A member of the Philippine parliament blamed unbridled large-scale mining and logging activities in Northern Mindanao region behind the devastating floods that have left nearly 1,000 dead and hundreds missing. Said congressman Rafael Mariano of Anakpawis party: "This is a disaster waiting to happen... Mining corporations are highly accountable for the serious environmental degradation and deforestation in the region and other parts of the country." According to the Manila-based Center for Environmental Concerns, forest cover in the Philippines is down to an estimated 6% of the original, and is further threatened by an average 157,400 hectares lost to deforestation per year.

Unknown gunmen opened fire on a helicopter carrying Freeport-McMoRan mining company workers in Indonesia's restive province of West Papua Dec. 17, injuring one passenger, a Filipina woman who was hit by shrapnel. The transport chopper with 23 passengers and three crew members landed safely in an airport in Timika town. The attack follows a string of mysterious shooting ambushes on the road linking the company's massive gold and copper mine with Timika town. Thousands of Freeport workers agreed to end a three-month strike after a wage deal was reached two days before the new shooting incident. The attack came as thousands of unionized employees were preparing to return to the Grasberg mine following a three-month strike that has crippled production. Though the 8,000 striking workers were supposed to be back on the job on the 17th after management agreed to a 37% pay hike, the union said plans were pushed back so the two sides could iron out last-minute details.

The Dutch government on Dec. 9 formally apologized for a massacre at the village of Rawagede, in West Java, 64 years ago that day. Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia Tjeerd de Zwaan presided over a tearful ceremony at the now renamed village of Balongsari. The Dutch apology in the 1947 massacre of at least 150 boys and men at the village comes after a long legal battle by survivors and widows. Survivors and their advocates say the actual death toll was closer to 400. "Today, we remember your family members who died 64 years ago at the hands of the Dutch military troops," de Zwaan said at the ceremony. "On behalf of Dutch government, I deeply apologize for the tragedy."

Hilary Clinton's arrival in Burma Nov. 30—the first visit by a US secretary of state since 1955—is being plugged as an historic step towards normalization of relations between the Washington the Southeast Asian nation. But the day before her arrival, Burmese army chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and his Chinese counterpart Gen. Min Aung Hlaing met in Beijing to sign a major new agreement of military cooperation. (BBC News, LAT, The Irrawady, Nov. 30; Vancouver Sun, Nov. 28)

The relatives of 57 people killed in a 2009 Philippines massacre on Nov. 22 sued former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for allegedly assisting the perpetrators. The families seek five million pesos (USD $345,000) from Arroyo for damages caused by her alleged support of the Ampatuan family, whom government prosecutors claim were behind the November 2009 Maguindanao Massacre. Arroyo has denied any wrongdoing. The lawsuit comes at a particularly difficult time for Arroyo after Philippine authorities formally charged her on Nov. 19 with electoral sabotage, a day after she was arrested on a warrant [text] issued for charges of corruption and election fraud that occurred during her time as president.

Human rights groups on Nov. 19 staged a protest in front of the headquarters of Ve Wong Corp in Taipei, accusing the snack food giant in the seizure of farmland in Cambodia. Campaigner Roxanna Chen said two of the company's local joint ventures, Koh Kong Sugar Co and Koh Kong Plantation Co, have illegally seized 9,600 hectares of farmland in Cambodia's Koh Kong province since 2006, and that several peasants have been killed by the sugar companies' private security forces in protests against the land-grabs.

Indigenous and peasant communities in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao are protesting the armed forces' proposal to allow mining companies to establish their own militia force to secure their operations. The Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center is calling on President Benigno Aquino to bar private companies from forming what are to be known as Special CAFGU Armed Auxiliary (SCAA) units, arguing that it is the indigenous peoples and rural communities that are in dire need of protection from violence and attacks, not mining corporations.

Radio Australia has released video coverage of an Oct. 19 attack by Indonesian security forces on an unarmed political meeting of indigenous leaders in West Papua after they issued a declaration of independence. Six people were killed and many more were injured after army troops and police Mobile Brigades broke up the meeting of the Third Papuan People's Congress in the provincial capital Jayapura. Police said their troops fired "warning shots" to disperse the crowd of thousands, and said the Congress "violated the permit" by issuing the declaration. But Congress leaders charge the deadly repression was a premeditated response to the declaration of independence and call for a West Papua government to be elected. Some 300 were arrested, and six have been charged with treason.