The Bloodwood Tree

http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20080124.H01
National News - Thursday, January 24, 2008 The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The House of Representatives has unanimously endorsed its initiative to create eight new provinces and 13 new regencies, while local figures say the plan will not benefit the people affected.
Septer Manufandu, the executive secretary of the Cooperation Forum of Non-Governmental Organizations, said Papuan people did […]

The Jakarta Post
Friday, January 18, 2008
Op-Ed
Neles Tebay, Abepura, Papua
Since the fall of Soeharto’s regime, Indonesia has apparently begun to move toward democracy.
Indonesian citizens have found space to exercise their rights and duties without fear, pressure and intimidation from the state.
Indigenous Papuans, for their part, have taken advantage of the democratic atmosphere to express their opinions […]

Translation
Slightly abridged
From JPIC/KPKC Synod, GKI
1 December 2007; 9 January 2008
Police arrest 36 people for flying the Morning Star Flag in Timika
On 1 December the police arrested at least 36 Papuans for flying the Morning Star flag in Kwamki Lama, district of Mimika Baru. Seven are due to be charged for the crime of makar (rebellion) […]

http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20080119.G06
Archipelago - January 19, 2008
JAYAPURA: A local nongovernmental organization has lambasted the Papua province government for allocating only 4.2 percent, or Rp 228 billion, of its 2008 budget to education.
Executive director of the Institute for Civil Strengthening (ICS) Budi Setyanto said the government had breached the constitution and had no sense of the crisis at […]

West Papuan women interrogated for making “Morning Star” bags
15th January 2008
JAYAPURA: Two West Papuan women, Yohana Pekei & Nelly Pigome, who make West Papua bags with the Morning Star symbol on the bag have been interrogated by the Indonesian Police and Intelligence agency (BIN).
The Police came first to their house asking “Who made this bag?”
The […]

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=37204
Radio New Zealand InternationalThe Voice of New Zealand, Broadcasting to the PacificTe Reo Irirangi O Aotearoa, O Te Moana-Nui-A-KiwaPosted at 17:07 on 23 December, 2007 UTC
Some religious leaders in Indonesia?s Papua province say the six-year-old autonomy law for their area has been violated.
During talks on the province’s future, representatives from the Buddhist, Catholic, Hindu, Muslim […]

Continuing on in the same vein of objections raised by some Christians to Global Warming, here’s another common one:
2) “Global warming science leaves God out of the picture.”
Any reasonable person has to admit that science is limited. Scientists have been wrong before and will be wrong again. Logically, if God is real then He is […]

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2007/s07120128.htm
Thursday, December 20, 2007
By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC)
Special to ASSIST News Service
AUSTRALIA (ANS) — If present demographic trends continue, West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya) will be majority Indonesian (mostly Javanese) Muslim by 2011, and the indigenous Melanesian predominantly Protestant Christian Papuans will be a dwindling 15 percent minority by 2030. […]

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0712/S00944.htm
Tuesday, 18 December 2007, 11:04 am
Press Release: Survival International
Police in West Papua are killing, torturing and intimidating the province’s tribal people with impunity.
Police shot dead two Papuan women and injured another as they protested on 5 December near the British and American-owned Freeport mine.
Less than two weeks before the shootings, the UN special rapporteur on […]