New Caledonia’s domestic airline Air Calédonie filed for bankruptcy on Friday, following almost a month of blockades by customers in the French Pacific territory’s outer islands.

The protest movement had been initiated by groups of angry outer islands customers who intended to oppose the company’s decision to move Air Calédonie’s operations from the Nouméa Magenta airport to New Caledonia’s international La Tontouta base, more than 50 km away from Nouméa city.

The smaller airport of Magenta, until now dedicated to domestic traffic, is located closer to Nouméa.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

The beginning of the protest movement, which effectively grounded all Air Calédonie aircraft, dates back to 2 March 2026.

The protesters are gathered under the name of “collective of users” and, on each participating island, are headed by local chiefs who are invoking custom rights.

In terms of law and order, and in defence of the principle of freedom of movement and “territorial continuity”, on the part of French State representatives, there have been no attempts to disrupt the movement by force.

But negotiations have been taking place with leaders in order to find a concerted way out of the blockades.

Economic stakeholders have also alerted authorities of the negative repercussions of the inter-island crisis, especially on tourism and hospitality-related businesses.

On some islands, views expressed range from an outright rejection of any aircraft landing, while others would accept the landing of aircraft from other airlines, but not from Air Calédonie.

Outer islands airports blockaded
Following weeks of blockade that have caused heavy losses for the company — dubbed “AirCal” — its board of directors, at a meeting on Friday in the capital Nouméa, decided to file for bankruptcy.

It said the current situation was no longer sustainable.

The blockade affected all of AirCal’s outer islands destinations, including the Loyalty Islands (Maré, Lifou, Ouvéa and Tiga) and the Isle of Pines (south of the main island of Grande Terre).

One of the options, if approved by a court, could allow a resumption of operations, if the process is deemed sustainable.

The company said under the proposed process, all debts would be frozen and provided it was allowed to resume inter-island flights, Air Calédonie could continue operating.

But if the plan is not approved by the judges, this could also mean an order for the company to go into receivership.

AirCal said the situation currently affected “almost 200 families”.

Vanuatu connection
Air Calédonie, in its embryonic form, started operations in the mid-1950s.

It currently operates a fleet of four turbo-prop ATR-72 aircraft.

Due to previous hardships faced recently (including the covid crisis, which also badly affected inter-islands operations), Air Calédonie had also entered into agreements with Air Vanuatu in October 2025  to lease one of its aircraft for the neighbouring archipelago’s domestic airlinks, including to and from the capital Port Vila and Vanuatu’s other main islands of Espiritu Santo (North) and Tanna (South).

In September 2024, a Nouméa-Port Vila bi-weekly link was also established under a codeshare agreement between Air Calédonie and Air Calédonie international aboard an ATR-72 aircraft.

At the time, the agreement was perceived as one step towards a possible merger of the two entities’ domestic and international operations, in a bid to save costs in the face of recent crises.

The recent crisis situation was also compounded by the riots that broke out in New Caledonia — mainly in the capital Nouméa and its surrounding area — in May 2024.

The unrest caused about 14 dead and material damage of over 2 billion euros (about NZ$ 4 billion) due to arson and looting.

But it also affected the capacity to operate domestic and international flights out of the airports of Nouméa La Tontouta and New Caledonia’s outer islands.

The plan to relocate Air Cal’s operations from Magenta to La Tontouta had been mooted by previous governments of New Caledonia, on the basis that if the move was not effected, then the company would not survive.

‘It looks as if someone wants the death of AirCal — Alcide Ponga
Commenting on the blockade, New Caledonia local government President Alcide Ponga was blunt. He told local media earlier this week: “It looks as if someone wants the death of AirCal.”

However, one of the blockaded small airports, on the Isle of Pines (South of Nouméa), announced earlier this week its intention to re-allow traffic, on the condition that Air Calédonie lands again at the small and nearby airport of Nouméa-Magenta and not at the main La Tontouta base.

The main shareholders of Air Calédonie are the government of New Caledonia and its three provinces (North, South and the Loyalty Islands group).

During heated debates on Thursday at New Caledonia’s Congress, politicians and board members from across the political chessboard called on the company to re-engage in negotiations to attempt an agreement to re-open all of the blockaded outer islands airfields and thus bring in fresh cash.

Another cash-generating option also envisaged by the company would be to persuade the board and stakeholders to set aside a financial package so that the company can go on operating.

Earlier this month, Air Calédonie was forced to put half of its staff into temporary unemployment mode, because the company’s financial situation (a cash flow estimated at only 3 million euros) did not allow any salary payment beyond April 2026.

Air Calédonie said it remained “mobilised to save a vital company for New Caledonia and design a viable recovery plan”.

A similar plan was already implemented in 2024 in the wake of the post-riots crisis.

Humanitarian special flights for patients
In recent days, New Caledonia’s government introduced the notion of humanitarian “sanitary corridors” in the form of special flights to transport selected patients in dire need of care to and from the outer islands and the capital Nouméa, at an estimated cost of some 13,500 euros (about NZ$27,000) per trip.

In the Loyalty Islands, several tourism and hospitality facilities have also suffered the brunt of the disruption of inter-island traffic.

Some of those have already been forced to either close down or enter into receivership.

No maritime alternative
The situation is further compounded by serious technical problems faced by the alternative means of inter-island transport — the ferry Betico has also been unable to operate, on a regular basis, over the past few months.

The ship is currently undergoing repairs to one of its engines and it announced tentative resumption of operations next week on April 3, the operating company said.

Until then, all trips to and from Nouméa have been cancelled.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

If Israel and the US attack Iran, the cosy worlds of Europe, Australia and New Zealand could be swept up in an economic catastrophe.

Should the Iranians survive a terrifying onslaught, they have vowed to strike back in a way that could crash the global economy.  How they could quite possibly do this is the topic of this article.

The leaders of the Islamic Republic — love them or hate them — know that they face an existential threat; that the continued existence of a unified state called Iran is imperilled.

• READ MORE: Iran will not bow down to US pressure in nuclear talks, Pezeshkian says
• Other Iran reports

They also know that the collective West will not stand up for international law and the proscription on launching wars of aggression. Under these circumstances a state will sacrifice anything to survive, including hitherto unthinkable acts like sinking the USS Abraham Lincoln, the glory of the American war machine.

All the signs are pointing to a new Shock and Awe campaign by the United States.

The goal, as it was in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, is a fast knock-out. Mission Accomplished in a few weeks.

War, however, seldom goes entirely to plan — the Americans never expected they would spend 20 years in Afghanistan and waste trillions of dollars to move from the Taliban regime to . . .  the Taliban regime.

Here is a selection of options open to the Iranians if they survive the initial onslaught.

Shut down all civilian flights for the duration of the conflict
Without firing a single missile, Iran can likely bring all flights into and out of the entire Gulf region to a shuddering halt. That’s 500,000 passengers per day.

More than 180 million passengers pass through Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai every year.

Simply issuing a warning that the entire Gulf region is an air combat zone will put the brakes on all major airlines, effectively severing the primary link between Europe, Asia and Australasia for as long as Iran hangs on.

Insurance companies would issue a cancel note on all policies (for airlines, passengers, airports, provisioners) for the entire region.

No airline will defy this interdiction. Would Qantas, for example, fly one of its A380s loaded with mums, dads and kids into a potential kill zone?  The Iranians could underscore the seriousness by firing a couple of missiles onto runways or using EW (electronic warfare tools) to spoof or harass planes.

In an interview with @CBSNews , Iran’s FM Seyed Abbas Araghchi said uranium enrichment is Iran’s legal right under the NPT, reaffirming peaceful nuclear policy and commitment to diplomacy
More: https://t.co/XqHaDqxOfl https://t.co/3tGlg9SJKL

— Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (@Iran_GOV) February 22, 2026

Shut down all oil and LNG shipments
Iran will likely mine the Strait of Hormuz 33 km (21 miles) wide, making it instantly uninsurable for any oil or LNG tanker to move into or out of the Gulf.  Huge numbers of smart mines (that can recognise the acoustic signature of a tanker) will be deployed as well as hundreds of semi-submersible drone boats.

Spread out across the Gulf are thousands of short-range anti-ship missiles that will be virtually impossible to suppress.

New Zealand has scrapped a project to build an airport in Tokelau after sinking NZ$3 million into the design phase.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade told RNZ Pacific that the Tokelau government had been advised of their decision.

Tokelau is completely inaccessible by plane, with visitors and its roughly 2600 residents required to travel via boat from Samoa. A return fare on the boat, which runs once every two weeks, is approximately NZ$306, with a travel time of around 24-32 hours.

• READ MORE: Other Tokelau reports

“This decision was made in the context of the high cost of the project and the constrained fiscal environment currently facing the New Zealand government,” MFAT said in a statement.

“We recognise that air services have been a long-held aspiration of the people of Tokelau. ”

The government had spent around $3 million on feasibility, design, business casing and procurement planning since 2020, with funding agreed to the year before. The project faced delays due to COVID-19.

Stuff reported in 2022 that tenders for the project that had been put out for one provider who would be willing to work with the council of elders, or Taupulega, on a design concept.

Intended design
An Official Information Act request from October 2024 confirmed that the intended design included one terminal with an 800m by 30m runway on Nukunonu, the largest of Tokelau’s three atolls.

A tender for a construction contractor had been placed as late as September 2025, with an expected timeline reaching out to 2030, according to MFAT’s DevData tool.

John Teao, former chairman of the Wellington Tokelau Association, said he was personally pleased to see the project come to its end.

“There’s not enough land to have an airstrip . . .  and it’s also the environmental impact — it’s a pristine environment,” Teao said.

“I just don’t see any any justification for an airport.

“Maybe in the future, if they have sea planes or things like that.”

Teao said he hopes to see the money spent on something more useful, such as improving the existing boat system.

Bridging the gap
The New Zealand Labour Party’s Pacific spokesperson, Carmel Sepuloni, said this project was intended to bridge the gap between Tokelau and the world.

“While the details are unclear, it’s disappointing to hear this news,” she said in a statement.

“There are real risks that come with having no access to an airstrip. With a population of about 2500 and almost 10,000 Tokelauans living in New Zealand, travel to and from Tokelau is difficult.

“There’s a clear need and given Tokelau is within the realm of New Zealand, I’d expect the government to offer a clear explanation as to why they’ve scrapped these plans.”

An election in Tokelau for their General Fono is set for January 29. Each village is selecting their candidates for just over a week of campaigning.

The Fono consists of three Faipule, or village leaders, three Pulenuku, or village mayors, and 14 general delegates, elected for a three-year term.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

From heavy visa bonds to suspended applications to straight-up travel bans, the United States has implemented or announced sweeping restrictions on Pacific travel in just the first two weeks of 2026.

Confirmed on Thursday, Fiji is among a list of 75 countries for which the US will suspend the issue of migration visas next week from January 21.

The suspension does not apply to non-immigrant visas, such as for tourism or business.

• READ MORE: Pacific Beat: US travel restrictions in force for Tonga
• Pacific travellers face high costs and strict rules under US visa bond expansion
• Other US travel reports

At the same time, many Pacific Island countries will now have to pay bonds of up to US$15,000 to enter the country on a temporary visa.

And two weeks ago, The Guardian reported a complete freeze on all visa applications for Tongan citizens had come into force, impacting a community of around 79,000 Tongan Americans, according to latest estimates.

What happened?
A leaked State Department memo said the government was targeting nationalities more likely to require public assistance while living in the US.

“The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America’s immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people,” the US State Department said in a statement reported by the Associated Press.

“Immigrant visa processing from these 75 countries will be paused while the State Department reassess immigration processing procedures to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who would take welfare and public benefits.”

In terms of travel restrictions, it puts these pacific island nations in league with the likes of Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Somalia, and even Venezuela.

Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has gone as far as to tell the Fiji Sun on Friday that his nation “brought it on ourselves.”

“We rank very highly. They are illegal immigrants. They are there without authority and must be dealt with according to the law of the United States.” Rabuka said.

“We have to take the bull by the horns and make sure we comply with the new rules that will be placed on us.”

Who has been impacted?
Fijians, Tongans, Tuvaluans and Ni-Vans. Tongans most of all.

The suspension took out B-1 (Business), B-2 (Tourist), F (Student), M (Vocational), and J (Exchange Visitor) visas, but it left the door open for existing holders, as well as these exceptions:

• Immigrant visas for ethnic and religious minorities facing persecution in Iran
• Dual nationals applying with a passport of a nationality not subject to a suspension
• Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) for some US government employees
• Participants in certain major sporting events
• Existing Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs)

Though the US State Department has remained tight-lipped about its reasons for targeting Tonga in particular, White House releases have pointed to high overstay rates, and concerns around Citizenship By Investment (CBI) passport schemes that lack secure background checking.

This would implicate Tonga, which may be developing a CBI scheme of their own, along with countries like Vanuatu and Nauru.

As for Fiji, immigration visas are off the table, but visitor visa categories are still open.

The two countries, alongside Tuvalu and Vanuatu, are on a list of countries included in the new US Visa Bond Pilot Programme, requiring a US$10,000 visa bond, a significant personal cost for a developing state.

Those bonds could be increased or decreased per application based on personal circumstances, with a cap of US$15,000.

What’s the logic?
Core to the Trump Administration’s philosophy towards migration is that those who enter the US (legally, that is) need to be able to pay their own way.

Based on social media activity, one of the many benchmarks for this standard could be the extent to which migrant households depend on US institutions, such as welfare, healthcare and other forms of support.

In a post on Truth Social on January 7, Trump released a chart detailing how often these households receive welfare and public assistance in the US.

Several Pacific nations featured highly on Trump’s chart, with the Marshall Islands ranking fourth on the list at 71.4 percent.

Other Pacific countries include Samoa at 63.4, Federated States of Micronesia at 58.1, Tonga at 54.4, and Fiji at 40.8.

American Samoa, a US territory, featured at 42.9 percent.

By the numbers
All the same, Pacific Islanders make up a relatively minor percentage of the immigrant population. The US Migration Policy Institute estimates that, as of 2023 there are 166,389 immigrants currently in the US who were born in Oceania (other than Australia and New Zealand).

On those estimates, islanders would make up 0.3 percent of foreign-born Americans. So while Trump’s figures may create the impression of big-league dole bludging, it is really a fraction of the overall picture.

All the same, it is not as though the US is not guilty of sweeping up Pacific states onto migrant ban lists that ought not be there.

Take Tuvalu for instance: in July they were included on a list of countries where visa bans were being strongly considered . . . by accident.

The microstate sought and obtained written assurance from the US that this was a mistake, to which the US pointed to “an administrative and systemic error on the part of the US Department of State”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Caledonia’s tourism industry is hopeful for a rebound as Air New Zealand resumed its flights over the weekend.

To mark Air New Zealand’s return, on its social networks, Nouméa-La Tontouta international airport posted a vibrant “Welcome Back to New Caledonia Air New Zealand, we are happy to welcome you back on our tarmac”.

The much-awaited resumption comes almost 18 months after the scheduled flights were interrupted following grave civil unrest that broke out mid-May 2024.

• READ MORE: French Overseas Minister Moutchou postpones first visit to New Caledonia
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Air New Zealand ceased flights between Auckland and Nouméa, the French territory’s capital, on 15 June 2024, at the height of violent civil unrest.

It said at the time that regarding New Caledonia, the New Zealand government still recommended to “exercise increased caution” (Level 2 of 4) due to the “ongoing risk of civil unrest”.

The riots resulted in 14 deaths, more than 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4 billion) in damage, thousands of businesses and jobs destroyed and a sharp drop in the French Pacific territory’s GDP (-13.5 percent), bringing its economy to its knees.

Tourism from its main regional source markets, namely Australia and New Zealand, also came to a standstill.

Numbers collapsed
On New Zealand arrivals, between the first quarters of 2024 and 2025, visitor numbers collapsed by 90 percent (from 1731 to 186).

Latest statistics published by local institute ISEE confirmed the sharp drop, for the first quarter of 2025 — only 9670 arrivals, a record drop of 62 percent compared to the previous year.

This is the worst volume observed for the past 30 years (not including the covid pandemic period).

New Caledonia’s tourism stakeholders have welcomed the resumption of the service to and from New Zealand, saying this will allow the industry to launch fresh, targeted promotional campaigns on the New Zealand market.

New Caledonia’s international carrier Air Calédonie International (Air Calin) is also operating two weekly flights to Auckland from the Nouméa-La Tontouta international airport, in code-sharing mode.

