Australia have defended their World Cup title in style with a 30-10 win over Samoa at Old Trafford on Sunday morning (AEDT). With skipper James Tedesco and centre Latrel Mitchell claiming doubles and halves Nathan Cleary and Cameron Munster all class, the Kangaroos scored six tries to two in front of 67,502 fans at the Theatre of Dreams. The Kangaroos were first to strike after a clever grubber by Ben Hunt forced a line dropout and on the ensuing set Mitchell powered through Brian To'o and Joseph Suaali'i to make it 4-0 after 14 minutes. Just four minutes later the Kangaroos were in again when Josh Addo-Carr exploded into space and found Tedesco in support for a 10-0 lead. Mitchell went within inches of adding a second try in the 25th minute but some desperate Samoa defence denied the Rabbitohs star. With Harry Grant scheming out of dummy half the Kangaroos extended their lead on the half hour mark when the Storm rake put Liam Martin in for his fourth try of the tournament. Down 14-0 Samoa continued to chance their arm and created space on the left for Jarome Luai but he was shut down by Tedesco in cover defence. Samoa dug deep on their own line late in the half to hold the Kangaroos at bay in a defensive stance that ensured they were still in the hunt at the break. A big moment arrived in the 47th minute when Angus Crichton was sin binned for 10 minutes after raising his elbow and making contact with the head of Chanel Harris-Tavita, who was forced off for a HIA. Samoa immediately mounted pressure and Suaali'i found space on the left but the final pass went astray. Mistakes by Pat Carrigan and Mitchell heaped more pressure on the undermanned Kangaroos but Cameron Munster came up with a trademark strip on Spencer Leniu to ease the pressure. That play by Munster gave Australia the field position to cross for a fourth try when Nathan Cleary went to the line and delivered a sweet ball for Cameron Murray to surge into a hole and the defending champions led 20-0. Some brilliant footwork and a great cut-out pass by Luai opened the door for To'o  on the right wing and Samoa had their first of the night in the 61st minute. Crichton converted from wide out to make it 20-6. With 12 minutes remaining the Kangaroos put the result out of reach when Munster delivered an inside pass to a flying Tedesco for the skipper to make it a double. Cleary's conversion made it 26-6. An intercept by Stephen Crichton in the 71st minute gave Samoan fans another chance to celebrate as the Panthers star continued his stellar tournament. From there the Kangaroos were able to close the game down and they put the finishing touches on their third consecutive World Cup title when Mitchell slid in for his second try in the final minute.     Source: NRL.com

A court in Turkey has sentenced a televangelist, who surrounded himself with young women he referred to as his "kittens", to 8,658 years in prison. Adnan Oktar, who has been described as a cult leader, was convicted of sexual assault and abuse of minors. Oktar, 66, fronted his own television channel, through which he delivered religious sermons. He is a fierce opponent of the theory of evolution, and wrote a widely mocked book on creationism. He was originally given a jail sentence of 1,075 years but an appeal court ordered a retrial involving 215 defendants. [caption id="attachment_30643" align="aligncenter" width="795"] The convicted preacher referred to the women who surrounded him as his "kittens"[/caption] Ten of them were also given 8,658 years in prison by the court in Istanbul. Many of the other defendants were given shorter terms. Oktar and hundreds of his followers were arrested in 2018 from his home on a litany of charges, including running a criminal organisation, tax offences, sexual abuse, and counter-terrorism laws. During his arrest, Oktar told journalists that the allegations made against him were "lies" and "a game by the British deep state", a topic he had frequently spoken about in the past. In January 2021 he was convicted of 10 separate charges, including leading a criminal gang, engaging in political and military espionage, sexual abuse of minors, rape, blackmail and causing torment. He was also charged over alleged links with exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the Turkish government accuses of masterminding a failed military coup in 2016 which killed 251 people and injured more than 2,000. An upper court overturned that ruling. Oktar's views have earned him a degree of notoriety both in Turkey and abroad, having been arrested multiple times before 2018 and having spent time both in prison and a psychiatric unit over the years. Multiple copies of his widely ridiculed book "the Atlas of Creation" were reportedly shipped unrequested to academics and libraries. In the book he claimed Darwin's theory of evolution lay at the root of global terrorism. Source: BBC

