[Kabar-Irian] News: June 12-18 2007
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KABAR IRIAN NEWS
June 12-18
TOPICS
* UN suspects Papuan activists tortured
* UN special envoy urges Indonesia to prosecute activist's killers
* Credible reports of arbitrary detention, torture and harassment in West
Papua
* Indonesia plays down U.S. Congress talks on military assistance cut
* PNG:Indonesia's Human Rights Commission complains about Ok Tedi Pollut
* Moderate quake jolts Papua
* Moderate earthquake rocks Indonesia's Papua
* Freeport-McMoRan Continues Rise
* Sector Glance: Gold and Copper Mining
* Appropriate sale price for Tangguh LNG is imperative
* University of St. Thomas new home for American Museum of Asmat Art
---
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200706/s1949385.htm
Last Update: Tuesday, June 12, 2007. 8:19pm (AEST)
UN suspects Papuan activists tortured
By Indonesia correspondent Geoff Thompson
A special representative to the United Nations (UN) secretary-general says
there are credible reports that
human rights defenders in the Indonesian province of Papua are being held,
tortured and harassed.
The secretary-general's special representative on the situation of human
rights defenders, Hina Jilani,
has just completed a tour of West Papua.
Ms Jilani says she heard credible reports of arbitrary detention, torture,
harassment through surveillance
and restrictions placed on the freedom of movement of Papuans.
She says police and the military have threatened human rights defenders
attempting to investigate
allegations with prosecution.
The representative says they have labelled the activists as separatists in
order to undermine their
credibility.
Albert Rumbekwan of the National Human Rights Committee in Jayapura has
told the ABC he has
received at least one death threat since talking to Ms Jilani.
Print-friendy versionPrint Send to a friendEmail
---
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/asiapacific/news/article_1316379.php/UN_special_envoy_urges_Indo
nesia_to_prosecute_activists_killers
Asia-Pacific News
UN special envoy urges Indonesia to prosecute activist's killers
Jun 12, 2007, 9:19 GMT
Jakarta - UN human rights envoy Hina Jilani urged the Indonesian
government Tuesday to arrest and
prosecute perpetrators in the murder of a prominent human rights
campaigner who was brazenly
poisoned in 2004.
'It is a little disappointing that the perpetrators have not yet been
brought to justice, and that in the one
case that went up for trial, there has been an acquittal,' Jilani, the UN
secretary-general's special envoy
for humanitarian affairs, told a press conference in Jakarta at the end of
a week-long visit.
Jilani said the prospects for the promotion of human rights in Indonesia
had improved 'considerably' in
recent years, as the country attempts to move from authoritarian rule to
democracy.
However, she expressed concern about the lack of protection for activists
who are involved in sensitive
issues.
Jilani noted that progress had been made in the investigation into the
murder of activist Munir Said Thalib,
but said she was deeply concerned about claims by activists that the
justice system was being twisted to
protect his killers.
Two former senior officials from the country's shadowy intelligence agency
have been implicated in
Munir's murder but police have yet to even question them.
'This is a case that will be a test of the government's will to protect
human rights defenders,' Jilani said.
'This is also a case at which the whole international community is looking.'
'We do hope that there will be a conclusion that will show there is a
commitment to protect human rights
defenders,' she said, adding that she feared further delays in closing the
case would make activists more
insecure.
Munir, co-founder of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of
Violence, died aboard a flight
to Amsterdam on Garuda Indonesia, the country's national flag carrier, in
September 2004 after his juice
was laced with arsenic.
Munir, 38, was a prominent critic of the Indonesian security forces, which
is blamed for thousands of
deaths and the disappearances of scores of activists during ex-dictator
Suharto's 32-year regime. His
work in uncovering atrocities earned him many enemies.
A Garuda pilot with links to the country's State Intelligence Agency (BIN)
was convicted and jailed for 14
years for serving Munir the arsenic-laced juice, but the Indonesian
Supreme Court inexplicably
overturned his conviction in December 2006 in a ruling that enraged human
rights groups.
Local and international media have widely reported that former senior BIN
officials, including the
agency's former director Hendropriyono and a deputy director, were
implicated in Munir's death.
Reformist Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is under
international pressure from the
United States, European Union and UN to solve the murder, which occurred
shortly before he took office.
After being accused of dragging its feet on the investigation, the
Indonesian National Police in April
named two former Garuda officials as suspects. However, activists were
angry that no former BIN
officials were named.
