Jakarta – A clash between striking workers and police near Freeport Indonesia's copper mine killed one protestor and injured others, complicating a pay dispute that appears far from being resolved.

Jayapura – About two thousand people intending to attend the Third Papuan People's Congress due to open on 16 October have already arrived in Jayapura from other parts of Papua. Some arrived by plane while the majority travelled here by ship. The police have taken measures to guard the roads leading into Jayapura by examining all passengers who arrive aboard the white ships.

Indonesian police have detained ten West Papuan activists in Jayapura on Thursday ahead of a critical meeting for the pro-independence West Papua National Authority (WPNA), according to local sources.

Alex Rayfield and Claudia King – Workers at the Freeport McMoRan mine in West Papua resumed strikes on 15 September after more than six weeks of unresolved negotiation talks with company management.

Workers at the world's largest gold and copper mine in Indonesia have promised to strike indefinitely until their demands are met.

Most of the workforce at the giant Freeport McMoRan Mine have been on strike for a month which they have extended for another 30 days.

Workers at one of the world's largest gold and copper mine in the remote Indonesian province of Papua vowed on Friday to paralyze production, as their strike over pay enters its second month.

Karima Anjani – Union workers at Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc's extended their strike at a massive Indonesian gold and copper mine on Thursday for a second month, the longest strike in the country's mining industry.

Jayapura – The Third Papuan People's Congress [KRP] which is due to take place from 16-19 October will be provided with a security force of four thousand Papuans, according to the chairman of the KRP committee, Selpius Bobii, when he handed over the congress programme to Bintang Papua.

No: 024-Per.Sikap/DPP.GSBI/JKT/X/2011

Solidarity greetings,

As reported in various media as well as the chronology of cases that submitted to the Central Executive Board of Federation of Independent Trade Unions (DPP GSBI) on Thursday, 29 September 2011 ago, that there has been a workers strike of PT Freeport Indonesia, since September 15, 2011 till now.

Rangga D. Fadillah, Jakarta – PT Freeport Indonesia says it cannot fulfill its workers' demands for hourly wages because their offered 22 percent salary increase was the best among the mining companies operating in the country.

Thousands of workers from Freeport Indonesia have been on strike since 15 September demanding higher wages and better personal welfare, bearing in mind the great risks that their work involves. The wages they currently receive are far from adequate and are way below the wages paid in mines elsewhere the world.

Jakarta – PT Freeport McMoran, Indonesia's largest gold producer, has rejected employee demands for a 25 percent salary increase, arguing that the request had exceeded the company's capacity.

Index: ASA 21/029/2011

Mimika – Thousands of PT Freeport Indonesia workers staged another protest in front of the Mimika Manpower Agency over what they said was a violation committed by the company.

The protesters who have been on strike since Sept. 15, said the company had broken the law by recruiting new workers while they were on strike.

Thousands of PT Freeport Indonesia workers staged another protest in front of the Mimika Manpower Agency office over what they said was a violation committed by the company.

New York – Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said on Tuesday that his government was fully aware of problems in restive Papua and was working to find a way to deliver autonomy.

We fully support the strike by PT Freeport Indonesia workers for better wages and conditions. The government must guarantee legal protection to the workers and protect them against intimidation and threats while they are on strike and conducting negotiations with the company in accordance with Law Number 13/2003 on Labour.

Anita Rachman – Eighty percent of Papuans live in the approximately 3,000 kampongs spread across the country's largest province, so any meaningful understanding of how Papuans live must start at the village level.

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – A local NGO is urging the government to propose contract renegotiations with Freeport Indonesia to force the company to pay proper royalties for its mines.

Freeport Indonesia's labor union plans not to continue with a tripartite mediation involving the government and is seeking to discuss the matter directly with the company in order to end the month-long strike, union spokesman, Juli Parorrongan, said on Friday.

Jakarta – Recent violence in Papua in July and August underscores the urgent need for the government to reassess its military approach and place respect for human rights at the heart of conflict resolution policies and practices, human rights activists say.

There are allegations about [multinational private security corporation] SecuriCor led [at Freeport] by someone called Ian Church being involved in intimidating workers. This follows in the wake of an argument which almost led to a physical fight between the security forces and Sucuricore.

Jayapura – As the UN General Assembly begins today (21/9) in New York, Indonesia will be in front line of supporting Palestinian efforts to become a member of the United Nations. Indonesia has been supporting the Palestinian case ever since they declared their independence. But what about the fate of West Papua which has been under Indonesian rule for half a century?

Paris-Jakarta-Bangkok – The recent spike in violent incidents in Papua in July and August underscore the urgent need for Jakarta to re-assess its military approach to solve the situation of unrest in the region and to place the respect for human rights at the heart of conflict resolution policies and practices, said the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), the

Nethy Dharma Somba and Rangga D. Fadillah, Jakarta/Jayapura – A workers' union of gold and copper mining producer PT Freeport Indonesia has denied a statement made by the company's top executive that the workers had returned to a mining site.

