[Kabar-Irian] News: Nov 1-7

Mon Nov 6 18:05:25 MST 2006

KABAR IRIAN NEWS

Nov 1-7

TOPICS

* Quake shakes eastern Indonesia's Papua
* Kwamki Lama tribal war leaders named suspects in killing spree
* Hunt for war dead a race against time
* Freeport, Kiani deny firing unionists
* Papua assembly submits bill on autonomy funds
* Dump Super Fund shares in Freeport
* Calls for NZ Super Fund to dump investment in Freeport due to abuses in
Papua
* Papua a dangerous trouble spot from any standpoint
* Papua on alert over rebel leader's funeral
* Regions must help economy: SBY
* N.O. Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. Mine Hits Gold Rush With 3Q
Gains
* A zoologist roaming the wilds of Papua New Guinea has found dozens of
frog species unknown to science

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http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200611051758/quake_shakes_eastern_indonesias_papua

Quake shakes eastern Indonesia's Papua

Posted at 5:58pm on 05 Nov 2006

A moderate 5.3-magnitude earthquake hit the eastern Indonesian province of
Papua on Sunday.

The meteorology office in Jakarta said there were no reported casualties
or damage.

The quake hit at 10.58am (0158 GMT). It was centred 33km underground some
185km southwest of the Papua capital of Jayapura.

Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the Asian tsunami on December 26
2004, which was triggered by an earthquake and killed

some 168,000 people in Aceh province.

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake in July on the south coast of the main island
of Java also killed more than 600 people.

Copyright © 2006 Radio New Zealand

---

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20061102.G06&irec=5

Kwamki Lama tribal war leaders named suspects in killing spree

Markus Makur, The Jakarta Post, Timika

Five tribal leaders involved in the Kwamki Lama conflict, in which 10
people were killed and dozens of others injured, have

been brought to Timika, Papua, from further questioning after being
captured in Jayapura, the capital of Papua province.

The five have been named suspects and are currently being detained at the
Mimika Police detectives detention cell, Mimika

Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Jantje Jimmy Tuilan said Tuesday.

The five suspects were flown to Mimika, the capital of Timika regency,
under Mimika Police escort, Tuilan said.

Tuilan said that besides causing a large number of casualties, the tribal
war, which took place for nearly two months, had

also destroyed a number of houses.

The five were questioned in Jayapura and their dossiers had been sent to
Mimika Police before being handed over to the

prosecutor's office for the trial, he said.

He explained that the suspects would face trial despite debate between
religious and community leaders from the two opposing

groups in Kwamki Lam because the five were allegedly involved in the
killing spree.

Community leaders among the two warring tribes had argued that they should
be allowed to resolve the conflict among

themselves, including the punishment to be meted out on the perpetrators
of the violence.

Aside from facing charges under the Criminal Code, the five would also be
tried under the Emergency Law, Tuilan said without

giving details.

Kwamki Lama people have demanded that the five be detained and tried
according to the law.

As negotiations are still going on among representatives from the warring
tribes, the police are waiting for the results of

the settlement, he said.

Responding to any possible attempt to disrupt the five suspects'
detention, Tuilan urged the public to entrust the process to

the security authorities.

The police will not hesitate to take stern actions against anybody trying
to disrupt the legal process, he added.

---

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20061101f1.html

Hunt for war dead a race against time
Relatives join in search for graves of 1.2 million MIAs overseas

By AKEMI NAKAMURA
Staff writer

Nobuteru Iwabuchi has visited New Guinea more than 200 times over the past
40 years -- not to relax on a tropical beach but

to look for human remains.

News photo
Soichiro Akimoto (right) and Shoko Okuno talk about the September memorial
service they held on New Guinea for their father,

who died there amid fighting in 1944, during an Oct. 18 meeting in
Yokohama of the nonprofit organization Pacific War History

Museum. AKEMI NAKAMURA PHOTO

The divided East Indies island -- the west half Irian, Indonesia, and the
east half Papua New Guinea -- saw heavy fighting

between Japanese and Allied forces during World War II. Thousands of
soldiers died there, and Iwabuchi's father, Keiji, was

one of them.

