INDONESIA: Indonesian security forces on Tuesday recovered the body of a New Zealand pilot who was killed in an alleged separatist attack in the restive Papua region, officials said.
Glen Malcolm Conning, a helicopter pilot for Indonesian aviation company PT Intan Angkasa Air Service, was shot dead on Monday by gunmen allegedly with the West Papua Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, shortly after landing in Alama, a remote district in the Mimika regency of Central Papua province.
The attackers released all six passengers, including two health workers and two children, said Bayu Suseno, the spokesperson of the Cartenz Peace Taskforce, the joint security force set up by the Indonesian government to deal with separatist groups in Papua.
“We suspect that the armed group that shot the pilot was from Nduga district, led by Egianus Kogoya,” Suseno said in a video statement. He described the group as the most dangerous and very active in disturbing the security around Timika, a town that feeds the Grasberg mine which is nearly half owned by US-based Freeport-McMoRan and is run by PT Freeport Indonesia.
“This group is our main target to arrest this year,” Suseno said.
In February 2023, Kogoya, a regional commander in the Free Papua Movement, abducted Philip Mark Mehrtens, a pilot from Christchurch who was working for Indonesian aviation company Susi Air.
Kogoya and his troops stormed a single-engine plane shortly after it landed on a small runway in a mountainous village. He said they wouldn’t release Mehrtens unless Indonesia agrees to Papua becoming a sovereign country.
A year and a half later, Mehrtens remains a captive of the rebels.
Security forces found the body of Conning on Tuesday inside his helicopter that was still parked on a small runway in Alama, in a mountainous district that can be reached only by small aircraft, said Lt. Gen. Richard Tampubolon, the Chief of the Joint Regional Command of Papua. He said bad weather conditions halted their search and evacuation operation on Monday.
The rescue operation on Tuesday also evacuated about 13 people, mostly teachers and health workers from Alama, who were traumatized by the incident and fear of their safety.
Tampubolon said the body of the pilot was flown to a hospital in Timika for an autopsy before being returned to his family.
“A preliminary medical examination showed gunshot wounds and slashes from sharp weapons on his body,” Tampubolon said. “We strongly condemned this inhumane killing of a pilot who had made many contributions in providing humanitarian services to remote communities in Papua.”
West Papua Liberation Army spokesperson Sebby Sambom said in a voice message to The Associated Press on Monday that they had designated the area as a restricted zone where civilian aircraft were prohibited from landing. He blamed the pilot for disregarding their warnings.
The kidnapping and killing reflects the deteriorating security situation in Papua, Indonesia’s easternmost region and a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia.
Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969, after a UN-sponsored ballot that was widely seen as a sham. Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered in the region, which was divided into six provinces.
Flying is the only practical way to access many areas in the mountainous easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua.
Indonesia recovers body of New Zealand helicopter pilot killed in Papua attack
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Indonesia recovers body of New Zealand helicopter pilot killed in Papua attack
- The attackers released all six passengers, including two health workers and two children, said Bayu Suseno, the spokesperson of the Cartenz Peace Taskforce
- “We suspect that the armed group that shot the pilot was from Nduga district, led by Egianus Kogoya,” Suseno said
Germany tightens controls at all borders in immigration crackdown
- Recent deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers have stoked concerns over immigration
- Backlash had been building in Germany ever since it took in more than a million people fleeing countries such as Syria during the 2015/2016 migrant crisis
The controls within what is normally a wide area of free movement — the European Schengen zone — will start on Sept. 16 and initially last for six months, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Monday.
The government has also designed a scheme enabling authorities to reject more migrants directly at German borders, Faeser said, without adding details on the controversial and legally fraught move.
The restrictions are part of a series of measures Germany has taken to toughen its stance on irregular migration in recent years following a surge in arrivals, in particular people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is seeking to seize back the initiative from the opposition far-right and conservatives, who have seen support rise as they tap into voter worries about stretched public services, integration and security.
“We are strengthening internal security and continuing our hard line against irregular migration,” Faeser said, noting the government had notified the European Commission and neighboring countries of the intended controls.
Recent deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers have stoked concerns over immigration. The Daesh group claimed responsibility for a knife attack in the western city of Solingen that killed three people in August.
The AfD earlier this month became the first far-right party since World War Two to win a state election, in Thuringia, after campaigning heavily on the issue of migration.
Polls show it is also voters’ top concern in the state of Brandenburg, which is set to hold elections in two weeks.
Scholz and Faeser’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) are fighting to retain control of the government there, in a vote billed as a test of strength of the SPD ahead of next year’s federal election.
“The intention of the government seems to be to show symbolically to Germans and potential migrants that the latter are no longer wanted here,” said Marcus Engler at the German Center for Integration and Migration Research.
A TEST FOR EUROPE
A backlash had been building in Germany ever since it took in more than a million people mostly fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria during the 2015/2016 migrant crisis, migration experts say.
It reached a tipping point in the country of 84 million people after it automatically granted asylum to around a million Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s 2022 invasion even as Germany was struggling through an energy and economic crisis.
Since then, the German government has agreed tighter deportation rules and resumed flying convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country, despite suspending deportations after the Taliban took power in 2021 due to human rights concerns.
Berlin last year also announced stricter controls on its land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. Those and controls on the border with Austria had allowed it to return 30,000 migrants since October 2023, it said on Monday.
Faeser said a new model would enable the government to turn back many more — but it could not talk about the model before confidential negotiations with the conservatives.
The controls could test European unity if they lead to German authorities requesting other countries to take back substantial numbers of asylum seekers and migrants.
Under EU rules countries in the Schengen area, which encompasses all of the bloc bar Cyprus and Ireland, are only allowed to introduce border checks as a last resort to avert threats to internal security or public policy.
