Wednesday, June 19, 2013

1) MSG to assess situation



1) MSG to assess situation
2) New MSG chairman says West Papua bid must be handled carefully
3) PM to introduce new concept paper to MSG
4) Papua Local Govt Wants Freeport to Resume Mining Now
5)Freeport open mine may resume work this week

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http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=237336

1) MSG to assess situation

Fiji Times online

Nanise Loanakadavu
Thursday, June 20, 2013


THE Melanesian Spearhead Group will try to find a solution to the West Papua issue.
This was revealed by the incoming chair and FLNKS representative at the Foreign Ministers Meeting (FMM), Caroline Manchoro.
She said the West Papuan issue would be discussed at the 19th Melanesian Spearhead Group Leaders Summit although the position of the MSG was only to assess and monitor the situation there.
"We will be looking, assessing and monitoring regularly to find a solution to the West Papua issue," Ms Manchoro said.
"But we have to keep in mind the issue relating to West Papua due to the bilateral relations between countries that are concerned."
Ms Manchoro said under FLNKS chairmanship, no decision would be made that could endanger the bilateral relations of MSG member countries.
"We (FLNKS) have to make sure that the decision taken does not jeopardise the relations among countries including the solidarity of MSG," she said.
Fiji and PNG's stance in dealing with the West Papua issue is to include Indonesia in any discussions on the matter because it is a sovereign state.




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Posted at 20:22 on 19 June, 2013 UTC
The new chairman of the Melanesian Spearhead Group says the West Papuan bid to join the group must be handled carefully so as not to disrupt the group’s unity.
The spokesman for New Caledonia’s FLNKS movement, Victor Tutugoro, accepted the MSG chairmanship from Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama last night at the 19th MSG leaders summit in Noumea.
The issue dominating the summit is the formal application for MSG membership by the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation.
Mr Tutugoro echoed statements from meetings of the MSG Senior officials and Foreign Ministers ahead of this summit, that a decision on the application will be deferred.
His words are translated:
“We have thought about it within the SOM (senior officials meeting) and the FMM (Foreign Ministers Meeting). We must be careful on our side for the unity of the MSG.”
Victor Tutugoro.

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http://www.solomonstarnews.com/news/national/18021-pm-to-introduce-new-concept-paper-to-msg

3) PM to introduce new concept paper to MSG

WEDNESDAY, 19 JUNE 2013 14:40
PRIME Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo has hinted he will put before the Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders his initiated concept paper.

Speaking to the media before his departure to New Caledonia for the MSG summit yesterday, Mr Lilo said he will introduce an idea of establishing a MSG parliament.

“The idea of a MSG parliament is purposely to strengthen the MSG and advance MSG’s interests,” he said.

The Prime Minister added that the vital component of MSG is trade.

“I will pursue the fact that we need to encourage fair trade and not merely free trade.”

He said MSG need to establish its own stock market.

Mr Lilo said he will also speak on the draw-down of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI).

He said they will also revisit other vital agreements including the decolonization of New Caledonia.

When asked if he concern about the atrocities and human right abuses in West Papua in their fight for freedom, the prime minister said it is important that the West Papua issue is raised through MSG.

He said West Papua has been given an observatory status in the summit and the issue of concern facing them is the human rights issue.

Reports reaching the Solomon Star on the West Papua issue said MSG will send a ministerial delegation to West Papua at the invitation of the Indonesian Government to investigate first hand human rights violations there and also determine which group/organisation truly represents the struggles of West Papuans.

The Prime Minister left with his delegation and blessed Walter Folotalu with the acting Prime Ministerial duties as the deputy Prime Minister is also away in the Western Province to open the premiers’ conference yesterday.

By Ednal Palmer

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4) Papua Local Govt Wants Freeport to Resume Mining Now