Local authorities were also placing high hopes in the other key source market of the region — Australia. New Caledonia’s stakeholders are planning to launch significant promotional campaigns.

“Air New Zealand is resuming its Auckland-Nouméa service starting 1 November 2025. Initially, flights will operate once a week on a Saturday. This follows the New Zealand government’s decision to update its safe travel advisory level for New Caledonia.

“The resumption of services reflects our commitment to reconnecting New Zealand and New Caledonia, ensuring that travel is safe and reliable for our customers. We will continue to monitor this route closely.

“Passengers are encouraged to check the latest safe travel advisory and Air New Zealand’s official channels for updates on flight schedules,” the company stated.

“Political tensions and civil unrest may increase at short notice. Avoid all demonstrations, protests, and rallies as they have the potential to turn violent with little warning.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Micronesian Islands Forum cranks up with officials meetings this week in Majuro, with the official opening for top leadership from the islands tomorrow morning.

Marshall Islands leaders are being joined at this summit by their counterparts from Kiribati, Nauru, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau.

“At this year’s Leaders Forum, I hope we can make meaningful progress on resolving airline connectivity issues — particularly in Micronesia — so our region remains connected and one step ahead,” President Hilda Heine said on the eve of this subregional summit.

• READ MORE: Other Micronesian reports

The Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia have been negotiating with Nauru Airlines over the past two years to extend the current island hopper service with a link to Honolulu.

“Equally important,” said President Heine, “the Forum offers a vital platform to strengthen regional solidarity and build common ground on key issues such as climate, ocean health, security, trade, and other pressing challenges.

“Ultimately, our shared purpose must be to work together in support of the communities we represent.”

Monday and Tuesday featured official-level meetings at the International Conference Center in Majuro. Tomorrow will be the official opening of the Forum and will feature statements from each of the islands represented.

Handing over chair
Outgoing Micronesian Island Forum chair Guam Governor Lourdes Leon Guerrero is expected to hand over the chair post to President Heine tomorrow morning.

Other top island leaders expected to attend the summit: FSM President Wesley Simina, Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, Nauru Deputy Speaker Isabela Dageago, Palau Minister Steven Victor, Chuuk Governor Alexander Narruhn, Pohnpei Governor Stevenson Joseph, Kosrae Governor Tulensa Palik, Yap Acting Governor Francis Itimai, and CNMI Lieutenant-Governor David Apatang.

Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa is also expected to participate.

Pretty much every subject of interest to the Pacific Islands will be on the table for discussions, including presentations on education, health and transportation. The latter will include a presentation by the Marshall Islands Aviation Task Force that has been meeting extensively with Nauru Airlines.

In addition, Pacific Ocean Commissioner Dr Filimon Manoni will deliver a presentation, gender equality will be on the table, as will updates on the SPC and Secretariat of the Pacific Region Environment Programme North Pacific offices, and the United Nations multi-country office.

The Micronesia Challenge environmental programme will get focus during a luncheon for the leaders hosted by the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority on Thursday at its new headquarters annex.

Bank presentations
Pacific Island Development Bank and the Bank of Guam will make presentations, as will the recently established Pacific Center for Island Security.

A special night market at the Marshall Islands Resort parking lot will be featured Wednesday evening.

Friday will feature a leaders retreat on Bokanbotin, a small resort island on Majuro Atoll’s north shore. While the leaders gather, other Forum participants will join a picnic or fishing tournament.

Friday evening is to feature the closing event to include the launching of the Marshall Islands’ Green Growth Initiative and the signing of the Micronesian Island Forum communique.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Air New Zealand has announced it plans to resume its Auckland-Nouméa flights from November, almost one and a half years after deadly civil unrest broke out in the French Pacific territory.

“Air New Zealand is resuming its Auckland-Nouméa service starting 1 November 2025. Initially, flights will operate once a week on a Saturday. This follows the New Zealand Government’s decision to update its safe travel advisory level for New Caledonia”, the company stated in its latest update yesterday.

“The resumption of services reflects our commitment to reconnecting New Zealand and New Caledonia, ensuring that travel is safe and reliable for our customers. We will continue to monitor this route closely.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia, French Polynesia at UN decolonisation seminar in Dili
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

“Passengers are encouraged to check the latest travel advisories and Air New Zealand’s official channels for updates on flight schedules”, said Air New Zealand general manager short haul Lucy Hall.

In its updated advisory regarding New Caledonia, the New Zealand government still recommends “Exercise increased caution” (Level 2 of 4).

It said this was “due to the ongoing risk of civil unrest”.

In some specific areas (the Loyalty Islands, the Isle of Pines (Iles de Pins), and inland of the coastal strip between Mont Dore and Koné), it is still recommended to “avoid non-essential travel (Level 3 of 4).”

Warning over ‘civil unrest’
The advisory also recalls that “there was a prolonged period of civil unrest in New Caledonia in 2024. Political tensions and civil unrest may increase at short notice”.

“Avoid all demonstrations, protests, and rallies as they have the potential to turn violent with little warning”.

Air New Zealand ceased flights between Auckland and the French territory’s capital, Nouméa on 15 June 2024, at the height of violent civil unrest.

Since then, it has maintained its no-show for the French Pacific territory, one of its closest neighbours.

Air New Zealand’s general manager international Jeremy O’Brien said at the time this was due to “pockets of unrest” remaining in New Caledonia and “safety is priority”.

New Caledonia’s international carrier Air Calédonie International (Aircalin) is also operating two weekly flights to Auckland from the Nouméa-La Tontouta international airport.

The riots that broke out on 13 May 2024 resulted in 14 deaths and more than 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4.1 billion) in damages, bringing New Caledonia’s economy to its knees, with thousands of businesses and jobs destroyed.

Tourism from its main regional source markets, namely Australia and New Zealand, also came to a standstill.

Specifically regarding New Zealand, local statistics show that between the first quarters of 2024 and 2025, visitor numbers collapsed by 90 percent (from 1731 to 186).

New Caledonia’s tourism stakeholders have welcomed the resumption of the service to and from New Zealand, saying this will allow the industry to relaunch targeted promotional campaigns in the New Zealand market.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Solomon Islands has the highest-ranked passport of Pacific Island nations, at 37th equal globally.

This is according to the Henley Passport Index.

The index, organised by a consulting firm that describes itself as “the global leader in residence and citizenship by investment,” releases the list based on global travel freedoms using data from the International Air Transport Association.

• READ MORE: Other passport reports

The index includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations.

The Solomon Islands passport has access to 134 countries out of 227 on the list.

Samoa and Tonga have access to 131 destinations, while the Marshall Islands has access to 129.

Tuvalu is in equal 41st place with access to 128 countries, while Kiribati, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau can visit 124 countries visa-free.

Further down the list is Vanuatu with access to 92 countries; Fiji with 90; Nauru, 89 and Papua New Guinea, 87.

Singapore tops the global list, with access to 195 countries, ahead of Japan (193 destinations) and six countries in third equal position – Finland, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea and Spain (192 destinations).

New Zealand is 5th equal (able to visit 190 countries) and Australia 6th equal (189 countries).

The ranking is the highest for New Zealand since 2017. It peaked at No 4 in 2015 but dipped as low as 8th in 2018 and 2019.

At the tail end of the list are countries including Yemen, Iran and Syria, with Afghanistan at the bottom ranked 106th, with only 26 countries allowing visa-free access.

Incidentally, Australia also has the most expensive passport in the world — with a new adult passport costing A$412 (US$255.30) ahead of Mexico (US$222.82), the USA (US$162.36) and New Zealand (US$120.37).

Henley and Partners said it uses a scoring system.

For each travel destination, if no visa is required for passport holders from a country or territory, then a score with value = 1 is created for that passport. A score with value = 1 is also applied if passport holders can obtain a visa on arrival, a visitor’s permit, or an electronic travel authority (ETA) when entering the destination.

The total score for each passport is equal to the number of destinations for which no visa is required (value = 1).

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Virgin Australia has confirmed a “serious security incident” with its flight crew members who were in Fiji on New Year’s Day.

Virgin Australia’s chief operating officer Stuart Aggs said the incident took place on Tuesday night – New Year’s Eve

The crew members were in Fiji on night layover.

Fiji police said two crew members had alleged they were raped while out clubbing and one alleged her phone had been stolen.

They had gone out to a nightclub in Martintar.

“I’m sorry to advise of a serious security incident which affected a number of crew in Nadi, Fiji, on Tuesday evening,” said Aggs on New Year’s Day.

“Our immediate priority is to look after the wellbeing of our crew involved and make sure they are supported. The safety and welfare of our people is our number one priority.”

Virgin Australia has kept the crew members in Nadi as police investigations continue.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Twenty New Caledonian children who suffered the shock of Port Vila’s 7.3 magnitude earthquake have been repatriated from Vanuatu on board a French military CASA aircraft.

The special operation was conducted on Thursday, as part of relief operations conducted by the Nouméa-based French Armed Forces in New Caledonia in response to the destructive quake that shook the Vanuatu capital, where several buildings have collapsed.

The group of children, from northern New Caledonia (Népoui, Koné, Pouembout, and Poia), are aged between 8 and 14.

• READ MORE: Vanuatu snap election pushed back after earthquake
• Vanuatu earthquake: Last repatriation from Port Vila, water in short supply
• Other Vanuatu earthquake reports

They were visiting Vanuatu as part of a holiday camp organised by their sports association.

They were supervised by four adults.

One of them, Melissa Rangassamy, told local Radio Rythme Bleu upon arrival in Nouméa that the group was having a picnic on a Port Vila beach when the ground started to shake violently.

“Children were falling to the ground, everyone was falling all around, it was panic. We told the children not to move. At the time, they were in shock.

“We gathered them all, put them on the buses, and went straight up to a higher place,” she said.

“It’s so good to come back home.”

More evacuation flights
The French High Commission in New Caledonia said a special psychological assistance unit was available to anyone who should need help.

More flights to evacuate French nationals would be carried out of Port Vila to New Caledonia, French Ambassador to Vanuatu Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer said.

Vanuatu hosts a significant French community, estimated at more than 3300 French citizens, including from New Caledonia.

New Caledonia is also home to a strong ni-Vanuatu community of about 5000.

One French national confirmed among fatalities
A Vanuatu-born French citizen has been confirmed dead.

He was found under the rubble of one of the hardest-hit buildings in central Port Vila.

He has been identified as Vincent Goiset, who belongs to a long-established, affluent Vanuatu family of Vietnamese origin.

The total death toll from the December 17 earthquake stood at 15 on Friday, but was still likely to rise.

France, Australia and New Zealand: 100 percent ‘FRANZ’
Both Australia and New Zealand, through their armed forces, have deployed relief — including urban search and rescue teams — in a bid to find survivors under the collapsed buildings.

The two countries are part of a tripartite set-up called “FRANZ” (France, Australia, New Zealand).

Signed in 1992, the agreement enforces a policy of systematic coordination between the three armed forces when they operate to bring assistance to Pacific island countries affected by a natural disaster.

As part of the FRANZ set-up, the French contribution included an initial reconnaissance flight from its Nouméa-based Falcon-200 jet (known as the Gardian) at daybreak on Wednesday, mostly to assess the Bauerfield airport.

Port Vila is only 500km away from Nouméa.

Later that day, a French PUMA helicopter transported emergency relief and personnel (including experts in buildings structural assessment, telecom and essential supplies such as water and electricity) to Port Vila to further assess the situation.

The small military CASA aircraft also operated a number of rotations between Nouméa and Port Vila, bringing more relief supplies (including food rations, water, and IT equipment) and returning with evacuees.

The French High Commission also said if needed, a Nouméa-based surveillance frigate Vendémiaire and the overseas assistance vessel d’Entrecasteaux were placed on stand-by mode “ready to set sail from Nouméa to Vanuatu within 72 and 96 hours, respectively”.

Embassies ‘flattened’
Following the Tuesday quake, four embassies in Port Vila (New Zealand, United Kingdom, the United States and France), all under the same roof, had been temporarily relocated to their respective chiefs of mission.

Their offices, once located in a three-storey building, collapsed and were “flattened”, the French ambassador said.

Vanuatu’s caretaker Prime Minister Charlot Salwaï has announced a state of emergency at least until Christmas and the Vanuatu snap election has been postponed from January 14 to 16.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Caledonia’s domestic carrier Air Calédonie is set to launch a biweekly international connection to neighbouring Vanuatu.

The new link is set to start operating from October 3 with two return flights, one on Mondays and the other on Thursdays.

The company said this followed a recent code-share agreement with New Caledonia’s international carrier Air Calédonie international (Air Calin).

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

The domestic company’s ATR 72-600 planes will be used to link Nouméa’s international La Tontouta airport to Port Vila, the company said.

Air Calédonie said the new agreement to fly to Vanuatu comes at a “difficult time”, almost four months after riots broke out in the French Pacific archipelago.

Seeking new markets
The ongoing unrest has made a huge negative impact on the economy and — because of long periods of curfew and state of emergency — has also heavily impacted domestic and international flights, causing in turn huge losses in business for the airlines.

“This new connection therefore is a vital opportunity to maintain employment and a sufficient level of business that are necessary to the company’s survival”, said Air Calédonie CEO Daniel Houmbouy, who also mentioned a “necessary capacity to adapt and evolve”.

New link to Paris
As part of a stringent cost-cutting exercise, Air Calin has had to cut staff numbers as well as reduce its regional connections.

It is also currently considering putting one of its aircraft on lease.

However, Air Calin is also preparing to launch a new direct Paris-Nouméa connection, via Bangkok, sometime in 2025, using a 291-seater Airbus A330-900neo on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The company is currently recruiting 12 pilots and 20 navigating flight assistants who would be based mainly in Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport.

Here again, the plan is directly connected to New Caledonia’s unrest and its impact on the economy.

“It’s all about continuing to generate an acceptable level of revenue to be able to bear fixed costs, in response to the consequences of the local economic context’s recent upsets”.

On a similar destination, Air Calin has also recently opened another connection via Singapore.

But regional routes have also been affected, sometimes suspended (Melbourne), sometimes significantly contracted (Sydney, Brisbane, Auckland, Papeete).

As part of the restructuration, the new long-haul route via Bangkok would effectively replace the older connection to Paris via Tokyo-Narita.

Collateral damage for fishing industry
This has already caused major concerns from local fishing industry stakeholders, especially those exporting extra fresh tuna directly to Japan by plane.

“This will directly threaten the future of our industry. The repercussions will be catastrophic both in terms of employment in our industry and for [New Caledonia’s] economy,” commented Mario Lopez, who heads local tuna fishing company Armement du Nord, writing on social networks.

He said what was at stake was “300 to 400 tonnes of yellowfin sashimi-grade tuna which until now were sent each year for auction on Japanese markets”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A NZ Defence Force plane carrying 50 New Zealanders evacuated from New Caledonia landed at Auckland International Airport last night.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it would be working with France and Australia to ensure the safe departure of several evacuation flights amid civil unrest in the island state.

The efforts came as RNZ Pacific’s French Pacific correspondent Patrick Decloitre reported that President Emmanuel Macron would be flying to New Caledonia within hours to install a “dialogue mission” in the French Pacific dependency in the wake of violent riots for the past eight days.

• READ MORE: President Emmanuel Macron to fly to New Caledonia within hours
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia independence unrest reports

The first flight took off from the capital of Nouméa after a short turnaround at Magenta local airport at 7pm, and landed in Auckland at about 10pm.

Those arriving to Auckland Airport on the NZ Defence Force plane said they were relieved to be back.

Many reunited with loved ones, while others were sent onto hospital for urgent medical treatment.

Chris and Mike Riley were arriving back from New Caledonia from what was meant to be a week-long trip.

‘Fireworks and gunfire’
Chris Riley said they heard lots of explosions, fireworks and gunfire from where they were.

“We were in a lovely place actually, it was quite peaceful, but we were trapped because we couldn’t get through because of all the troubles that were there,” she said.

Mike Riley said they were both relieved to be home.

“We’re not in a hurry to go anywhere apart from Kerikeri,” he said.

Carl, who did not provide a last name, was in a tourist area of New Caledonia for the past two weeks, which he said was sheltered from the riots.

He said it felt great to get on the Defence Force flight.

“It was a bit of a different type of trip back to New Zealand, but it was fun.”

La Tontouta still closed
Noumea’s La Tontouta International Airport remains closed.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the New Zealanders on the flight would have had a security escort to the airport.

