Elections
Indonesia just concluded her Presidential elections the day before. The initial ballot count shows Bambang the challenger ahead. I wonder what will happen if he wins? Will it be good for Indonesia?
I am ambivalent towards Megawati Sukarnoputri. While I don't think that she has done a great job with Indonesia, I must be fair in noting that no one would have done a good job there. An archipelago of over 13 000 islands is NOT an easy country to manage. To do well is even more difficult.
Nonetheless, I still want Indonesia to be politically stable.
The JW Marriot blast last year and the Australian embassy blast this year show gaping holes in Indonesia's defence against terrorist activities. The vast number of islands probably provided the hideouts required for the insurgents to hide in and this would have hampered any efforts at clamping them now.
I still recall very recently a conversation with a guy friend over why Singapore had to abolish kampungs (rural villages) and squatters. I was telling him that it was a means of the government to curb the communist insurgency during the years 1948 to 1960. Political/historical tadpoles would not have known this but when these people were resettled into government housing flats, the communists simply had to retreat further and further into the jungle to look for their needs such as shelter and food there. Subsequently, when everything else was deprived to them, they went into the jungles around south-east asia and hid there. Some never returned to homeland. That fellow simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "I've never learnt that in my history lessons."
Convenient.
But the parallels are quite obvious. The vast majority of Indonesians live beneath poverty lines. If nothing is done to help them, then the average discontent levels will be high. It becomes, probably and correspondingly, easier to convince them to provide some "convenient accesses" such as food, shelter, storage for some pittance. Pittance, but when you have next to nothing, it may seem not so much of a pittance anymore.
Poverty really makes people do the strangest thing.
I don't think I'm in any position to prescribe any cure for their ills. I can only think of how, with their sheer size and population, can provide a stabilising force in ASEAN and south-east asia. This can only be achieved through wise and enlightened leadership. Let's hope the better candidate wins!
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
No guts, no glory
No guts, no glory
Tay Yek Keak
[http://www.straitstimes.com/columnist/0,1886,951-272322,00.html?]
It takes a strong stomach to be a contestant on reality shows, as horse rectum and reindeer testicles are someof the delicacies on the menu.
IT'S easy to jump from an airplane or drive across treacherous sand dunes in a desert. But eating 0.9kg of caviar, that's really a lot harder to swallow.
The fear factor about it is so great, a person can pass out.
In all those sweaty, panting reality TV shows - from The Amazing Race to Fear Factor to Survivor - nothing slows competitors down more than eating weird stuff.
They are obstacles so scary they literally make people throw up.
In one episode of the The Amazing Race, Brandon and Nicole, a couple still in the running, were in danger of elimination when she almost couldn't make it past caviar in Russia.
The poor girl looked like she was ready for the hospital when she was laid out flat on the floor.
Food, it turns out, is the most unnerving ingredient on the reality contest menu. It also happens to be the most fun (to the viewer, that is) in terms of its high euuuuu value.
And if done in an urgent Galloping Gourmet manner, a la The Amazing Race, where participants shove it down to move it on, it becomes an exciting three-part act.
First, there is the unveiling of the fare.
Next, the priceless look of horror on the contestants' faces.
And then comes the dreaded consumption itself, ranging from quick suicidal gulps to tentative and torturous diarrhoea-inducing ingestion.
'Don't look at it! Just shovel it in your face!' goes the typical pep rally.
On Fear Factor, the stuff is so gross - bugs, slugs, worms, sheep eyes, maggoty cheese, cod sperm, horse rectum, reindeer testicles and, memorably, a bull snout complete with fur - it could make even Klingons puke.
Now, that show, proud of its Fear Factor Pizza, made of cow bile, rancid cheese and coagulated blood topped with fish eyes and worms, takes extreme pleasure in serving it Klingon-style.
There is an art, I tell you, in putting something into your mouth while it is still moving.
Not all of God's creatures, it seems, especially snails, cockroaches and larvae, qualify for basic animal rights.
Sometimes, to make it yummier than your average sewer stew, they combine everything in a blender.
Now the burning question, besides whether there is a cleaning crew standing by, is whether any of those things can even be eaten.