During a visit to separatist-minded West Papua, Indonesia's easternmost
province, Jilani said she heard
credible reports of arbitrary arrests and torture of human rights
defenders, and that others were
threatened with arrest by the police and military.
In particular, Jilani said she was extremely disturbed by allegations that
human rights activists who
expose abuses by security forces are declared separatist rebels in order
to undermine their credibility.
However, Jilani said she was greatly encouraged by the improvement of
human rights activism in Aceh
province, on the westernmost part of the Indonesian archipelago. The
strife-torn province is in the midst
of a peace process between separatist rebels and the Indonesian government
after 29 years of war.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
---
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s1949390.htm
A special representative to the United Nations Secretary General says
there are credible reports of
arbitrary detention, torture and harassment of human rights defenders in
West Papua.
Indonesia correspondent Geoff Thompson reports Hina Jilani is the Special
Representative of the United
Nations Secretary General on the situation of human rights defenders and
has just completed a tour of
West Papua.
She says she heard credible reports of arbitrary detention, torture,
harassment through surveillance and
restrictions placed on the freedom of movement of Papuans.
She says human rights defenders attempting to investigate allegations of
abuse were threatened with
prosecution by the police and the military and labelled as separatists in
order to undermine their
credibility.
Albert Rumbekwan of the National Human Rights Committee in Jayapura has
told the ABC that he has
received at least one death threat since talking to Hina Jilani.
---
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailworld.asp?fileid=20070612.K01
Indonesia plays down U.S. Congress talks on military assistance cut
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesia has branded calls to cut U.S. aid to the country's military as
superficial because they only
represent the interests of a few human rights groups.
Indonesian Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said Monday the human rights
groups and U.S.
congresswoman who proposed the aid cut have not taken into account recent
reform progress made by
the Indonesian Military (TNI).
"We are not concerned because so far only one congresswoman has proposed
an aid cut, and her case
is based on input from non-governmental organizations which for the last
eight years have been
antagonistic toward the TNI," he told reporters.
He said Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First and
the East Timor Alliance
Network (ETAN) were groups to have constantly criticized Indonesia's human
rights record.
Juwono said he clarified relevant issues with U.S. lawmakers and
organizations when he visited the U.S.
in April.
"I explained that the TNI is not the same as before, and that we have made
progress in the area of
reform. However, it seems they did not listen. They will not admit we have
made progress because then
they will lose their source of income," Juwono said.
The U.S. Congress began to discuss last week a proposal from Democratic
Party Congresswoman Nita
Lowey, the head of the powerful Appropriations Sub-committee, to cut 25
percent of military aid to
Indonesia over alleged violations of human rights.
Details of the Congress' deliberations are yet to be made public and the
new proposal still has several
congressional rounds to go through before potentially being passed in
September.
An Indonesian official said recently the country's embassy in Washington
is lobbying lawmakers in the
U.S. Congress in an effort to block the proposal.
Observers said Lowey has traditionally held a hostile view of the
Indonesian Military, influenced by human
rights activists who link aid to the issue.
Their main complaint is the lack of progress in prosecuting senior TNI
officers, such as former military
chief Gen. Wiranto for his alleged complicity in the violence that
followed the 1999 independence
referendum in East Timor (now Timor Leste).
Concerns were heightened after the murder of noted Indonesian human rights
campaigner Munir last
year and the recent incident in Pasuruan, East Java, in which Navy
officers shot dead four civilians.
"The Pasuruan case was an accident and it has nothing to do with TNI
reform. What they want is for the
role of Gen. Wiranto and several others in the Timor Leste case to be
clarified, as well as proof the TNI is
on a path to reform," Juwono said.
On various occasions since the early 1990s, Washington has curtailed or
completely cut off military
training in Indonesia. Ties between the countries were scaled back further
after the East Timor imbroglio,
with the U.S. imposing a ban on weapons sales and aid to the TNI.
That ban was lifted in 2005 after intense lobbying by the Bush
administration, which regarded Indonesia
as a key ally in the war on terror.
---
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/pacbeat/stories/s1950351.htm
PNG:Indonesia's Human Rights Commission complains about Ok Tedi Pollut -
13/06/2007
Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights, Komnas HAM, says it is
receiving complaints from
people along the Fly River border with Papua New Guinea about pollution
from PNG's Ok Tedi gold and
copper mine. Ok Tedi lies just 18 kilometres to the east of Indonesia and
discharges more than 50 million
tonnes of waste into the Fly river each year. Fritz Ramanday from the
Human Rights Commission is
quoted by Indonesia's Antara newsagency as saying organisation is
receiving complaints from people in
Marauke district about the impact of pollution on their health and the
health of the river.