Pacific Island nations were among those which had sought New Zealand’s help to evacuate citizens, he said.

Peters said there would be more flights over the next few days to get all 250 New Zealanders out of the French Pacific territory, which has been in the grip of riots and political unrest between anti- and pro-independence groups.

He hoped another flight would leave for New Caledonia this morning.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Papua New Guinea’s national airline flight from Port Moresby to Cairns today was operated by an all female Air Niugini crew in recognition of International Women’s Day.

With the day’s theme of “Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress”, the national airline continues its progress in equal participation for all women within the organisation, whether it be on the ground or in the sky.

The flight was under the command of Captain Beverly Pakii (inset) with First Officer Chantilly Padigaga. and assisted in the cabin by Jarmilah Mileng, Mimijanna Mabone and Magdalene Lapana.

• READ MORE: PNG’s first female pilot to attain Fokker command

In January, Captain Pakii became the first female pilot in Air Niugini and Papua New Guinea to captain a jet aircraft after attaining her command on a Fokker jet aircraft.

With this achievement, it enabled her to command or captain flights on the Air Niugini domestic and international network that are operated by Fokker 70 and Fokker 100 aircraft.

Her first commercial flight was on January 4 this year on a Fokker 100 aircraft flight from Port Moresby to Lae and return.

Republished with permission.

From Island girl to an airline pilot seems like the Disney fantasy Moana yet nothing could further from the truth when it comes to Silva McLeod who turned fantasy into reality with heartbreak along the way.

Born in the small Tongan village of Vava’u in the days when we watched and marvelled as jets few overhead, Mcleod never dreamed one day that she would be there in the sky flying jet planes to all manner of destinations.

In her recently released memoir,  Island Girl to Airline Pilot: A Story of Love, Sacrifice and Taking Flight, she tells her story.

The book details when and where she meets her Australian husband Ken who went to Tonga to work in building a hospital. She was working as a waitress in a bar when she first met him.

However, unlike other Palagi (white men) visiting the islands and making promises they never intended to keep, Ken — according to her autobiography that initially reads like a Mills & Boon novel — was a perfect gentleman as he slowly courted her.

“At first, it wasn’t the done thing to do… Unfortunately, the picture we have that white men come in — it’s not a very nice picture, but that’s how it was — they impregnate the Tongan girl and then nick off, and mum and dad, nan and pa will have to clean up the mess,” she writes.

“So, this is quite rare, a young handsome Pālagi came to our island, and we found a common attraction to each other. My family feared the worst … so it wasn’t very well received in the beginning.

Language ‘huge barrier’
“Language was a huge barrier at the beginning, because my family couldn’t speak a word of English and Ken couldn’t speak a word of Tongan.

“So how could Ken make a conversation that might help my family accept the situation? But it didn’t take long.”

Ken eventually whisked her away to Melbourne in 1980, and while her dreams were put on the backburner while the couple raised a family.

She did ultimately realise her dream to become Tonga and possibly the Pacific female airline pilot, beginning as a flying instructor, then flying for Royal Tonga Airlines, Australian Flying Doctor Service and eventually Virgin International Airlines.

And, at the time of doing this interview, she was waiting to hear about her health results to find out whether she could keep flying.

Becoming a pilot “was never really a dream, because I could never envision reaching it or getting there,” Mcleod  says.

“It was more like a fantasy because it was never going to happen.

Both ways to the beach
“Growing up in Vava’u, in a tiny little island of Pangaimotu, 200 people live there: you walk one way you reach the beach; you turn around 180 degrees you reach the beach.

“So, to dream of eventually becoming an airline pilot one day, or even just flying an aeroplane was unreachable — so I kept it as a fantasy.

“I can just visualise myself as a child running outside every time I hear a sound of an aircraft and I was there [looking] at the sky until the aircraft disappeared.

“The curiosity in me … was getting a little bit too much, running away with the thought of ‘oh wow, how clever is that, imagine the people that are flying that machine… wouldn’t it be amazing to operate such a machine, because it defies gravity?

“The fantasy was right from a young age, but it wasn’t a dream because I didn’t think that I’d get there.”

Mcleod’s world while growing up was limited, she says: “like wanting to reach for a piece of coconut but finding your arms are bound”.

At the time growing up in the 1970s in Vava’u, television and  newspapers weren’t easily accessible, so glimpses of the lives and places outside of the immediate community were limited, she says.

‘I can’t get out’
“It felt like, ‘I can’t get out’. It’s the same right across the Pacific Islands, it’s not just Tonga.

“We have such a rich culture and living in it … it’s just part of you and something I will treasure and value for the rest of my life.

“But then on the other hand, it’s restrictive because there’s nothing else to do.

“You go to school and then after that there was no university, there was no job. What could  you  do on an island? You couldn’t see a future.

“We are bound by culture, we bind by family, we bind by religion. It’s like you are free but you are bound to something.

“That’s just the way it is, and that’s just the island life, and you just grow up understanding it and it’s part of you.”

Now, with internet connectivity many Pasifika children view a more open world, she says.

Done her family duty
Settling in Melbourne and raising two daughters who are happily married with their own kids, she has done her family duty.

Then in a conversation with Ken, Mcleod spoke of her dream of becoming a pilot. However, instead of laughing, her husband told her that she could do it.

“Yes you have to be good at mathematics to be pilot and it takes hard work so no fantasy is ever easy,” she said.

Not long after, Ken became sick with cancer, and underwent chemotherapy. Mcleod focused on his recovery until her husband asked her about what it would take to get her started. He bought her a birthday present of vouchers for an introductory flight, and the rest is history.

Six years later, she earned her air transport pilot’s licence and became  the first Tongan woman to qualify as a pilot, and later a flight instructor.

The work brought Mcleod satisfaction, though she frequently faced both racism and sexism along the way, such as callers would say they wanted to speak to “Mr McLeod”.

Sexism, racism and misogynism, she has experienced it all, but as she said, “my book isn’t about that, I just wanted to tell my story through my eyes”.

An eye on Boeing 777s
As a pilot, Mcleod was “quite happy just flying 737s all around” but  followed with interest as Boeing 777s were developed and introduced, with automated fly-by-wire technology.

“I was based in New Zealand for nearly 12 months — loved my time there. That was on the 737s, so I did all of the domestic routes in New Zealand as well as all the South Pacific islands.

“At first I was based in Christchurch, then when moved Auckland a group of us pilots pooled our allowance and took an apartment at Auckland’s viaduct and we just loved it there, Ken came along and joined us,” she said.

Mcleod then  began working for the Virgin stable  and was trained to pilot 777s there — another thing ticked off her bucket list.

When she joined Royal Tongan Airlines and became  the first pilot  to speak fluent Tongan to the largely Tongan passengers over the intercom, it gave her such pride.

Defining her life
Mcleod underlines her story that flying aeroplanes does not define her life. Her journey, family, cultural identity and partnership with Ken determined her life.

Alas Ken died recently from cancer as the covid-19 pandemic swept through the world, and McLeod says that  until the end they remained both close and committed to breaking down barriers of skin colour and culture.

“I was a wife first, a mother, a grandmother, a carer, and I just call myself a worker … whatever field you have it’s no different. I just wanted to tell my story,” she says.

“And if my story inspires young Pacific women to be who they want to be, then so be it, but that was not my ambition. I just wanted to tell my story,” she says heading out the door to a nearby golf course.

•  Island Girl to Airline Pilot: A Story of Love, Sacrifice and Taking Flight, by Silva Mcleod. Melbourne: Exisle Publishing. ISBN: 9781922539618
  

RNZ Pacific

New Zealand hostage Phillip Mehrtens, who is being held by pro-independence fighters in West Papua, appears well in a newly-released video.

It comes as concerns were expressed for the pilot as fighting between Indonesian security forces and his captors, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), intensified last week.

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said he had received reports of the increased military confrontations and again called on the pro-independence group to release Mehrtens.

• READ MORE: New video shows NZ pilot Phillip Mehrtens alive and well nearly three months after being kidnapped by West Papua rebels
• WATCH ABC NEWS: New video of NZ pilot Philip Mehrtens
• Indonesia upgrades NZ pilot operation in West Papua to ‘combat ready’
• Other West Papua reports

In the new video, which is poor quality, Mehrtens called on Indonesia to stop airstrikes in Nduga, saying they were unneccesary and put his life and the lives of other innocents at ris

The video statement was released by the TPNPB central command and purportedly filmed on Monday in Nduga.

The Susi Air pilot was taken hostage by the Liberation Army fighters on February 7 shortly after landing on a remote Paro airstrip in Nduga in the Papua highlands.

The video received by RNZ Pacific shows Mehrtens sitting between two West Papuans — he speaks first in Bahasa Indonesian and then in English. He said:

“Good afternoon, today is Monday the 24th of April 2023.

“It’s almost three months since OPM [the Free WEST Papua Movement] kidnapped me from Paro. As you can see I am still alive. I am healthy, I have been eating well, drinking. I live with the people here.

“We travel together as required, we sit together, we rest together. Indonesia’s been dropping bombs in the area over the last week.

“Please, there is no need, it is dangerous for me and everybody here. Thank you for your support.”

The TPNPB issued a statement accompanying the video file urging Indonesia to stop its military operation to try and rescue Mehrtens and calling on New Zealand to mediate and initiate negotiations for his release.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The authorities in Indonesia’s Papua region say the search for a New Zealand pilot taken hostage by West Papua Liberation Movement freedom fighters more than two months ago has been extended.

Philip Mehrtens, a pilot for Susi Air, was taken hostage in the remote Nduga district on February 7.

According to Antara News, Senior Commissioner Faizal Rahmadani said they were now also looking for the group in Yahukimo and Puncak districts.

• READ MORE: Indonesian security forces attack West Papuan rebels holding NZ pilot
• Other NZ pilot reports

Commissioner Rahmadani said several efforts have been carried out to rescue the pilot, including involving a negotiating team comprising community leaders, the publication reported.

However, the negotiation has not yielded any results.

The search now covers about 36,000 sq km.

Commissioner Rahmadani said the safety of Captain Merthens was the priority for his team.

‘No foreign pilots’ call
The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) has released images and videos of Mehrtens with them since he was captured.

In the video, which was sent to RNZ Pacific, Mehrtens was instructed to read a statement saying “no foreign pilots are to work and fly” into Highlands Papua until Papua was independent.

He made another demand for West Papua independence from Indonesia later in the statement.

Mehrtens was surrounded by more than a dozen people, some of them armed with weapons.

Previously, a TPNPB spokesperson said they were waiting for a response from the New Zealand government to negotiate the release of Mehrtens.

In February, United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) leader Benny Wenda called for the rebels to release Mehrtens.

He said he sympathised with the New Zealand people and Merhtens’ family but insisted the situation was a result of Indonesia’s refusal to allow the UN Human Rights Commissioner to visit Papua.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The West Papua Liberation Army says they would drop the key demand that Jakarta recognise the independence of the Papua region #WestPapua #nzpol https://t.co/I2Vd13w66G

— #WestPapua (@PurePapua) April 8, 2023

Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama today condemned a visiting Papua New Guinean member of Parliament for “mocking” the autonomous region’s independence aspirations during a drunken exchange in Buka last week, saying that he must “atone for his blunder”.

A video of Ijivitari MP David Arore allegedly abusing security guards and airport staff while getting ready to board a plane out of Buka last Friday has stirred wide condemnation by national and Bougainville leaders.

“Let us take this criticism in our stride and use this as motivation to continue to develop and progress,” President Toroama said in a statement, adding that sovereignty was “rightfully ours to claim”.

• READ MORE: President Toroama’s response to David Arore’s behaviour
• Makiba not impressed by Arore’s drunken behaviour
• Other Bougainville independence reports

“We are a people who have withstood tougher challenges than the words of a drunken man,” he said.

Arore’s visit to Bougainville was part of a delegation led by the Minister for Bougainville Affairs, Mannaseh Makiba. The visit was to help national MPs better understand the autonomous arrangements on Bougainville and meet local leaders and the people.

Toroama said the trip was a success but strongly criticised the behaviour of MP Arore, saying he did not have the “right to use it to insult our leaders and our people”.

“Sovereignty is rightfully ours to claim, we have paid for it with the unfair exploitation of our resources, our lives and the blood of the people who sacrificed their lives fighting for their freedom in an unjust war,” President Toroama said, referring to the now-closed rich Panguna copper mine and the decade-long civil war over the exploitation and environmental degradation.

Unfair comparison
It was unfair for Arore to even compare infrastructure development on Bougainville to that of the rest of the country because Bougainville was a post-conflict region that was only now “steadily gaining traction on development and peace”.

“Bougainville bankrolled PNG’s independence and set the very foundation for every form of development in this country,” President Toroama said.

“Subsequently, we had a war waged on our people by the very same government we built.

“You [Arore] can mock our shortcomings in development but do not mock the sanctity of our aspirations to be an independent nation.”

President Toroama thanked Bougainvilleans who witnessed Arore’s “tirade of insults” directed at the Air Niugini and National Airports Corporation (NAC) staff for “maintaining civility”.

“In this respect we proved that despite his inebriated state and the discourteous behaviour our people still showed respect for the office that he occupies as a national leader.”

But President Toroama called for an investigation, saying Arore “understands our Melanesian traditions” and he was “stlll subservient to the law”.

Minister apologises
A PNG Post-Courier report by Gorethy Kenneth and Miriam Zarriga said the delegation leader, Bougainville Affairs Minister Manasseh Makibe, had apologised for the behaviour of MP Arore.

“We left in good note. However, such behaviour by an MP is wrong and unacceptable,” Makiba said.

“We will not allow the unfortunate incident to deter the progress we have made and good working relationship we have with Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) leadership and people.

“We were not aware of this incident until now. Generally, our visit was well appreciated by ABG.

“I apologise for Mr Arore’s behaviour.”

According to reports, Arore insinuated that Bougainville’s independence was “not negotiable”, among other derogative comments he made at that time.

Arore told the Post-Courier he would not apologise as what he had said was not intended to upset Bougainville, its people and the leadership.

“I will not apologise. I have nothing to apologise for because I did not say something wrong, I did not abuse anyone and there was no commotion,” Arore claimed.

“All I said was, ‘Yumi laik kisim independence (if we want independence), yumi stretim balus na stretim hausik (we must fix our airport and our hospital)’.

“I said these same sentiments in Manus, where I said to the leaders there, ‘Manus has a big and very good airport but the town is in shambles’.

“I think we have made this very minor issue a very big one.”

‘We’ll have him arrested’
Police Commissioner David Manning said the incident of a MP allegedly drunk and disorderly on a flight would be investigated with him waiting on NAC and Air Niugini for a report and complaint.

“We will have him arrested. We are awaiting the NAC and Air Niugini,” he said.

Civil Aviation Minister Walter Schnaubelt said: “He (Arore) was also allowed to board the plane drunk, which is a security breach.

“So (we are) getting a report from our team on the ground so further preventative action can be taken. This sort of behaviour must not be tolerated, and we leaders must lead by example at all times.”

MP Arore is a member of PNG’s parliamentary law and order committee. The Ijivitari Open electorate is in Oro province.

In 2019, a non-binding independence referendum was held in Bougainville with 98.31 percent of voters supporting independence from Papua New Guinea.

Report compiled from Bougainville News and the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) has released a new video about New Zealand hostage pilot Philip Mehrtens and a Papuan news organisation, Jubi TV, has featured it on its website.

The Susi Air pilot was taken hostage on February 7 after landing in a remote region near Nduga in the Central Papuan highlands.

In the video, which was sent to RNZ Pacific, Mehrtens was instructed to read a statement saying “no foreign pilots are to work and fly” into the Papuan highlands until the West Papua is independent.

• READ MORE: Sebulan disandera, TPNPB rilis video dan foto kondisi terbaru pilot Susi Air (After a month of being held hostage, TPNPB releases videos and photos of the latest condition of the Susi Air pilot)
• Other NZ hostage pilot reports
• Other West Papua reports

He made another demand for West Papua independence from Indonesia later in the statement.

Mehrtens was surrounded by more than a dozen people, some of them armed with weapons.

RNZ Pacific has chosen not to publish the video. Other New Zealand news services, including The New Zealand Herald, have also chosen not to publish the video.

Jubi TV item on YouTube
However, Jubi TV produced an edited news item and published it on YouTube and its website.