By Carlos Paath on 3:44 pm June 19, 2013


The Mimika Regency government in Papua has asked the central government to push forward talks with Freeport Indonesia in order to speed up the reopening of the company’s Grasberg mine.
“We asked the Ministry of State Enterprise to take immediate action because there are many people who cannot work right now, while 80 percent of Mimika’s regional budget comes from Freeport,” Mimika mayor Abdul Muis said on Wednesday.
Abdul said at least 1,000 workers were currently out of work waiting for the mining to resume.
Abdul also demanded the government to renegotiate the contract with Freeport Indonesia.
“I support the contract renegotiation, we should involve the regional administration and community leaders…” Abdul said, before adding “don’t ever dream we will be able to solve problems in Papua.”
The head of the Mimika legislative council, Trifena Tinal, said a series of talks between the government and Freeport Indonesia’s management had failed to arrive at a solution.
“In Mimika we always tried to have a discussion with Freeport, in Mimika we are still poor in a very rich land,” Trifena said. “Trillions of rupiah are sent to the central government while we in Mimika only got a few billion.”
Trifena said the contract with Freeport Indonesia should be immediately evaluated and the regional government should be allowed to own shares in the company.
Trifena also demanded Freeport Indonesia distribute the compensation to the families of the 28 victims who died during the tunnel collapse at the Grasberg mine.
“This is a horrible tragedy and we hope the compensation for the family will be distributed immediately,” he said.
A tunnel in the underground training facility at the Big Gossan area of Freeport’s Grasberg mine collapsed on May 14, trapping 38 workers inside. Ten were rescued, but 28 others were found dead.
Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik said recently he would wait on the results of an investigation before acting.
“We’ll make a decision this weekend as to whether or not the open-pit mining can continue,” Jero said. “Our first priority will remain safety at workplaces.” He added that the team had declared the open pit to be safe, except for a few areas vulnerable to landslides.
But Jero said the government would not allow mining activities to resume before then, despite the results of an investigation and requests from both Freeport and the Mimika government.
The Indonesian unit of Arizona-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold briefly resumed open-pit mining production on May 28, but after a worker was killed in a separate accident, the government asked the company to suspend operations until the government investigation was completed. The probe was initially forecast to take up to three months.
Freeport declared force majeure on June 12 on the shipment of copper and gold to its customers pending separate investigations by the government and the company.
The firm said in statement that the stoppage at the Papua mine — the world’s second largest copper mine — resulted in an impact of 80 million pounds of copper and 80,000 ounces of gold as of June 11, and that it would continue to book a loss of 3 million pounds of copper and 3,000 ounces of gold a day until operations resume.
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5)Freeport open mine may resume work this week

Amahl S. Azwar, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Business | Wed, June 19 2013, 10:02 AM
A- A A+
Paper Edition | Page: 13
PT Freeport Indonesia likely to resume production activities at its Grasberg open mine site in Papua this week as investigators consider the facility “safe enough”, a senior minister has said.

While the condition of the hillside of the mining firm’s working area needs “close attention”, its open pit was quite safe for operations, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik said on Tuesday.

The Grasberg site generally produces 140,000 tons of ore per day or around 64 percent of Freeport’s daily production in Papua.

“Our investigation team said [Freeport’s] open-mine facility is relatively safe and, thus, its operations might be restarted in order to ensure that workers continue their activities and we [the government] can start getting revenue from taxes,” he said. “If the production remains completely stopped then all of us will be waiting in vain.”

The government, however, was currently waiting for PT Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc., to officially submit a systematic document in relation to their request for reoperation, the minister said.

“This week, we will come to a decision on whether we will give Freeport permission to restart the open pit,” he said.

In addition, Jero reiterated that Freeport’s underground mining facility, the Deep Ore Zone (DOZ), which usually produced 80,000 tons of ore per day or 36 percent of Freeport’s daily production, would remain closed until further notice.

The DOZ facility was placed in the spotlight in late May as a truck driver named Herman Wahid was buried after wet ore material at the DOZ facility covered his truck. The truck operator died after receiving medical treatment at Tembagapura Hospital in Papua.

The incident occurred only two weeks after a cave-in on May 14 at the company’s underground training facility near its Big Gossan mine site that killed 28 workers, the company’s deadliest incident in decades of operations in Indonesia.

The government formed an investigation team — consisting of local mining experts under the leadership of Ridho Wattimena, current head of the mining engineering graduate program at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) — to inspect Freeport’s safety standards.

Citing investigators’ findings, which he said he already obtained, Jero said the Big Gossan incident occurred due to ground movement resulting from the weathering of the land. “With that, I asked the team to thoroughly inspect all underground mining sites in Indonesia, not just Freeport but also others such as [the publicly listed] PT Aneka Tambang,” he said.

Freeport Indonesia spokesperson Daisy Primayanti said the company would wait for Jero to announce the decision on whether it could restart production activities at the open mine site or not.

As previously reported by local media, Freeport claimed it had lost an opportunity to produce three million pounds of copper and 3,000 troy ounces of gold per day since May 14 as operations were shut down amid the investigation.

The situation caused Freeport to face losses of US$18 million per day.

Last week, the Arizona-based Freeport declared force majeure as it could not meet the obligations to ship concentrate from its mine to its customers.

Freeport will unlikely meet its production target of 1.3 million troy ounces of gold by year’s end, up by 44.4 percent from the 900,000 troy ounces the mining firm booked in 2012, amid its operations shutdown.(asw)


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