Joseph Singiringabo has lost almost everything and everyone he held dear to Ebola. In a few short weeks, the 78-year-old lost his wife, his son, and a newborn granddaughter to the disease. He is left taking care of three grandchildren under 13 after their mother fled the village to escape the danger of Ebola. His livestock was stolen while he was away in the required 21-day quarantine, leaving him destitute and desperate. I don’t know where they got the virus from because I went and got checked and I left the hospital without any problem with these children of mine,” he said, sitting on a log outside his modest house in Madudu, in Uganda’s central Mubende district. “The problem I am facing now is getting food. Secondly, I never went to school, but I want these grandchildren to continue and get educated.” A deadly outbreak Uganda is grappling with its deadliest Ebola outbreak in more than a decade, first detected in the Mubende district in late September. The deadly disease has ravaged families, leaving authorities scrambling to control its spread. The 2012 Ebola outbreak in the Kibaale district in the country’s western region, led to 17 deaths out of 24 confirmed cases but was declared over in less than 3 months. Officials have launched aggressive contact tracing to track down relatives and friends who handled the bodies of first victims or attended funerals. Some escaped from quarantine facilities, others traveled as far as the capital Kampala, and a few visited traditional healers and witchdoctors for treatment instead. “Some of the patients are still hiding and they don’t know that they have Ebola so they’re out there in the community,” public health physician Dr. Jackson Amone told CNN. He has been involved in every Ebola outbreak in Uganda as well as in Sierra Leone in 2017. “We need to do case investigation, a lot of contact tracing, and community engagement so that those who present with Ebola symptoms are brought for testing before we release them.” Dr. Amone is leading the teams operating the Ebola Treatment Units in Mubende. The first was set up in a hurry on the edge of the Mubende Regional Referral Hospital. A larger center operated by the medical non-profit Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is expanding with new ICU beds on the other side of town. Health workers don extensive Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to enter the red zones where patients are receiving treatment. In one zone, a health worker cradles a three-month-old baby suspected of having been infected. Her mother and another sibling are undergoing treatment for Ebola and the disease has already claimed the life of her father. It’s a cruel welcome to the world for the infant who is wrapped in a blanket as steady rain falls on the makeshift treatment center. It’s a familiar story across this region as Ebola spreads despite the Ugandan government’s best efforts. “This Ebola is much easier to deal with than either corona(virus) or AIDS. The main problem here is behavior change,” President Yoweri Museveni told the nation in a Tuesday night address, stressing the need to follow the government’s procedures for those who come into contact with the disease. Vaccine trials offer hope Ebola can spread from person to person through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids such as saliva, sweat, semen, or feces, or through contaminated objects like bedding or needles. “It doesn’t spread through the air like COVID-19 and does not hide for some months before it shows itself like AIDS,” Museveni said in his televised address. The country had so far recorded 55 deaths from Ebola, 141 confirmed cases and 73 people had recovered, he said. Health minister Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng Ocero told CNN she expects Uganda to have the outbreak under control by April if communities cooperate with the government. There are currently two licensed Ebola vaccines, according to the World Health Organization, but they were developed to be safe and protective against the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus. Unlike the previous Zaire ebolavirus, the Sudan strain currently circulating in Uganda has no known effective treatment or approved vaccine. However, the country is about to roll out three trial vaccines that have been certified as safe by the World Health Organization (WHO) working group. The WHO said the first doses would be shipped to Uganda next week and the country expects to expand the vaccine trials after reviewing results from the initial phase. They are manufactured by the International Aids Vaccine Iniative (IAVI), the Sabin Vaccine Institute USA and a third developed by the University of Oxford and the Jenner Institute UK. “Our further testing is about efficacy, and how long it protects. We are looking at 3,000 contacts of confirmed cases so we’ll be doing ring vaccination,” Aceng Ocero said, referring to a vaccine process that administers vaccines only to people in close contact with infected patients. “If we have a confirmed case, then the contacts are the ones who are given the vaccine and they are followed up for 29 days because we want to see if they can quickly generate antibodies and can protect themselves from getting into full-blown disease,” Aceng Ocero added. Obstacles of tradition and religion Public health officials believe that cases are stabilizing due to increased vigilance, but tradition and religion are holding back progress. One community in Kassanda district, central Uganda, exhumed a body that had been buried safely by health workers to perform religious rites. It led to “an explosion of over 41 cases within 5 days and 10 deaths,” President Museveni said in his address. He has now barred traditional healers and witchdoctors from taking