1) FOOD SHORTAGE IN TREE SUB-DISTRICTS DUE TO FROST

2)  NO MORE ISSUE WITH FREEPORT FOR NOW, SAYS MINISTER

3) AIR FORCE COMMANDER: F16S IN BIAK IS READY TO SECURE BORDER

4) Food estate project may  turn Papua into forest  fire hotbed 

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http://tabloidjubi.com/eng/food-shortage-in-tree-sub-districts-due-to-frost/

1) FOOD SHORTAGE IN TREE SUB-DISTRICTS DUE TO FROST

Victor MamborOkt 30, 2015Health & Education Service0

Jayapura, Jubi – Residents of Lanny Jaya Regency was lacking of food stocks following the harvesting failure due to frost that occurred in the most part of regency, the Head of Lanny Jaya Agriculture Office, Andreas Agapa, confirmed Jubi on Thursday (29/10/2015) at Kantor Dinas Otonom, Kotaraja, Jayapura Municipality.

According to him, the local residents cannot run their activities as usual since some are moving to the safer locations. “Since the ice dew was occurring, local residents cannot running their activities in the farm. The primary commodity such as potato could not be harvested because of get rotten before harvesting time,” he said.

Andreas Agapa admitted it was the worst disaster occurred in the regency. “It had occurred for three times, but this time is the worst,” he said. Up to now, he further said the local residents of four sub-districts namely Mulamineri, Tiomeri, Balingga and Pirime were forcedly to move to other sub-districts. “Currently there are three sub-districts that could not be planted because the seeds would be dried. When it was happened, people must wait for new plantation until the early of New Year,” he said.

Further Andreas Agapa was highly appreciated the Food Security Office to provide 15 tons of rice for the local residents. “We just need to take it from the Wamena Logistic Body to further distribute to the refugees,” he said.

Earlier, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) Office Region V Jayapura said that a nature phenomenon occurred in the Agadugume Sub-district, Puncak regency is not categorized as hail, but a iced dew that similarly with the nature phenomenon happened in the Dieng Mountains of the Central Java.

A forecaster of BMKG Region V Jayapura, Irio Agung Kalabak said based on satellite observation in Papua Region, since July there is no cloud formation to cause a rainfall. This condition is similarly happened in other regions in Indonesia, which is moderately affected by El Nino before entering the long dry season until August. Especially for Papua, the quite extreme dry season would be occurred due to the indirectly impact of two tropical cyclones that centered in the Pacific, northeast of Philippines and the South China Sea.

“Its impact in the lowland areas is the extremely low rainfall, on the other hand the extreme weather would be occurred in the mountainous areas, which the heat during the day and cold temperatures at night that could reach the freezing point. This phenomenon makes the dew turns to ice,” he said in mid July. (Roy Ratumakin/rom)

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http://tabloidjubi.com/eng/no-more-issue-with-freeport-for-now-says-minister/

2) NO MORE ISSUE WITH FREEPORT FOR NOW, SAYS MINISTER

Victor MamborOkt 30, 2015Infrastructure0

Abu Dhabi, Jubi – The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Sudirman Said, said the Indonesian government has achieved a temporary settlement with PT. Freeport on the arrangement of the regulation on the coal and mineral resources in Indonesia.

“It has been completed,” Said told reporters while on the flight from Amsterdam to Abu Dhabi in a mission to the United States with the President Joko Widodo on Thusday (29/10/2015).

He said Freeport needs the government’s guarantee and assurance over their investment. He also confirmed he had meet the Freeport’s executive officer in the Unites States in the US Chamber of Commerce held in Washington DC. “I met Richard yesterday, the talk went to the rearrangement (of the regulation), no more talks,” he said. He added the rearrangement of the regulation would be settled because the aspects of mineral regulation in Indonesia must be revised at once.

The minister admitted it’s difficult to propose a deadline but as the initiative to start has been growing so strong from both the Government and the House of Representative, thus it is expected obtaining its result within a year.

“Through that letter, the tension between Freeport and the Indonesian Government has terminated, now it is to acknowledge the Indonesian people about what was happening,” he said.

He also appealed those who do not understand about the issue to not provoke the situation but try to understand about the real fact.

