2) Pacific NGOs want West Papua mission
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1) West Papuan leader denied PNG visa again
Updated at 1:53 pm today
The West Papua independence activist, Benny Wenda, has been denied entry into Papua New Guinea.
Mr Wenda was invited to Port Moresby by the city's governor, Powes Parkop, to attend a conference and other events, including next week's Pacific Islands Forum Summit.
But he says his visa application was denied with no explanation, and his lawyers say there was nothing wrong with the application.
The denial follows Mr Wenda's deportation from PNG last year when it emerged he did not have a required visa.
Mr Wenda says he received assurances he was clear to enter PNG again, but he suspects he may be on some immigration blacklist.
"The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea has already stated in a media interview that 'if Benny applied for a visa, he's free to come in'. So I tried to apply for a visa to enter the country, but again [I was] rejected for the second time. So I don't know whether it's a country decision to not allow me to enter."
A call has been made to Papua New Guinea's Immigration Department, but they are yet to respond.
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2) Pacific NGOs want West Papua mission
Updated at 3:30 pm today
Pacific civil society groups are adding their weight to a call for a Pacific Islands Forum mission to the Indonesian region of West Papua.
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua recently asked that a fact-finding mission be sent to to investigate allegations of human rights abuses.
Civil societies and non-governmental organisations have met in Port Moresby before the Forum Leaders summit next week.
Emele Duituturaga from the Pacific Islands Association of NGOs, or PIANGO, says the two main issues the group wants Forum leaders to address are climate change and West Papua.
Ms Duituturaga says the group wants an international binding agreement on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
She says the time has also come to look at West Papua.
"We have information directly from West Papua of the human rights violation atrocities. Yes, we know that this is being questioned. This is also why we are calling for a fact-finding mission into those human rights violations. This is quite urgent."
United Liberation Movement for West Papua was recently granted observer status at the Melanesian Spearhead Group sub-regional organisation.
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