Previously, a West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) spokesperson said they were waiting for a response from the New Zealand government to negotiate the release of Mehrtens.

A Papua independence movement leader, Benny Wenda, and church and community leaders last month called for the rebels to release Mehrtens.

Wenda said he sympathised with the New Zealand people and Merhtens’ family but insisted the situation was a result of Indonesia’s refusal to allow the UN Human Rights Commissioner to visit Papua.

The latest video featuring NZ hostage pilot Philip Mehrtens. Video: Jubi TV

According to Jubi News, the head of Cartenz Peace Operation 2023, Senior Commander Faizal Ramadani, says negotiations to free Mehrtens, who is held hostage by a TPNPB faction led by Egianus Kogoya, has “not been fruitful”.

But Commander Ramadani said that the security forces would continue the negotiation process.

According to Commander Ramadani, efforts to negotiate the release of Mehrtens by the local government, religious leaders, and Nduga community leaders were rejected by the TPNPB.

“We haven’t received the news directly, but we received information that there was a rejection,” said Commander Ramadani in Jayapura on Tuesday.

“The whereabouts of Egianus’ group and Mehrtens are not yet known as the situation in the field is very dynamic,” he said.

“But we will keep looking.”

Republished with permission from RNZ Pacific and Jubi TV.

A West Papuan independence movement leader, Benny Wenda, says the release of New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens held hostage by armed rebels is out of his hands.

The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) fighters kidnapped Mehrtens on February 7 after he landed a small commercial passenger plane in Nduga regency.

The group then burned the Indonesian-owned Susi Air plane and demanded the New Zealand government negotiate directly for Merhtens’ release.

• READ MORE: Indigenous Papuan negotiators walk to forest hideout to seek release of pilot
• Other NZ pilot reports

Exiled Wenda is president of the peaceful United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).

He told RNZ Pacific he did not condone the actions of the liberation army rebels and had called for them to release the pilot peacefully.

He said he sympathised with the New Zealand people and Merhtens’ family but insisted the situation was a result of Indonesia’s refusal to allow the UN Human Rights Commissioner to visit West Papua.

“Because the place where it’s actually happening is where hundreds of thousands [of indigenous Papuans] have been displaced from 2018 up to now — in Nduga, Intan Jaya, Mybrat and also Oksibil,” Wenda said.

‘Warning to Indonesia’
“So this happening right now is a warning to Indonesia to let the UN High Commissioner visit which they have been ignoring these last three years.”

“We are not enemies [with New Zealand]. We are very good,” Wenda said.

“New Zealand is a very strong supporter of West Papua.

“I do not think the [TPNPB] group can harm the pilot unless Indonesia uses the situation to do harm. That is my concern.”

He said Indonesia should consider TPNPB’s demands.

Wenda is leading a delegation from the ULMWP that is currently in Fiji ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum.

The group has observer status in the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and is lobbying to become a full member.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

An indigenous Papuan negotiation team has traversed rugged highlands forests in the Indonesian-ruled Melanesian province in search of the New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens, who was taken hostage by rebels last week.

The crisis over the captive pilot held by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) led by Egianus Kogoya has entered day eight.

Papua Police chief Inspector-General Mathius Fakhiri said his party had sent a negotiation team consisting of indigenous people and several influential figures in Nduga regency to meet the armed group.

• READ MORE: Indonesia to negotiate with West Papuan rebels for NZ pilot’s release
• Papuan cat-and-mouse over NZ pilot taken captive by ‘freedom’ rebels — Backgrounder by David Robie
• TPNPB burns plane and takes Susi Air pilot hostage
• Other NZ pilot hostage reports

Inspector Fakhiri said the team had walked to the hideout location where Mehrtens was being held hostage.

“Please give us time as the team went there on foot. It will take one to two days to cross the river and pass through such difficult topography,” he said in a written statement.

“We hope they can arrive safely.”

On February 7, the TPNPB rebels set fire to a Susi Air plane with call sign PK-BVY that landed at an airstrip in Paro district.

“TPNPB has officially released photos and videos with the New Zealand pilot, and the pilot is in good health,” said Sambom

Local government help
TPNPB also claimed to have captured and held hostage pilot Mehrtens.

Fakhiri hoped that communication could be established between the negotiation team and Kogoya’s group so that Mehrtens could be released immediately.

He also hopes that the involvement of the Nduga Regency local government in the search for Philip Mark Mehrtens would be “fruitful”.

“We asked for help from the Nduga Regent and his people because they know the Nduga area best. They are ready to help, and there are also lawmakers who joined the team to negotiate with the TPNPB,” Inspector Fakhiri said.

Meanwhile, Susi Air operations director Melinasary said that the burning of the aircraft and the hostage taking of Philip Mark Mehrtens would not force the airline to withdraw from Papua.

She said Susi Air had been assisting development in Papua since 2006, pioneering flights and providing health assistance and medicines for the community.

“With this incident, we will not stop flying in the Papua region. But please give us protection,” Melinasary said.

Melinasary added that Susi Air would provide support in the search for pilot Mehrtens.

Logistics help
“We have provided flights for the search process and logistical assistance in the form of food in the search for our pilot,” she said.

On Tuesday, TPNPB spokesman Sebby Sambom released photos and videos of the Susi Air plane burning.

Sambom also released a video showing Philip Mehrtens with TPNPB Ndugama leader Egianus Kogoya.

“TPNPB has officially released photos and videos with the New Zealand pilot, and the pilot is in good health,” said Sambom

He also said that the pilot was a guarantee of political negotiations between TPNPB and Indonesia.

In the video circulating, Philip Mehrtens stood among TPNPB members and stated that Indonesia must recognise Papua’s independence.

Also in the video, Egianus Kogoya said his party would release the pilot if Papua was recognised as a free nation.

“Indonesia must admit that Papua is independent. We Papuans have long been independent,” Kogoya said.

Republished from Jubi News with permission

Papuan independence rebels are playing a desperate game of cat and mouse with Indonesian authorities over their hostage taking last week with a New Zealand pilot caught in the middle.

Christchurch-raised Philip Mehrtens, 37, a pilot for the national feeder airline Susi Air owned by a former cabinet minister and with Jakarta government supply contracts, was seized by rebels last Tuesday, February 7, shortly after he had touched down at the remote Paro airstrip near Nduga in the Papuan highlands.

Five Indigenous Papuans on board the aircraft were set free and the plane was set on fire.

• READ MORE: Why a NZ pilot is a pawn in the West Papua conflict that the world ignores
• Blood on the Cross: East Timor and West Papua – Mark Davis in Pacific Journalism Review
• Other West Papuan conflict reports

After initial reports saying the authorities were trying to pinpoint the actual place where the rebels are in hiding and that a rescue operation is under way, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) played a trump card today by releasing “proof of life” video footage and photos.

“Papua Merdeka!,” said Mehrtens in one of the obviously coached video messages. “The Papuan military have taken me captive in the fight for Papuan independence,” he added hesitantly while surrounded by a group of armed rebels.

Dressed in a denim jacket, he also wore a black tee-shirt displaying a clenched fist in the colours of the West Papuan Morning Star flag, banned under Indonesian law. The tee also sported the slogan “Papua Merdeka” (Papuan Freedom).

The rebels have gone to great pains to make it appear their captive is relaxed and in good health.

High stakes
The stakes are high with the Papuan rebels trying to attract world attention to their cause for independence, “forgotten” by the world for more than the past half century.

But analysts warn that there is a risk of a tragic outcome if a botched rescue takes place as happened the last time Indonesian security forces raided rebels of the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM – Free Papua Movement) who had seized hostages at Mapenduma in 1996, also in the Papuan highlands.

A report of the “proof of life” messages from the TPNPB rebels by the ABC’s Jakarta correspondent Anne Barker.       Video: ABC Australia

Although in that operation on 15 May 1996 nine hostages were freed, two were killed by the captors while eight OPM guerrillas were killed and two captured.

Six days earlier another rescue bid had ended in disaster when an Indonesian military helicopter crashed killing all five soldiers on board.

Originally, on 8 January 1996, 29 members of a World Wildlife Fund research mission had been seized. However, the rebels promptly released 19 captives while holding 11 – four British, two Dutch and five Indonesians.

There were also international repercussions with the International Red Cross (ICRC) being accused of collaborating with the Indonesian military – later admitted by Jakarta after it was reported that they had used a white helicopter that had been involved in negotiations with soldiers on board.

White mercenaries were also accused of being part of the operation.

Rebel leader Kelly Kwalik had dropped a plan to release the remaining hostages, accusing the ICRC of not honouring their agreement. “We took the researchers hostage because we had no other way for our cause to be acknowledged,” he told the New Internationalist.

Human rights violations
The rescue raid mounted by Kopassus special forces – codenamed Operation Cenderawasih (Bird of Paradise) — was under the command of general Prabowo Subianto, former son-in-law of then President Suharto.

Prabowo was two years later dishonourably discharged from the military over allegations of human rights violations. Today he is a politician and Minister of Defence under President Joko Widodo.

The Papuan rebels are trying to reverse the narrative that is projected by Jakarta that the Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua (now increased to five) adjoining the independent country of Papua New Guinea are an integral part of Indonesia and those Indigenous people resisting are “terrorists”.

The rebels and also peaceful groups seeking self-determination argue that a 1969 referendum with 1025 handpicked voters supervised by the United Nations in the former Dutch colony voting “unanimously” for Indonesian rule in a so-called Act of Free Choice was a “sham”.

The lesson from this latest hostage-taking crisis, according to Australian academic Dr Camellia Webb-Gannon, who is author of Morning Star Rising: The Politics of Decolonisation in West Papua, is that there needs to be serious negotiations.

Echoing some of the demands of the rebels, she wrote in a backgrounder on the deeper issues of Indonesian colonialism that New Zealand, Australia – both accused of collaborating militarily with Jakarta — and other governments needed to seriously engage about human rights violations in Papua.

Webb-Gannon admitted it may not be enough to resolve the current crisis, “but it would be a long overdue and critical step in the right direction.”

Avoiding disproportionate response
As she stressed, negotiations for the release of Mehrtens must be handled carefully to “avoid further disproportionate responses” by the Indonesian military.

“The kidnapping is not justified, but neither is Indonesia’s violence against West Papuans — or the international community’s refusal to address the violence.”

There are other Papuan pro-independence players that are seeking a peaceful path to self-determination, such as the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) that is seeking to become a full member of the Port Vila-based Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).

Exiled leader Benny Wenda issued a statement offering his “deepest sympathies” to the friends and family of hostage Mehrtens.

“At the same time, the ULMWP executive reiterates and reassures the New Zealand government and the world that we are [committed] to a peaceful, diplomatic approach,” he said in his statement condemning the Indonesian divide and rule policies.

“Our roadmap is very clear: we are pursuing the unified West Papuan goal of Merdeka – national liberation – peacefully, through diplomatic political mechanisms.

“We must not lose sight of the fact that Indonesia uses this kind of violence as part of a distinct strategy of occupation.

Stronger colonial grip
“Their aim is to intensify militarisation in West Papua as a way of strengthening their colonial grip on our land.”

Wenda highlighted how Indonesia’s Parliament had last year passed a law creating three new provinces in West Papua, as part of the renewal of the 2001 ‘Special Autonomy’ programme.

“West Papuans overwhelmingly reject ‘Special Autonomy’, more than 700,000 of us having signed a petition against it. Provincial division is a justification for increased militarisation in West Papua, pure and simple,” he said.

“By creating new administrative divisions, Indonesia justifies the establishment of new colonial infrastructure and new military posts.

“They do not want dialogue or peaceful protest — they want chaos and violence, for West Papua to remain a war zone.

“As our land is militarised and destroyed, our people are forcibly displaced.

“Depopulation is another key part of Indonesia’s colonial strategy: by removing West Papuans from our ancestral lands, they allow for massive exploitation of our natural resources.”

100,000 Papuans displaced
Wenda said that up to 100,000 West Papuans had been internally displaced since 2019, including close to half of Nduga’s entire population.

“They continue to live in the bush, deprived of education, food, and adequate medical facilities, unable to return to their homes.

“Indonesia labels us as terrorists while committing state terrorism in our lands.”
The ULMWP’s peaceful demands are:

• The withdrawal of all Indonesian troops from West Papua;
• Immediate access to West Papua for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights;
• Cancellation of ‘Special Autonomy’, including the new provincial division; and
• An immediate referendum on independence.

“The kidnap of a foreign pilot naturally brings West Papua to the attention of international media,” Wenda said. “But West Papuans are tortured and murdered daily by Indonesian forces, and international media are banned from seeing it.”

Meanwhile, Jubi News reports three New Zealand diplomats and two staff of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have travelled to Timika, the capital of Mimika Regency, in the new Central Papua province this week to check on progress with the rescue operation.

They met military officers, including the commander of Timika region, Lieutenant-General Nyoman Cantiasa, on Monday. He appealed for “international support” to discuss the crisis with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Hopefully, a peaceful resolution can be found.

‘Proof of life’: Papua hostage takers say images show NZ pilot is alive https://t.co/b3aLjgkizm

— ABC News (@abcnews) February 14, 2023

Indonesian police and military have launched a joint mission to rescue a New Zealand pilot who was seized by rebels as a hostage in Indonesia’s Papua region on Tuesday, media reports say.

The Jakarta Post reports that authorities have set up a joint search and rescue operation to try and locate Susi Air pilot Philip Merthens, who was seized after landing a small plane on a remote airstrip in the Papuan highlands.

The rebels have threatened to execute him if their demands are not met.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES:  Interview with Andreas Harsono 
• Human rights researcher pleads for West Papuan rebels to free NZ pilot
• Indonesian security forces ‘have no idea’ where NZ pilot hostage is
• Indonesian rights researcher slams kidnapping – efforts to free NZ pilot
• NZ Papua hostage: Pilots warned to take precautions in ‘danger’ zone
• Papuan rebels seize NZ pilot hostage, set local plane on fire, say reports
• Rebels claim New Zealand pilot taken hostage in Indonesia’s Papua
• Other West Papuan conflict reports

Reuters reports that the West Papua National Liberation Army had claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the pilot would not be released until the Indonesian government acknowledged the independence of the Melanesian region of West Papua.

Merthens also had five passengers on board and it was unclear what had happened to them.

The Jakarta Post reports that the operation, codenamed Peaceful Carstensz, was launched by Indonesia police and the Indonesian military (TNI). The name Carstensz alludes to the mountainous region where the incident occurred.

Merthens’ location was still unclear due to conflicting information issued on Wednesday, the report said.

Consular support
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade also earlier said it was providing consular support to the Merthens’ family and said it would not comment further because of privacy reasons, The New Zealand Herald reports.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ he had been given preliminary details and said the New Zealand embassy in Indonesia was working to help free Merthens, according to The Herald.

A researcher at Human Rights Watch in Jakarta has called for the immediate release of the hostages, including Merthens.

Researcher Andreas Harsono knew the main spokesperson of the rebel group, Sebby Sambom, after decades of research in the field.

He made a call to him personally to let the hostages go.

A former New Zealand pilot, who flew for Susi Air for just over a year ending in 2017, said pilots were warned by the airline to take precautions in the region — things such as keeping a low profile, travelling in groups, finding a driver to take them around, and not leaving compounds at night.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A researcher at Human Rights Watch in Jakarta is calling for the immediate release of the six hostages — including a New Zealand pilot — being held by a rebel group in Indonesia’s Papua region.

The rebels in Highlands Papua are threatening to execute Susi Air pilot Phillip Mehrtens if their demands are not met.

Five other people are also believed to have been taken hostage in the attack.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES:  Interview with Andreas Harsono 
• Indonesian security forces ‘have no idea’ where NZ pilot hostage is
• Indonesian rights researcher slams kidnapping – efforts to free NZ pilot
• NZ Papua hostage: Pilots warned to take precautions in ‘danger’ zone
• Papuan rebels seize NZ pilot hostage, set local plane on fire, say reports
• Rebels claim New Zealand pilot taken hostage in Indonesia’s Papua
• Other West Papuan conflict reports

The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) has posted an ultimatum on social media demanding Jakarta negotiate with them over independence for the region.

“Pilot is still alive and he will be held hostage for negotiations with Jakarta, if Jakarta is obstinate, then the pilot will be executed,” the statement read.

“We will take the New Zealand citizen pilot as hostage and we are waiting for accountability from the Australian government, the New Zealand government, the European Union governments, and the United Nations, because for 60 years these countries have supported Indonesia to kill Indigenous Papuans.”