His father was drafted in 1943 and sent to the northern coast of the
island in September 1944. During an air raid later that

year, he died at age 34. The government later sent his family just a
small, empty wooden box.

"The spirit of my father has not been consoled yet," said Iwabuchi, 65,
who founded the nonprofit organization Pacific War

History Museum in Ohshu, Iwate Prefecture, in 1993 to display war-related
items and documents, study war sites on the island

and lobby the government to collect the remains of the war dead.

The war ended 61 years ago, and Iwabuchi is not the only one seeking the
return of relatives' remains. It is estimated that

1.16 million Japanese soldiers and civilians -- about 48 percent of the
2.4 million war dead overseas -- remain where they

fell, including in the Philippines, New Guinea and Siberia.

The figure is remarkably high when compared with that of the United
States. According to research by Kakunosuke Akiyama, an

advocate of a national cemetery for the war dead, only 17 percent of some
506,000 U.S. solders who died overseas during World

War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars remained listed as missing in
action as of April 2005.

"I wonder why this has not become a major social issue," said Iwabuchi,
criticizing the government's slow pace.

The government started a project to collect the remains of soldiers
overseas in 1947. Although some 10,000 to 35,000 were

brought back to Japan almost every year for a decade starting in 1967,
fiscal 2004 saw only 1,151 and 2005 only 604,

according to the welfare ministry.

Information on the whereabouts of remains is hard to come by, especially
in the South Pacific, complicating the search, a

ministry official said in a statement. The government works with private
groups, including Iwabuchi's 260-member NPO.

News photo
Members of Pacific War History Museum, a nonprofit group based in Ohshu,
Iwate Prefecture, hold skulls found on New Guinea in

June 2005. PHOTO COURTESY OF PACIFIC WAR HISTORY MUSEUM

Iwabuchi is a veteran tour coordinator for people who want to offer
prayers for relatives or friends who died on New Guinea

and nearby islands or for government officials looking to collect the
remains of the war dead.

This month, Iwabuchi and another NPO member will join a government team as
tour coordinators to collect remains on Biak

Island -- a small Indonesian island near New Guinea that experienced
severe fighting over a Japanese airstrip.

"Many Japanese soldiers died of starvation" after fleeing from the enemy,
veteran Yoji Ota said during the NPO's annual

meeting last month in Yokohama. The 86-year-old was deployed to Biak in 1944.

"At the time, we were taught that losers must not come home. So we ran off
into the jungle," said Ota, who lives in

Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture.

He said he did not eat or drink for 20 days and finally fell unconscious,
only to be captured by the Allies. Ota has visited

the islands three times to offer prayers for the dead.

When Iwabuchi or other members of the NPO find the remains of Japanese
soldiers, they push the ministry to dispatch a

collection team. After the remains are brought to Japan, the ashes of
those that are not identified are placed in the

Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo. It is dedicated
to the unknown war dead.

Akiyama, whose brother died during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, believes
the government is not properly caring for the

remains at the cemetery, which keeps the ashes of about 350,000
unidentified war dead in two charnel houses. One of them,

Rokkakudo, reached capacity in 1990, prompting construction of the second
one.

According to Akiyama, Rokkakudo, about the size of two six-tatami-mat
rooms, houses the ashes of about 330,000 people,

compressed into tiny cubes.

"It's a terrible way to handle the remains," he said. "We should have a
(new) national cemetery where the remains are buried

individually."

Given the difficulty Japan seems to have in searching for its own war dead
overseas, it's no wonder that the government has

been reluctant to look for the remains of other people from Asia who died
in Japan during the war.

Academics estimate the remains of more than 10,000 Koreans brought here as
forced laborers during the 1930s and 1940s are

still unaccounted for. The ministry started to look for possible graves in
2004.

A Tokyo citizens' group meanwhile said the government has not tried to
identify the human remains dug up in 1989 from the

site where a former military facility was located in Shinjuku Ward. The
group suspects the dead were the victims of the

Japanese military's wartime experiments on foreign prisoners.

While the contentious Yasukuni Shrine has captured public attention in
recent years because of its association with Japan's

past militarism and apparent lack of atonement for the war, Iwabuchi said
the government should resolve to locate all war

dead, even establishing a law to make the search mandatory.

