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PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (June 29, 2001 – Post-Courier)---Port Moresby yesterday gingerly picked up the pieces from Tuesday’s violent rioting.

The public transport system was back on deck, enabling people to get to work.

Initially in the morning the buses allocated the route past the University of PNG’s Waigani campus refused to ferry commuters, saying they would only take them as far as Waigani. But as the day panned out, the buses returned to normal services to all points of the city.

Public offices, businesses and shops also re-opened, allowing those hit by rioting on Tuesday to start counting their losses and city residents to venture out.

Service stations re-opened also for business with a few immediately needing a re-supply of petrol, especially after heavy demand over two days.

Government offices, while open, were not fully manned as some workers stayed away in anticipation of more problems.

Those that were in, however, worked...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (June 20, 2001 – Jakarta Post/Joyo Indonesian news/Antara/TAPOL)---Papua New Guinea (PNG) will deport Irianese separatist group leader Mathias Wenda to Jayapura, Irian Jaya Police chief Insp. Gen. Made Mangku Pastika said on Wednesday.

"We have received confirmation about this but we do not know when Wenda will be deported," Made Mangku said, as quoted by Antara in Jayapura.

Besides Wenda, PNG will also deport separatist leader, Simon Allom, he said.

He said he had received information that Wenda has been jailed for six months in PNG's Wewak district for entering PNG illegally.

The police chief also said that the separatist group, the Free Papua Movement (OPM), had asked churches in Irian Jaya to mediate in the release of two Belgians who had been held hostage by the separatist group since last month in the jungles of Irian Jaya.

Johan Elia Theo van Dem Eynde (47) and Phillippe RD Simon (49) were recently abducted after visiting...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (June 14, 2001 – Joyo Indonesian News/AFP/ TAPOL)---Two Belgian documentary makers who disappeared a week ago in the forests of Irian Jaya have been kidnapped by separatists, the Belgian foreign ministry said Thursday.

"We received Tuesday evening confirmation from the Indonesian authorities that the Free Papua Movement has kidnapped our two compatriots," said ministry spokesman Koen Vervaeke.

"According to local police forces Philippe Simon, 49, and Johan van Den Eynde, 47, are in good health," he added.

"A ransom has not yet been asked for nor have any political demands been made," said Vervaeke.

The spokesman said that communication between police in Nabire -- 500 kilometers (310 miles) southwest of Jayapura -- and the kidnappers in the Ilaga region had been by radio.

Belgium was sending a diplomat from its embassy in Jakarta to the area on Thursday "to stress that the well-being of the Belgians is the prime concern while a...

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (June 27, 2001 – Radio Australia)---The Northern Marianas’ representative in Washington, D.C., Juan Babauta, says a proposal to transfer some U.S. military training exercises to Guam, Saipan and Tinian has been put on hold.

The proposal was in response to calls to reduce the U.S. military presence in the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa.

Mr. Babauta says a U.S. military feasibility team studying the possibilities believes the Micronesian Pacific islands are not large enough to host the exercises -- which would involve up to 25,000 troops.

He says he will suggest that Tinian be considered for sophisticated military operations in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly for intelligence and telecommunication purposes.

Tinian is a small island, with an estimated population of about 6,000 residents, which was used as a military base during World War II.

It was from Tinian that the U.S. launched atomic bomb attacks on...