On Saturday, Brian and Hannah Tamaki and about 100 Destiny Church supporters arrived at Ihumatao.

Hannah Tamaki said she was there "supporting the people on the ground".

Mana Movement leader Hone Harawira arrived at the same time as the Tamakis.

Harawira and Tamaki seem to be better tuned to the "people on the ground" than mainstream New Zealand.

A revolution underway?

"Even though he arrived at Ihumatao with members of the Destiny Church which was odd to me, he's representing an important Maori constituency in doing so," says Christine Rose on the Daily Blog.

"Some people have been scathing of the popular support the Ihumatao protestors have received. There have been accusations of bandwagoning," she says.

Rose, however, suggests another explanation; Ihumatao is a unifying cause.

She says they are:

• frustrated with past injustices that are perpetuated today
• sick of the privilege of corporates
• angry at the ruination of shared heritage, of desecration for money
• sick of political complacency, of the conservatism of power

"Ihumatao is being described as a revolution, this era's Springbok Tour, our Bastion Point, the biggest Maori movement of our time," she says.

Who is listening?

In 2017 The Ihumatao protesters attended the Fletcher shareholders' meeting

They had obtained the right to attend by buying Fletcher shares.

They didn't get much airtime. Board chairman Sir Ralph Norris had the microphone one was using to ask questions turned off to silence her.

The shareholders' feeling towards the protesters was hostile.

Just shrug and forget it

"Aucklanders have got used to crass developments, and the steamrollering of the past, and feel powerless to stop it," says Rob stock writing on Stuff.

"Our tendency is to shrug and just push it from our minds.

"The truth is Fletcher is building at Ihumatao not because it is a good idea, but because it is convenient."

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• thedailyblog.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: nzherald.co.nz

"We see injustices in the fields of economy, social, culture and politics in the land of Papua. We are concerned about various acts of violence happening in the Bird of Paradise Land. Violence is faced by violence.

"All these violent acts hamper the development, harm the peace, and hurt the feeling of so many people," the priests said in a statement released following their recent meeting in Jayapura, Papua province.

Among those diocesan priests attending the June 30-July 5 meeting was Father Neles Kebadabi Tebay from Jayapura diocese. Other dioceses included Agats-Asmat, Manokwari-Sorong and Timika as well as the Merauke archdiocese.

Speaking with ucanews.com over the phone on July 13, Tebay said that such injustices could be seen in the development programs that focused only on district towns, where migrants mostly from Java now stay.

"It's based on what we see in our parishes located in remote areas," he said.

Tebay said that migrants comprise about 70 percent of the total population in district towns such as Jayapura, Keerom, Manokwari, Merauke, Mimika, Nabire and Sorong.

In March Tebay received South Korea's Tji Hak-soon Justice and Peace Award.

Source

• ucannews.com.com
• Facebook
• Image: facebook.com

They had gathered to protest an earlier incident of violence by the Indonesian security forces.

A four-minute video, shot by citizen journalists and released publicly for the first time on 9 April, includes first-hand testimony from survivors of the massacre as well as graphic footage taken in the immediate aftermath.

"This film gives a disturbing insight into the Indonesian military's casual disregard for the lives of Indigenous Papuans," said Esther Cann from TAPOL.

"The protesters had gathered peacefully to challenge the beating of a young boy the previous day by Indonesian security forces and they were greeted with bullets."

Source

• Scoop.co.nz
• Image: Scoop.co.nz

Last month, the Guardian reported that over 400 Nepalese migrant workers had already died at building sites. Between 2010 and 2012 more than 700 workers from India lost their lives working on construction sites in Qatar, too. A report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) says that if conditions don't get any better, by the time the World Cup kicks off, at least 4,000 migrant workers will have died on the job. Continue reading

"Oppression and exodus now threaten Christianity's status as a worldwide religion."

The Catholic charity, which operates directly under the Holy See, said over the past two years the persecution of Christians has worsened in 20 of the 30 nations it assessed.

"In others where the problems were already extreme, there has been little or no change."

In the Middle East, the charity said, "a Christian exodus of almost biblical proportions now threatens the survival of the Church".

Aid to the Church in Need's media head, John Pontifex, said incidents of persecution are now apparently relentless and worsening: "Churches being burnt, Christians under pressure to convert, mob violence against Christian homes, abduction and rape of Christian girls, anti-Christian propaganda in the media and from government, discrimination in schools and the workplace…the list goes on."