Researcher Andreas Harsono knows the main spokesperson of the rebel group, Sebby Sambom, after decades of research in the field.

Personal appeal
He made a call to him personally to let the hostages go.

“I call on this group to immediately release all of the hostages including the pilot — it is a crime to kidnap anyone including this pilot,” he told RNZ Pacific.

“I do not know how to measure the seriousness of such a threat but this is a hostage situation, things could be out of control. So the best way is to negotiate and ask them to release the pilot.”

Harsono noted the difficulties for New Zealand attempting to negotiate with the group, particularly given their demands.

“I don’t think it is easy or even internationally accepted to pressure the New Zealand government to negotiate for West Papuan independence from Indonesia,” he said.

“It is way too complicated for any country in the world, including New Zealand, to negotiate the independence of this particular territory. But, of course, the Papuan people have suffered a lot and the Indonesian government should do more to end impunity and human rights abuses in West Papua.

“But this is a hostage situation. The most important thing is to call on this group to immediately and unconditionally release all of the hostages, including the New Zealand pilot.”

Very remote region
Harsono said he did not know whether the passengers had been taken hostage, nor did he know if they were indigenous Papuans.

“The area is very remote, only certain people go there, mainly construction workers, and there were killings against Indonesian workers back in 2018,” he said.

Indonesian authorities say they are facing difficulties locating Merhtens because of the lack of telecommunications facilities in Paro district and the absence of any Indonesian military or police post in the area.

Jubi News quotes Papua Police spokesperson Ignatius Benny Ady Prabowo, saying they were continuing to track the whereabouts of Mehrtens and were preparing to go to Paro district.

He said that before the burning of the plane, rumours had been circulating that a rebel group had threatened 15 construction workers who were building a health centre in the district.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins, told Radio New Zealand: “The New Zealand embassy in Indonesia is working on the case.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Indonesian security forces do not know the whereabouts of the New Zealand pilot taken hostage by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) on Tuesday,

Captain Philip Mehrtens, a pilot for Susi Air, was taken hostage following the burning of his aircraft in Paro district, Nduga regency, in a rugged part of Indonesian-ruled Papua province on Tuesday.

One of the obstacles in finding Mehrtens is the lack of telecommunications facilities in Paro and there is no Indonesian military post in the area, says a police spokesperson.

• READ MORE: Indonesian rights researcher slams kidnapping – efforts to free NZ pilot
• NZ Papua hostage: Pilots warned to take precautions in ‘danger’ zone
• Papuan rebels seize NZ pilot hostage, set local plane on fire, say reports
• Rebels claim New Zealand pilot taken hostage in Indonesia’s Papua
• Other West Papuan conflict reports

Papua Police spokesperson Senior Commander Benny Prabowo said security forces continued to track the whereabouts of the pilot.

According to Commander Prabowo, the Nduga police were preparing to go to Paro district.

“Until now, the investigation is still being carried out by the police assisted by the Cartenz Peace Task Force,” he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, a Susi Air aircraft was burned after landing in Paro district.

The local leader of the TPNPB Ndugama-Derakma, Egianus Kogeya, said the plane was burned by his men. Kogeya also stated that his group had captured and held Captain Mehrtens hostage.

Preceded by threats
Benny said that before the burning of the plane, rumours had been circulating since Saturday that the TPNPB had threatened 15 construction workers who were building a health center in Paro district.

Commander Prabowo said the Nduga police had received a report from the Nduga regent who said the construction workers were questioned by TPNPB because they did not have complete identities.

“We got information that 15 people had left Paro district and headed to Mapenduma. But their whereabouts are still being investigated by the Cartenz Peace Task Force,” he explained.

Commander Prabowo hoped that the public would entrust the handling of the hostage case to the police.

“Telecommunication access there is still very limited, so there is very little information. I hope all parties will be patient,” he said.

The TPNPB rebels are fighting for independence in West Papua and say they will not release the pilot until their demands are met.

Republished from Jubi with permission.

A former New Zealand pilot says flying for an Indonesian airline can be dangerous, and those who do so are warned to take precautions in Papua.

This comes it was reported last night that a New Zealander, working as a pilot for Susi Air, was taken hostage by pro-independence fighters in West Papua.

Reuters reported that the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the pilot would not be released until the Indonesian government acknowledged the independence of West Papua.

• READ MORE: Papuan rebels seize NZ pilot hostage, set local plane on fire, say reports
• Rebels claim New Zealand pilot taken hostage in Indonesia’s Papua
• Other West Papuan conflict reports

The pilot was identified by Reuters as Captain Philip Merthens.

It is still unclear what happened to the five passengers reportedly on board, but the plane is said to have been set alight by the fighters.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ today that New Zealand officials in Indonesia were working on the case.

He said while standard practice was to give hostage situations minimal airtime, he could confirm the New Zealand Embassy was aware of the situation, and he would be receiving a full briefing.

Support for family
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the New Zealand Embassy was providing consular support to the family, but for privacy reasons it would not be commenting further.

A former New Zealand pilot, who flew for Susi Air for just over a year ending in 2017, said pilots were warned by the airline to take precautions in Papua — things such as keeping a low profile, travelling in groups, finding a driver to take them around, and not leaving the compound at night.

Susi Air was known for flying government-commissioned “perintis flights” — pioneer flights — carrying mostly freight to remote areas of Indonesia, he said.

These were subsidised by the Indonesian government, intended to open up regional development.

Susi Air was founded by a former Indonesian Fisheries Minister, Susi Pudjiastuti.

All of this combined to make Susi Air near-synonymous with the Indonesian government.

The pilot who spoke to RNZ said the airline still ran the largest fleet of passenger-carrying Cessna Caravans in the world, and flew all around the Indonesian islands, including to Papua.

Mostly freight
Susi Air flights carried mostly freight, flying from tiny regional towns into main centres, picking up coffee beans, sugar, rice, and bringing in daily goods like washing powder

According to online reports, including aviation-safety.net, the plane flown by Captain Merthens was a Pilatus Porter, which only requires one pilot — unlike the Cessna Caravans, which the pilot said was required to be flown by two people at Susi Air.

The pilot said it was relatively common for foreign pilots to work for Susi Air. Those wanting to get more hours under their belt to be considered for a commercial airline back home would go to Indonesia to do so.

The situation within the country was tense, but most pilots saw it as part of the job.

“Most are just there to get their hours up and get out,” he said.

Since the region was brought under Indonesian control in 1969, there has been a low-level struggle for independence with the conflict escalating further from 2018.

‘Needlessly cruel’
“The smaller islands are being forced to align with a culture established in Jakarta,” the pilot said, and the Indonesian military had been “needlessly cruel and violent” in its oppression of the West Papuans.

As a white foreigner working for the Indonesian state, it was conceivable that Captain Merthens was in real danger — foreigners were, with some frequency, seen as pawns in this way, he said.

He said it was almost certain that the Indonesian government would not give in to the demands of the pro-independence rebels.

He had also heard reports of an aircraft being shot at while departing Papua, with bullets found lodged in the airframe under the pilot’s seat.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Pro-independence rebels in Indonesia’s Papua province have seized a New Zealand pilot as hostage after setting a small commercial plane on fire when it landed in a remote Highlands airstrip earlier today, say news agency reports.

A police spokesperson in Papua province, Senior Commander Ignatius Benny Adi Prabowo, said authorities were investigating the incident claimed by a militant West Papuan group at Paro airstrip in Nduga.

Police and military personnel have been sent to the area to locate the pilot and five passengers, the news agencies report.

• READ MORE: Other West Papuan conflict reports

“We cannot send many personnel there because Nduga is a difficult area to reach. We can only go there by plane,” Commander Prabowo said.

AP reports that rebel spokesperson Sebby Sambom said independence fighters from the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), the military wing of the Free Papua Organisation (OPM), had stormed the plane shortly after it landed.

“We have taken the pilot hostage and we are bringing him out,” Sambom said in a statement.

“We will never release the pilot we are holding hostage unless Indonesia recognises and frees Papua from Indonesian colonialism.”

Reuters news agency identified the pilot as Captain Philip Merthens.

Unclear about passengers
A military spokesperson in Papua, Lieutenant-Colonel Herman Taryaman, said it was unclear if the five accompanying passengers had also been abducted.

The plane, operated by Susi Air, landed safely early this morning, before being attacked by the rebel fighters, authorities said.

The TPNPB made no mention of the passengers in its statement, but said this was the second time the group had taken a hostage. The first incident was in 1996.

The New Zealand embassy in Jakarta and the Indonesian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A struggle for independence in the resource-rich Indonesia’s Melanesian provinces has been waged since Indonesian gained control in a vote overseen by the United Nations in 1969, but condemned by many West Papuans as a “sham”.

New Zealand pilot taken hostage in Indonesia, say Papua rebel group https://t.co/1JGHhNHKou

— ST Foreign Desk (@STForeignDesk) February 7, 2023

The conflict has escalated significantly since 2018 with a build-up of Indonesian forces and  with pro-independence fighters mounting deadlier and more frequent attacks.

Susi Air founder and former Indonesian Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said on Twitter she was praying for the safety of the pilot and passengers.

Mohon dukungan & dia semoga pilot kami di Nduga Paro diberikan lindungan Alloh SWT .. bisa kami jemput selamat https://t.co/iR71EzAjnL

— Susi Pudjiastuti (@susipudjiastuti) February 7, 2023

RNZ has approached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in New Zealand for comment.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

West Papua National Liberation Army claims kidnapping of NZ pilot #terrorism https://t.co/nOZZN1E5xo

— Phil Gurski (@borealissaves) February 7, 2023

Fiji was regarded a bully, flexing its muscle as a selfish and arrogant player in regional forums, claims Association of South Pacific Airlines (ASPA) president George Faktaufon.

He said he hoped Fiji would rejoin the regional aviation community with the election of the new coalition government.

Faktaufon said Fiji — through its national airline Fiji Airways — had a lot to offer to the development of the region’s aviation sector.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific aviation reports

“As one who worked for the Pacific Island region for most of my working life, it saddened me to watch Fiji slowly but surely lose its status as a credible leader in the region,” he said.

“Apart from climate change, which Fiji only joined the bandwagon years after countries like Kiribati and Marshall Islands and their leaders, [former presidents Anote] Tong and [David] Kabaua, had been in the forefront in every international forum, including COP and other forums, Fiji has been seen as a bully, flexing its muscles and often regarded as a selfish and arrogant player in regional forums,” he said.

“In 2022, I attended three regional high level ministerial meetings — Forum Aviation Ministerial Meeting, virtually, Forum Leaders/Private Sectors Dialogue in Suva and then the Forum Economic Ministers/Private Sector Dialogue in Vanuatu,” Faktaufon said.

“In all these meetings, Fiji came out as the stumbling block to enhancing regional air connectivity with its stringent air services agreements with other PICs [Pacific Island Countries], that were not only outdated but favoured Fiji and its national airline.

“Fiji Airways has a lot to offer to other PICs and their national airlines, but it has to be in a mutual partnership.

“Fiji Airways has the resources both in expertise and also equipment that it could use to benefit other PICs as well as itself.

“It is called regional collaboration and co-operation where there are winners and no losers.

“We had done it before, with a joint lease of a B737 between Fiji Airways and Royal Tongan,” Faktaufon said.

Repeka Nasiko is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Papua New Guinea’s local airlines Air Niugini and PNG Air may be back flying again this weekend.

But passengers affected by the “no lift off” were incensed at the cancellations of their flights this week with calls by citizens that this should not happen again when many found themselves stranded at airports across the country.

Government finally intervened and with the release of foreign exchange by the Central Bank, aviation gasoline supplier Puma Energy has promised to fuel the planes.

• READ MORE: Puma Energy currency issues lead to PNG flight cancellations

All domestic flights were grounded on Thursday after Puma said it did not have the US dollars to buy and supply Avgas.

Prime Minister James Marape responded to the saga — in a statement after almost an entire day — by setting up a special team to meet Puma and sort out the mess.

“I will also set up a State team to look deeper into this saga between the Central Bank and Puma,” Marape said.

Many angry passengers called Prime Minister Marape and his government to intervene and address what is the second instance of flight cancellations due to fuel shortages following lack of foreign currency.

‘Sad reflection’ on economy
Simdei Kamgu, a passenger who was turned away, said the situation was a “sad reflection of the poor state of PNG’s economy” and urged Marape to come forward with a solution as the lives of thousands of domestic travelers across the country were affected by the indefinite flight cancellations.

Another disappointed customer, Andrew Bepi, who had spent more than K6000 on tickets for himself and five family members travelling to Western Highlands Province, appealed to the government to find solutions.

“Feel sorry for us the people, it is not our fault. We are traveling for business and other work and we need the government and airline operators to come out and explain to us why and how long the delay will go on for,” said Bepi.

People confirmed to fly domestic routes yesterday met with disappointment when they fronted up at airports only to find out that all flights were cancelled indefinitely.

However, by 4pm Thursday, Puma Energy country general manager Hulala Tokome confirmed that Puma Energy had lifted their fuel restrictions to Air Niugini and would supply Jet A1 to the airline after a temporary approval of their FX order were given to them by their FX supplier BSP Financial Group and ANZ.

Bank of PNG acting governor Benny Popoitai said BPNG supplied Foreign Exchange Currency (FX) to commercial banks and Puma Energy was not a client of BPNG but a client of commercial banks.

Orders from Central Bank
Despite this claim by the Central Bank, the Post-Courier understands that commercial banks get their orders of FX from the Central Bank and if the commercial banks cannot supply FX release to their clients, then this means that the Central Bank cannot or is holding back on FX orders put in by commercial banks on behalf of their clients.

In a public notice, Air Niugini advised that due to issues with Puma Energy accessing US dollars, Puma had decided to suspend the supply of Jet A1 fuel within PNG, including to Air Niugini and all other airlines effective yesterday.

Consequently, the national flag carrier announced the cancellation of all domestic flights starting on Thursday until restrictions were confirmed removed late in the afternoon.

This is the second time this incident has hit the nation within months and those stranded at the Jackson’s Airport in Port Moresby on Thursday demanded the government to urgently resolve the crippling issue of inaccessibility to foreign currency with some concerned it will continue to occur despite the short term reprieve.

Among those stranded were those who had flown in from other provinces on connecting flights, and are now worried about where they will be lodged for the night until the matter of fuel supply and foreign currency is resolved between BPNG and Puma Energy.

Claudia Tally and Maxine Kamus are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.

Domestic flights have been cancelled again in New Caledonia as a conflict between Air Calédonie and the workers’ union USTKE continues.

The carrier decided to cancel all flights today after last week’s disruptions and strikes over the status of a co-pilot. Some flights on Tuesday are also affected.

A meeting took place between the government, the province of the Loyalty islands, the USTKE (Union of Kanak and Exploited Workers) and Air Calédonie to reach a solution.

• READ MORE: Grève à Aircal : les syndicats campent sur leur position
• Other Air Calédonie aviation reports

The territorial government said that “the two institutions are given until August 20 at the latest to find a solution. While waiting, the USTKE has decided to suspend immediately the strike”.

The co-pilot Chrystelle Cejo is reported to have had “training gaps” because of problems caused by the pandemic, which resulted in the company Air Calédonie suspending her contract without renewal, according to the union.

A media release from the union said the company had communicated negative comments to other training instructors on Cejo’s flying capabilities.

Test flight cancelled
On the last stage of her flight training, the instructor gave Cejo one more month until the last test flight which he then cancelled at the last minute and fired her.

UTSKE officials said she should be allowed to resume work and have her contract renewed immediately.

A former pilot of Air Calédonie, Ronald Urene told La Premiere television he did not understand why the company had been “so harsh” on the Kanak pilot.

“There are some pilots that have done only four to five months of training, and to take the pilot that has done 12 months and regard that as only six months of training — that is what is annoying us and I consider that discrimination.”

However, Air Calédonie’s CEO Samuel Hnepeune told La Premiere the decision to ground the pilot was fair because she did not have enough training.

“For me, it’s sufficient information and everybody is convinced,” he said.

“An instructor evaluates the level, and the person comes back after the test and fills the gaps of their training. That’s easily done, but instead the union is demanding an immediate reintegration of the co-pilot.”

‘Exit solution’
Aircal said in its media release that even though “the pilot with a lot of flying experience [she] has not attained the the level of expertise required to fly.”

