{"id":3386,"date":"2023-02-27T05:28:16","date_gmt":"2023-02-26T16:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=3386"},"modified":"2023-02-27T05:28:16","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T16:28:16","slug":"nz-citizen-released-by-papua-new-guinea-kidnappers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=3386","title":{"rendered":"NZ citizen released by Papua New Guinea kidnappers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A New Zealand professor and his two Papua New Guinean colleagues have been released from captivity, more than a week after being kidnapped.<\/p>\n<p>Bryce Barker, who now lives in Australia, was held alongside fellow members of his research team.<\/p>\n<p>They were doing fieldwork in a remote part of PNG&#8217;s highlands when they were taken by a criminal gang from Hela Province who demanded a ransom for their freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Their release brings to an end days of negotiations, and a complex security operation involving PNG police and defence personnel, in consultation with the Australian and New Zealand governments.<\/p>\n<p>It comes two days after another\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/international\/pacific-news\/484794\/kidnappers-release-woman-to-png-police\">woman who had also been taken was set free<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta praised the release on Twitter, welcoming their safe return.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>SOURCE RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A New Zealand professor and his two Papua New Guinean colleagues have been released from captivity, more than a week after being kidnapped. Bryce Barker, who now lives in Australia, was held alongside fellow members of his research team. They were doing fieldwork in a remote part of PNG&#8217;s highlands when they were taken by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3388,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3386\/revisions\/3388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}