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Papua New Guinea's leader has dismissed Joe Biden's suggestion that his uncle was eaten by cannibals there as 'loose' talk that does not reflect the US president's feelings for the country. 'Sometimes you have loose moments,' PNG leader James Marape said in an interview after Biden's contentious remarks, adding that the relationship was stronger than 'one blurry moment'. Biden said last week that his uncle Ambrose Finnegan was shot down over the Pacific during the second World War: '(He) got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals at the time. They never recovered his body.'

Scientists are celebrating a remarkable discovery -- the Attenborough Echidna can't be extinct, as they thought it was, because it was caught on freakin' camera!!! VIDEO AT LINK................ Check out the extremely rare find, captured on a remote camera placed by Oxford University researchers on an expedition to Indonesia. The footage shows the long-beaked creature just strolling in the woods. Dr. James Kempton told BBC News he and his whole team got the impressive footage on "the very last SD card that we looked at, from the very last camera that we collected, on the very last day of our...

A fireball that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system, according to a recent memo(opens in new tab) released by the U.S. Space Command (USSC). The object, a small meteorite measuring just 1.5 feet (0.45 meter) across, slammed into Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 8, 2014, after traveling through space at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h) — a speed that far exceeds the average velocity of meteors that orbit within the solar system, according to a 2019 study of the object published in the preprint database arXiv. 2019...

The quake struck at a depth of 90 kilometers (roughly 56 miles) near Kainantu, a town with a population of roughly 8,500 people, the United States Geological Survey reported. The US National Tsunami Warning Center said there was no threat of tsunami waves. Earlier in the day it had said hazardous tsunami waves were possible within 1,000 kilometers (roughly 621 miles) along the coasts of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Papua New Guinea is vulnerable to earthquakes because it lies along the "Ring of Fire" in the Pacific Ocean, where shifting tectonic plates push against each other, causing tremors...It is...

Wary Pacific nations are resisting ‘good brother’ China’s offer to expand its scope Round one does not go to China. It failed to convince a group of Pacific island nations to sign an agreement to keep receiving security and economic cooperation from itself. They could not shed their suspicions that China was attempting to show off its ‘partners’ in the South Pacific to square off with the QUAD’s growing presence in the Indo-Pacific. Some nations were opposed to the Chinese offer, titled ‘China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision’. What raised eyebrows were the Chinese proposals to train local police, help...

They also warned that the move could worsen the already fragile human rights situation in the easternmost region of the country, amid accusations of numerous incidents of violence.Papua officially became a part of Indonesia in 1969, following a plebiscite in which representatives of various Papuan tribes voted in favor of joining the republic. As their votes were cast under a heavy military presence, Papuan separatists, including the Free Papua Movement (OPM), have since called for a fresh vote on self-determination, prompting military operations and retaliatory attacks against Indonesian personnel.

The New Guinea singing dog looks like a cross between a dingo and a wolf. Its head is on the smaller side with small brown eyes, a flat skull and erect ears that are set far apart. Its neck is strong and thick that goes down to its muscular body with a bushy fox-like tail. Their double-coated fur is normally light or dark brown with patches of white throughout its body and often at the tip of its tail. They can also have black or grey face masks. They’re quite small as they grow between 31-46 centimetres (1-1.5 feet) in...

Up to six protesters and one soldier have been killed in clashes across the restive West Papua and Papua provinces, although protesters and police dispute how many have died. A source at one protest in the Deiyai Regency told The Guardian on Thursday that police had fired lived rounds into a crowd of demonstrators outside the regency offices on Wednesday. Six people were killed and two seriously injured, the source, who requested anonymity fearing reprisals, said. “Shots were fired at the protesters, but people continued to sit in protest.” Al Jazeera also reported that six protesters had been killed.

A​ tsunami alert was issued for Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands but was later cancelled. The epicenter of the quake was about 28 miles northeast of Kokopo, in New Britain province. The city is on a smaller island northeast of the main island and about 495 miles from the the capital of Port Moresby. Papua New Guinea sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," named for its active volcanoes and earthquakes. About 90 percent of Earth's quakes happen along this 25,000-mile horseshoe that loops from South America to Europe and back down to the coast off Australia

Harvard astronomer Abraham "Avi" Loeb and undergraduate student Amir Siraj have drafted a new paper identifying the second cosmic object to visit the inner solar system from beyond (Oumuamua being the first). The paper has been submitted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, but has yet to be peer reviewed. "The reported meteor entered the solar system with a speed of 60 km/s (134,216 mph) relative to the local standard of rest (obtained by averaging the motion of all stars in the vicinity of the Sun)," Loeb wrote in an email. "Such a high ejection speed can only be...