In a tweet, La Premiere said: “According to the government of New Caledonia an ‘exit solution’ is being considered and the USTKE has suspended its strike.”

Conflit Aircal : selon le gouvernement de la #NouvelleCaledonie, une “solution de sortie” est envisagée et l’USTKE suspend son mouvement https://t.co/OUeKF4M7fg pic.twitter.com/gMAQggpkGE

— NC La 1ère (@ncla1ere) August 15, 2022

An unnamed union member told La Premiere that “the pilot did not get the same treatment as other pilots”.

“The company invented a standard of training as she was getting tuition which is very unfair on her,” he said.

Since August 4, Air Calédonie has been affected by the industrial action leaving more than 1400 people unable to travel to the Loyalty Islands.

A national football league match in Magenta between Tiga and Kunié has been cancelled due to the strikes.

A Papuan student advocacy group has called for the establishment of a future Aotearoa New Zealand scholarship for West Papuans to replace a controversial Indonesian-funded programme that left many students stranded this year with incomplete studies.

The call has been made by the Papuan Students Association Oceania (PSAO) as a cohort of students celebrated the graduation of two commercial pilots this month.

They also marked the success of fundraising and pastoral support for students who remained in New Zealand to complete their studies in spite of the hardships created by a sudden loss of Papuan provincial scholarships at the end of last year.

• READ MORE: West Papuan students secure future in New Zealand with new jobs
• Other Papuan student scholarship crisis reports

Community, faith-based, social justice and student groups have raised more than $70,000 in relief programmes aimed at assisting with accommodation, student fees and living costs.

Speaking on behalf of PSAO, student advocate Laurens ikinia, a postgraduate communications student at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), praised the help of many New Zealand groups which have in recent months filled the gap left by the “unjust cancellation” of Papuan provincial scholarships for about 40 students.

He said in a message to support groups and political parties which have assisted that the International Alliance of Papuan Student Associations Overseas (IAPSAO) and the parents and whanau of the affected students had expressed “thank you for your kind support and solidarity, generous donation, faithful prayers and moral support during our difficult times.”

Ikinia said that out of the 41 affected students, 12 had been forced to return to West Papua for several reasons.

Generous support
“The remaining 28 students who are currently studying at different tertiary institutions and one student at a high school have benefited from [New Zealanders’] generous support. All of them have gratefully expressed their gratitude and aroha,” he said.

“We sincerely thank you for being part of our life’s journey through the unprecedented struggle that we have faced. We will remember and cherish them for our lifetime.”

The message was conveyed to New Zealand while students were marking the success of Papuans Stevi Yikwa and Logi Karuri gaining their commercial pilot’s certificates at the Ardmore Flying School near Auckland.

Eight students who have completed their carpentry course at Palmerston North polytech UCOL have also been granted work visas through Pro-Construction in Manawatū.

Other students are at AUT, Canterbury University, IPU New Zealand, Massey University, Otago University, Unitec, Victoria University of Wellington and Waikato University.

As well as support from Labour and Green MPs, the students have been helped with fundraising efforts by the All Saints Anglican Food Bank, Auckland Central Parish of the Methodist Church, Church Unlimited, Dominican Sisters, Fielding Activate Church, Grace City Church (Palmerston North), Indonesian Catholic Community (Auckland), Indonesian Christian Community (Pamerston North), Onehunga Food Bank, Pax Christi Aotearoa, PNG community in Palmerston North, Rotuman Community Centre and Whānau Hub, Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, West Papua Action, West Papua Movement Aotearoa and many others.

The Papuans have also been boosted by support from AUT Melanesian Wantoks,  New Zealand International Students Association (NZISA), New Zealand Union of Students Association (NZUSA) and Taura Pasifika

Scholarships next step
However, Ikinia said the next challenge was to try to establish future scholarships for indigenous Papuans in New Zealand similar to those offered for Timorese-Leste and Pacific Islands students.

The Papua provincial government’s Foreign Scholarship programme introduced by Governor Lukas Enembe in recent years will wind up by the end of 2022.

Ikinia said one of the key factors in the ending of the scholarship was the loss of the governor’s independent authority over education funds under Indonesia’s controversial Special Autonomy Law (OTSUS) volume ll in the Melanesian provinces.

Also Governor Enembe’s second term is due to end by the end of 2023.

Commentators are warning that there will be “political and bureaucratic instability” in Papua due to the unpopular establishment of three new provinces that is being widely resisted by Papuan civil society.

Papuan students who are studying in New Zealand who are not on the scholarship termination list will still face uncertainty for the future.

The students are appealing to MPs and political party leaders, NGOs, churches, community groups, iwi, unions and other stakeholders to join their appeal for annual indigenous Papuan student scholarships.

• More information: Laurens Ikinia (PSAO student advocate)

The sun rises over a strange landscape. Come with me and meet these people over here.

Even though they have stayed awake all night, now that the sun has risen, they are jumping up and down, singing happy songs and even expressing tears of joy.

Next to them, there is a wooden post freshly buried in the ground. There is carved writing on the post which reads: “Memory of Year 2000″.

• READ MORE: Justice for sorcery accusation related violence in PNG?
• Other sorcery-accusation related reports

It was New Years Day, January 1, 2000, and this small community somehow thought that the sun might not rise, ever again.

Why? Because someone had come to their village and told them stories about the Year 2000, Y2K, and how the sun might not rise, ever again. The villagers believed the stories.

They gathered firewood to prepare for the endless night to come and set up vines to their outhouses so they could find them in the dark. At midnight, they drove the carved pillar into the ground, and then stood awake, praying through their fear, until the sun finally rose and they began to celebrate!

Amazing true story, right? But I wonder what would have happened if someone had told them a different story.

What if …?
What if someone told them that since it is Y2K, the sun might not rise again unless each family sacrificed their oldest child by burying them alive at midnight?

What if someone told them that the right way to ensure the sun will rise again is to blame a witch and torture her, burn her skin, threaten to kill her and terrorise her children? Would they have tortured innocent citizens of Papua New Guinea trying to get the sun to rise?

People have believed the strangest things on the worst evidence. When you believe wrong things, you do wrong things too. My ancestors believed wrong things. Your ancestors believed wrong things.

Anton Lutz on sorcery-related violence in Papua New Guinea in a 2020 video.

The Y2K villagers believed wrong things. Luckily, they didn’t hurt anyone as a result of their wrong beliefs.

Telling the truth
Here’s a thought: What if someone had told the villagers the truth? Planet Earth revolves on an axis and orbits a star. That is the reason why we experience sunrises and sunsets, years and seasons.

Unless the 5.9 sextillion metric tons of planet Earth — spinning at 30km per second — comes to a stop, or unless the star unexpectedly collapses into a black hole, there is every reason — barring a supernatural, multi-dimensional or alien apocalypse — to think there will be sunrises and sunsets on planet Earth for the next 7.6 billion years.

This means that we should use the time we have to be curious and to examine evidence and to educate our children in the truth.

Just because someone came to our village once upon a time and told us an amazing story about how “dangerous” women need to be tortured sometimes, that doesn’t mean we should just believe it.

There will be a sunrise tomorrow. Let’s make sure it’s a better day.

Anton Lutz has lived in Papua New Guinea for 30 years. He works with remote communities on infrastructure development projects, and is a leading advocate against sorcery accusation-related violence. This article was first published on the PNG Post-Courier and is republished with permission.

The ugly side of Papua New Guinean elections has shown its face in the Western Highlands capital Mt Hagen with unknown suspects sabotaging one of the busiest airports in the country to protest against the appointment of electoral officials.

Using the cover of darkness yesterday, the suspects poured oil on the Kagamuga International Airport tarmac to disrupt flights, prompting the provincial police commander to describe it as an “act of terrorism”.

Chief Superintendent Joe Puri said the incident showed what people were capable of when they were frustrated.

• READ MORE: Other PNG election reports

“However, it does not give anyone the right to hold the whole province to ransom,” he said.

“Three different factions of supporters of candidates are suspected of being involved in this latest sabotage of the airport.

“The persons responsible gained access through the back fence near the Mt Hagen golf course and got onto the tarmac where litres of engine oil was poured onto the tarmac.”

This started in protest over the appointment of the Hagen Open Returning Officer, with two factions contesting the appointment of the official in court.

Commercial flights cancelled
Commercial flights were cancelled yesterday following a protest over the electoral official’s appointment.

The protesting locals wanted Willie Ropa to be reinstated as Returning Officer for the Hagen Open electorate.

Ropa’s appointment was disputed in court by Hagen MP William Duma, who challenged the decision of the Electoral Commission in light of two conflicting gazette notices over the appointment of two ROs for Hagen — Ropa and Amos Noifa.

This incident and others in just three weeks of campaigning and nominations should not be taken lightly, as the instances will only grow if nothing is done quickly by the authorities.

Just over the weekend, the Returning Officer for Kompiam-Ambum Open, Enga Province, was shot and had to be hospitalised.

Last week, the convoy of a sitting Member of Parliament (Okapa MP Saki Soloma) was stopped and attacked leading to several vehicles being torched and destroyed.

At the same time, former Nipa-Kutubu MP and now a candidate for Southern Highlands Provincial, Philemon Embel also narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on his life when his vehicle was shot at in the province.

While these incidents have taken place mainly in the Highlands region, it is no secret the syndrome of violence can quickly spread to other centres in the country.

Last month Police Commissioner David Manning called on the nation to help deliver a free, fair and safe election. Police are now maintaining a 24 hour presence around the airport.

Thierry Lepani and Miriam Zarriga are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.

A commemoration has been held in French Polynesia to mark the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of a leading opposition politician in the Tuamotus.

Boris Léontieff, who headed the Fetia Api party, was among four politicians travelling in a small plane on a campaign trip when it disappeared without a trace.

The commemoration was held in Arue where Léontieff was the mayor.

• READ MORE: Other reports on the Jean-Pascal Couraud mystery

The case was closed 11 years ago after investigations failed to conclude why their plane vanished, with theories suggesting the pilot lacked experience and might have encountered fuel problems.

There had been speculation there may have been foul play or that the aircraft may have been diverted.

The politicians’ wives had approached the French president to explore if the United States took satellite images of the Tuamotus at the time of the presumed crash.

Nine years ago, a court rejected a request for compensation to be paid to the widow of Boris Léontieff.

Her lawyer, James Lau, told a local newspaper that it was established that Leontieff was under surveillance by the secret service of then-president, Gaston Flosse.

Lau said the same spying effort was directed at Leontieff’s advisor and journalist, Jean-Pascal Couraud, who also disappeared without leaving a trace in 1997.

Researching the affairs of Flosse
Couraud was famous for researching the affairs of Flosse, who ruled a militia known as the GIP.

An investigation was first opened in 2004 after a former spy claimed that Couraud had been kidnapped and killed by the GIP, which dumped him in the sea between Mo’orea and Tahiti.

Murder charges against two members of the now disbanded militia, the GIP, were dismissed a decade later, after incriminating wiretaps were ruled inadmissible because they were obtained illegally.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has raised its travel advisory warning on travel to New Zealand.

The CDC updated its travel warning to “level four: very high” for travel to New Zealand due to covid-19 cases, of which today alone there was 23,894 new cases recorded.

According to the Reuters’ Covid-19 tracker, covid-19 infections are decreasing in United States, with 49,611 new infections reported on average each day.

• READ MORE: Covid-19: 23,894 new cases today, 756 people in hospital — Ministry of Health
• Other NZ covid outbreak reports

The CDC states if people must travel to New Zealand they should ensure they are up-to-date with their covid-19 vaccinations.

The health warnings are determined by the “level of covid-19 in the country or other special considerations”.

Many countries have been rated with a level four risk warning by the CDC, including Australia. Hong Kong and Thailand were also added to the list today.

Travel restrictions were eased in New Zealand from last week, with returnees now not required to self-isolate upon arrival.

Record 23,894 new cases
The Ministry of Health reported a record 23,894 new cases of covid-19 today, with 9881 in Auckland.

In addition there are 756 people in hospital with covid-19 and 16 of those are in ICU. The seven-day rolling average of community cases is 18,669, up from yesterday.

Of the new cases, 596 were confirmed via PCR testing and 23,298 via rapid antigen tests (RATs).

At the covid-19 update today, Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay said the actual number of cases in the community was expected to be considerably higher, but that was hard to gauge when using RAT as the primary test.

That was why the ministry was focusing on hospitalisations, McElnay said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Air travellers were left stranded and fuming country-wide as airlines Air Niugini and PNG Air hit a rough patch in operations due to wet weather and a large number of their key staff falling sick and unable to be at work.

Flight cancellations were the order of the day yesterday at many airports with passenger backlogs and frustrations growing.

Air Niugini, especially, has had flight cancellations since last November.

• READ MORE: Other reports on PNG aviation

The airline has issued an apology saying wet weather conditions and staff absenteeism had caused the situation.

In a media release, both airlines apologised for a number of flights in recent days which have been disrupted due to a much higher number of crew than usual falling sick, as well as the current bad weather conditions across the country impacting on the airlines’ operations.

Both airlines say they are doing everything they can to manage the situation, but will not compromise safety operations.

Stranded passengers had to rebook flights and spend extra money for accommodation and transport.

Backlog mostly tertiary students
Most on the backlog of passengers are tertiary students and parents who have been asked to rebook flights for four to five days as of last Wednesday.

While the airlines have not publicly stated if staff were infected with covid-19, reliable sources from within companies have informed the Post-Courier that a majority of those sick and absent from work were infected with the virus.

They included aircraft engineers, high-end ground staff, pilots, cabin crews and protocol staff.

One of the stranded passengers from Lae, former EMTV senior journalist Scott Waide took to social media to comment on the crisis, which attracted a lot of responses and complaints from passengers who were in a similar situation.

They describing the customer service by the airlines as poor.

Waide was asked to rebook his flight more than once and finally made it into Port Moresby late yesterday evening.

An unfortunate incident happened at Nadzab Airport in Lae yesterday when an airline staff member allegedly insulted a female passenger.

Staff member ‘tears up’ boarding passes
Josephine Kawage claimed the staff member tore up her and her child’s boarding passes.

Kawage said in a video recording that they had been stranded for four days and were finally put on the flight yesterday. However, the check-in officer was only able to produce two boarding passes for Kawage and her son.

She said that she was humiliated when she asked for the boarding passes for her other family members.

A disappointed husband, Captain Henry Nilkare from the North Coast Aviation, condemned the alleged actions of the airline staff member when he spoke to Post-Courier last night.

He said he would take the matter up with Air Niugini to have the officer penalised.

“I do work in the airline industry and understand the nature of his job at situations like this, but his actions were uncalled for and no passenger, or any woman with an infant, should be treated as such in front of many people,” he said.

“That is a bad image for Air Niugini and I do not wish to see this happen to any other passengers.

“If he can do this to my wife and child, who knows how many people he may have treated badly.”

Captain Nilkare said he would be flying to Lae himself to pick up his family today.

Melisha Yafoi is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest country by population with 270 million, has not yet determined its stance towards the Taliban leadership after seizing power in Afghanistan.

It is also the most populous Muslim country.

The Director-General for Asia Pacific and Africa at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abdul Kadir Jailani, said the same attitude was also being shown by other countries.

• READ MORE: Qatar jet carrying technical team lands in Kabul
• ‘I’ll stay in Afghanistan as long as I can,’ says reporter Charlotte Bellis
• Other Afghanistan reports

“Why haven’t many countries taken a definitive stance, because the situation is still fluid and (the Taliban) have not yet formed a legitimate government,” said Abdul Kadir in the webinar ‘Post-Conflict Afghanistan: Fall or Rise?’ this week.

According to Jailani, Taliban officials are negotiating with a number of figures in Afghanistan in a bid to form a new government.

In addition to the formation of government, Indonesia is also still waiting for the status of the Taliban in the international community.

Jailani said a common view was needed about the status of the Taliban.

“This understanding is very important, so we can get faster information to determine our attitude towards the Taliban and its government later,” he added.

He said the Indonesian government was also careful in determining its stance because the Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan received a “quite warm” and mixed reaction from within Indonesia.

Jailani stressed that Indonesia’s definitive stance would only be conveyed when the situation in Afghanistan became clearer.

The Taliban seized control of the civilian government in Afghanistan on August 15 without any resistance. A few days ago, the Taliban claimed to have pocketed a number of names of figures who would later fill the new government.

Unlike in the 1996-2001 era, the Taliban claimed to be forming an inclusive government that involved all elements and ethnicities in Afghanistan.