Apparently, they can be gobbled since there has been no report so far about a person convulsing violently from a reality show food fest.
In case you think all the fare is bad, even the sweetest sins can be quite a mouthful.
One challenge in The Amazing Race had the contestants gagging on the over-consumption of rich, delicious chocolate.
But the thrill of the munchies is definitely in the offering of bad food as good reward.
Survivor, the stranded-contestants show, likes to spice things up by making unsuspecting visitors chew it up.
The sooner one's Mum can devour, say, that huge, hairy spider, the faster one can spend the day with her.
The mouth, you see, is an awesome weapon in reality TV. It's a potent fast-forward tool.
In The Amazing Race, one contestant named Chip who's called the 'Michael Jordan of eating', swallowed caviar like ice cream and made minced meat out of a scrambled, gigantic ostrich's egg.
The mouth is also a most dramatic device. Especially when it starts spewing like the Merlion.
Channel 5 has been pitching its upcoming based-in-China series, Extreme Gourmet, by exhibiting the American Pie antics of its host, Lum May Yee, and others hurling on cuisine from maggot fried rice to donkey testicles.
Speaking of such Asian delights, our eatables here have actually crossed into the realm of American TV entertainment.
The stuff we put into our mouths with relish, such as century eggs, is apparently scary to those macho men.
One man's meat is truly another man's poison.
In one classic episode of Fear Factor, massive, muscled pro wrestlers were spooked by the durian, describing it as a very nasty fruit.
When two of those heavies came to Singapore for a wrestling show last year, they were filmed eating in dread at a restaurant in Chinatown.
I think they were terrified by our bird's nest soup.
Tay Yek Keak
[http://www.straitstimes.com/columnist/0,1886,951-272322,00.html?]
It takes a strong stomach to be a contestant on reality shows, as horse rectum and reindeer testicles are someof the delicacies on the menu.
IT'S easy to jump from an airplane or drive across treacherous sand dunes in a desert. But eating 0.9kg of caviar, that's really a lot harder to swallow.
The fear factor about it is so great, a person can pass out.
In all those sweaty, panting reality TV shows - from The Amazing Race to Fear Factor to Survivor - nothing slows competitors down more than eating weird stuff.
They are obstacles so scary they literally make people throw up.
In one episode of the The Amazing Race, Brandon and Nicole, a couple still in the running, were in danger of elimination when she almost couldn't make it past caviar in Russia.
The poor girl looked like she was ready for the hospital when she was laid out flat on the floor.
Food, it turns out, is the most unnerving ingredient on the reality contest menu. It also happens to be the most fun (to the viewer, that is) in terms of its high euuuuu value.
And if done in an urgent Galloping Gourmet manner, a la The Amazing Race, where participants shove it down to move it on, it becomes an exciting three-part act.
First, there is the unveiling of the fare.
Next, the priceless look of horror on the contestants' faces.
And then comes the dreaded consumption itself, ranging from quick suicidal gulps to tentative and torturous diarrhoea-inducing ingestion.
'Don't look at it! Just shovel it in your face!' goes the typical pep rally.
On Fear Factor, the stuff is so gross - bugs, slugs, worms, sheep eyes, maggoty cheese, cod sperm, horse rectum, reindeer testicles and, memorably, a bull snout complete with fur - it could make even Klingons puke.
Now, that show, proud of its Fear Factor Pizza, made of cow bile, rancid cheese and coagulated blood topped with fish eyes and worms, takes extreme pleasure in serving it Klingon-style.
There is an art, I tell you, in putting something into your mouth while it is still moving.
Not all of God's creatures, it seems, especially snails, cockroaches and larvae, qualify for basic animal rights.
Sometimes, to make it yummier than your average sewer stew, they combine everything in a blender.
Now the burning question, besides whether there is a cleaning crew standing by, is whether any of those things can even be eaten.
Apparently, they can be gobbled since there has been no report so far about a person convulsing violently from a reality show food fest.
In case you think all the fare is bad, even the sweetest sins can be quite a mouthful.
One challenge in The Amazing Race had the contestants gagging on the over-consumption of rich, delicious chocolate.
But the thrill of the munchies is definitely in the offering of bad food as good reward.