"The public indifference shows that Japanese have not thought about what
our country did during the war and instead forgot

about it," he said. "Even if it's late, we have to do what we must."
The Japan Times
(C) All rights reserved

---

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20061102.H04&irec=3

Freeport, Kiani deny firing unionists

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Miner PT Freeport McMoran Indonesia and pulp and paper company PT Kiani
Kertas have denied a labor union's claim they

intimidated or dismissed workers who tried to organize.

The two firms are among 18 companies and two police precincts reported
recently to Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman

Suparno by the Confederation of Prosperous Indonesian Labor Unions (KSBSI)
for their allegedly illegal anti-union behavior.

Kiani Kertas spokesman Sukijo confirmed security authorities in Tanjung
Redep, East Kalimantan, had deployed 63 Police Mobile

Brigade officers to secure the company premises. The move followed a rally
to protest the management's rejection of the

recent establishment of a new KSBSI union at the company.

"We have vital assets and we don't want the labor unrest to disrupt
operations. We need the security officers to ensure the

operation will continue," he told The Jakarta Post by phone.

More than 100 workers staged a demonstration Monday to protest the
management's rejection of the union at the company and the

dismissal of seven activists.

However, Sukijo said no unionists had ever been dismissed from the
factory. The management had never intimidated or dismissed

workers who wanted to set up a union, he said.

"The workers have the right to unionize but they are required to comply
with the law in exercising their rights," he said.

A majority of more than 1,300 workers employed in the factory and its
industrial forests have joined the forestry sector

Confederation of All-Indonesian Workers Unions (KSPSI), which has been the
single partner with the management in negotiations

to review their collective contracts.

PT Freeport spokesman Mindo Pangaribuan said management had never
prohibited employees from setting up unions. The company

had involved the KSPSI in negotiations to renew collective labor
agreements, he said.

Freeport, a United States-based copper and gold mining company, employs
more than 9,000 Indonesian and foreign workers at its

Grassberg mine in Timika, Papua.

The union has also brought the cases to the labor court.

Law No. 21/2001 on workers and labor unions prohibits the management from
intimidating and dismissing workers for their

activism. It carries a maximum five-year jail sentence and a maximum fine
of Rp 500 million against individuals or

corporations violating the law.

The Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) confirmed it had received
many complaints from labor unions about employers

rejecting the establishment of new unions in their companies.

Apindo secretary general Djimanto, however, said union leaders often
confused legitimate dismissals with unlawful ones.

Recent cases of workers' rights violations as reported by KSBSI

No. Company Location Victim

1. PT Freeport McMoran Timika, Papua 1 unionist dismissed
2. PT Dahana, Berau E. Kalimantan unionists transferred
3. PT Pangan Sari Utama Sorong, Papua 98 workers intimidated
4. Security authorities Pasir regency unionists intimidated
5. PT Rukun Tripilar West Java unionists dismissed
6. Army officials Pasuruan intimidation
7. PT S-4 Dumai Riau intimidation
8. Perum PPD Jakarta 3,000 members intimidated, unpaid
9. PT Mayasari Bhakti Jakarta 7 unionists laid off
10.PT Mitra Surya Eratama Tangerang 40 workers dismissed
11.PT Inti Kimiatama Perkasa Medan 3 unionists dismissed
12.PT Milan Indotex Jakarta unionists not registered with Jamsostek
13. PT Meindo Elang Indah Balikpapan SBSI units excluded from collective
bargaining
14. PT Sumatra Sarana
Sekar Sakti Medan rejection by management of SBSI unit
15. PT Bara Jaya Utama E. Kalimantan Workers intimidated by hoodlums
16. PT Karet Alam Aceh unionist dismissed
17. CV Salute, Sukoharjo C. Java nine unionist reprimanded
18. PT Inti Kimiatama Medan rejection of SBSI
19. Berau Police E. Kalimantan unionists intimidated
20. PT Kiani Kertas E. Kalimantan seven unionists dismissed

Source: SBSI

---

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20061104.G01&irec=0

Papua assembly submits bill on autonomy funds

Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura

The Papua People's Assembly (MRP) has submitted a bill on the distribution
and use of special autonomy funds to the Papua

Legislative Council for deliberation.