Presenter - Alan Breen, Managing Director Ok Tedi mine
listen windows media listen windows media >
---
http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=119500
Moderate quake jolts Papua
Jakarta (dpa) - A moderate 5.8-magnitude earthquake jolted remote areas in
easternmost Indonesian
province of Papua Sunday, sending residents fleeing from their homes but
there were no immediate
reports of injury or property damage, a meteorology official said.
The tremblor struck Papua's capital of Jayapura and nearby areas at around
6:52 a.m. (2152 GMT
Saturday) with its epicentre on land about 229 kilometres to the
south-west, said Edison Gurning, an
official at Jakarta's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.
Jayapura is about 3,700 kilometres northeast of Jakarta.
Gurning said there were no reports of injury or structural damage from the
quake.
State-run Antara news agency reported that residents of Jayapura ran out
their homes in panic when the
tremblor struck the capital province.
It was the latest in a series of earthquakes to hit Indonesia in recent
days. On Saturday, an 6.1-
magnitude earthquake struck North Maluku province, triggered panic among
residents but there were no
damage or injury reported.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago nation, sits atop the Pacific
"Ring of Fire" where continental
plates collide and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are frequent.
---
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailgeneral.asp?fileid=20070617142857&irec=3
Moderate earthquake rocks Indonesia's Papua
JAKARTA(AP): A moderate earthquake rocked parts of Indonesia's Papua
province on Sunday, but
there were no reports of any damage.
The 5.7 magnitude hit 80 kilometers north of the city of Wamena, the U.S.
Geological Survey said on its
Web site.
Residents in the city said the quake - which was centered 46 kilometers
below the surface of the earth -
felt as if a big truck was passing by, said Agung Mulyo Utomo, an official
from the local Meteorological
and Geophysics Agency.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval
due to its location on the so-
called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines
encircling the Pacific Basin.
A massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004, killed more
than 131,000 people in
Indonesia's Aceh province and left half a million homeless.(***)
---
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/06/14/ap3822546.html?partner=alerts
Freeport-McMoRan Continues Rise
Associated Press 06.14.07, 3:31 PM ET
Related Quotes
FCX 84.42 + 0.77
Shares of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. continued a week-long runup
Thursday, partly lifted by
higher copper prices and positive comments from a Citigroup analyst.
Shares jumped $2.42, or 3 percent, to $84.17 in afternoon trading, after
hitting an all time high of $84.86
earlier in the session. The shares closed at $74.54 last Thursday.
Citigroup analyst John H. Hill in a note to clients kept a "Buy" rating on
shares and lifted his target price
to $104 from $78, citing easing commodity futures, possible asset sales
and that the company could be
an acquisition target.
"We regard the company as poorly-understood, under-owned, and attractively
valued relative to its
organic growth and cash return potential," the analyst wrote.
Hill said he doesn't think the company's molydebnum or gold assets should
be sold, as some have
suggested. And although he said he thinks speculation that the company
could be an acquisition target is
premature, it could fetch as much as $140 per share in a buyout, he wrote.
Freeport closed its $26.3 billion acquisition copper miner Phelps Dodge on
March 19, creating the
world's largest publicly traded copper company.
If futures prices for copper ease, instead of collapsing as some expect,
Hill says Freeport-McMoRan will
still be able to retire debt and become an aggressive cash distributor by
early 2008.
Rising copper prices also helped the stock. On the New York Mercantile
Exchange, copper for July
delivery climbed $7.95 per pound to $339.25.
The company's shares also rose 3.5 percent Wednesday, after Chief
Executive Richard Adkerson at a
Toronto investment conference said the company might consider asset sales
to help pay off debt
associated with the Phelps Dodge acquisition, according to a MarketWatch
story.
Earlier in the week, shareholder Atticus Capital LP in a filing with the
Securities and Exchange
Commission suggested it might want to take an activist role with its 6.4
percent stake in the company. The
hedge fund said it plans to "engage in discussion with management and/or
the board of directors of the
Company to encourage them to take steps to maximize shareholder value."
