OPM makes Thousands of Papua Kids Absent from School

The insurgents have often blackmailed drivers passing on Tingginambut.

Gunshots and killings that have been taken place in Tingginambut, Puncak Jaya, Papua, within the last two years have caused thousands of children to be absent from school. The reason for this is that the alleged armed separatists from the Free Papua Movement (OPM) have burnt many schools.

“Thousands of children have no longer gone to school due to school burning set by the OPM,” said Head of Tingginambut District, Eranus Kogoya, in Puncak Jaya on Monday, June 28.

According to him, the said group intimidated people to avoid schooling after they set fire on school buildings. If the warning is denied, the group will kill the locals and loot the available livestock. “People can’t do nothing about it,” he said.

The insurgents have often blackmailed drivers passing on Tingginambut. “They at times destroyed the bridge. They would only fix it after they receive Rp 30 million from those who are willing to pass by,” he said.

The base of the OPM which is helmed by Goliat Tabuni is situated in Tinggineri Village, Tingginambut District. The separatist group consists of around 300 armed men.

The population in Tingginambut District today reaches 26 thousand people which consists of 13.5 thousand women and 12.5 thousand men.

Source: VIVANews

The Norwegian Ambassador Visits Papua

The first Norwegian ambassadorial visit to the province of Papua, situated two time zones and five hours flying time from Jakarta.

Ambassador Homme and Counsellor Ragnhildstveit visited Indonesia’s easternmost province Papua 8th to 11th of June.

Discussions on deforestation and climate was the main purpose of the visit, but the Ambassador also used the opportunity for interaction with the civil society, learning about social and political development, as well as discussing the situation of the indigenous peoples and human rights.

Governor Suebu hosted a dinner for the delegation and expressed his enthusiasm and support for the new bilateral partnership agreement within forestry.

The province has developed a forward looking strategy for reducing carbon emissions and sustainable forestry harvesting, and the Governor was complimented for his work and leadership within this field.

Papua is a central region for Indonesia’s ongoing effort to reducing CO2 emissions from deforestation.

More than 85 % of the province, 310 000 km2, is covered with forest. This makes Papua one of the world’s biggest reserves for tropical rainforest.

A Special autonomy status was introduced for the region in 2001, and Papua is the only Indonesian province where land tenure has been returned to indigenous people.

Throughout the visit the local authorities demonstrated great will to address the issue of deforestation and to collaborate with Norway and the Embassy in this regard.

The Ambassador stressed however, that no decision has yet been taken with regard to selection of pilot province under the REDD+ Agreement between Indonesia and Norway.

Source: the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta

Eastern Indonesia’s Economic Growth Reaches 5.9 Pct

“The economic growth in the first quarter was only 4.87 percent”

Bank Indonesia figured that the economid growth in eastern Indonesia especially Sulawesi, Moluccas, and Papua (Sulampua) up until the second quarter of 2010 may reach 2,97 percent.

“The economic growth in the first quarter was only 4.87 percent,” said Chief of Bank Indonesia reprsentative office in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Anotinius Siahaan, today, June 28.

According to Antonius, the economic growth in eastern Indonesia has been supplied by hotels, restaurants, agriculture, telecommunication, and public consumption. “There are promising economic potentials apart from mining, other exported commodities, cocoa, and food products,” he said.

The central bank also noted that the inflation rate in Sulampua until end of May 2010 was still under control at 4.28 percent. Meanwhile, the growth in banking industry during the same period reached 16.9 percent (year-on-year).

Antonius said the obvious challenges faced by the eastern Indonesia is concerned with developing agribusiness- and commodity-based industries.

“The potentials of the BI’s survey involving 75 percent respondents shows that the implementation of ACFTA has enabled the market to grow. Yet, the supply of raw materials is still hampered,” he said.

Source: VIVANews

State Electricity Company Push for a Part in Papua Project

State Electricity Company (PLN) said it is ready to provide any support in a power plant project prepared by Papua provincial administration in cooperation with regional company PT Papua Power Indonesia and state company PT Indra Karya.

Chief Director Dahlan Iskan last week the state firm is ready to help the consortium to build the 300 megawatt hydro power plant in Urumuka, Timika and said option to cooperate with Indra Karya in the project is the right one considering its experience in civil engineering projects.

But he suggested the Papua provincial authorities to make another cooperation with another company which has experience in electrical engineering jobs. “The consortium if possible should not build only a power plant but also its transmission. So that electricity could be distributed to consumers in Timika.”