The draft regulation was handed over Thursday by MRP chairman Agus Alue
Alua to Papua legislative speaker John Ibo in

Jayapura.

MRP vice chairman Frans Wospakrik said the MRP's authority was limited to
providing comments on draft regulations to the

legislative and executive institutions.

However, because the legislature had not drawn up a draft regulation, the
MRP took the initiative of writing its own.

"We have handed the bill over for deliberation before being approved, and
the legislature is expected to submit it to the MRP

for comments," said Wospakrik.

The bill is one of six draft regulations prepared by the MRP.

The draft on the distribution and use of special autonomy funds, said
Wospakrik, was not submitted simultaneously with the

five other bills, in the hope that the legislature would immediately pass
it so it could be used in the 2007 regional budget

proposal.

The essence of the draft, said Wospakrik, was that the largest portion of
the budget would be spent in remote villages, where

80 percent of the province's population lives.

The special autonomy funds, Wospakrik said, would also be given to Papuans
living in West Irian Jaya province. "The funds

will be distributed to 29 mayoralties and regencies in Papua and West
Irian Jaya. The MRP does not see them as a separate

administrative territory, but a unity of Papuans," he said.

Papua Governor Bas Suebu has announced plans to earmark Rp 100 million
(US$10,526) to each kampong throughout Papua.

Since the use of the special autonomy funds has not been governed by a
regulation for the past five years, Wospakrik said, it

had not yet had any significant impact on the lives of Papuans. Papuans
living in the hinterlands have yet to experience

significant changes to their lives because the special autonomy funds are
largely circulating in urban areas.

The other five regulations drafted by the MRP since June deal with the
duties and authority of the MRP, its rights and

responsibilities, Papua's emblem, the concept of a unitary native Papuan
culture and guidelines on the basic rights of native

Papuans.

The MRP, which was established by the 2001 law on special autonomy, was
originally designed to help resolve problems in the

province. It does not serve as a political body, but simply as a cultural
representative of the province.

Wospakrik said in the past year the MRP had provided input on the
authenticity of native Papuans vying for the gubernatorial

election. Two vice-gubernatorial candidates, Komaruddin Watubun and A.
Musa'ad, were dropped from the race because there were

not native Papuans.

It has also urged the government and U.S.-based gold and copper mining
company, PT Freeport, to be more sensitive to the

basic rights of Papuans.

---

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0611/S00031.htm

Dump Super Fund shares in Freeport
Friday, 3 November 2006, 10:02 am
Press Release: Indonesia Human Rights Committee
Indonesia Human Rights Committe
Box 68 419
Auckland

2 November, 2006

Dump Super Fund shares in Freeport

The Indonesia Human Rights Committee (IHRC) is calling on the NZ Super
Fund to stop investing in US mining giant Freeport

McMoRan. Since 1967 Freeport has been mining copper and gold in Indonesian
Military occupied West Papua. According to the

Super Fund's Equity Portfolio (as at June 30 2006) it had investments
worth $954,608 in Freeport. The company has a shocking

record of human rights and environmental abuse.

"Every day Freeport's Grasberg gold mine dumps as much as 700,000 tonnes
of mining waste into West Papua's rivers. They have

completely destroyed the traditional lands that the indigenous Amungme and
Kamoro people rely on for survival and have

forcibly displaced people from their villages" said IHRC member Cameron
Walker.

Freeport has also over the entire history of its operations in West Papua
provided the Indonesian Military, who have killed

around 100,000 Papuan civilians, with large amounts of money for 'security'.

"Whenever West Papuan people take protest action against Freeport they
often end up dead. In the past the Indonesian Military

has even bombed villages with cluster bombs after disruptions to the mine"
he said.

In March this year large student demonstrations against Freeport broke out
in Jayapura, West Papua's capital. Students were

arrested, tortured and forced to confess to taking part in violence by the
Indonesian Military and Police.
"The NZ government should not be investing taxpayer money in companies
that rape the environment and support mass murder" he

said.
The government of Norway has specifically stated that its US$240 billion
oil fund is not allowed to be invested in Freeport

McMoRan, due to its terrible environmental record.