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
---
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/06/15/ap3826910.html?partner=alerts
Sector Glance: Gold and Copper Mining
Associated Press 06.15.07, 5:06 PM ET
Related Quotes
ABX 29.14 + 0.73
BMO 64.43 + 0.05
FCX 84.42 + 0.77
GG 24.83 + 0.29
NEM 40.43 + 0.58
PCU 93.52 + 0.15
RTP 308.41 + 5.66
Shares of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. and Barrick Gold Corp.
charged further upward along
with the rest of the sector Friday even after analysts downgraded the stocks.
BMO Capital Markets analyst Victor Lazarovici cut his rating for Freeport
McMoRan to "Market Perform"
from "Outperform" due to valuation. The stock is up 82 percent since
trading at a 52-week low of $46.30
in June 2006.
He also raised the stock's target price to $80 from $76.
Freeport-McMoRan shares gained 77 cents to close at $84.42.
Barrick Gold, which was downgraded to "Market Perform" from "Outperform"
by Bank of Montreal,
jumped 73 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $29.14.
Shares of other gold and copper manufacturers also rose Friday.
Newmont Mining Corp. added 58 cents to close at $40.43.
Rio Tinto PLC rose $5.66 to $308.41.
Goldcorp Inc. increased 29 cents to $24.83.
Southern Copper Corp. gained 15 cents to close at $93.52.
August gold rose $2.80 to $658.70 an ounce on the Comex division of the
New York Mercantile
Exchange. As pit trade was closing, the August contract at the Chicago
Board of Trade was up $2.80 at
$658.80.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
---
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20070618.E03&irec=2
Appropriate sale price for Tangguh LNG is imperative
Kurtubi, Jakarta
The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry and the Upstream Oil/Gas
Management Board (BP Migas)
are reported to be offering half of Tangguh's liquefied natural gas (LNG)
production to Japan and Korea
for far higher prices. The LNG will come from the portion planned to be
sold to Sempra Energy on the
U.S west coast.
Based on a long-term sale contract, Indonesia, which in this case is
represented by Beyond Petroleum
(BP), the oil contractor appointed by the ministry and BP Migas as
operator of the Tangguh LNG Project,
is required to supply the U.S west coast with 3.7 million tons of LNG
annually for 20 years at
US$5.94/mmbtu.
Apart from that, a Tangguh LNG long-term sale contract has also been
concluded with China, involving
2.6 million tons a year for 25 years at $3.35/mmbtu. Meanwhile, the
contract with SK Power and Posco
from Korea has to do with the annual supply of 1.2 million tons for 20
years at $3.5/mmbtu.
The facts show that all the sale prices for the 7.5 million tons of
Tangguh LNG for the period of 20-25
years are undoubtedly too low because they are far below the proper LNG
sale price, also below the
price for Badak LNG already produced for over 30 years.
The contract with Fujian, China, involves the lowest price in comparison
with the price for LNG sales to
the U.S west coast. This is in spite of the truth that the $3.35/mmbtu for
China is a new price resulting
from renegotiation with China.
Previously, the price was $2.67/mmbtu with the maximum crude oil check
price of $25/bbl for 25 years.
After being renegotiated, the check price could be raised to $38/bbl out
of China's "generosity". In fact,
even today the crude oil price is already around $63/bbl, let alone in the
next 25 years.
Now amid the intense search by the two "new giants of Asia" -- China and
India -- for energy sources to
support their economic development-- and Japan's apprehension owing to the
imminent termination of its
long-term LNG purchase contract with Indonesia, which is around 2011, the
energy ministry and BP
Migas may cancel their contract with the U.S. West Coast to Japan and Korea.
The move will definitely improve the Tangguh LNG Project's economy because
if the entire Tangguh LNG
production is sold at the very low prices according to the original
contracts, the state will share almost
nothing. The question is whether Sempra can just accept the contract
"cancellation" without any
compensation.
In business practice, any contract annulment has its price. To this end,
the ministry and BP Migas should
make a transparent public clarification so that Tangguh's economic benefit
and burden can be more
exactly calculated.
Even if the government has to pay compensation, with the new sale price
for Japan and Korea being
adjusted to a proper price formula (such as applying the Badak LNG price
formula benchmark), it will be
more profitable for the state to "shift" the sale from the U.S west coast
to Japan.
Based on the Badak LNG sale price formula, which sets no limit to crude
oil price fluctuation, it is now
sold at around $8/mmbtu. If the crude oil price rises to about $70/bbl,
the sale price of Badak LNG
becomes approximately $10/mmbtu. Just compare it to the only $3.35/mmbtu
of Tangguh LNG sold to
China or the higher rate of $5.94/mmbtu for delivery to the U.S. west
coast. The difference is very
striking.
