Locals, some with their daily shopping, gather on a hillside to watch a Royal Australian Airforce Hercules transport plane unload medical and food supplies in the Papua New Guinean town of Tabubil September 22. [Australian Prime Minister John Howard ] today pledged further assistance to its drought ravaged neighbour Papua New Guinea, as an estimated 700,000 suffer in the South Pacific nation from dry conditions caused by the El Nino weather pattern.