"The New Zealand government should follow the Norwegian's lead and dump
all Super Fund shares in Freeport McMoRan" added

Walker.

---

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/bulletins/rnzi/200611031804/calls_for_nz_super_fund_to_dump_investment_in_freeport_due_to_abuse

s_in_papua

Calls for NZ Super Fund to dump investment in Freeport due to abuses in Papua

Posted at 6:04pm on 03 Nov 2006

The Indonesia Human Rights Committee or IHRC has called on the New Zealand
Super Fund to stop investing in US mining giant

Freeport McMoRan.

According to the Super Fund's recent Equity Portfolio it had investments
worth around 650-thousand US dollars in Freeport

which runs a massive copper and gold mine in Indonesia's Papua province.

The New Zealand-based IHRC says Freeport has a shocking record of human
rights and environmental abuse in Papua and that the

New Zealand government shouldn't be investing taxpayer money in such
companies.

IHRC's Cameron Walker says that every day Freeport's Grasberg mine dumps
as much as 700,000 tonnes of mining waste into local

rivers, destroying the environment that indigenous Papuans rely on for
survival and displacing people from villages

And he says Freeport has long provided the Indonesian Military, which he
accuses of killing hundreds of thousands of innocent

Papuans, with large amounts of money for 'security'.

Mr Walker says New Zealand should follow the example of Norway in dumping
all Super Fund shares in Freeport.

Copyright © 2006 Radio New Zealand International

---

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/papua-a-dangerous-trouble-spot-from-any-standpoint/2006/11/03/1162340050180.html?

page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Papua a dangerous trouble spot from any standpoint

Hamish McDonald Asia-Pacific Editor
November 4, 2006

WITH the near Pacific going pear-shaped on just about every front for
Canberra, let us take a look at the crisis that kicked

off the year, the Indonesian province of Papua.

It is undoubtedly the most intractable and immediately dangerous of the
Melanesian trouble spots, with the risk of drawing us

into tension, and even conflict, with our biggest neighbour, Indonesia.

Two new publications on Papua, each by alumni of Australian intelligence
outfits, have just arrived, approaching it from very

different standpoints.

Rodd McGibbon is a former analyst at the Office of National Assessments
who spent six years in Jakarta with aid agencies. Now

at the Australian National University, he has published a paper called
"Pitfalls of Papua" for the Lowy Institute.

Clinton Fernandes is a former Australian Army intelligence officer, now
lecturing at the Australian Defence Force Academy in

Canberra. His Reluctant Indonesians has been published by Scribe Short Books.

McGibbon puts Papua in the context of an overriding strategic importance
for Australia to maintain friendly ties with

Indonesia. As Papua is part of the founding Indonesian dream, and
immensely resource rich as well, any Australian move

against Jakarta's sovereignty there would bring dire consequences, of
which we got a taste when Indonesia recalled its

ambassador after Australia gave political asylum to 42 Papuans.

Pursuing what he sees as the "unrealistic" and "utopian" notion of Papuan
independence would put Canberra out on the

political limb, where we were before 1962, when Robert Menzies supported
the Dutch efforts to keep Papua out of Indonesia.

Fernandes sees Papua as one who has studied Indonesia, but saw its worst
side in the militia atrocities run by the Indonesian

army, the TNI, to try to stop East Timor's independence. He sees some of
the worst TNI characters reappearing on the Papuan

scene.

He also worries about getting stuck on a political limb. This is the limb
that Canberra found itself on for 24 years,

supporting Jakarta's claims to East Timor and trying to play down the
endless stream of atrocities going on there.

McGibbon is dubious about the validity of Papuan nationalism, based on a
perceived ethnic difference to other Indonesians.

"It is unlikely that Papuan sentiment would have developed in these
directions if it were not for the effects of Dutch

colonial policy," he says.

But he admits it has deepened and spread far beyond the small elite raised
by the Dutch, as a result of army brutality,

lopsided development, rape of resources, and the influx of vast numbers of
settlers from Java and Sulawesi.

