Thanks Madame Chiang for this theme.

Nestled among the media's meditations on the popularity of blogs is a theory that lends new meaning to "cyber sex." According to Simon Dumenco, a prominent U.S. media analyst, people read blogs at least in part because they "want to get laid."

So, having got your attention and assuming you want to get laid, here is a list of links about Papua.

1. Five years ago Inside Indonesia devoted a special issue to Papua.

Articles include:
Self-determination or territorial integrity?
There is growing international concern over West Papua - Nic Maclellan
The backlash
Jakarta's secret strategy to deal with Papuan nationalism - Richard Chauvel
Freeport's troubled future
Without Suharto, who will protect Freeport from itself? - Denise Leith
To end impunity
How Indonesia responds to human rights abuse in Papua is the measure of reform elsewhere - Lucia Withers
Inside the Special Autonomy Bill
Chronology of a remarkable process - Agus Sumule
and lots more .....

2. The following, lifted in toto from Sarapan Ekonomi, Rasyad A. Parinduri's blog, is an excerpt from an article in the New York Times which, unfortunately, you have to register for. (If you want it, email me.)

Balfour Darnell, a self-described roughneck who built Freeport's first base camps [in 1967], soothed [the late Amungme tribal leader] Tuarek Natkime's suspicion of the outsiders with a simple tool that was half hatchet and half hammer.

"Boy, that did it," Mr. Darnell said of Mr. Natkime's evident pleasure, according to the account in the book "Grasberg," by George A. Mealey, a former Freeport executive. "He was in seventh heaven with that thing."

With the promise of a few sacks of salt, the tribal leader said he would clear a landing area for the company helicopter. "So we blasted off and that was the end of that meeting," Mr. Darnell marveled. "We were safe."

A half-hatchet hammer, and a promise of a few sacks of salt ...

3. Rasyad has also linked to statistics which show that the life expectancy of Papuans is a full ten years less than that of the majority of Indonesians.

I wonder why that is .....
 

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¶ 2:30 pm