Source: Tempointeraktif

New Papua tribe discovered

Telly Nathalia — A tribe of hunter gatherers living in trees in the remote forests of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua region has been discovered for the first time by the country’s census, an official said on Thursday.

The nomadic tribe, called Koroway, numbers about 3,000 people speaking their own language and living off animals and plants in the forest, census officials found during the country’s 2010 census survey.

“Their houses are in trees, their life is stone age,” said Suntono, head of Indonesia’s statistics agency for the Papua region, adding the tribe built ladders to huts in tall trees.

After receiving reports from missionaries, census officials needed to walk for up to two weeks to find the tribe, after travelling by boat from the nearest permanent villages, but still only reached the fringes of their territory.

The nearest city to the swampy southeastern corner of Papua is Merauke, the site of a planned giant food estate attracting interest from investors such as Singapore’s Wilmar (WLIL.SI) to grow sugar.

Scientists said last month they had found new species in Papua, including the world’s smallest wallaby. The discoveries come as scientists warn of the threat of species loss as the planet warms and forests are destroyed to feed humans.

Suntono said the tribe, naked except for banana leaves to cover their private parts, protected their area from outsiders as they said they depended on it for food, such as deer, wild boar, sago and bananas.

A secessionist movement has smouldered for decades in politically sensitive and resource-rich Papua, with attacks in the past year on workers at Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc’s (FCX.N) Grasberg mine that has the world’s largest gold reserves.

There are more than 2,500 tribes in Papua and all have different languages, Suntono added.

Source: Reuters

Bank of Papua to Prioritise Young Papuan

Bank of Papua will recruit new employees from Papua province. In recruiting, it will prioritise young Papuan.

“We will do our best to recruit indigenous people, especially the best qualified youngsters, to be employees at Bank of Papua in Merauke,” Merauke branch manager Bank of Papua, Leonardus Yumthe told the press.

Bank of Papua will conduct tight selection, so that the quality of the employees will be remain accomplished.

In order to have a fair selection, Bank of  Papua will let the independent team from Jakarta to do the recruitment.(wpnn)

World Class Gold Deposits in Papua

Melissa Pistilli — With several hundred gold mines producing worldwide, almost every country is home to at least a few. The world’s largest gold mine is the Grasberg Mine in the province of Papua, Indonesia, operated by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. Open pit operations began in 1990 and today the deposit holds a remaining 38.5 million ounces of proven and probable gold reserves.

There are various factors to consider in determining the value of a gold deposit and world class deposit status, including estimated gold resource, the grade of the gold, the ease at which the gold can be mined and the cost of refining the gold.

Average Grade

Ore grade refers to the proportion of gold contained in the ore of a particular mine and is represented in grams per tonne (g/t). According to the World Gold Council (WGC), larger and better quality underground mines contain around 8 to 10g/t, with marginal underground mines have averages of around 4 to 6g/t. Open pit mines usually have lower grades from 1g/t to 4g/t, but can be highly valuable despite the lower average grade. A more useful measurement, says the WGC, is cost per ounce, which uses a combination of grade and operating costs (USD/tonne).

Mining Costs

The cost of mining an ounce of gold varies greatly between mines and involves many variables. One increasingly important factor weighing on mining costs is that gold production is becoming more and more reliant on several smaller operations rather than larger-scale operations, which has raised development and operating costs in the industry as a whole.

Gold is extremely rare with an average concentration of 0.005 parts per million in the Earth’s crust. Gold mining firms must work with large quantities of ore just to extract small quantities of the yellow metal, making extraction an expensive process, and in turn creating a lower limit on the grade at which the mineral can be profitably extracted.

Type of Ore

Gold deposits are formed by a widerange of geological process, occur above and below the surface of the earth, usually alloyed to silver as electrum or with mercury as an amalgam, and can occur as nuggets, fine grains or flakes, or as grains or microscopic particles in other rocks.

Many primary orebodies are found in greenstones, thought to be ancient volcanic rocks, and include gold-copper porphyries. These ore bodies are usually very large and overtime these types of primary deposits have been eroded and the gold re-deposited in secondary deposits such as alluvial deposits.

Alluvial, or placer, deposits are found on the surface usually created by running water, typically rivers. Due to its extreme density, gold will easily fall from suspension as water slows, creating placer deposits in a trap site, such as the inside bends of rivers and creeks. By their nature, these types of deposits allow for simple extraction processes.