Efforts by the post-Soeharto civilian presidents B.J.Habibie and
Abdurrahman Wahid to give the Papuans a special autonomy

package, including a Papuan assembly, were undercut before delivery by the
next president, Megawati Soekarnoputri.

The current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has tried to restore the
Wahid reforms, but Papua remains split into two

provinces under Megawati's treacherous divide-and-rule scheme, with more
violence this year.

McGibbon's book has inspired some conservative comment here that
Australians should stop raising more false hopes among the

Papuans. He thinks Australia's leaders should try harder to get us to
appreciate Indonesia more, understand Papua's place in

that country, and thereby "neutralise" this explosive issue in relations.

Yet he also admits Indonesia's policies will be the key factor in whether
the Papuans are reconciled. From all he and

Fernandes describe, Papuan nationalism has a dynamic largely independent
of the ragged support given from here.

Barring a bolt from the blue like Habibie's sudden decision amid economic
collapse to give East Timor a plebiscite, or the

tsunami that led to Aceh peace, the Papuan situation is probably beyond
any quick solution.

The Papuans are unhappy, yet their neighbours like Papua New Guinea and
the Solomons are hardly an advertisement for

independence.Even Fernandes, whom McGibbon lists among the utopian
independence crowd, leans to the halfway house. He ponders

the much used Malay word "merdeka" - usually translated as political
"independence" and drawing a heavy response from the TNI

when Papuans use it.

Some anthropologists think "merdeka" is more complex for Papuans, and
includes emancipation from oppression and harmony

between the past and the present.

Fernandes thinks this points towards "new systems of governance based on
indigenous modes of authority that ought to be

achievable without separating from Indonesia". It's a train of thought
worth pursuing in a world where sovereignty and

separatism so often clash with bloody results.

---

http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20061103.H12

Papua on alert over rebel leader's funeral

National News - November 03, 2006

JAKARTA: Police in Papua are on high alert over the planned funeral of
separatist leader Willem Songgonao who died in

Australia last week.

His body has been laid in state in Jayapura and his relatives have yet to
decide if his remains will be buried in Jayapura or

in his hometown in Enarotali, Antara reported.

Jayapura City Police chief Adj. Comr. Roberth Joensoe said Thursday he had
readied about 200 officers in anticipation of

violence.

Songgonao, a Papua New Guinea citizen, had lived in self-imposed exile
abroad for 37 years, seeking diplomatic support for

Papua independence. He died of a heart attack in Sydney on Oct. 2. In his
death wish he asked to be buried in his homeland.

Joensoe said he had told the deceased's supporters not to raise the Free
Papua Movement (OPM) flag, or the security

authorities would take action against them.

"If his coffin is draped in the OPM flag, his relatives will have to bear
the consequences," he said. -- JP

---

http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20061103.@02

Regions must help economy: SBY

National News - November 03, 2006

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Thursday that local
administrations must share the responsibility of defeating

corruption and improving the country's economy by bringing in investors.

The President cited cumbersome local regulations arising from the 1999
autonomy law.

"Devolution of authority does not mean the decentralization of corruption
... each and every province and regency must do all

it can to make sure decentralization does not lead to more corruption," he
said at the opening of the Indonesian Regional

Investment Forum, which ends Friday.

>From multiple taxation to complicated bureaucratic procedures, many local
regulations have discouraged investors, despite

efforts by the central government to lure them in.

Investors have complained that they end up spending significant amounts of
money on levies, fees and bribes at the regional

level.

The President said the government had scrapped more than 506 local
regulations, revised 148 and was scrutinizing 824 more

that are believed to be a source of legal uncertainty to investors.

He added that the government had signed Investment Protection Agreements
with 60 countries, as well as enacting a free

foreign capital policy and guaranteeing there would be no nationalization.

"Local governments must show an open, embracing and assertive attitude
toward private capital, including foreign investment.

Governments must attract private capital with the aggressiveness of
politicians attracting voters," he said.

In his annual address last August in front of the Regional Representatives
Council, which hosts the forum, Yudhoyono

instructed local leaders to coordinate with the Justice and Human Rights
Ministry before issuing any regulations.