Survivor, the stranded-contestants show, likes to spice things up by making unsuspecting visitors chew it up.
The sooner one's Mum can devour, say, that huge, hairy spider, the faster one can spend the day with her.
The mouth, you see, is an awesome weapon in reality TV. It's a potent fast-forward tool.
In The Amazing Race, one contestant named Chip who's called the 'Michael Jordan of eating', swallowed caviar like ice cream and made minced meat out of a scrambled, gigantic ostrich's egg.
The mouth is also a most dramatic device. Especially when it starts spewing like the Merlion.
Channel 5 has been pitching its upcoming based-in-China series, Extreme Gourmet, by exhibiting the American Pie antics of its host, Lum May Yee, and others hurling on cuisine from maggot fried rice to donkey testicles.
Speaking of such Asian delights, our eatables here have actually crossed into the realm of American TV entertainment.
The stuff we put into our mouths with relish, such as century eggs, is apparently scary to those macho men.
One man's meat is truly another man's poison.
In one classic episode of Fear Factor, massive, muscled pro wrestlers were spooked by the durian, describing it as a very nasty fruit.
When two of those heavies came to Singapore for a wrestling show last year, they were filmed eating in dread at a restaurant in Chinatown.
I think they were terrified by our bird's nest soup.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Some try to forget
Some Try To Forget
I avoided blogging on Sept 11. It is not because I did not or could not give a damn, but for someone so far away, to claim that I'm "affected" by the blast, my heart "goes out to..." is a bit exaggerated and remote.
I don't pretend to be who I am not. I looked at the event as an outsider. When it happened, I recall myself trying to get to sleep because I had to wake up early the next morning to get to work. I read the papers the next morning and to tell you the truth, I never felt anything much, other than the fact that the WTC towers had collapsed and along with that, x number of people have died.
I can't say that the event has changed my life. I can't even say that it has any impact or this or that. I can't be what I'm not. I simply cannot bring myself to do anything more than to empathise and sympathise.
I read with wonder and amazement when people talk as though "they were there". I cringe inwardly when they talk about the "unnecessary waste of life", the "evil of terrorists", the "carnage beyond believable proportions". I think these people are too drama-mama.
I have friends in America with whom I chat over Yahoo messenger. To tell you very very frankly, I don't even feel half their "passion" towards this event. They are riveted by it, then they let it pass. Like most ordinary folks, what needs to be done has to be done, and life goes on. But there are really great extraordinary folks online as well. Like John R, who is so politically astute that his simple logic ain't that simple. He writes great sense and he is obviously fully aware of the meaning of his words. Old Whig as well, and not to mention the two soldiers in Iraq whose blogs I also read. These people are deep in action and they know what they are talking.
All others should be qualified as rants and raves.
Just to complete my final look at the world at large, there are the really indifferent, and those who try to forget.
The last group are those to whom I salute. These people may be the worst struck - remember the foreigners killed whose bodies were never found - to whom and to where do the suffering family members seek redress? They could either bear a never-ending grudge for life or they try to forget. They are also heroes.
I avoided blogging on Sept 11. It is not because I did not or could not give a damn, but for someone so far away, to claim that I'm "affected" by the blast, my heart "goes out to..." is a bit exaggerated and remote.
I don't pretend to be who I am not. I looked at the event as an outsider. When it happened, I recall myself trying to get to sleep because I had to wake up early the next morning to get to work. I read the papers the next morning and to tell you the truth, I never felt anything much, other than the fact that the WTC towers had collapsed and along with that, x number of people have died.
I can't say that the event has changed my life. I can't even say that it has any impact or this or that. I can't be what I'm not. I simply cannot bring myself to do anything more than to empathise and sympathise.
I read with wonder and amazement when people talk as though "they were there". I cringe inwardly when they talk about the "unnecessary waste of life", the "evil of terrorists", the "carnage beyond believable proportions". I think these people are too drama-mama.