Jakarta – PT Freeport Indonesia president director and CEO Armando Mahler said that the company had decided not to pay the salaries of workers who have been on strike since Sept. 15.

Rangga D. Fadillah and Nethy Dharma Somba, Jakarta/Jayapura – Freeport employees on strike over wage increase demands claimed they had been intimidated by PT Freeport's management, which on Friday reported that the copper and gold mining company was losing an estimated US$19 million per day as a result of the strike.

Samuel Wanda and Olivia Rondonuwu, Timika, Indonesia – Energy minister Darwin Zahedy Saleh said Indonesia is losing $6.7 million from revenue every day due to the strike involving thousands of workers at Freeport McMoRan's Indonesian copper mine.

A report has been released following a joint investigation into the mistreatment and torture of a group of 15 Papuans in connection with two criminal incidents that occurred recently in West Papua.

Hundreds of paramilitary police have been sent to Indonesia's Papua province after 9,000 mining workers started a month-long strike for higher wages. They're employed at the US owned Freeport McMoran copper and gold mine.

Timika, Indonesia – Thousands of workers at Freeport-McMoran's gold and copper mine in eastern Indonesia began a monthlong strike Thursday over a wage dispute.

Urgent Appeal Update: AHRC-UAU-041-2011

Dear friends,

Jayapura – The Papua Police have dispatched 114 police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) personnel to Timika to heighten security ahead of a planned month-long work strike by PT Freeport Indonesia workers from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Thousands of workers at Freeport McMoRan's giant gold and copper mine in eastern Indonesia prepared to go on a month-long strike over wages at midnight on Wednesday, a workers union said.

"The strike will start midnight involving 9,000 workers and it will last for one month," Virgo Solossa, a spokesman for the Freeport workers union told AFP.

Jayapura – Mufriadi, a journalist with TOP TV Papua, was reportedly beaten by the South Sorong regent while he was covering a rally involving local residents outside of the regency administration office over the weekend.

Investing in conflict-affected and high-risk areas is a growing concern for responsible businesses and investors. Often times companies based in developed countries operate in lesser-developed foreign markets, where governance standards are lax, corruption is high and business practices are poor.

Once again, violence has been used in Papua, this time against a television journalist working for the local TV station in South Sorong, TOP TV. Mufriadi who reports on the district of South Sorong was severely beaten by the bupati – district chief – of South Sorong in West Papua while covering an assault on the office of the district chief by local people.

A massive upsurge in "mysterious acts of violence" around the Jayapura region of West Papua has many local observers blaming Indonesian security forces.

Although thirteen of the fifteen Papuans who were arrested on 31 August have since been released, the National Human Rights Commission's (Komnas HAM) Papua branch is continuing to pay serious attention to what happened, said Mathius Murib, deputy chairman of the commission.

A group of Papuan independence activists in Auckland are hoping Pacific leaders have heard their calls for self-determination and the inclusion of West Papua in the Forum.

Pacific leaders once spoke out about the violence and human rights abuses perpetrated by the Indonesia military in Papua, but have ignored the issue for the past four years.

Jayapura – Police have detained two people identified as EK,17, and PK,19, for their alleged involvement in several murders in Jayapura, Papua, on June 7, 2011 and in Nafri on Aug. 1, 2011.

The two were arrested together with 13 others in Kotaraja, Jayapura, on Aug. 31 after the police investigated a series of violent incidents in August.

As security in West Papua deteriorates, local groups have stepped up their calls for dialogue with Jakarta. Joe Collins from the Australia West Papua Association reviews the latest developments

Jakarta – Jayapura district police have been accused of torturing 15 witnesses who were initially suspected of being members of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) in a violence related case in Abepura.

KontraS condemns the appalling practices of torture and criminalisation which were perpetrated by the law enforcement agencies against of a number of Papuan people by the police in Papua. Such activities are a serious violation of their human rights which should be avoided at all costs because they are in breach of a number of legal provisions.

David Adam Stott – "Where it cuts across the island of New Guinea, the 141st meridian east remains one of colonial cartography's more arbitrary yet effective of boundaries."1

Max Lane – I was very active between 1991 and 1999 in the international solidarity movement for Timorese independence. During that time, I worked with a variety of Timorese individuals and political groups.

At the the 42nd Meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) to be held in Auckland next week, AWPA calls on the PIF leaders to grant observer status to genuine representatives of the West Papuan people who are struggling for their right to self determination.

The Pacific Islands Forum is being told it must speak out about the ongoing instability in the Indonesian region of Papua.

Groups representing the indigenous Melanesian people of Papua are calling for them to be given observer status at next week's Forum summit in Auckland.

Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-150-2011

Dear friends,

Maire Leadbeater – The Melanesian people of West Papua, neighbours to Papua New Guinea, say they belong to the Pacific region and that it is their home geographically, ethnically and culturally. But since Indonesia took control of the territory in 1963 they have been excluded from regional meetings.