The tourism and hospitality sectors are disappointed but understanding of the New Zealand decision to suspend the travel bubble.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the decision yesterday afternoon, and said the suspension in quarantine-free travel would go on for at least eight weeks.

It comes at a particularly bad time for the ski sector, which was looking forward to welcoming Australians over the next couple of weeks.

• READ MORE: NZ government suspends quarantine-free travel with Australia for at least eight weeks

Ski-based accommodation provider, Ski Time, at the foot of Mount Hutt ski field, is expecting to lose more than half of its bookings over the next two months due to the travel bubble suspension.

The manager, Pete Wood, said as a result, they may have to make some redundancies.

“It is going to be tough, we’ll probably have to make some tough decisions over the next couple of weeks depending on how business travels along.

“We certainly don’t want to lose any staff – we’ve got a great team here at the moment and they’ve all pitched in to survive the last 18 months together, and it would be a shame to lose a few of them.”

60 percent Australian
He said 60 percent of all the business’s August bookings were by Australians and they would now all be cancelled.

He hoped New Zealanders would be heading to the South Island for a ski holiday this August, to make up for the lack of Australians.

“We had a pretty chocka-block August coming up, but of course with these cancellations, there’s going to be quite a few gaps here, which makes way for Kiwis to start travelling again, because they can’t go to Australia.”

Ski Time is not the only business to be losing out: one Queenstown operator said cancellations have been coming in thick and fast since the suspension of the trans-Tasman travel bubble.

Mark Quickfall owns Totally Tourism, and like many operators in the south, he said they were gearing up for a big winter season with visitors from Australia.

He said many businesses and employees will be feeling anxious after yesterday’s announcement, especially if more staff have been brought in in anticipation of higher visitor numbers.

“We’re only one leak from an outbreak. If you have a choice of opening up and ending up with a lockdown, or staying protected, I think we know what the answer is there.

“But it doesn’t make it any easier.”

Support ruled out
The government has ruled out any specific support for tourism businesses hit by the suspension.

A financial cost to operators is coming though.

“There’s been a huge number of cancellations just rushing in,” Quickfall said. “Like everyone down here, we had strong bookings out of Australia, for our heli-ski businesses, helicopter operations, down at Milford.

“That’s all just disappeared overnight.”

The tourism industry body said it hopes the suspension of the trans-Tasman bubble will not go on any longer than eight weeks.

Industry pins hopes on September holidays
Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Roberts said while it is disappointing, it is the right decision to make.

He said operators would be looking forward to the next Australian school holidays, which begin in mid-September. If the bubble is up and running then, Roberts expects large numbers of visitors will be booking trips again.

“If the bubble’s up and running again by September, then we can expect good numbers of Australian visitors coming over here for those school holidays in September.

“That’s something we can look forward to in the end of what is hopefully only an eight-week suspension.”

Roberts hopes domestic tourists will fill some of the gap in the meantime, and that the financial hit will not be too bad.

“There are relatively few Australian visitors currently in New Zealand.

“Those Australians who were planning to come to New Zealand in the next eight weeks which would have included some skiing holidays will now have to cancel those plans and that’s reasonably unfortunate.

New Zealanders may holiday at home
“But at the same time, New Zealanders won’t be heading off to Australia, and some of those New Zealanders might choose to holiday at home instead.”

Meanwhile, the hospitality industry said the government needed to rethink its decision not to offer support to businesses hit by the suspension of the trans-Tasman bubble.

Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Julie White said while it was the right decision, businesses would suffer.

She said the hospitality and tourism sectors have borne the brunt of the economic impact of the lockdowns and border restrictions.

“Hospitality and tourism are the lost leaders when it comes to the cost of balancing the health risk. I think this is the time – we really need to have that robust conversation with the government.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

As the delta variant of covid-19 spreads to more than 96 countries, Papua New Guinea has put in tighter measures that include all incoming passengers and crew to be vaccinated before boarding any international flight entering the country.

Police Commissioner David Manning, who is also Controller of the PNG COVID-19 National Pandemic Response, released the new control measures yesterday.

Under the updated measures, all incoming passengers and crew should be vaccinated before boarding an international flight coming into PNG.

• READ MORE: PNG opposition leader Belden Namah to challenge travel restrictions
• Other articles about the PNG covid crisis

And the mandatory quarantine period has been extended to 21 days for all incoming travellers, with covid-19 tests to be undertaken on the first, seventh and final day of quarantine.

Scheduled flights can continue as normal, while unscheduled flights require approval from the Controller.

Manning said the new measures were aimed at preventing the spread of the covid-19 delta mutation.

PNG is struggling with widespread community transmission of the virus, with more than 17,000 confirmed cases and rising.

‘Serious threat’
“The delta strain of covid-19 poses a serious threat to our country, and we will do everything we can to prevent or delay its arrival and spread,” Manning said.

Institute of the National Affairs executive director Paul Barker has welcomed the new measures, saying that the restrictions on international flights are really wise — but they also needs to apply to the West Papua border with Indonesia.

“The variant is dominant in India and has become dominant in a short time in Fiji, UK, and South Africa, and is spreading fast in US, and lately has slipped into UK,” he said.

“It’s 60 percent more infectious than the UK variant, which was 60 percent more infectious than the original virus we have here.”

“It’s good to keep it out as long as we can, but it’s already spreading fast in Indonesia, so it will be challenging.”

Overseas destinations
Meanwhile, Air Niugini has also released a statement advising passengers on Air Niugini international flights departing from overseas destinations on or after Friday, July 2, 2021, and entering PNG, must now :

• Be fully vaccinated against covid-19, and provide evidence in the form of a vaccination certificate at check-in;
• Quarantine for 21 days on arrival in PNG at the individual’s expense;
• All previous approvals for home quarantine, or shorter quarantine period, have been revoked by the Controller; and
• All previous Controller approvals for a person to enter PNG as required under previous Measure 2 remain effective, but are now subject to the new direction.

There are no changes to the requirements for international passengers departing from PNG.

Air Niugini continues to operate six flights a week to Brisbane, one flight to Sydney, four flights per week to Singapore, and twice weekly flights each to Manila and Hong Kong.

Rebecca Kuku is a senior journalist with the PNG Post-Courier. This article is republished with permission.

Nickson Stevi Yikwa had a dream. As a Papuan student, he wanted to gain a commercial pilot’s licence in New Zealand so that he could go back home to help his fellow indigenous Papuans at remote highlands villages.

His dream was shared by Papuan provincial Governor Lukas Enembe and his deputy, Klemen Tinal, since they were elected in 2013.

And Nickson Stevi Yikwa, “Stevi” as he is known, has done it.

• READ MORE: Other Laurens Ikinia reports

He completed his commercial licence from Ardmore Flying School earlier this month.

“I need to be a pilot because my people in the remote villages need me and are waiting for me to come home as a pilot to serve them,” he says.

Since 2014, the provincial government of the Indonesian-ruled Melanesian province Papua has been sending a steady stream of indigenous Papuan students abroad, including to New Zealand, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States.

This year, several Papuan students will be graduating from New Zealand universities as undergraduate and master’s students. Yikwa’s achievement as a pilot is the first success story of this year and several students will follow him.

Grateful for governor’s support
Yikwa, the second oldest of six siblings, says he is really grateful for what he has accomplished.

He extended his gratitude particularly to Governor Enembe and all those who have helped him on his study journey.

He has faced many challenges since he first came to New Zealand in 2014 – such as the language barrier, cultural shock, education system, weather, family burden, and other issues.

“When I first came to New Zealand, I couldn’t speak English at all. What I knew was only several sentences like, ‘what is your name, my name is, how are you, and I am fine’,” says Yikwa.

He carried the burden of setting an example for his siblings. As he completed his elementary to high school studies in Papua, Yikwa struggled to adjust with the materials delivered in class, given that he did not have good English.

Yikwa says he was lucky to be surrounded by supportive teachers, instructors, people from the churches he attended, and friends he “hangs out with”.

Faced with the challenges, Yikwa says he was close to giving up his studies, but he always put his people in West Papua ahead in his mind and their need for him to come home as a pilot.

‘Trust in God’
“While holding onto this kind of thought, I always put my trust in God. I got support from great people around me and I really committed myself towards my study,” says Yikwa.

He says that while doing English programmes at IPU New Zealand Tertiary Institute, he tried more than 10 tests – both TOEIC and IELTS – to enable him to get into aviation school.

It wasn’t easy to do as English is his third language and he did not have basic English when he came to New Zealand.

On behalf of Yikwa’s family, Amos Yikwa, says they are extremely proud of what Stevi has achieved. Amos Yikwa also thanked Governor Enembe and the provincial government for granting Stevi a scholarship.

“All Stevi’s family are extremely grateful to Lukas Enembe and all the people who have contributed to his success,” says Amos Yikwa.

Amos Yikwa, who is former Deputy Regent of Tolikara regency, says that as far as he knows, Stevi, is the first student from the regency to officially complete a commercial pilot’s licence.

Amos Yikwa says Stevi Yikwa was an obedient child and he didn’t play with friends. His daily activities were going to school, helping his parents at home, participating in church activities, and playing soccer.

Needed in remote highlands
“I hope that when Stevi returns to Papua, God will use him to serve his people, particularly in the remote highlands area that desperately an aviation service,” says Amos Yikwa.

Sutikshan Sharma, Yikwa’s instructor at Ardmore Flying School says it was an honour for him to help students achieve their dreams to be a pilot. He says having a student like Stevi Yikwa is encouraging.

“What I can tell you about Stevi is that he is very hard working, honest and he knows his purpose. He knows what he wants, and he works for it. It is always good to have students like him,” says Sharma.

“He has come through a lot, he had to learn English as English is not his first language. Coming to a country where English is not their first language and doing a hard course like aviation is an achievement in itself. And I really praise him for that and what he has achieved, good on him to be honest,” says the instructor.

Sharma says that when Yikwa was having a flight test, he passed with 85 percent. This is a really good standard and it is really tough for the student to reach to that level, he says.

Marveys Ayomi, the Papuan provincial scholarship coordinator in New Zealand, who selected Stevi Yikwa as a Papua provincial government scholarship recipient in 2014, says that the study success of a student cannot necessarily be viewed from academic capability alone.

He believes that self-strength is also one of the attributes that has contributed to the success of Stevi and other Papuan students.

Motivation to succeed
“Being an academic myself and being in this position as the scholarship coordinator sometimes we overlook the importance of one’s inner strength and an individual’s drive and motivation to succeed,” says Ayomi.

Ayomi, who is also the first indigenous Papuan to become a lecturer in New Zealand, says that mental strength is a key because he believes that when students have the right academic skills then they are bound to succeed. But that’s not the only attribute that contributes to success.

“It takes much more than that and I think the mental or inner-strength that Stevi has was probably the key driving factor behind his success – and the faith to believe that ‘I can do it’.

It wasn’t an easy journey, but I knew he was capable of accomplishing his goal,” says Ayomi.

Ayomi, who has been working as a coordinator of the scholarship programme since 2014, says that serving Papuan students is a great honour and having seen Stevi accomplishing his dream gives him great pleasure.

He says all the parents in Papua would like to see their children doing well on their studies.

“As Barack Obama always says, ‘Yes We Can’. I believe that Papuans also can make this world to be a better place,” Ayomi says.

“So, what Papuan students should do is not only being proud of being Papuans but they need to take it seriously and show it through their studies. With that in mind, we shouldn’t be at the back of the queue, but we should be in the front line,” says Ayomi.

Stevi Yikwa says that if other people can do it, “we also can do it”.

Laurens Ikinia is a Papuan Masters in Communication Studies student at Auckland University of Technology who has been studying journalism. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report.

Two Papua New Guinean security companies currently providing services at the Jacksons International Airport terminal in the capital Port Moresby attacked each other today, damaging airport facilities and forcing the suspension of flights, reports the PNG Post-Courier.

Guards from one security firm – armed with knives, iron pipes and sticks – attacked guards from another company and National Airports Corporation security personnel in a running battle that forced many passengers and staff running for cover early in the morning.

The first security firm launched the attack around 6.30am. The running battle lasted for about two hours, causing extensive damage to the domestic terminal and some vehicles.

• WATCH: Chaos at Jackson’s International Airport as two security firms clash

The motive behind the attack was unclear.

Air Niugini management cancelled all flights out of Port Moresby while a flight bound for the second city of Lae with passengers was called back at the tarmac.

No passengers were harmed and both the international and corporate terminal were not affected.

Police said the crisis was under control but flights were still suspended.

Chaos at Jacksons International Airport as two security firms clash over airport contract #PNG #Airport #Airports #securitybreach #SecurityGuard pic.twitter.com/cPmwzd3N07

— MARTYN AWAYANG NAMORONG (@MartynNamorong) March 22, 2021

Although international travel restrictions for Australia have been extended to at least June, there may still be potential for a trans-Tasman bubble with New Zealand (and maybe some other countries), according to reports.

Air New Zealand will begin trialling digital vaccine passports (or “immunity passports”) on routes to Australia in April.

Ideally, these digital certificates will allow authorities to quickly check whether prospective travellers have been vaccinated.

• READ MORE: Covid ‘vaccine passport’ may further disadvantage refugees and asylum seekers
  

The specific passport system New Zealand is set to adopt — along with Qantas, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways — is the International Air Transport Association (IATA)‘s digital Travel Pass app.

But to be effective, this system would need to meet several key criteria. The vaccine passports would need to be linked securely to travellers, comply with different countries’ regulations and be almost impossible to illegally copy or modify.

How would it work?
It is expected at least the vast majority of people travelling on an airline using the IATA software will have to use the pass. The system has four steps:

1. a vaccine-recording component for when a person is first vaccinated
2. the transfer of this person’s vaccine-related and personal data to the IATA software
3. verification of the data by an authorised party
4. digital cross-checking, to ensure a government’s travel requirements are applied to all travellers entering or leaving that country. This would also make sure each traveller has the necessary prerequisites needed to enter their destination country.

The software would work by establishing an international network of trusted vaccine providers. The IATA is already compiling this list. These providers, including hospitals and clinics, would receive access to the software’s vaccine-recording component.

With this they woud log information about a patient’s vaccination and identity details (such as passport number). So you would almost certainly need to present a valid passport when getting vaccinated.

For those already vaccinated by the time the system is rolled out, an option would be needed to transfer existing records to the app. Again, this would require confirmation the person requesting the data transfer is the same person who was vaccinated.

Before-departure checks
Once your vaccine and identification details are logged, this would generate a data file to be sent securely to the app’s software. This file would be encrypted and stored on the device itself, only to be retrieved by an authorised person with your consent.

Border and airline staff could check whether the lab identification is valid by comparing it to the IATA’s list of trusted vaccine providers. This check would be done using a wireless near-field communication system, similar to that used for contactless payments.

At this point, the border control unit would also confirm if the identification you presented when getting your vaccine is still valid. They could also check your passport against the national passport database, which is standard procedure.

Such a system could be set up to flag important updates. If a vaccine batch failed quality control, or a certain provider was removed from the approved providers list, this would need to be reflected quickly.

Security advantages of vaccine passports
A notable advantage of vaccine passports is they’re hard to forge compared to paper records. The IATA software would unbreakably link your identification details with your vaccination status.

Even if someone stole your phone or copied its data, this data would match only your passport. If they stole your passport, too, they’d likely still get caught during normal passport checks.

On Apple (iOS) smartphones the in-built “secure enclave” feature would prevent your Travel Pass app information from being moved remotely to another device without the right permissions. Android and other operating systems have similar tools used for smart wallets.

Using vaccine passports also minimises data sharing. In each case of information transaction, such as when crossing border control, the only data shared are your identification details and vaccine information.

An achievable set-up
Most countries are requiring that all covid vaccines administered be recorded on a national register. In Australia, this is the Australian Immunisation Register.

The IATA will publish the Travel Pass app’s software interface, which is what enables other programs to transfer data to and from the software.

With the interface available, countries should be able to simply integrate the software into their own vaccine management systems. Governments could even apply their own rules to the software.

For instance, one may decide to reject vaccine records from a particular provider, or demand a longer waiting period once a vaccine is received.

This could obviously cause problems for travellers who may be planning to go to a destination with different protocols to the origin country. That’s why this would have to be sorted prior to travel, just as visas often are.

Minor issues and loopholes
For now, a digital vaccine passport would only be available for people with a smartphone or tablet. Also, each traveller in a group would need their own vaccine passport.

