright,” he said.

“But Justice Cowdroy maintained that just because they were in breach of copyright, that didn’t mean that for the purposes of the Copyright Act iiNet authorised the breach.”

A group of over 30 film and TV companies launched the action against iiNet, maintaining the ISP had breached its user agreement by allowing members to use BitTorrent software to download content illegally.

But the court ruled while iiNet involvement was necessary for the copyright to be breached, it was the use of BitTorrent software that enabled the breach.

“You can breach copyright in two ways. One is by directly breaching it, which the users did; and secondly you can authorise a breach of copyright, which you can sometimes do by putting people in a position where they can breach copyright,” Mr Lambrick said.
“Now what Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) had argued was that by providing its internet service, iiNet was putting its account holders in a position whereby they could breach copyright directly themselves.

“Justice Cowdroy found it wasn’t the ISP’s system that was responsible for the breach of copyright. It was actually the BitTorrent system which was the means by which copyright was breached.”

Double blow
In a further blow for content producers, Justice Cowdroy went on to rule that even if iiNet was to be found guilty of the breach, safe harbour provisions meant the ISP could not be sued for damages.

“Safe harbour provisions are contained in the Copyright Act, and in essence they provide that even if an ISP is found to have authorised a breach of copyright by its users, an ISP won’t be liable for damages if it complies with the conditions of the safe harbour provisions,” Mr Lambrick said.

“And the broad thrust of those safe harbour provisions is that the ISP must have a policy of terminating the accounts of repeat infringers and reasonably implementing that policy.

“Justice Cowdroy went on to find iiNet did in fact have a policy of terminating the accounts of repeat infringers, so even if it was found to have comprised a breach of copyright it wouldn’t have been liable for damages.”

He says the case has the potential to set major precedents in who is responsible for illegal downloads, as Australia’s laws in the area reflect that of the US and European Union.

“The reason being that this is one of the very few cases involving an ISP who’s been sued by a content owner that has actually gone to court, and so it does create a significant international precedent,” he said.

“Or at least it will create international interest mainly because the US and the European Union have legislation similar to our safe harbour provisions which were based on the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.”

‘Thousands of infringements’
AFACT spokesman Neil Gane says “tens of thousands of infringements” occurred across the iiNet website.

“Evidence was provided to iiNet; evidence that CEO Michael Malone of iiNet described as compelling evidence,” he said.
“We were hopeful that iiNet would comply with our terms and conditions which clearly stipulate that their users cannot use their accounts for illegal means.”

Mr Gane says the film industry cannot compete with illegal downloads.

“It’s very difficult for the movie industries to compete with a free alternative which is perpetrated by theft,” he said.

Meanwhile, iiNet’s chief executive officer Michael Malone says the company is delighted with the court decision.

“Particularly that we were found not to have authorised, so that I guess was the most important point,” he said.

“We’ve always said all the way along that we didn’t condone copyright in any way. Copyright violations don’t benefit iiNet at all.

“We’d much prefer to be working with the studios now to try and find some way to be able to make this material legitimately available to customers.

“We think that’s the best way to be able to tackle piracy on the internet.”

‘Significant backlash’
Mr Lambrick says while the content providers are likely to appeal, their chances of getting a positive ruling are minimal. But he expects a huge backlash against the ruling.

He says it is likely they will lobby the Federal Government to change the Copyright Act and place more responsibility with ISPs in cracking down on illegal downloads.

“I actually expect that there will be significant backlash and significant lobbying on the part of the content owners who are actually a very powerful lobby group… and they’re more powerful than the ISPs,” he said.

“I expect you’ll see some Government intervention which will require ISPs to carry some of the burden that they’re not otherwise required to carry… as part of the decision.

“They will appeal, I expect, to the full court of the Federal Court and argue that Justice Cowdroy’s decision was wrong in law. But I expect at the same time they will be lobbying the Federal Government to amend the Copyright Act.”

Mr Gane says there needs to be sector-wide reform and Government legislation could be part of the solution.

“We are confident that the Government will certainly not support a policy outcome which allows for copyright infringement to continue unabated on the internet,” he said.

But Mr Lambrick maintains irrelevant of the reasoning behind the decision, a favourable ruling was needed for ISPs to avoid severely impacting the industry.

“Regardless of the reasoning behind the decision is was probably an appropriate outcome on policy grounds,” he said.
“Because when you think about it, a judgement against iiNet would have resulted in many, many content owners bombarding ISPs with claims of breach.

“It would have had a very adverse effect on their business models, because compliance costs would be very, very significant. So it would seriously have impacted up on the internet industry”

AFACT says it is still reviewing the judgement but has not ruled out appealing against the decision.