{"id":26799,"date":"2019-05-30T11:40:35","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T03:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=26799"},"modified":"2019-05-30T11:57:55","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T03:57:55","slug":"papua-new-guinea-pm-resigns-throwing-gas-deal-into-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=26799","title":{"rendered":"Papua New Guinea PM resigns, throwing gas deal into doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bssnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Papua-New-Guinea-PM-resigns-throwing-gas-deal-into-doubt.jpg\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.bssnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Papua-New-Guinea-PM-resigns-throwing-gas-deal-into-doubt.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>PORT MORESBY, May 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; Papua New Guinea\u2019s veteran prime minister formally resigned on Wednesday, easing a months-long political crisis and calling a multi-billion-dollar French and US-backed gas deal into doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Facing a vote of no confidence he looked sure to lose, Peter O\u2019Neill told parliament that he had tendered his letter of resignation to the country\u2019s governor general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>O\u2019Neill had led the rugged and ethnically diverse nation for eight years but had been criticised for endemic corruption and chronic underdevelopment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Powerful regional politicians had baulked at his recent $13 billion deal with Total and ExxonMobil to extract, pipe and ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) overseas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finance minister James Marape was the first senior cabinet official to resign in protest, saying the money would not go to ordinary Papua New Guineans, local firms or the regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A similar deal in the last decade has failed to bring wealth to a country where around 70 percent of people do not have access to reliable electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>O\u2019Neill had earlier promised to resign, but failed to do so and took court action in a bid to cling to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That prompted angry scenes in parliament Tuesday, including physical confrontations between O\u2019Niell\u2019s supporters and opponents trying to oust him and the speaker of parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But on Wednesday O\u2019Neill declared: \u201cI want to inform this honourable house that at 9:45 am this morning I delivered to\u2026 the governor-general of Papua New Guinea my letter of resignation so that we can deal with this matter once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a valedictory speech, O\u2019Neill touted his achievements in office, including hosting the 2018 APEC summit, a vast undertaking for a developing country with limited central government capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A parliamentary vote on a new prime minister is expected to take place in the coming days. &#8212; NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PORT MORESBY, May 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; Papua New Guinea\u2019s veteran prime minister formally resigned on Wednesday, easing a months-long political crisis and calling a multi-billion-dollar French and US-backed gas deal into doubt. Facing a vote of no confidence he looked sure to lose, Peter O\u2019Neill told parliament that he had tendered his letter of resignation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":25621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26799"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}