Meanwhile, Vatican correspondent John Allen has said that Christians are currently the most vulnerable minority on earth and massive outside intervention will be needed to stem the rising tide of persecution against them.

In a Zenit interview, he put Christians in the same category as dissident Jews in Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s and black

Allen's new book is called The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution.

Citing statistics from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, he said an average of 100,000 Christians have been killed in a "situation of witness" each year for the past decade. That works out at 11 Christians killed somewhere in the world every hour.

Allen said he would like to see a grassroots mobilisation of the Christian consciousness — so there would be "something analogous to what happens in the Jewish world every time there's an anti-Semitic attack someplace".

Sources:

Aid to the Church in Need

Zenit

Image: Spero News

The flotilla is sailing from Australia to draw attention to human rights abuses under Indonesian rule and plans to land in the coming weeks in the West Papua town of Merauke.

The four were told by police that they would be charged with treason but were released on condition that they report to Sorong police station twice a week.

The charge carries a long jail term in Indonesia.

One of the arrested, Yohanes Goram, said the group had been treated well during their 24-hour detention.

"I think they treated us kindly because of international attention," he said.

The head of police at Sorong, Harry Goldenhard, confirmed the charges to Guardian Australia and said the four had been arrested after the banned Morning Star flag was raised following the church service.

"We asked that this activity be stopped and requested that those responsible go to the police headquarters, where they would be asked to give an explanation," he said on the phone from Sorong.

"After a 24-hour investigation we determined that the suspects … are subject to articles 106 and 110 of the Criminal Code on treason."

Source

• theguardian
• Image: Facebook

• I wondered if this behaviour applies to humans as well as canines.
• I wondered what it is about restraint or constraint or restrictions that cause us to bellow so loudly.

The Catholic Church (and other institutional churches, I suspect) is sometimes defined by its restrictions and prohibitions. No talking about ordination of women or a married priesthood. Exclusion from Holy Communion if one is divorced and remarried (without the comvolutions of the annulment process). A long and often onerous preparation to become Catholic, so long as your marriage is proper, of course. Imposition of archaic language and rituals on a populace seeking relevance and meaning. Prohibition on receiving Eucharist in other churches.

Sometimes I think the bureacrats have forgotten the difference between obedience and oppression. One is about listening and response - based on a fully formed and informed conscience. The other is about power and conformity.

• Why have religious sisters been rebuked for speaking out?
• Why are married priests forbidden from active and relevant ministry in their new communities?
• Why are ordinary Mass-goers denied from corporate worship in their own vernacular, despite a loud and raucous response to the new, awkward, Latinised, English translation?

Unlike my canine friends, I suspect that every day Catholics have been subjected to an apparently deaf, autocratic hierarchy for so long, that they simply acquiesce. Like the Israelites held in captivity in Egypt, we choose the path that requires the least confrontation, expends the least energy, convinced that nothing will change - in our life-time, at least. Even euphoria - experienced after Vatican 2 - or escape across the Red Sea - quickly subsides into ennui and disillusionment. We may go through the motions;

• say the right prayers - but our hearts are not in it;
• our minds not convinced;
• our bodies and souls out of sync.

Simply …

• we choose not to gather for worship at Catholic Churches any more;
• we ignore rulings on contraception and remarriage;
• we talk in small, safe, non-judgemental groups about our heartfelt, raw, feelings and frustrations;
• we receive Eucharist wherever we are invited - one with the Lord, with those gathered in God's name;
• we drift away.

We reconnect with the divine - stripped of rules and regulations and prohibitions:

• in the beauty of a sunrise;
• in the smile of gratitude of a busker;
• in the holy pause of silence;
• in the random act of kindness from a stranger;
• in the sacred touch of a loving embrace;
• in the generosity of friends and family;
• in acts of compassion;
• in attentiveness to the present moment.

There is a delicious freedom;
a wonderful communion with God, with self and with others;
a unique experience of what it is to be fully, consciously, human;
when we are free to grow into the people we were created to be; and are continually invited to be. We choose boundaries and parameters as mature women and men of faith -

• our faith community;
• our prayer discipline;
• the spiritual precepts we follow;
• the physical and emotional environment in which we are immersed (or are immersed by circumstances); and
• our learned and chosen responses to transitions in our life situations.