clients during the Ebola outbreak. Infections are also rising as it is hard to keep people apart in close-knit communal settings. Robert Twinamasiko, a 30-year-old driver is undergoing treatment after he helped an infected friend to an ambulance. The friend and one other person involved both died. Twinamasiko has spent 17 days in hospital but says he has no regrets. Although he looked frail, he was making a recovery and told CNN he was looking forward to going home. “I’m just waiting for my blood work to be discharged but the world out there should know that Ebola is real,” he said from inside a red zone. Uganda is also trying to contain the spread of the disease by closing the school term early to avoid an outbreak of Ebola in schools which could be hard to manage. “If you have one learner in a class testing positive, the entire class has to undergo quarantine. But also, you will not be 100% sure that that learner did not have contact with other learners outside that class,” Minister Aceng Ocero explained. She said she was frustrated that Uganda wasn’t getting enough credit internationally for managing the Ebola crisis. “We have experience. This is our eighth Ebola outbreak. Every time we get an outbreak, our experience increases,” she said. Some global health experts have criticized Uganda’s initial response to the outbreak as slow and inept. Some partners in the donor and diplomatic community have also bristled about how much information Ugandan authorities are sharing with them. Source: CNN

BSP Financial Group Limited (BSP) Presented K22, 000 to the Port Moresby General Hospital Cancer Ward yesterday (Friday 18th October, 2022) at the BSP Waigani Head Office in Port Moresby. Through a PINKTOBER fundraising drive carried out by the Corporate Business Unit who raised K10,000 whilst Asset Management, Lending Support and Collections Business units together raised K12, 000.00, a total of K22, 000. Fundraising activities included, sale of raffle tickets, PINKTOBER Walkathon, sausage sizzles and other organized cancer awareness programs to raise funds during the month of October. The K22, 000.00 proceeds will go towards Port Moresby General Hospital Cancer Ward of which Dr Peter Olali and Sr. Ewatu Delosi were present to receive the dummy cheques. BSP Senior Recoveries Manager, Moah Sevua whilst presenting the cheques said he and the team were happy to assist in helping the cancer ward procure necessary resources that will enable the Ward to carry out its duties. Dr Olali thanked the BSP team for the timely support and said the donation will greatly assist the ward with much needed resources.

The small cluster of islands is sinking, and plans are now underway to recreate the country in the cloud before it disappears entirely. For a safety-minded first-time traveller to Funafuti International Airport in Tuvalu, one of the more bizarre and harrowing sights from an airplane circling to land used to be watching tiny dots scurrying below, clearing the 1.5km runway of soccer balls, clothing, children and stray dogs. But now Tuvalu is proposing to offer an even bleaker bird’s eye view of itself, by recreating it somewhere in the metaverse.  It’s bleak because Tuvalu is already preparing for the day when it won’t physically exist. Tuvalu, which is located about 1200km directly north of Fiji, has again captured the world’s attention, this time at the climate change conference Cop27 in Egypt. Last year it produced a viral video of foreign affairs minister Simon Kofe speaking at a podium, flanked by national flags. By the end of the video it’s revealed that Kofe is standing knee-deep in the sea on what used to be land. This time it’s a spine-chilling short film of the same minister speaking on an island that, he explains, will be one of the first spots in Tuvalu to vanish as a result of sea level rise. “Since COP26 the world has not acted and so we in the Pacific have had to act … As our land disappears, we have no choice but to become the world’s first digital nation,” says Kofe in the video. As the camera slowly zooms out, offering a wider shot, we realise the island has been recreated digitally. “Our land, our ocean, our culture are the most precious assets of our people and to keep them safe from harm, no matter what happens in the physical world, we’ll move them to the cloud.” It’s an uncomfortable watch. You don’t know whether to marvel at the innovation or despair at the world’s potential failure to save a country that will be overwhelmed by the excesses of developed nations. Tuvalu – which means a cluster of eight (valu) standing together (tu), referring to the country’s eight inhabited islands – only became an independent sovereign state in 1978, after being in Great Britain’s “sphere of influence” for more than 100 years. Previously Tuvalu was known as Ellice Islands, named after the English MP for Coventry Edward Ellice, who was also a director in the New Zealand Company in the early 1800s.  New Zealanders will be familiar with the company’s colonisation work which resulted in establishing settlements in Wellington, Nelson, Whanganui and Dunedin, along with some involvement in settling New Plymouth and Christchurch. Ellice was also the co-owner of sugar estates and was compensated about £35,000 in the 1830s for the liberation of over 300 slaves when the British abolished slavery.  