The President urged local leaders to quickly determine their areas'
strongest selling points, to ensure that no regions lag

behind in economic progress.

During the pre-1999 centralized era, development was heavily focused in
Java, leading to a massive gap between the densely-

populated island and other provinces.

The President called on local administrations to improve their human
capital to help propel the economy.

He also warned investors not to overlook their corporate social
responsibility to provide jobs, increase local skills,

protect the environment and empower the community.

Non-governmental organizations often accuse investors here, particularly
in the mining sector, of abandoning their

responsibility to local communities in the pursuit of profit.

Protesters in Papua blocked roads and clashed with authorities in February
after illegal miners were shot on the property of

American mining firm PT Freeport.

The incident led to rallies nationwide, as protesters accused the company
of overlooking the poverty of local people around

the mine.

---

http://www.blackenterprise.com/yb/ybopen.asp?section=ybbf&story_id=99944279&ID=blackenterprise

N.O. Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. Mine Hits Gold Rush With 3Q Gains
2006-11-06
New Orleans CityBusiness

By Penix, Matthew

Buried 500 acres below the mountainous glacier caps of eastern Indonesia's
Papua highlands is a network of dark cavernous

twists and turns, a honeycomb of rock and soil spanning 600 miles.

Roughly 8 percent of Indonesia's population - 18,000 people - hitch rides
daily to go 13,000 feet up the side of the mountain

to a copper and gold mine. They haul their booty in trucks the size of
houses back down the hill, past the tropical mango

swamps and to the Arafura Sea ports.

This is the famed the Grasberg Indonesian mine, New Orleans
Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc.'s sole business venture,

and it's making top company administrators and shareholders rich.

The city's newest Fortune 500 company, listed by Forbes Magazine at No.
480 this year, earned $350.7 million in the third

quarter, or $1.67 per share, more than doubling earnings of $165.8
million, or 86 cents a share, in the year-ago period when

it set record annual gains of $935 million.

Quarterly revenue rose 67 percent to $1.64 billion from $983.3 million.

Following a second quarter where the price of gold settled at a
historically high $719.80 an ounce in May, third-quarter

averages lost some of their Midas touch at $621 an ounce.

But analysts such as Donald W. Doyle Jr., chairman and CEO of Blanchard
Economic Research in New Orleans, said gold could

surge as high as $800 by the first quarter in 2007.

"Gold has been influenced greatly by a number of factors that don't have
much to do with the supply or demand side of the

market," Doyle said. "The great thing is that gold is just beginning to
exert its role as a monetary asset and regardless of

how other commodities perform, Blanchard believes the next period of the
gold bull market will result from investors

recognizing that precious metals are currency alternatives, not simply
commodities."

Gold fever

Doyle expects gold to top $800 by late 2007 with silver reaching $18.
Copper improved to $3.48 a pound in the latest period

versus $3.30 a pound in the second quarter.

All those precious metals turn into cash for Freeport. With proved and
probable reserves for the mine totaling 40 billion

pounds of copper and 44 million ounces of gold, Kathleen Quirk, senior
vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer,

said the company has enough reserves to mine at its current pace until 2041.

Since 1988, when geologist chairman and co-founder James R. Moffett
sniffed out the mine, the discovery has produced 17.6

billion pounds of copper and 26.1 million ounces of gold, said spokesman
William Collier. Moffett forecasts mining 1.24

billion pounds of copper and 1.9 million ounces of gold annually for the
next five years.

Deep inside the dark recess of caves, miners are consistently discovering
new deposits, Collier said.

"It was a great quarter," said Victor Lazarovici, an analyst at BMO
Capital Markets, an international consulting firm with

offices in Brazil, Dallas and Atlanta. "When you're running one of the
lowest-cost mines in the world and prices are at

historic highs, you tend to do well."

James Turk, editor of Freemarket Gold and Money Report in North Conway,
N.H., said Freeport will earn even more in the next

18 months.

He predicts gold fever for traders with prices reaching four digits. "It's
a replay of the 1970s when gold boomed and it's

early in the game," he said.