This could be tricky for families with young children or other dependants who don’t (or can’t) use smart devices. One fix would be for parents or carers to store dependants’ information on their own device.

The only credible route for vaccine passport forgery would be if a vaccination management system, such as one used by a GP or hospital, somehow recorded patient data incorrectly.

This could be done by someone deliberately impersonating someone else. Then again, the impostor would have to convince both the health worker administering their vaccine and staff at the airport. This would be difficult if a passport is used.

Similarly, a hacker could potentially attack the Australian Immunisation Register (or other vaccine registers) to generate false data to feed into the IATA system. But these registries tend to be well-protected.

And if one were compromised, it would be simple to invalidate vaccine certificates tracing back to it for as long as the issue was not resolved.

Dr Dave Parry, professor of computer science, Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Yesterday in Papua New Guinea, our Port Moresby-Madang flight got cancelled.

Minutes earlier, as we sat in the departure lounge, I was so confident.

No there was no doubt… Cancel that. I wasn’t even thinking about a cancellation.

• READ MORE: Scott Waide’s My Land, My Country

In my universe, a cancellation was not part of the equation.

I was going to Madang on PX 112.

Seconds before the the announcement began with “This is an advice to passengers traveling to Madang on PX 112…” came on, I had already started packing my Macbook and my phone. (Because I’m psychic like that.)

Then the message continued: “…this flight has been cancelled.” (Not so psychic, huh?)

My mood was audibly echoed by dozens of people in the departure lounge. “Another TANGFU!” someone said beside me. (Note to self: Google TANGFU).

So they said over the PA system, in so many words, go to the PX customer services counter to find out when your flight will take off – and in the same breath, indicating that it sure as hell wasn’t going to be today.

I walked out with my partner in crime in tow and my very dirty tactical backpack slug over my shoulder. Within seconds of stepping into the security checking area, a small security guard yelled from across the room for us to go through the other door.

His total religious compliance with covid-19 regulations meant that half his face was covered with a face mask making his ability to effectively communicate to customers extremely difficult. All I could make out was that he didn’t want us there.

“Oi! Na yu toktok isi!” I yelled back. He didn’t stop, he kept going on until someone yelled back at him.

We found our way out. PX customer service said the flight was rescheduled to early morning the next day. Wake up at 4am, check in at 5am. They also advised that there would be no accommodation for outbound passengers from Port Moresby.

AAAAAGH! we don’t live here and we checked out 4 hours ago from where we were!

So we ended up looking for accommodation near the airport. But the drama didn’t end there.

In my wisdom, I booked our accommodation online, got the dates wrong and booked for February 11 instead of January 28.

Long story short, I got scolded by my bestie who said, very sternly, “If we travel again, I will make travel arrangements, not you.”

Don’t blame me, blame the security guard and PX.

So, 4am in the morning we are there. Check in opens a bit late. It is manageable. No drama.

And we finally got on the flight. I mean, we are on board!!

Phew!

Editor’s note: Tang Fu is an “explosive” expression linked to the Chinese inventor and naval caption who invented a superior form of exploding rocket about 1000 AD which was said to be a forerunner of firearms. However, in the PNG context it means something else. Bob Howarth comments: “For those who never experienced it .. Tangfu … typical air nui gini f*** up!”

Asia Pacific Report republishes articles from Lae-based Papua New Guinean television journalist Scott Waide’s blog, My Land, My Country, with permission.

The pro-independence conflict in West Papua with a missionary plane reportedly being shot down at Intan Jaya has stirred contrasting responses from the TNI/POLRI state sources, church leaders and an independence leader.

A shooting caused a plane to catch fire on 6 January 2021 in the Intan Jaya regency, Papua province.

The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) or OPM (Papua Liberation Organisation) were alleged to have opened fire on the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) aircraft.

• READ MORE: OPM rebels alleged to have burned missionary aircraft in Papua

The shooting and blaze also sparked different responses from the leader of the KINGMI Synod on the Land of Papua, the interim president of the ULMWP, the TPNPM spokesperson and Indonesian police officers.

Jubi reports that the Head of Public Relations of the Papua Police (Kombes Pol), Achmad Mustofa Kamal, said the aircraft was set ablaze when it landed at Pagamba Airport, Nabire City, Papua.

The MAF PK-MAX aircraft piloted by an American citizen, Alex Luferchek departed from Nabire airport carrying two passengers from the local community bound for Pagamba (MAF’s pioneering airport), Biandoga district, Intan Jaya regency.

About 09.30am, pilot Luferchek reported via radio to the MAF office that the plane had landed at Pagamba airport.

Pilot secured by priests
When the pilot got off the plane, somebody – allegedly from an “Armed Criminal Group” (the Indonesian security description for TPNPB) – came with a gun. He fired a shot into the air while telling the pilot to duck.

The pilot was secured by priests and the community and taken to to Kampung Tekai, the border between Kampung Bugalaga and Kampung Pagamba, Mbiandoga district, Intan Jaya regency.

According to Sebby Sambom, an international spokesman for the TPNPB, the reports he had received were only related to the shooting. His party did not yet know about the burning of the MAF aircraft.

Sambom said that the arson was reported by Indonesian media to “build a bad narrative” against the TPNPB.

“We’re freedom fighters. The ones who have developed this burning aircraft issue are the Indonesian media,” he said.

Sambom also said that the shootings carried out by the TPNPB were not arbitrary. His party had learned that the TNI/POLRI used missionary planes to transport Indonesian military and their logistics.

Benny Wenda, acting President of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, told Pacific Media Watch by telephone that the ULMWP was the umbrella organisation for independence groups.

Struggle through ‘peaceful means’
He said the ULMWP struggle was a struggle through peaceful means.

He added that the enemy of TPNPB was the Indonesian army, not humanitarian workers and that West Papuans always “respected missionaries and other humanitarian workers” for their sacrifices and services to the people of the West Papua region.

“The shooting that took place (on January 4) was two days after the statement made by the former head of the State Intelligence Agency, Hendropriyono, that some missionaries had been involved using the church’s channels in an effort to liberate Papua from Indonesia,” said Wenda.

Retired general Abdullah Mahmud Hendropriyono from Kopassus, the Indonesian Army special forces group is also the first head of Indonesia’s State Intelligence Agency (BIN).

Wenda, who is currently living in Oxford, United Kingdom, as interim President of West Papua-in-exile, says his party is fighting for the independence of West Papua through peaceful means.

“In our policy it is very clear that, we do not take any harmful action against missionaries or any other humanitarian workers, because it would violate international law,” said Wenda.

He said the public could not simply accept the news reported by Indonesian authorities because an incident like this had happened because it is likely it was was “fabricated by the Indonesians”.

Asked whether the OPM was a terrorist organisation, Wenda said: “West Papua does not have terrorists. In fact, it was Indonesia who came to Papua as terrorists killing Papuans with modern weapons”.

This report has been compiled by a special Pacific Media Watch freedom project correspondent.

Body parts and debris were hauled from waters near Indonesia’s capital Jakarta today from a Boeing passenger plane that crashed shortly after take off with 62 people on board, reports The Jakarta Post.

The Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 plunged into a steep dive about four minutes after it left Soekarno-Hatta international airport in Jakarta on Saturday afternoon.

No reasons have yet been given for the crash, with authorities focusing on a frantic search and rescue effort that appeared to offer no hope of finding any survivors.

• READ MORE: Indonesia’s deadliest air crashes in recent years

“As of this morning, we’ve received two (body) bags, one with passenger belongings and the other with body parts,” Jakarta police spokesman Yusri Yunus told Metro TV.

The discovery came as a flotilla of warships, helicopters and divers were deployed off the coast of the sprawling city.

Sixty-two passengers and crew were on board, including 10 children, all of them Indonesians, according to authorities.

Sriwijaya Air flight SJ182 was bound for Pontianak city on Indonesia’s section of Borneo island, about 90 minutes flying time over the Java Sea.

Crashed in Java Sea
It crashed in the Java Sea near popular day-trip tourist islands just off the coast.

Distraught relatives waited nervously for news at Pontianak airport on Saturday night.

“I have four family members on the flight — my wife and three children,” Yaman Zai said as he sobbed.

“(My wife) sent me a picture of the baby today…How could my heart not be torn into pieces?”

Officials said today they would continue their search by sea and air while also using sonar radar to pick up more signs of the downed jet.

Divers marked at least three sites at the suspected crash site with orange ballons, according to an Agence France-Presse reporter on the scene.

“From our observation, it is strongly believed the coordinates match the ones from the plane’s last signal contact,” said Hadi Tjahjanto, head of Indonesia’s military.

Hundreds of personnel from search and rescue, the navy, the police, with 10 warships also taking part in the search effort.

Sudden dive
Data from FlightRadar24 said the plane reached an altitude of nearly 3,350m before dropping suddenly to 100m. It then lost contact with air traffic control.

Indonesian Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said Saturday that the jet appeared to deviate from its intended course just before it disappeared from radar.

Sriwijaya Air, which has about 19 Boeing jets that fly to destinations in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, has said only that it was investigating the loss of contact.

It did not immediately comment when contacted by AFP again on Sunday.

In October 2018, 189 people were killed when a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX jet slammed into the Java Sea about 12 minutes after take-off from Jakarta on a routine one-hour flight.

That crash – and a subsequent fatal flight in Ethiopia – saw Boeing hit with $2.5 billion in fines over claims it defrauded regulators overseeing the 737 MAX model, which was grounded worldwide following the two deadly crashes.

The jet that went down Saturday is not a MAX model and was 26 years old, according to authorities.

No immediate insights
In its initial statements on Saturday’s crash, Boeing offered no immediate insights into the cause.

“We are aware of media reports from Jakarta regarding Sriwijaya Air flight SJ-182. Our thoughts are with the crew, passengers, and their families,” the US-based planemaker said in a statement.

“We are in contact with our airline customer and stand ready to support them during this difficult time.”

Indonesia’s aviation sector has long suffered from a reputation for poor safety, and its airlines were once banned from entering US and European airspace.

In 2014, an AirAsia plane crashed with the loss of 162 lives.

Domestic investigators’ final report on the AirAsia crash showed a chronically faulty component in a rudder control system, poor maintenance and the pilots’ inadequate response were major factors in what was supposed to be a routine flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

A year later, in 2015, more than 140 people, including people on the ground, were killed when a military plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Medan on Sumatra island.

Genome sequencing has showed the Air New Zealand crew member who tested positive for covid-19 in China is not linked to known cases in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health says.

In a statement, the ministry reported one new case of the coronavirus in managed isolation today.

The person arrived on November 14 from the United Kingdom via the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia and tested positive around day 12 of their stay in managed isolation.

• READ MORE: Three PNG government MPs test covid-positive amid political crisis

The ministry said genomic results had been returned for the case of the Air New Zealand crew member who tested positive for covid-19 on November 18 after arriving in Shanghai, China, and was confirmed with testing in New Zealand yesterday.

This indicates the person was likely exposed to the virus overseas, but the ministry said it would continue to take precautions because the source of infection was still unknown.

The ministry had been acting as though it was a case of transmission from New Zealand out of an “abundance of caution”.

The crew member returned to New Zealand yesterday morning on a flight with crew in PPE, who were being monitored, isolated and tested.

Contacts in isolation
The ministry said it had incorrectly reported yesterday that all the person’s contacts were in isolation, saying one person of the 11 reported yesterday was a “potential” close contact under investigation.

Today, the ministry said 12 close contacts had been identified.

All the contacts had undergone further testing, with nine returning negative tests, the ministry said.

It said it sent notifications through the Covid Tracer app for six locations visited by the crew member, which by 10am had been received by 96 app users.

In a separate statement this afternoon, the ministry also announced new rules for frontline managed isolation workers, including nurses and defence force staff.

There was no live briefing today.

New Zealand’s total number of confirmed cases is 1684. The Air New Zealand crew member is not counted in this figure, as it was initially reported in China, so is being counted as a case in China.

Laboratories completed 9083 tests yesterday, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 1,252,601.

Yesterday, there were eight new cases in managed isolation, including five from one family.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Seventeen passengers from New Zealand who travelled to Sydney under the trans-Tasman bubble arrangements have been caught entering Melbourne, reports the ABC.

The ABC understands the passengers flew to Sydney and got a connecting to flight to Melbourne.

Melbourne is currently not accepting international travellers.

• READ MORE: State borders in Australia complicate trans-Tasman bubble

Initially it was reported that 14 passengers were detained in Melbourne.

But overnight Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) confirmed there were 17 passengers, and that the department “does not have legal authority to detain the travellers on arrival”.

“Victoria has not agreed to a travel bubble arrangement with New Zealand and did not expect to receive international travellers as a result of NSW making that arrangement,” DHHS said in a statement.

“The Victorian government has made it clear to the Commonwealth that we expect NZ passengers who have not undertaken quarantine will not be permitted to board flights in Sydney bound for Melbourne.”

‘Matter for states’
In a statement, Australian Border Force said “domestic border restrictions are a matter for states and territories”.

But the Australian Department of Home Affairs says on its website that “quarantine-free travel from New Zealand will initially be to New South Wales and the Northern Territory only. Other states and territories may be added at a later date.”

A spokesperson from the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) said: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is aware of media reports, but we have not been approached in relation to this matter.”

Three flights from New Zealand touched down at Sydney Airport earlier on Friday carrying international passengers who, for the first time in seven months, will not need to quarantine upon arrival.

At Sydney Airport there were tears and hugs as loved ones reunited, with many passengers flying one-way.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard described it as a “great day”, but pointed out New Zealanders arriving on Friday would need to prove they are symptom-free and satisfy other health requirements.

There will be a total of 16 flights between the two countries each week, with Jetstar and Qantas joining Air New Zealand and Qatar Airways in advertising the trans-Tasman flights.

No fares beyond Sydney
In a media statement yesterday, Air New Zealand said fares beyond Sydney were not able to be booked via the airline due to Australian state restrictions.

“Passengers planning to travel interstate beyond New South Wales will need to ensure they have checked state and territory travel restrictions and have the appropriate exemptions/approvals to travel as these continue to change,” the statement said.

Announcing the travel bubble arrangements earlier this month, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said to start with, visitors to Australia could only go to New South Wales and the Northern Territory.

McCormack said that was because both jurisdictions impose travel restrictions on places in line with the Commonwealth’s definition of a hotspot – a place with a three-day rolling average of three locally acquired cases per day.

Visitors from New Zealand are only allowed to visit if they haven’t been to a designated hotspot in the last 14 days.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

The first repatriation flight to return stranded Tongans from Fiji which was supposed to start today as announced by the government has been postponed until the weekend.

A statement yesterday afternoon from the Prime Minister’s office said: “The passengers are required to be tested for covid-19 before boarding the aircraft.

“The public are hereby informed that the repatriation flight from Nadi, Fiji tomorrow, Thursday, July 09, is deferred to Saturday, July 11 at a time to be confirmed.”

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – US cases pass 3 million

In a media conference which was livestreamed through Facebook yesterday afternoon, the Ministry of Health CEO, Dr Siale ‘Akau’ola, said the policy had been changed after Fiji detected three new active cases of covid-19.

Fiji now has three new cases of coronavirus following two more positive tests on Tuesday had been reported after 80 days since its last previous case was cleared.

A 37-year-old man tested positive for covid-19 in border quarantine, while the second case is a 36-year-old woman – both Fiji citizens repatriated from India on July 1.

The man is the son of the 66-year-old man who tested positive on Monday, July 6, acting permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong told media.

Three new cases
Dr Fong said the 66-year-old man was on the flight from Delhi on July 4.

He said the man was returning from a medical procedure in India and was accompanied by his son.

“The pair were travelling with 107 other passengers,” said Dr Fong. “The man was transported to the hospital for isolation.”

On Tuesday, Dr Fong confirmed the man’s son and a woman on the flight had also tested positive for the virus.

He said all three were isolated in hospital and the woman’s husband was being tested.

Medical staff
Prime Minister Pōhiva Tu’i’onetoa told Kaniva News last week the flight from Fiji was expected to bring some medical staff and their families as well as Tongan students in Fiji.

They will go through two weeks’ quarantine on arrival.

Tu’i’onetoa said the repatriation flights from New Zealand would start no later than the first week of August.

Tonga has remained free of the coronavirus so far.

Kalino Latu is editor of Kaniva Tonga. The Tongan online news website partners with the Pacific Media Centre.