I have friends in America with whom I chat over Yahoo messenger. To tell you very very frankly, I don't even feel half their "passion" towards this event. They are riveted by it, then they let it pass. Like most ordinary folks, what needs to be done has to be done, and life goes on. But there are really great extraordinary folks online as well. Like John R, who is so politically astute that his simple logic ain't that simple. He writes great sense and he is obviously fully aware of the meaning of his words. Old Whig as well, and not to mention the two soldiers in Iraq whose blogs I also read. These people are deep in action and they know what they are talking.
All others should be qualified as rants and raves.
Just to complete my final look at the world at large, there are the really indifferent, and those who try to forget.
The last group are those to whom I salute. These people may be the worst struck - remember the foreigners killed whose bodies were never found - to whom and to where do the suffering family members seek redress? They could either bear a never-ending grudge for life or they try to forget. They are also heroes.
Friday, September 10, 2004
Potpourri
Potpourri
Bleak bleak news recently.
Witch-hunting is in season, well ahead of Halloween!
"Jakarta vows to hunt down embassy bombers" while there were "6 Chechens among Russian school raiders". These witches must be rich pickings, for "$10m bounty up for Chechen leaders after school siege" surged to no less than Russia offers "$17m bounty for top rebels" just overnight!
The biggest race to be the second worst guy in the whole wide world seems to be generating a lot of heat and finger-pointing. I'm keeping mum who's I'm gunning for to Dad the world's hyper-power. Anyway, it's still extremely scary to know that the "US (is) campaigning a case of 'the other guy's worse'". In the long run, I just hope that the US doesn't sneeze too often because we catch a cold when it does!
The bleakness has come to a point that people can even make uninspiring stuff news: (Taiwan President) Chen grabs headlines with uneventful trip abroad.
And as life was so bad that living seems generally pointless, people have resorted to using biological weapons such as poultry infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. Fortunately, our kind neighbour, Malaysia, has tasked "KL to crack down on fowl smugglers". Hopefully, we won't be too badly affected.
Talking about this, the egg shortage situation has become quite acute. I have given up a source of comfort food, FRESH CREAM CAKES, because the egg substitutes simply won't work. But on a lighter note, my pants are getting a little less tight.
There is another twist in the evolutionary cycle. Apparently, "extinction figures may be dead wrong" because "when a species vanishes, others may die too, and experts say this effect has been under-estimated". Unfortunately, that does not seem to work for terrorists and dumb people.
However, to balance out the fear that Earth may be underpopulated by various living species, it was found that for the case "of lice and men: Dispute finally over", there are indeed 'two genetically distinct populations' of lice. I wonder how Noah told one apart from the other.
Anyway, lest this get any bleaker, here's something to rejoice! "Time really does fly when you're having fun". "Scientists say this is because when our minds are engaged, our estimation of the passage of time is shorter than it really is".
I had fun writing this. What about you?
Bleak bleak news recently.
Witch-hunting is in season, well ahead of Halloween!
"Jakarta vows to hunt down embassy bombers" while there were "6 Chechens among Russian school raiders". These witches must be rich pickings, for "$10m bounty up for Chechen leaders after school siege" surged to no less than Russia offers "$17m bounty for top rebels" just overnight!
The biggest race to be the second worst guy in the whole wide world seems to be generating a lot of heat and finger-pointing. I'm keeping mum who's I'm gunning for to Dad the world's hyper-power. Anyway, it's still extremely scary to know that the "US (is) campaigning a case of 'the other guy's worse'". In the long run, I just hope that the US doesn't sneeze too often because we catch a cold when it does!
The bleakness has come to a point that people can even make uninspiring stuff news: (Taiwan President) Chen grabs headlines with uneventful trip abroad.
And as life was so bad that living seems generally pointless, people have resorted to using biological weapons such as poultry infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. Fortunately, our kind neighbour, Malaysia, has tasked "KL to crack down on fowl smugglers". Hopefully, we won't be too badly affected.
Talking about this, the egg shortage situation has become quite acute. I have given up a source of comfort food, FRESH CREAM CAKES, because the egg substitutes simply won't work. But on a lighter note, my pants are getting a little less tight.
There is another twist in the evolutionary cycle. Apparently, "extinction figures may be dead wrong" because "when a species vanishes, others may die too, and experts say this effect has been under-estimated". Unfortunately, that does not seem to work for terrorists and dumb people.