Germany shares its more than 3,700-km-long (2,300 miles) land border with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland.
Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told Bild newspaper on Monday that his country would not take in any migrants turned away by Germany at the border.
“There’s no room for maneuver there,” he said.
The measures may not immediately result in many more migrants being turned away at the border, but they could result in more returns to other European countries down the line, as well as acting as a deterrent, said Susan Fratzke at the Migration Policy Institute. The number of asylum applications in Germany already fell 21.7 percent in the first eight months of the year, according to government statistics.
India’s top court orders protesting doctors to resume work by Tuesday
- Hundreds of doctors nationwide have stayed off work as they demand justice for the rape and murder of a trainee woman doctor in Kolkata
- A police volunteer was arrested for the crime and federal police said former principal of the college had also been arrested for alleged graft
NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court ordered all doctors protesting over the rape and murder of a female medic last month to resume work by Tuesday, warning they may face “adverse action” if they failed to adhere to the deadline.
Hundreds of doctors nationwide have stayed off work as they demand justice for the woman, whose body was found on Aug. 9 in a classroom at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, in the eastern state of West Bengal, where she was a trainee.
A police volunteer was arrested for the crime and federal police said last week that the former principal of the college had also been arrested for alleged graft.
Doctors have also been demanding better amenities in government-run hospitals, which they say lack security and basic infrastructure such as resting spaces for staff.
The Supreme Court on Monday said that no adverse action would be taken against doctors who returned to work by Tuesday evening.
“The resident doctors cannot be oblivious to the needs of the general community whom they are intended to serve,” said Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, heading a three-judge bench of the court.
The court also directed the West Bengal government to take steps to assure doctors of their concerns being addressed, including by providing separate duty rooms and toilets for male and female personnel, and installing CCTV cameras.
Demonstrations over the attack spread beyond India’s borders over the weekend, as thousands of diaspora Indians protested in more than 130 cities across 25 countries, including Japan, Australia, Europe, and the US
The court, which took up the matter of its own accord following outrage over the incident, had earlier formed a hospital safety task force to recommend steps to ensure the safety of medical workers.
Women’s rights activists say the incident has highlighted how women continue to face sexual violence in India despite tougher laws being introduced after the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a woman in a moving bus in Delhi.
Catherine, princess of Wales, says she’ll return to public duties
- The wife of Prince William is expected to undertake light program of engagements until year end
- The princess announced in March that she was being treated for an undisclosed type of cancer
LONDON: Catherine, the Princess of Wales, says she has completed chemotherapy and will return to some public duties in the coming months.
The 42-year-old wife of Prince William is expected to undertake a light program of engagements until the end of the year.
The princess announced in March that she was being treated for an undisclosed type of cancer.
Kate attended a ceremonial birthday parade for her father-in-law King Charles III in June, and the following month presented the men’s winner’s trophy at the Wimbledon tennis championships.
Cyprus and US sign defense deal outlining ways to tackle regional crises
- According to joint statement, agreement also foresees working together on dealing with “malicious actions”
NICOSIA: Cyprus and the United States have signed a defense cooperation framework agreement that outlines ways the two countries can enhance their response to regional humanitarian crises and security concerns, including those arising from climate change.
Cyprus Defense Minister Vassilis Palmas and US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander hailed the agreement on Monday as another milestone in burgeoning Cypriot-US ties in recent years that saw the lifting in 2022 of a decades-old US arms embargo imposed on the east Mediterranean island nation.
“The Republic of Cyprus is a strong partner to the United States, in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, and plays a pivotal role at the nexus of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East,” Wallander said after talks with Palmas.
The US official praised Cyprus for acting as a safe haven for American civilians evacuated from Sudan and Israel last year and for its key role in setting up a maritime corridor to Gaza through which more than 20 million pounds of humanitarian aid has been shipped to the Palestinian territory.
“It is evident that Cyprus is aligned with the West,” Wallander said.
Palmas said Cyprus would continue building toward “closer, stronger and beneficial bilateral defense cooperation with the United States.”
According to a joint statement, the agreement also foresees working together on dealing with “malicious actions” and bolstering ways for the Cypriot military to operate more smoothly with US forces.
Two Pakistanis convicted of incitement to kill Dutch far-right leader Wilders
- The two men were tried in absentia as Pakistan did not force the men to appear at the high-security trial as requested by the Netherlands
BADHOEVEDORP: A Dutch court on Monday convicted two Pakistani men on charges of incitement for urging their followers to murder far-right and anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders.
The two men, Muhammed Ashraf Jalali and Saad Hussain Rizvi, were tried in absentia as Pakistan did not force the men to appear at the high-security trial as requested by the Netherlands.
Jalali, a 56-year-old religious leader, was handed a 14-year sentence for calling on his followers to kill Wilders and promising they would be “rewarded in the afterlife.”
Rizvi, 29, leader of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party, was sentenced to four years after urging followers to kill Wilders after Pakistani cricketer Khalid Latif was sentenced for incitement to murder him.
In September 2023, judges sentenced Latif to 12 years behind bars for incitement to murder Wilders after the firebrand lawmaker sought to arrange a competition for cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Wilders canceled the cartoon contest after protests broke out in Pakistan and he was inundated with death threats.
He has been under 24-hour state protection since 2004.
The call to kill Wilders appeared to resonate, as a Pakistani man was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2019 for plotting his assassination in the wake of the canceled contest.
In the Netherlands, the plan for the cartoon contest was widely criticized as needlessly antagonizing Muslims.
“This case has had a huge impact on me and my family,” Wilders told the court last week.
Wilders’ PVV (Freedom Party) was the big winner of Dutch parliamentary elections in November.