Turk, who urged buying Freeport stock in October 2000 when prices were $8
a share compared with $57.77 last week, said he

expects the trend to continue for years.

"The reality is not that gold is climbing. The dollar is decreasing," he
said. "Gold is money. It's in the constitution. It's

the money of the United States. When the dollar's link to gold was removed
by (former) President Richard Nixon, the

discipline previously imposed on the dollar went with it, and a 15-fold
increase in the dollar price of crude oil since then

has been the result."

Shareholder windfall

While Freeport's quarterly sales slipped, higher gold prices offset the
decline. Freeport reported a 6.6 percent slump in

copper sales to 323.6 million pounds, which still exceeded company
forecasts of 280 million pounds. Gold sales rose less than

1 percent to 478,000 ounces but topped company estimates of 320,000 ounces.

"When you look at our nine-month results to date, we've already exceeded
last year's revenue," said Quirk. "We're on track to

have another record year."

Because company debt is so low at $76 million, shareholders also reap
benefits. Turk, who's been monitoring Freeport for six

years, predicts shareholders who bought $8 shares will see dividends equal
that price soon.

"They have a good management team, a great mine and they pay excess cash
flow in cash dividends," he said.

The company, frequently the subject of takeover speculation in a
consolidating mining sector, refuses to say if it is in

talks with potential buyers.

Turk doesn't think a merger is likely.

The company is uniquely split between its copper and gold mining
operations. This causes confusion in companies who

specialize in gold or copper alone.

That seems fine with Freeport CEO Richard Adkerson. "If we did anything,
it would have to be extraordinary," he said.

(Copyright 2006 Dolan Media Newswires)

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http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/article/0,13673,503061113-1555158,00.html

Croak Addiction
A zoologist roaming the wilds of Papua New Guinea has found dozens of frog
species unknown to science

By RORY CALLINAN

Sunday, Nov. 05, 2006

It was just after midnight when frog researcher Steve Richards heard a
strange melodious whistle amid the patter of rain in

the Papua New Guinea cloud forest. The sound swept away the Australian
zoologist's exhaustion as he struggled through the

thorny vines and stinging nettles covering the remote mountain slope in
the Southern Highlands. "When I heard this, I knew it

was going to be fantastic," he says. Switching on his tape recorder and
headlamp, he moved carefully toward the sound, trying

not to blunder into one of the limestone sinkholes that dot the area.

After an hour's searching, Richards and his companion, a local hunter,
found the source: a "warty brown blob" squatting on

moss in a patch of nettles. When he reached over and gently took hold of
the blob, it twisted viciously in a very unfroglike

manner and bit him on the hand. "I was shocked," he says. "Frogs don't
normally bite you. There's only one other frog in

P.N.G. that does that." The animal's bite, coupled with its unique cry and
strange appearance, told Richards he had snared a

place in the zoological textbooks with the discovery of a new species. It
was an exhilarating moment for the 44-year-old—but

such discoveries aren't new to him.

In 15 years of scouring P.N.G., Richards, who's attached to the South
Australian Museum, believes he has discovered almost

100 new frogs. Of these, he has managed to "describe," or scientifically
classify and name, 30; he still has about 70 whose

features must be studied carefully before they can be classified as a new
species. "We are really only scratching the

surface," he says. "Every time anybody goes searching in P.N.G. anywhere,
they find new things." Richards estimates that 350

species of frog have been identified on the island of New Guinea, but
predicts the number will eventually pass 600. With frog

populations worldwide under threat from habitat destruction, fungus
infections and introduced predators, Richards, whose

research is funded by Conservation International, believes recording the
amphibians is of vital importance. "New Guinea,

outside of the Amazon and some areas of central Africa, has the largest
areas of rainforest left," he says. "Nobody is

working there, and what's there is so spectacular."

Late last year Richards was a member of a scientific expedition to the
neighboring Indonesian province of West Papua that

found dozens of new animal and insect species in the remote Foja
Mountains. As for the warty blob he discovered in the

Southern Highlands, he has yet to finish the classification process. But
it's likely to have a name associated with its

snappy temperament. "I like a frog with attitude," he says.
>From the Nov. 13, 2006 issue of TIME South Pacific magazine