Ellice died in 1863, the same year Peruvian slave ships kidnapped more than 400 Tuvaluans to work in South America.  Almost 80% of the population of the Tuvalu island of Nukulaelae were enslaved during those raids. So Tuvalu knows only too well the devastating impact that so-called “civilised nations” from afar can have on the 26 square kilometres of land that is currently home for its 12,000 citizens. But this time it’s their very existence as a nation that’s being threatened. It’s predicted that Tuvalu will become uninhabitable within 50-100 years. Some older generation Tuvaluans say they will go down with the land. But Tuvalu is taking a worst-case scenario approach and considering all options for the future.  While it hasn’t yet purchased land in Fiji to relocate some of the population as Kiribati has done, they’re exploring legal avenues to retain ownership of maritime zones and statehood under international law. Undoubtedly civil servants in Canberra and Wellington are also busily considering policy responses for dealing with potential climate change refugees from Tuvalu, as well as Tokelau, Kiribati and other low-lying Pacific islands.  New Zealand is already home to about 5,000 Tuvaluans. A suggestion by former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd that Tuvaluans could be offered full Australian citizenship in exchange for their maritime and fisheries rights was dismissed by Tuvalu as “imperial thinking”.  Behind closed doors, Tuvaluans probably had a few less diplomatic ideas about where Rudd could put his suggestion. One ironic wrinkle in the concept of an augmented and virtual reality digital nation, is that Tuvalu doesn’t own the country-code domain .tv as it was sold to Verisign (the company that runs .com) for USD$50m in 2000. Tuvalu could follow Niue’s lead and try to reclaim its domain.  Niue signed away the rights to .nu in 2003 for the promise of free unlimited internet access and wifi but is now wanting it returned. Currently in internet sector circles there’s an ongoing debate about the future of .tv if the country doesn’t exist – should .tv follow Tuvalu to its “watery grave”? If Tuvalu has its way, nothing will happen to .tv as its nationhood will remain intact, with its culture and values enshrined in a digital twin housed somewhere in the cloud. Source: The Spin Off

Acting Prime Minister John Rosso has congratulated the Swire Shipping Group and its subsidiaries on reaching 150 years of doing business around the world and 84 years of operating its shipping service in Papua New Guinea. The Acting Prime Minister said John Swire & Sons Limited started operations on the Yangtze River in China in 1872 and commenced operations in Papua New Guinea in 1938. He said Swire’s first regular shipping service between Papua New Guinea and Australia started in 1960 and it was called the New Guinea Australia Line. “I thank Swire for not only employing Papua New Guineans but also training them to be good corporate citizens. Swire Shipping alone employs over 160 people in Papua New Guinea and Steamships, a subsidiary of Swire Shipping, employs over 3000 Papua New Guineans country wide. “I am happy to hear that the company has very good interaction with its staff and one of its policies is to ensure that it looks after its staff.” Acting Prime Minister Rosso also congratulated 25 Papua New Guinean employees of Swire Shipping who have served 10 – 25 years with the company saying; “Unlike everything else, good staff are hard to come by and are critical to any organization's growth and prosperity”. He commended the company for recognising their loyalty, dedication and service. “For those employees, I congratulate them for their service and loyalty and as an example to all other Papua New Guineans. Work ethics and loyalty are very important attributes and this needs to be installed in our country so that our people can learn and practice these habits. The Acting Prime Minister said those are things that we really need to improve on as a nation. Loyalty to our employers, loyalty to the nation, discipline, these are the essence of every individual and for every organization. He said we need to encourage that in our nation and having companies like Swire group, build it into their organization and employees is a great attribute. Swire Shipping also employs over 100 Papua New Guinean seafarers who man deep sea vessels and since 2018, has trained and employed female deck and engine room cadets. Acting Prime Minister Rosso said that is the way to go because women make up about 50% of the population of Papua New Guinea. He also congratulated 12 female officer cadets currently undergoing training as well as the 10 who just completed their officer cadet training this year. "Once again congratulations to Swire Shipping on their 150 years achievement since they commenced operations. "And I wish them well in their future endeavors and growth, especially in our country Papua New Guinea where they provide a critical service," Acting PM Rosso said. He said Swire employs hundreds of Papua New Guineans who directly and indirectly pay taxes and also contribute in training young people. "I commend them for being a good corporate citizen in which they prosper and grow. They also participate in the development of our country," Acting PM Rosso said.

