Friski Riana, Jakarta – Jakarta Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno has confirmed that the Jakarta regional government will allocate grants of some 1.7 trillion rupiah from the 2018 regional budget (APBD) to several organisations.

Rinaldy Sofwan, Jakarta – Philosopher and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Noam Chomsky and a group of international academics are calling on the Indonesian government to withdraw all troops from West Papua following allegations of human rights violations against civilians by security forces in the province.

Cikarang – On Monday November 20 some 644 PT Alpen Food Industry or PT Aice workers went on strike in protest against the ice cream company.

Heyder Affan – A number of locations in the vicinity of Purwodadi, Central Java, have been confirmed as sites of mass grave, places where bodies were disposed of and sites where people accused of being members or sympathisers of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) were executed in the months after October 1965.

Lalu Rahadian, Jakarta – Vertical and horizontal conflicts in Papua province will not be resolved until the Indonesian government provides the Papuan people with an opportunity to determine their future through an international forum.

M Yusuf Manurung, Jakarta – The Central Jakarta municipal government today demolished illegal dwellings in the vicinity of the Western Flood Canal, Jl. Tenaga Listrik and Tanah Abang with residents saying that they were disappointed in Anies-Sandi.

Jayapura – The Papua provincial government has explicitly refuted a statement by the Papua regional police chief that residents have been taken hostage by an Armed Criminal Group (KKB) in the villages of Banti and Kimbely near the PT Freeport Indonesia mine in Tembagapura district, Mimika regency.

Bambang Hari, Jakarta – An employee at the PT Freeport Indonesia gold-and-copper mine in West Papua, Aser Gobai has refuted information that a PT Freeport worker has been taken hostage by an armed civilian group.

Free Papua Organisation (OPM) spokesperson Sebby Sambon denies that his group has acted in a criminal manner by taking hundreds of local people hostage and raping them. According to Sebby, reports making such claims are just propaganda aimed at damaging the OPM’s struggle.

Jayapura – Mimika District Police Chief Assistance Superintendent Victor Dean Mackbon has denied that residents of the Kimbely and Banti villages are being held hostage by an Armed Criminal Group (KKB).