However, to balance out the fear that Earth may be underpopulated by various living species, it was found that for the case "of lice and men: Dispute finally over", there are indeed 'two genetically distinct populations' of lice. I wonder how Noah told one apart from the other.
Anyway, lest this get any bleaker, here's something to rejoice! "Time really does fly when you're having fun". "Scientists say this is because when our minds are engaged, our estimation of the passage of time is shorter than it really is".
I had fun writing this. What about you?
The Price of No Progress
Point: The Price of No Progress
SEPT 9, 2004
Bomb rocks Jakarta, at least 7 killed
JAKARTA - A powerful bomb which exploded near the Australian Embassy rocked a major business district in southern Jakarta on Thursday, killing eight people and wounding close to 160, witnesses and officials said.
Witnesses saw smoke rising near Rasuna Said Street, which is home to several foreign embassies and businesses, shortly after 10.15am (0315 GMT). Four cars, including a police vehicle, were damaged and a section of the high metal fence surrounding the Australian Embassy was flattened. The windows on at least 10 surrounding high-rise buildings were shattered.
Initial police investigations have confirmed that the blast was caused by a car bomb, said police chief General Dai Bachtiar.
He said the blast bore the hallmark of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror group, as the modus operandi was very similar to the other attacks -- referring to the 2002 Bali bombings and the 2003 Marriott blast -- done by the JI.
Casualties
About a dozen Australians were slightly injured, mostly by flying glass, an Australian Embassy spokesman said. Four Chinese nationals were also injured in the blast, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said.
An Associated Press photographer on the scene saw at least three dismembered bodies on the wide six-lane street close to the embassy. A doctor at a nearby hospital said 98 people were admitted for treatment.
Security officials said an Indonesian guard manning a post outside the gate was among those who died in the explosion. Three policemen guarding the building were also killed.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said that the death toll 'could be six'. 'We cannot at this stage be certain but the evidence to date indicates that it was a car bomb.'
He also said Foreign Minister Alexander Downer would travel to Indonesia on Thursday night, together with Labor Party member Kevin Ruud, and some nine federal Australian bomb experts and medical staff.
Mr Downer has said that the blast was 'clearly a terrorist attack' directed at Australia.
No embassy workers were injured in the blast, said Australian foreign ministry spokesman Lyndall Sachs. She said the windows of the building were shattered and that the power was down, adding that the mission was evacuated in line with standard procedures.
Past terror attacks in Indonesia
In recent weeks, several Western embassies, including those of the United States and Australia, have warned their citizens about possible attacks by militants.
It is still unclear who was responsible for the blast.
In the past few years, Indonesia has been hit by a series of deadly bombings against Western targets, including last year's suicide attack on the JW Marriott hotel in the same district, which killed 12 people.
In 2002, two nightclubs in Bali were bombed, killing over 200 people, including 88 Australians. Both attacks were blamed on the Jemaah Islamiah militant group, a South-east Asian terror network linked to Al-Qaeda.
Mega rushes back from Brunei
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, in Brunei to attend the wedding of the Crown Prince of Brunei, cut short her trip and returned to Jakarta - six hours ahead of schedule.
Malaysia suspects JI brain behind blastMalaysian security officials said in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday that the bombing near may have been the work of a British-trained engineer who has eluded capture for nearly three years.
Azahari Husin, a Malaysian, is one of Asia's most-wanted men and a member of the Al Qaeda-allied Jemaah Islamiah terror group. He has been linked to numerous bombings in Indonesia, including the Bali attack.
Azahari and another Malaysian fugitive, Noordin Mohammed Top, are believed to have made the Marriott bomb with dynamite and ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser that can be transformed into explosives.
The two men narrowly escaped a police dragnet on Oct 31 in Bandung city in Indonesia's West Java province.
Azahari, a British-trained engineer and former university lecturer, and Noordin fled Malaysia to escape a nationwide crackdown against Islamic militants after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Azahari had close relations with Indonesian cleric Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, who was considered Jemaah Islamiah's operations chief before his arrest in Thailand last year.
Philippines on high alertPhilippine troops went on full alert on Thursday following the bombing, amid fears of terrorism linked to the anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks in the United States, officials said.