The above surface location and ease of extractability of this type of deposit has left the world with few economically important placer deposits. Also, the development of heap leach technology has made primary underground deposits much more accessible and economically viable.

Underground gold veins, or lodes, are found in association with a variety of other metallic deposits including sulphides and pyrites.

According to the World Gold Council, a majority of primary deposits have an oxidized skin of anywhere from a few inches to hundreds of feet thick. This oxidized state helps to break down the other minerals ensconcing the gold, making extraction much easier, especially when heap leaching methods are applied and followed up with carbon-based extraction, including inexpensive Carbon-in-leach and heap Carbon-in-pulp methods.

Deposits of abundant oxidised ore with little waste rock can be highly profitable; however, if gold is mixed with iron and other metals in sulphides, extraction can prove difficult and costly.

Source: Gold Investing News

Relief aid flowing in quake-affected Papua, Indonesia

Tents, foods, medicines and others relief assistance have been sent to remote Papua in easternmost of Indonesia after strong quake killed 17 people and devastated the area, official said in Jakarta Tuesday.

The authorities have used helicopters to deliver the relief aid as the geographical condition has made it difficult to send it through land, spokesman of National Disaster Management Agency Priyadi Kardono said.

“Some of the aid have already arrived to the scene and some are under way,” he told Xinhua over phone.

The government has distributed over 11,000 tons of rice, about 500 tents, scores of medicine and other relief aids, said Kardono.

Dozens of people have been injured after the 7.1 magnitude quake preceded and followed by a strong fore shock and a powerful after shock, rocked Papua last week..

More than 2,500 houses collapsed and over 900 houses have suffered from light damages.

“More quake victims have asked for more tents as their houses collapsed. We plan to send up to 3,000 tents,” he said.

Over 170,000 people were killed in Aceh in northern tip of Sumatra island in December 2004 after tsunami hit the Indian Ocean.

Indonesia has been frequently hit by earthquake as it is located on a vulnerable quake-hit zone called the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” where two continental plates stretching from western hemisphere to Japan meet, causing frequent seismic and volcanic movement.

Source: Xinhua

Nine villages and almost 2,000 homes destroyed in Papua quake

Seven churches, a power station and an elementary school are also razed. The region is very poor with limited communications. The exact number of victims is still unknown.

At least nine villages in South Yapen District were destroyed in yesterday’s devastating earthquake. The tremor, which measured 7.1 on the Richter scale, hit Biak Island, north of Papua Province. The latest report today indicates that at least 1,835 homes were razed to the ground.

Emergency relief chief Sumpeno Yuwono said that the affected region includes the villages of Aiyari, Randawaya, Hamtimoi, Karowaiti, Waita, Waridoni, Tare, Larelahiti, and Wabudayar. The area, which has a population of about 70,000, is currently isolated from the rest of the province. Seven churches, a power station and an elementary school have also been destroyed, he said.

Despite its mineral riches (oil, gas, lumber and gold), Papua is one of Indonesia’s poorest provinces. It is underequipped in terms of basic infrastructures like roads, bridges and hospitals. All this has complicated the rescue effort. Road travel and communications are difficult.

Light planes and choppers are the most effective means of transportation for both people and materiel.  Today, police and army choppers were able to deliver instant food to the worst hit areas.

Yesterday’s huge tremor was also felt in Central Sulawesi where earlier a man was reported killed in a previous moderate quake that hit the area.

According to Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, a geologist with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), yesterday’s quake in Papua and the one earlier in Central Sulawesi are commonplace.

Papua and other eastern regions of Indonesia, including Sulawesi and the Maluku Islands, are “prone” to earthquakes because of Indonesia’s location along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”.

Source: Asia News

Police Officer Shot to Death in Papua Province

A group of armed militiamen of the Free Papua Organization (OPM) attacked several police officers in Yambi District, Papua, yesterday, June 14.

During the gunshots, a police officer, First Brigadier Hendra, was shot to death. Head of Puncak Jaya Police Department, Chief Commissioner Alex Korwa, has verified about the incident.

“It occurred in the forest, which caused the police squad to take aback. A man was down,” he told the press.

According to the police chief, the perpetrators were member of Werius Telenggen’s group. Werius was a commander in the OPM military who was dead during a raid several weeks ago. “We have yet to take a clear decision on this. But this is still related to, and part of, the series of past occurrences,” he said.

The body of First Brigadier Hendra will be brought to Jakarta today.

Source: VivaNews