Bullets will not restore peace, says the Evangelical Lutheran church’s Bishop Giegere Wenge. He was referring to the shooting of five men by police at Bumayong. For background to riots in Lae click on the link to the Washington Post. Wenge was addressing a meeting in Lae attended by women and youth groups from churches and ethnic communities Read more
Election times are almost with us. Beware of “millennial cargo cult” politicians! Why the strange language? Well, it aptly describes a dangerous type of politician and political policy. Millenarian cults are social movements common throughout history. They proclaim for devoted believers the destructive end of one era and the dramatic coming of another more perfect Read more
Sic transit Gloria Mundi; the gruesome death of the Muammar Gaddafi, the self styled “King of Kings”, is a dramatic demonstation that cruelty breeds cruelty. There is an ever present danger of becoming, in victory, the very thing we are seek to subdue; evil dies and rises again. It has left many people thinking “Even Read more
The leader of Papua’s Baptist church says about one-thousand representatives of Papua’s 250 tribes were gathered at Cenderawasih University for the third West Papua National Congress. On Wednesday, the Reverend Socratez Sofyan Yoman says the university was surrounded by about two-and-a-half thousand Indonesian security personnel, both hidden and in cars. “Round the congress is police Read more
We New Zealanders are rightly proud of our local and international sporting achievements. This is so even if (rarely) our All Blacks lose. We believe that competitive, professional sport contributes to our good health and helps to build our national cultural identity. Despite these constructive qualities of sport, we need to ponder three not so Read more
An industrial dispute at Freeport, the world’s biggest gold mine in Indonesia’s Papua province, has turned ugly, after a striking worker was shot dead by police. Seven others were critically wounded when officers tried to stop striking workers from going into a facility at the mining complex on Monday. About 8,000 workers have been on Read more
The Catholic Church in Egypt has implicated the regime in the deaths of 25 people, most of them Copts, in the worst outbreak of violence since the fall of Mubarak. The Church claimed that the army and police “used” a mob of street fighters armed with rifles, sticks, stones and swords who it says carried Read more
THE 42nd Pacific Islands Forum came and went, but Pacific youth advocates are pleading with leaders to wake up to the increasing number of young people involved in crime and violence in the Pacific.
A generation of kids have grown up with increasing income inequality and high levels of poverty. “The violence, poor health and lack of educational success of our poorest kids is a direct consequence”, said Ruby Duncan, President of the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services (NZCCSS). “Our members do not want to be constantly Read more