US President Joe Biden’s apparent suggestion his uncle may have been eaten by cannibals during World War II has sparked uproar in Papua New Guinea, casting a shadow on US relations with the Pacific nation and meeting a firm response from its leader. In contentious remarks made last week following a visit to a war memorial, Biden twice hinted that the US was unable to recover his uncle Ambrose Finnegan’s remains after his plane crashed near the island of New Guinea during the war “because there used to be a lot of cannibals” in the region. In a statement from his office Monday, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape conceded that Biden may have misspoken, but he pushed back against the characterization of cannibalism in the Pacific Island nation, which encompasses the eastern half of New Guinea and more than 600 nearby islands. “President Biden’s remarks may have been a…