Within next one or two weeks, the Minister Sudirman Said will depart to Timika to launch the underground mining area which is part of the merger of PT. Freeport and the ten states companies. “Freeport invited ten states companies to provide supply and equipment, for instance, Krakatau Steel to supply the iron, or Pindad to supply heavy equipment,” he said. (*/rom)

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http://tabloidjubi.com/eng/air-force-commander-f16s-in-biak-is-ready-to-secure-border/

3) AIR FORCE COMMANDER: F16S IN BIAK IS READY TO SECURE BORDER

Victor MamborOkt 30, 2015Headlines, Politics, Government & Security0

Biak, Jubi – Manuhua Air Force Commander Gustav Brugman said the Indonesian military was ready to station three F16 fighter aircraft in Biak to secure the airspace at the border with Papua New Guinea.

“The three military fighter aircraft from the Rusmin Nuryadin Squadron, Pekanbaru, will do the defense-attack exercise until 15 November 2015,” Gustav Brugman said while accompanying the Operation Assistant of National Air Force Defense Command IV the Colonel Pilot Jonny Sumaryana in Biak, Thursday (29/10/2015).

He admitted the regular exercise program of Air Force personnel is part of the Indonesian Air Force’s commitment to optimize military equipment to secure the airspace from Sabang to Merauke.

During the exercise in Biak, according to Colonel Brugman, three fighter aircrafts F16 will conduct a air patrol over the airspace of Papua and West Papua provinces. He admitted this exercise might cause some noise that possibly disturbs the public convenience.

“As the commander, I have sent a letter to the regent and relevant offices asking for their support the presence of the fighter aircrafts in the exercise in order to improve the performance of the Air Force personnel,” said Brugman.

The defense-attack exercise of the Military Air Force in Biak was involving 62 Air Force personnel from Squadron 16, Pekan Baru, three fighter aircrafts F16 and a Hercules aircraft. (*/rom)

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http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/10/30/food-estate-project-may-turn-papua-forest-fire-hotbed.html

4) Food estate project may  turn Papua into forest  fire hotbed 

Hans Nicholas Jong, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | National | Fri, October 30 2015, 5:05 PM -

While the annual land and forest fires usually occurr in Sumatra and Kalimantan, a large agricultural project in Merauke, Papua, could turn the eastern part of Indonesia into a new hotbed of fires in the archipelago.

The prediction was based on a latest finding by Greenpeace Southeast Asia, which monitored 112,000 hot spots from Aug. 1 to Oct. 26. 

“One of the most worrying things is the fact that 10 percent of the hot spots were found in Papua, the newest agriculture industry development. Fires of such a scale had not happened before in Papua,” Greenpeace Indonesia forest political campaigner Teguh Surya said during the launching of the finding on Thursday. 

The largest number of hotspots during that period, 25 percent, was detected in Central Kalimantan with 28,368, followed by South Sumatra with 24,406 or 22 percent. Papua came in third with 11,590 or 10 percent. 

Papua usually does not suffer from forest fires as the operation of palm oil concessions is still limited in the province. 

However, this year marks a turning point of the annual forest fires in Indonesia, with the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency’s (BMKG) starting to detect hot spots in southern areas of Papua, with 92 spotted in Merauke regency and the remaining 12 in Mappi regency in mid-October. 

Flights in several parts of West Papua and Papua provinces, including in Jayapura, Manokwari and Timika, were canceled after visibility dropped to as little as 150 meters in places. Almost 80 percent of the smog in Manokwari is coming from fires in Merauke. The light haze even reached as far as Micronesia. 

With the hot spots in Papua concentrated in Merauke, it is easy to see the correlation between the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) program in Papua and the sudden appearance of hot spots in the province, according to another Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner, Yuyun Indradi.

“The connection is clear. If you look at the map, the concentration of the hot spots in Merauke is in the MIFEE area,” he said on Thursday. 

The number of hot spots in Papua was even bigger than the 2,423 hot spots detected in Riau, which usually held the dishonorable distinction of being the province with the highest number of hot spots in previous years. 

While Greenpeace believed that the forest fires in Papua were caused by the project, Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said that the fires might be caused by nomadic people.

“If the forests are burned and rain falls after that, grass will grow back and become green and animals will come. It will become hunting ground for nomadic groups. These aspects are being investigated by us,” she recently said. 

The MIFEE project is expected to cover a 1.2 million hectare area, or a quarter of Merauke. The idea of the MIFEE program was started when Merauke Regent John Gluba Gebze initiated the establishment of the Merauke Integrated Rice Estate (MIRE) in 2007 after former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited and made an appeal to make Merauke a national rice barn.

The program allows up to 49 percent foreign investment in local plantations, but has no requirement for securing a certain amount of the crop for local needs. -

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