Mission & Justice

Linsay Mordoch; 22/11/08

Joni Marques can’t believe his luck. Nine years ago, with a cry of “Kill them all”, the then militia commander precipitated the massacre of a car full of nuns and priests. It was one of the most heinous crimes committed after East Timor voted to break away from Indonesia. One nun was slashed with a machete as she prayed, then thrown into a river and shot. Another passenger was tied to a tree and mutilated. Three were set alight; Marques shot one dead as he ran. Indonesian-trained Marques, who claims he was acting on the orders of unnamed generals in Jakarta, pleaded guilty at a United Nations tribunal in 2001 and was sentenced to 33 years’ jail. But to his surprise, in June he received a pardon from East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta, who said he wanted to foster a culture of forgiveness in the country. And now Marques is the beneficiary of an unprecedented spending binge by the coalition Government in Dili.

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Matthew Denholm; 20/11/08; (2 Items

Timber company Gunns was yesterday forced to make a reassuring statement to the stock exchange after comments by a former premier caused the company’s share price to plunge. On Tuesday, former Tasmanian premier Paul Lennon, a long-time champion of Gunns’ pulp mill in the state’s north, told a parliamentary committee he believed the $2.2billion project “may not be alive”. And there were calls for a royal commission to examine mounting allegations surrounding the state’s fast-track assessment of the project. Earlier, Mr Lennon conceded that the project proposed for the Tamar Valley, a developing tourism and wine region, was the wrong site for the mill. Gunns shares closed down 17.6per cent to 86c. Shares traded at $3.90 late last year and $2.31 in August.

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Kerry Murphy November 20, 2008

‘Ali’ and ‘Hussein’ are both Iraqi refugees in Australia. Ali arrived 3 months ago and applied for a protection visa which was granted last week. He was very relieved as now he has permanent residence in Australia and is now preparing to sponsor his wife and two children who are in Jordan. Hussein arrived two years ago and was granted a Temporary Protection Visa (TPV). Hussein made an application for a further protection visa in March but he is still waiting for a decision. He depends totally on the money he earns driving taxis. Hussein is very worried for his wife and young children. He had to flee after receiving death threats from one of the militias and had no time to make plans for his family. He could only promise to send money and to sponsor them as soon as he could. The TPV holds him back.

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19/11/08

Landowner issues affecting the Wafi gold project have taken another twist. A third landowner group, the Babuaf clan yesterday said it was getting a court order to restrain the developer, Morobe Mining Joint Venture Ltd from carrying out feasibility studies that it was engaged in. “Our lawyer is going to institute proceedings in the court soon to stop all work on the mine until the land issues are dealt with properly,” spokesman for the clan Thomas Nen said. An order is being sought by another landowner group to stop the Wafi gold project in the Bulolo district of Morobe Province. The Yanta and Hengambu landowners also from the same area shut the project last Wednesday and their representatives and a group of MPs from Morobe were in Port Moresby to have talks with government authorities over the decision by the National Executive Council to appoint a fresh lands titles commission hearing. While the Hengambu and Yanta clans were protesting the NEC decision and shutting down the project operation, the Bubuaf clan last Monday petitioned the MMJV to recognise them as legitimate owners of the Wafi land.

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Jason Koutsoukis; 19/11/08

The British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has rejected Israeli demands that Britain abandon its plan to force Israel to label clearly exports from settlements in the West Bank. On a two-day visit to Israel, Mr Miliband condemned Israel’s continued build-up of West Bank settlements in the 12 months since the Middle Peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, and called on Israel to adhere to its commitments to halt settlement activity. “The British position is for the fair and proper implementation of the agreements on produce from the region,” Mr Miliband said at a joint news conference with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas.

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18/11/07; http://www.postcourier.com.pg/20081118/tuhome.htm

Certain politicians are allegedly pestering the departments of Labour and Industrial Relations and Foreign Affairs to exercise leniency on the 223 Chinese apprehended at Ramu nickel mine. The Chinese were apprehended in Madang during a joint special operation conducted by officers from the Department of Labour, Immigration and the Trans-National Crime unit two weeks ago. Attempts to talk to Labour Secretary David Tibu were unsuccessful yesterday. However, sources within the department confirmed that among those politicians was the Labour and Industrial Relations Minister Mark Maipakai. The sources confirmed Mr Maipakai sent a letter to Mr Tibu advising him that the department’s actions were not in line with the Somare-Temu Government’s intention especially on the Ramu nickel mine. The minister’s office when contacted yesterday confirmed the letter but was surprised that it had been leaked to the media. The sources provided names of other prominent politicians that have been contacting the department to have leniency on the Chinese because the multi-million Ramu nickel mine was one of the biggest projects in the country.

Barak Ravid; 14/11/08; (3 Items)

Relations between Israel and Britain remained strained on Thursday over Downing Street’s intention to label products manufactured in West Bank settlements, a week before the expected arrival of British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, David Miliband, to the Middle East. Miliband, who will visit Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Lebanon next week, is expected to talk to Israeli officials over the settlements in the West Bank and his country’s proposed plan to label products manufactured in them. “This initiative is a serious and substantial problem in relations between the two countries, and is generating a sense of crisis,” a senior diplomat in Jerusalem said. Over the past few weeks Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has spoken to Miliband and tried to persuade him to cancel the plan, by equating it to the initiative by U.K. academics to ban their Israeli counterparts. The British Secretary of State responded that the policy did not amount to an embargo on products made in the West Bank, but was merely an attempt to enforce previous trade agreements between the two countries.

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Yuko Narushima; 11/11/08

Another temporary migrant working on a 457 visa has died from injuries sustained on the job after attempts by the union to visit his worksite were repeatedly thwarted, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union says. At least nine migrants on the visa scheme have died in work-related accidents in the past two years, at almost double the workplace mortality rate of the general working population. Lian Ron Xia, a welder from China, died in September from a head injury sustained in an industrial accident at Byrne Trailers in Wagga Wagga. This follows three 457-worker deaths in remote areas revealed by the Herald last year.

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Amanda O’Brien; 11/11/08

The contamination scandal that caused dangerously high lead levels in West Australian children and killed thousands of native birds has been labelled one of the state’s worst environmental disasters, second only to the Wittenoom asbestos hazard. Premier Colin Barnett said that despite the seriousness of what had happened, the former Labor government had failed to conduct a proper clean-up and that some residents were still living with the impacts of the disaster almost two years later. Mr Barnett visited Esperance yesterday to meet affected families and said he hoped to have new measures in place within weeks to tackle their concerns.

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6/11/08; (2 Items)

Another 41 non-citizens, all from mainland China were apprehended yesterday at Malolo Lodge outside Madang Town and Basamuk area yesterday for breaches of Papua New Guinea labour and immigration laws. This brings the total number of illegal miners confirmed to be in the country working with the Ramu nickel mine to 104, together with those that were apprehended on Monday and Tuesday at the mine site. Madang police criminal investigation division also confirmed that some of the 84 apprehended earlier were released after the company produced certain documents on their employment contracts while 63 were charged for breaching labour and immigration laws. The mine workers are out on police bail after the company paid K189,000 (K3000 each). They are expected to appear at the Madang District Court tomorrow.

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