Word: portly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...impression the Chinese have left on many P.N.G. nationals isn't much better. A local landowner whose ancestral territory lies in the middle of the mine site alleges, improbably, that the nickel will be used to feed a secret Chinese weapons program. In the capital Port Moresby, my driver announces that if a gang to evict Chinese from P.N.G. is formed, he will be the first to join. "I will sharpen my bush knife and chop 10 or 20 heads," he says. The unease about Chinese influence extends to government circles, even if the Ramu mine promises...
...should be reserved for P.N.G. nationals. In May, anti-Chinese riots convulsed cities nationwide, and several people were killed amid the looting of Chinese-owned shops. "Our timber, our minerals, everything, goes to China," says Damien Ase, founder of the nonprofit Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights in Port Moresby. "But we get so little in return...
...natural bounty by cracking down on illicit logging at home.) "With other countries, we try to make foreign companies accountable by lobbying shareholders or raising public awareness in that country," says Matilda Koma, who runs an ecological watchdog called the Centre for Environmental and Research Development in Port Moresby. "But with China, the state and the company are the same and the public doesn't have much voice - so who can we complain...
...recent Chinese immigrants, as are nearly all the grocery stores. But few Chinese have the correct papers to run such businesses. I ask Nadile if she can tell me of a place nearby that she suspects is being run illegally. She takes me to an office window overlooking Port Moresby and points at two low-slung kai bars located within a minute's walk from the government office: the Rickshaw and the Noodle Shop...
...being there won't be easy, either, due to daunting technical and other challenges. Iraq's oil industry has limped along for years on creaking old equipment, patchwork pipeline networks and decayed, rusted port facilities; Saddam-era sanctions largely prevented the industry from upgrading to state-of-the-art equipment. The country produces just 2.5 million barrels a day, down from 2.8 million barrels before the U.S. invasion and a sharp drop from its high of 3.7 million barrels in 1979, when Saddam boosted production to finance his calamitous war with neighboring Iran. A government adviser recently told Britain...