The state will earn a lot more if the "rerouting" involves not only the
sale to the U.S west coast but also that
to Fujian, China, in view of the far lower sale price for China than for
the west coast. Tangguh LNG's sale
transfer from China to Japan is one of the alternatives to make the
state's natural wealth properly valued.
China badly needs gas in huge quantities today and in the future, and is
striving to secure it from the
giant Kovykta gas field in East Siberia, previously controlled by BP and
later taken over by Russia's state
-owned Gazprom.
The other alternative is certainly that China can continue to buy Tangguh
LNG but a proper price formula
should be applied. Still, the buyers of Tangguh LNG in Fujian are CNOOC
and BP, which are both also
the sellers/shareholders of the Tangguh LNG Project.
If the very low price of Tangguh LNG for China can no longer be
negotiated, with Indonesia having to
accept the $3.35/mmbtu for 25 years, the President should take a firm
measure to evaluate the Tangguh
LNG Project as a whole.
Domestic industries have been short of gas for a long time. Petrochemical,
fertilizer, power, ceramic and
other industries are believed to be still prepared to buy gas at a price
higher than for China
($3.35/mmbtu).
It is strange but true: On the one hand, we plan to sell the state gas
cheaply to China, while on the other,
local industries are facing gas shortage and LNG buyers in Japan, already
buying Indonesia's LNG at a
very proper price for 30 years, are expecting more LNG from Indonesia.
The President should immediately take an appropriate policy to put an end
to this discrepancy.
The writer is director of the Center for Petroleum and Energy Economics
Studies.
---
http://www.stthomas.edu/bulletin/news/200725/Monday/ArtsAndSciences6_18_07.cfm
University of St. Thomas new home for American Museum of Asmat Art
The University of St. Thomas soon will house a museum known nationally for
its collection of tribal art
from New Guinea.
The university this summer will become the new home for the American
Museum of Asmat Art, which
since 1995 has been located at the provincial headquarters of the Crosier
Fathers and Brothers in
Shoreview, Minn.
The museum’s entire collection will be donated to the university, it was
announced at June 13 event for
museum donors and friends.
The Crosier order is preparing for a July 1 move of its headquarters to
Phoenix, Ariz., necessitating a
new home for the museum, which in 1995 was incorporated as an independent,
nonprofit organization.
The museum’s board began a search earlier last year for a new
organizational partner.
The museum, which began in 1975 as the Crosier Asmat Museum in Hastings,
Neb., is one of two
established since this order of Catholic priests and brothers began
missionary work in 1958 with the
Asmat, a tribal people indigenous to the southwest coast of the island of
New Guinea -- a region known
as Irian Jaya or West Papua, Indonesia. The Crosiers also founded the
Museum of Culture and
Progress in Agats, a village in eastern Indonesia.
About 70,000 Asmat are scattered today among 120 different villages of the
region’s rainforests. First
seen by Dutch traders in 1623 and by Captain James Cook in 1770, the Asmat
had a reputation for
warfare, headhunting and cannibalism until the 1950s, when missionaries
and other outsiders
encouraged an end to these practices. Today the Asmat are a
hunting-and-gathering culture noted for
exquisite woodcarving and veneration of ancestors.
The Rev. Dennis Dease, president of St. Thomas, called the museum’s
acquisition “another illustration of
St. Thomas’ expanding commitment to the arts. This collection will serve
to remind us that the human
artistic imagination is boundless and knows no geographic boundaries.
St. Thomas is honored to
participate in the Crosier community’s mission to the Asmat people,” he said.
Dr. Marisa Kelly, dean of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences,
called the museum’s collection
“one of the premier collections of its kind in the United States.” Insured
for more than a million dollars, it
consists of more than 1,500 objects, in addition to publications and
multimedia resources, and includes
carvings, masks, shields, canoes, drums and other artifacts of Asmat culture.
The museum’s collection and offices will be relocated to the university’s
St. Paul campus beginning this
summer, and a national search will be conducted to hire a museum director.
Long-term plans include a
permanent gallery on the campus, integration of the collection into
university art history programs, K-12
educational outreach efforts, and continued collaborative off-campus
exhibitions. The museum will be
renamed “The American Museum of Asmat Art at the University of St. Thomas.”
Kelly said that the museum’s first exhibit on the St. Thomas campus is
likely next spring.
============================================================================
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