The country's entire 120,000-strong military and 114,000-strong police force was on red alert - the highest of a three-level system.
National police chief Edgar Aglipay said extra police had been posted at the Australian and US embassies in Manila. Special police troops, bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors have been deployed.
Financial repercussions for Indonesia
JAKARTA - The car bombing near the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on Thursday rattled Indonesia's financial markets, driving the stock market lower and prompting the government to warn it may delay the sale of state-owned assets.
Analysts, however, said the blast wouldn't drive foreign companies out of Indonesia, since most companies already here have come to expect violence after a string of bombings across the archipelago in recent years.
Shares on the Jakarta Stock Exchange plunged on Thursday. At midday, the stock exchange was down 29.651 points, or 3.8 per cent, at 759.484. Shares did manage to end off their lows, and the market recovered to close down 6.485 points, or 0.8 per cent, at 782.65.
The rupiah, meanwhile, fell 0.4 per cent to 9,330 against the US dollar.
Meanwhile, the government said it may delay plans to sell assets in state-owned companies because of the blast. The government was in the process of selling a 51 per cent stake in its lucrative Bank Permata and a 30 per cent stake in Bank Negara Indonesia.
Analysts say such a delay could mean a bigger 2004 budget deficit.
Bashir condemns blast
JAKARTA - Jailed cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is accused of heading the militant group blamed for Thursday's bombing of the Australian Embassy, condemned the attack but predicted he would be blamed for it.
'I'm very upset. I'm against all bombings like this,' Bashir said according to his lawyer Mahendradata, who visited the cleric in jail shortly after the blast, which killed at least eight people.
'But (the authorities) will still use this to attack me,' he said. 'In their desperation, they will accuse me for this attack just like they have the others.'
Bashir has denied any involvement in terrorism and claims that Jakarta buckled under pressure from Washington to arrest him as part of a crackdown on Islamic activists in the world's most populous Muslim nation. -- AP
Taken from http://www.straitstimes.com/latest/story/0,4390,271720,00.html?
SEPT 9, 2004
Bomb rocks Jakarta, at least 7 killed
JAKARTA - A powerful bomb which exploded near the Australian Embassy rocked a major business district in southern Jakarta on Thursday, killing eight people and wounding close to 160, witnesses and officials said.
Witnesses saw smoke rising near Rasuna Said Street, which is home to several foreign embassies and businesses, shortly after 10.15am (0315 GMT). Four cars, including a police vehicle, were damaged and a section of the high metal fence surrounding the Australian Embassy was flattened. The windows on at least 10 surrounding high-rise buildings were shattered.
Initial police investigations have confirmed that the blast was caused by a car bomb, said police chief General Dai Bachtiar.
He said the blast bore the hallmark of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror group, as the modus operandi was very similar to the other attacks -- referring to the 2002 Bali bombings and the 2003 Marriott blast -- done by the JI.
Casualties
About a dozen Australians were slightly injured, mostly by flying glass, an Australian Embassy spokesman said. Four Chinese nationals were also injured in the blast, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said.
An Associated Press photographer on the scene saw at least three dismembered bodies on the wide six-lane street close to the embassy. A doctor at a nearby hospital said 98 people were admitted for treatment.
Security officials said an Indonesian guard manning a post outside the gate was among those who died in the explosion. Three policemen guarding the building were also killed.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said that the death toll 'could be six'. 'We cannot at this stage be certain but the evidence to date indicates that it was a car bomb.'
He also said Foreign Minister Alexander Downer would travel to Indonesia on Thursday night, together with Labor Party member Kevin Ruud, and some nine federal Australian bomb experts and medical staff.
Mr Downer has said that the blast was 'clearly a terrorist attack' directed at Australia.
No embassy workers were injured in the blast, said Australian foreign ministry spokesman Lyndall Sachs. She said the windows of the building were shattered and that the power was down, adding that the mission was evacuated in line with standard procedures.
Past terror attacks in Indonesia
In recent weeks, several Western embassies, including those of the United States and Australia, have warned their citizens about possible attacks by militants.
It is still unclear who was responsible for the blast.