Prime Minister James Marape says Chinese President Xi Jinping has given him an undertaking to buy more or all that Papua New Guinea produces. The undertaking was made during a bilateral meeting between President Xi and PM Marape on the sidelines of APEC 2022 in Bangkok, Thailand, yesterday (Friday, November 18, 2022), where PM Marape said that it was no longer aid or grant that was in the forefront of his agenda but trade, commerce and more business between both countries. PM Marape said after the meeting that the onus was now on Papua New Guinea to start increasing production in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining, oil and gas, and other areas like tourism to supply the very big Chinese market. He was accompanied by International Trade and Investment Minister Richard Maru, Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko and Secretary Elias Wohengu, PNG Ambassador responsible for Thailand H.E. Peter Vincent, as well as senior Government officials. “The meeting with President Xi Jinping went very well,” PM Marape said. “I congratulated him on his re-election and mentioned that we look forward to entrenching China-PNG relations, especially in the area of trade and commerce. “President Xi also congratulated me on my re-election as Prime Minister of PNG, “We agreed that a Free Trade Agreement must be concluded at the very earliest that would secure both nation’s interest so that trade and commerce happens within this realm. “President Xi invited me for a State Visit to China next year during which time we hope to sign the Free Trade Agreement. “He supported PNG’s move into downstream processing of our natural resources at our Special Economic Zones and said the Chinese market was ‘endless’ for PNG products. “The Chinese President said he supported PNG’s move into downstream processing and would get Chinese companies to invest in this space. “President Xi supported my idea to have direct flights between Shanghai and Port Moresby, which will complement our plan to increase business opportunities between our two countries, as well as people-to-people relationships. “There over 100 million tourists leaving China every year and direct flights to Shanghai from Port Moresby can target this market.” PM Marape thanked President Xi and the Chinese Government for continued support to PNG over the last 47 years and pledged continued partnership going forward into the future.

England have broken a 14-year drought and claimed the 2021 Wheelchair World Cup title after defeating France 28-24 in dramatic fashion on Saturday morning (AEDT) in Manchester. With the scores locked with less than 10 minutes to play it was skipper Tom Halliwell who crossed the line in the 77th minute to hand the hosts their first World Cup Championship since 2008. Trailing 14-6 in the first half, it was Jack Brown who ignited a late charge by the hosts, scoring a double to finish his incredible World Cup campaign as the competition's leading try scorer. After an incorrect play-the-ball by the English, France bagged the first points of the Final with Lionel Alazard slotting a penalty goal in the second minute of the match. Come the 9th minute and it was Alazard with the first try of the match. France produced a slick raid down the left side to send the 2021 Team of the Tournament representative over the line for an eight-point lead. But 10 minutes later England hit back through 23-year-old Halliwell who exposed a gap in France's defence and muscled his way over the line to cross under the posts for the hosts. Despite England star Jack Brown entering the fray in the 25th minute, France began to show their true colours when Jeremy Bourson looped a pass to winger Mostefa Abassi who crossed the line untouched to score and hand the French an eight-point lead. As has been the case throughout the tournament, Jack Brown's speed was causing all sorts of issues around the court and just moments after he was denied a try, the Queensland local found space and weaved his way past several French defenders to score, reducing the deficit 14-12 at the break. England came straight out of the sheds and with some slick ball movement down the left side found Lewis King who crossed in the corner to hand England their first lead. The defending champions beginning to look rattled, it was magic man Brown who outsmarted the French defence and weaved inside to stretch the lead for his side. Come the 56th minute and France hit back after Nicolas Clausells dodged multiple defenders before finding his 59-year-old uncle Gilles who stretched over to score. Finishing the nephew-uncle combination, Nicolas converted the family try to bring his side back within two points of the hosts. As things started to head up dramatically in Manchester, errors began to prove costly for both sides with England and France both slotting field goals but after the defending champions slotted a second penalty shot, the scores were locked 24-24 with nine minutes to play. Come the 77th minute and every English fan in Manchester Stadium was on their feet when Halliwell, on the last tackle, weaved his way through a desperate French defence and scored on the left to hand his side their first World Cup Final in 14 years. Source: NRL.com