And within these boundaries, we are free to reflect who we are -

beloved children of God.

• Not fearful;
• not defensive;
• not territorial;
• not possessive;
• not arrogant.

Simply loved.

Liz Pearce, a mother of three adult children, loves story, writing, and dollmaking www.heartfeltdolls.weebly.com

The UN Human Rights Office regional representative, Nancy Robinson says only four nations in our region have ratified the convention so far - Australia, New Zealand, Nauru and Vanuatu.

Palau has signed on, but hasn't ratified it yet.

Ms Robinson says there have been recent examples of torture in PNG and Fiji, and the Pacific needs to take action prohibit that sort of thing.
Continue reading

On Thursday, the congregation of the Batak Protestant Church (HKBP) in Taman Sari, Setu district in Bekasi regency, watched the local administration demolish their unfinished church building.

The congregation formed a barrier between their church and the idling bulldozer.

They sang Batak hymns in the afternoon heat, wailing between the verses, as church member Megarenta Sihite shouted at the officers from the Bekasi District Public Order Agency.

"What is our sin, sir?" she screamed. "Is it a sin to pray? Show us where our mistake is. I thought this is a democratic country. Please, Mr. President, we were born here in this country with five religions. We never did anything bad to their houses of worship. Why are they doing this to us?"

Around 2:45 p.m the church building was demolished amid cheers of "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") from members of the hard-line Taman Sari Islamic People's Forum (FUIT) who had gathered outside the building.

On Friday an Advent church in West Java's city of Tasikmalaya was vandalised by an unknown group early on Friday morning.

Police said that vandals damaged the church walls, gate and construction materials, which were intended to be used during the church's renovation.

On Saturday evening, members of Muslim community groups closed off the Damai Kristus Catholic Church in Tambora, West Jakarta.

The attack took place from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., with dozens of members of the congregation unable to leave, while other congregation members were locked out.

Rev. Matius Widyo said around 20 police officers were guarding the place but did nothing to the people who sealed the church. "They seemed to start to take action only when a fight broke out," he told The Jakarta Post.

On Sunday the congregation of Damai Kristus held their Sunday service protected by the police to prevent another lock out by members of Muslim community groups.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said that around 50 officers had been deployed to stave off possible conflict with the Joint Forum of Mosque, Mushollah and Koran Reciting Groups (FKM3T) members.

Sources

• Jakarta Post
• Jakarta Globe
• Image The Straits Times

After thousands of scholarly and popular articles on the topic, one might think we would have a pretty good idea why the richest people in the US are pulling away from the rest. But it seems we don't. As the Congressional Budget Office concluded in 2011: ‘the precise reasons for the rapid growth in income at the top are not well understood'. Some commentators point to economic factors, some to politics, and others again to culture. Yet obviously enough, all these factors must interact in complex ways. What is slightly less obvious is how a very long historical perspective can help us to see the whole mechanism.

In his book Wealth and Democracy (2002), Kevin Phillips came up with a useful way of thinking about the changing patterns of wealth inequality in the US. He looked at the net wealth of the nation's median household and compared it with the size of the largest fortune in the US. The ratio of the two figures provided a rough measure of wealth inequality, and that's what he tracked, touching down every decade or so from the turn of the 19th century all the way to the present. In doing so, he found a striking pattern. Continue reading

Sources

• Peter Turchin in Aeon Magazine
• Image: Stuff
  

Peter Turchin is professor of ecology and mathematics at the University of Connecticut.

Godfrey has expressed disappointment at the manner in which the debate was conducted

"I was, more than anything, stunned and confused with what was said last night," says Godfrey, "and, I think understandably, angry with Mark Sainsbury's unwillingness to shift the conversation towards reason, as opposed to hyperbole, misrepresentations and lies which is where Sainsbury directed the discussion."

Tuesday's programme was a follow up to a Closeup inerview on Monday night with Wikatana Popata, who said he had "had enough of Pakeha. Close Up's Facebook page went into overdrive with nearly 2000 comments on this one issue. Some were in support of Popata, but the overwhelming majority were not.

Morgan Godfrey is a Wellington-based law student and commentator on Maori politics.

Source

• Maui Street
• Image: ScreenShot TVNZ

An opinion article in a pro-government newspaper criticised her for threatening a calamity, but she says she was simply raising the concerns of indigenous Fijians, and was making no threats. Listen to interview