There's Been Something of a Coup in Paupa New Guinea.

Although economically tiny the island of Papua New Guinea (PNG) is quite important strategically because it's very close to Australia and could block both Australia's access to the Pacific and the Pacific's access to south east Asia.

In March 2011 PNG's publicly elected Prime Minister and leader of the independence movement that freed PNG from being a British colony Micheal Somare left the country to seek medical treatment for a heart condition. In August the PNG Parliament declared the office of Prime Minister vacant and MP's elected the half Australian Peter O'Neill to the post. In December Somare returned to the country and the Supreme Court declared O'Neill's election unlawful and ordered that Somare be re-instated as Prime Minister. However the Commonwealth nation's Governor General ignored the court's ruling and endorsed O'Neill as Prime Minister. On Monday (23/1/12) the Supreme Court again heard the issue and ruled 3-2 in favour of Somare ordering him to be sworn in a Prime Minister the following day. However security forces loyal to O'Neill arrested Somare and prevented him attending Parliament to be sworn in.

Today (26/1/12) soldiers loyal to Somare and led by Colonel Yaura Sasa stormed the military headquarters in Port Moseby putting the head of the army, Brigadier General Francis Agwi under arrest before Colonel Sasa declared himself head of the army and Somare the Prime Minister. Since then O'Neill has appeared on television declaring that the mutiny has failed, he is still the Prime Minister, Brigadier General Agwi had been freed and Colonel Sasa is "being dealt with" but failed to give any further details.

All this makes for something of an interesting backdrop for the World Economic Forum being held in Davos, Switzerland until January 29th.