Family planning services including vasectomy are crucial for families to better plan on the number of children they want to have. Many men who want vasectomies live in remote areas where it is difficult to access health services. When an outreach team arrives in a village, men and women from neighbouring villages will walk long distances to access family planning services. Teams set up their mobile sterilised rooms and start the day providing education and peer counselling sessions with clients before assisting couples with their family planning needs. The following is a story of one such outreach conducted by Marie Stopes PNG. As the last couple leaves the room, Joseph Mondo stands at the corner of the makeshift outreach site. Joseph stays for a good 10 minutes, then sees a group of men approaching as silhouettes against the fading rays of the sun. “Mipla laikim vasectomy but planti manmeri stap na mipla no kam,” (We want vasectomies but there were too many people around, so we did not come). As Joseph has done many times before, he tells the group he will attend to them after his other team members have left, so he can maintain the men’s privacy. After everyone has left, Joseph sits down with the men to talk to them about family planning, sexual reproductive health and vasectomies – the procedure, the expected effects and the benefits – so they understand what is involved before making their decisions. Joseph Mondo – or Joe as he is known by locals across the Highlands region – is an outreach nurse and a trusted vasectomy provider. Joe has been serving Highlands communities as an outreach officer with Marie Stopes PNG since 2009. A vasectomy is a permanent male contraceptive method to help couples plan their future when they are sure they do not want any more children. Vasectomies are safe, have no known health risks and are 99.95 per cent effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies. “I am a non-scalpel vasectomy provider and I provide this service to men who do not want to have any more children,” says Joe. “One by one they would come in. I work into the night until the last person leaves. Then I wait around until there was no one else and then I would pack up for the night,” he says. Joe and the team provide these vital services to their clients in each community they visit, as it might be several months before they visit each village again. Joe has many happy clients who are assisting him and the outreach team members to spread the word to men in their communities. “I get phone calls from men in every part of the Highlands where there is a need for this vasectomy service, but I am only one man and can only go one village at a time,” he says. In the last twelve months, Marie Stopes PNG has implemented 1,684 mobile outreach clinics reaching 125,184 people and delivering over 2,123 vasectomies across Western Highlands, Morobe, Central, Madang, Simbu, NCD, Eastern Highlands, and East New Britain provinces. With funding support from the Australian Government, Marie Stopes has been implementing the family planning and sexual reproductive health services under the Partnering for Strong Families project in Papua New Guinea.

The Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee (PNGOC) marked the one year to go to the Solomon Islands 2023 Pacific Games with a donation of the Port Moresby 2015 Pacific Games Relay Books to the 11 libraries run by Buk Bilong Pikinini (BbP) in Port Moresby. The donation to the BbP libraries occurred at the early learning center located at the University of Papua New Guinea library. The event included a fun-filled educational session with Team PNG athletes sharing about the different sports, the Olympic Values and the Games that they have participated in. The donated pictorial book contains pictures of routes of the different places visited by the Pacific Games Relay Torch, the features of the torch, the people from the 22 provinces that were part of the preclude relay event, prior to Port Moresby hosting the games. PNGOC Secretary General Auvita Rapilla said that the organisation was happy to donate the books to BBP in the hope of inspiring children to take up sports and be involved in physical activities. “We know that literacy is one of the most important indicators of future health, well-being and prosperity. Moreover, sport plays an important part in nation building.” “There are over 40 sports played in the country with 40 National Federations affiliated to the PNGOC, and we would like to encourage these children and the thousands of children in the country to be part of these sports.”, Rapilla said. Founder and Director of BbP Anne-Sophie Hermann expressed her gratitude to the PNGOC for the donation, which will go towards the educational developmental needs of the children. Sports can be the bridge to unite and bond people, starting with children at an early age to foster the Olympic values of respect for self and others, friendship between individuals and groups and excellence in life pursuits, including sports.