Such evidence is tough to interpret at this point, paleoanthropologist María Martinón-Torres of University College London said at the meeting. Interbreeding of closely related populations, such as Denisovans, Neandertals and H. sapiens, generates novel skeletal features that can obscure what started out as, say, a distinctive Denisovan look, she suggested. Whatever evolutionary niche these mysterious hominids occupied, at least three separate Denisovan populations interbred with ancient humans, population geneticist Murray Cox of Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand, also reported at the meeting. Genetic remnants of two of those populations appear in modern aboriginal groups in Papua New Guinea,...

At least 50 people have been killed by flash floods in Indonesia’s eastern Papua province. The floods in Sentani, near the provincial capital of Jayapura, were triggered by torrential rain and subsequent landslides on Saturday, and also left 59 people injured. Dozens of homes were damaged by floodwaters, the national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said. “The number of casualties and impact of the disaster will likely increase as search and rescue teams are still trying to reach other affected areas.” The waters had receded but officials were still trying to evacuate people. “The joint search and rescue teams...

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — A strong earthquake has hit Papua New Guinea and raised the possibility of a tsunami. The magnitude 7.0 quake struck Thursday morning about 118 kilometers (74 miles) east of Kimbe, West New Britain, on the Pacific island nation. It was followed by aftershocks of magnitude 5.7 and 5.9. Just over an hour later, a magnitude 6.3 quake hit farther northeast on the island. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center oceanographer David Walsh says any tsunami from the earthquake would only affect areas immediately around the epicenter. But scientists don’t have any tide gauges close to the...

The Australian diplomat whose tip in 2016 prompted the Russia-Trump investigation previously arranged one of the largest foreign donations to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable efforts, documents show. Former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s role in securing $25 million in aid from his country to help the Clinton Foundation fight AIDS is chronicled in decade-old government memos archived on the Australian foreign ministry’s website.

The Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, Australia, has charged that "slow-motion genocide" is taking place in West Papua, an historically Christian province of Indonesia. "The Indonesians want to replace the Christian religion with Islam," said Sister Susan Connelly, the author of the commission’s report. "There is clear evidence of ongoing violence, intimidation, and harassment by the Indonesian security forces," added the commission’s executive officer, Peter Arndt.

An aircraft with 54 people on board crashed in Indonesia's remote and mountainous region of Papua on Sunday, a government official said, the latest in a string of aviation disasters in the Southeast Asian nation. "The latest information is that the Trigana aircraft that lost contact has been found at Camp 3, Ok Bape district in the Bintang Mountains regency," Air Transportation Director General Suprasetyo told reporters. "Residents provided information that the aircraft crashed into Tangok mountain." There was no immediate word on whether anyone survived.

Jakarta: An Indonesian passenger plane carrying 54 people lost contact with air traffic control Sunday during a flight in the rugged easternmost province of Papua, officials said. The Trigana Air ATR 42 turboprop plane lost contact just before 3:00 pm (0600 GMT) after taking off from Sentani airport in Papua`s capital Jayapura on a flight to Oksibil, the search and rescue agency said on Twitter.

Papua New Guinea's Manam volcano erupted on Friday, sending volcanic ash as high as 65,000 feet in the air.The volcano, situated on Papua New Guinea's northern coast has erupted after 11 years. The Manam volcano erupted at about 1 p.m. local time on Friday, following which a Code Red aviation advisory was issued in the region, according to Australia's Bureau of Meteorology. The plume from Friday's volcanic eruption was said to be spreading in all directions, the Australian agency said.The last time the 1,807 meters high volcano erupted was in 2004, according to Accuweather.com.

Event Time 2015-03-29 23:48:34 (UTC) 2015-03-29 19:48:34 (UTC-04:00) in your timezone Times in other timezones Nearby Cities 54km (34mi) SE of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea 282km (175mi) ENE of Kimbe, Papua New Guinea 309km (192mi) SE of Kavieng, Papua New Guinea 367km (228mi) WNW of Arawa, Papua New Guinea 789km (490mi) NE of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

The eruption of Mount Tavurvur volcano on August 29th, 2014. Captured by Phil McNamara.