James Tedesco admits the Kangaroos need to beat Toa Samoa in the World Cup Final for the tournament to be a success, but the days of Australia dominating the international game are over. The Kangaroos are raging favourites to stop Samoa becoming the first tier two nation to win the World Cup, but Tedesco says the tournament has shown at least five nations are now able to beat each other on any given day. “Samoa proved that by beating England, who everyone expected was going to be in the grand final,” Tedesco said. “The Samoa-Tonga quarter-final went down to the wire, us against New Zealand last week was the same, so the quality of each nation has gone up dramatically. “Boys are choosing to play for their heritage countries over Australia, so every nation is going to be strong. “This hasn’t been an easy tournament for us at all, but there is still an expectation when you play for Australia that you are going to win so we have got to earn it.” Valentine Holmes and Reagan Campbell-Gillard are the only survivors from Australia’s 6-0 defeat of England in the 2017 final, with Tedesco playing for Italy at the past two World Cups. That experience has given the star fullback an understanding of why the likes of Junior Paulo, Brian To’o and Joseph Sua’ali’i have chosen to represent their Samoan heritage, but Tedesco’s ambition was always to play for Australia. To become the Kangaroos captain after former Sydney Roosters team-mate Boyd Cordner was forced to retire is something he could only dream of but Tedesco also understands the responsibility of the role. [caption id="attachment_30563" align="alignnone" width="906"] Match Highlights: England v Samoa[/caption] John Raper (1968), Ron Coote (1970), Graeme Langlands (1972), Arthur Beetson (1977), Wally Lewis (1988), Mal Meninga (1992), Brad Fittler (1995, 2000) and Cameron Smith (2013, 2017) have captained Australia to World Cup wins. “To captain Australia is the highest honour in the game,” Tedesco said. “I have had some big honours, captaining the Roosters and NSW, but captaining Australia in a World Cup is definitely at the top. “There is only a handful who have captained Australia to a World Cup win and they are legends of the game, and Immortals, so to be among those guys would be special. “I don’t want it to end in disappointment, I want to be a successful captain of this team and our country, and it’s all about lifting that trophy.” Australian teams of the past have often been driven by a fear of failure, with Wayne Bennett and Ricky Stuart having coaching meltdowns after respectively losing 2005 Tri-Nations and 2008 World Cup. Meanwhile, Meninga and his players rejected suggestions that the Australian team were any less passionate about Test football than their counterparts representing the Pacific nations. "I think rugby league is passion," Meninga told a joint press conference with the coaches and captains of the six teams in the men's, women's and wheelchair finals. "The Samoan team is a really good example of that; playing for their ancestral nation. I’m for that. We need the international game to thrive and they’re passionate about it, but so are the Aussies. "Our guys put their hands up to play for Australia. We are no less passionate than any other nation when we pull on that green and gold jersey. "The burden we carry is the expectation, but we still play with the passion and the commitment that is conducive of being an Australia. That’s the way we want to play and behave." Hunt said playing for Australia was the pinnacle of the game. "You can't get to this level or make it to a World Cup without being committed and passionate about what you're doing and about the team and the colours you're wearing," he said. "I think all 24 of our players have got us just as much passion as any other team." Source: NRL.Com

The Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee (PNGOC) is delighted to announce the signing of the local Human Resource (HR) Service Provider – Vanguard International as an in-kind sponsor over the next two years (2022-2024). The leading employment agency will be providing in-kind support to the PNGOC and Team PNG in the areas of its existing service specialisations of visa, national identification and passport processing, as well as consulting to the organisation on its existing HR policies, recruitment, athlete job readiness preparation and assisting athletes seek traineeships and employment opportunities. Speaking at the November 18th signing and reveal, Secretary General of the Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee Auvita Rapilla said “We are proud to engage with such distinguished service provider in Vanguard International who shares similar values and characteristics to our organisation and athletes”. “We have an obligation to cater for our athlete’s welfare by giving them opportunities to prepare them for a life after sports. Vanguard’s sponsorship and services will help upskill our athletes and link them with employers who want to connect and hire elite athletes in addition to providing specialist services to the organisation”. Vanguard International Chief Executive Officer Michael Elton said “Vanguard International signing on with the PNGOC is our opportunity to give back to the community through our specialized services and community initiative program”. Over the duration of the sponsorship period, Vanguard International will serve as a Corporate Partner of the PNGOC and Team PNG with marketing, branded content and digital advertising opportunities. The announcement starts the PNGOC’s efforts to garner local business support as it prepares to send a large contingent of athletes and officials to the 2023 Solomon Islands Pacific Games in Honiara from November 19th – December 2nd 2023.