In the past few years, Indonesia has been hit by a series of deadly bombings against Western targets, including last year's suicide attack on the JW Marriott hotel in the same district, which killed 12 people.
In 2002, two nightclubs in Bali were bombed, killing over 200 people, including 88 Australians. Both attacks were blamed on the Jemaah Islamiah militant group, a South-east Asian terror network linked to Al-Qaeda.
Mega rushes back from Brunei
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, in Brunei to attend the wedding of the Crown Prince of Brunei, cut short her trip and returned to Jakarta - six hours ahead of schedule.
Malaysia suspects JI brain behind blastMalaysian security officials said in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday that the bombing near may have been the work of a British-trained engineer who has eluded capture for nearly three years.
Azahari Husin, a Malaysian, is one of Asia's most-wanted men and a member of the Al Qaeda-allied Jemaah Islamiah terror group. He has been linked to numerous bombings in Indonesia, including the Bali attack.
Azahari and another Malaysian fugitive, Noordin Mohammed Top, are believed to have made the Marriott bomb with dynamite and ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser that can be transformed into explosives.
The two men narrowly escaped a police dragnet on Oct 31 in Bandung city in Indonesia's West Java province.
Azahari, a British-trained engineer and former university lecturer, and Noordin fled Malaysia to escape a nationwide crackdown against Islamic militants after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Azahari had close relations with Indonesian cleric Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, who was considered Jemaah Islamiah's operations chief before his arrest in Thailand last year.
Philippines on high alertPhilippine troops went on full alert on Thursday following the bombing, amid fears of terrorism linked to the anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks in the United States, officials said.
The country's entire 120,000-strong military and 114,000-strong police force was on red alert - the highest of a three-level system.
National police chief Edgar Aglipay said extra police had been posted at the Australian and US embassies in Manila. Special police troops, bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors have been deployed.
Financial repercussions for Indonesia
JAKARTA - The car bombing near the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on Thursday rattled Indonesia's financial markets, driving the stock market lower and prompting the government to warn it may delay the sale of state-owned assets.
Analysts, however, said the blast wouldn't drive foreign companies out of Indonesia, since most companies already here have come to expect violence after a string of bombings across the archipelago in recent years.
Shares on the Jakarta Stock Exchange plunged on Thursday. At midday, the stock exchange was down 29.651 points, or 3.8 per cent, at 759.484. Shares did manage to end off their lows, and the market recovered to close down 6.485 points, or 0.8 per cent, at 782.65.
The rupiah, meanwhile, fell 0.4 per cent to 9,330 against the US dollar.
Meanwhile, the government said it may delay plans to sell assets in state-owned companies because of the blast. The government was in the process of selling a 51 per cent stake in its lucrative Bank Permata and a 30 per cent stake in Bank Negara Indonesia.
Analysts say such a delay could mean a bigger 2004 budget deficit.
Bashir condemns blast
JAKARTA - Jailed cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is accused of heading the militant group blamed for Thursday's bombing of the Australian Embassy, condemned the attack but predicted he would be blamed for it.
'I'm very upset. I'm against all bombings like this,' Bashir said according to his lawyer Mahendradata, who visited the cleric in jail shortly after the blast, which killed at least eight people.
'But (the authorities) will still use this to attack me,' he said. 'In their desperation, they will accuse me for this attack just like they have the others.'
Bashir has denied any involvement in terrorism and claims that Jakarta buckled under pressure from Washington to arrest him as part of a crackdown on Islamic activists in the world's most populous Muslim nation. -- AP
Taken from http://www.straitstimes.com/latest/story/0,4390,271720,00.html?
The Price of Progress
Counterpoint: The Price of Progress
SEPT 9, 2004
Scholarships to help rural Thais result in tragedy
Officials move to help students after one kills herself because she was unable to adjust to life overseas
By Nirmal Ghosh
BANGKOK - The tragic death of a star pupil last month cast a pall over a well-intentioned scholarship scheme championed by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The government is now trying to retrofit the 'one tambon (municipality), one scholarship' scheme that is supposed to open doors to opportunity for Thailand's relatively poor rural families.
Miss Natchanon Mekhee, who killed herself while she was on a scholarship in Germany, had told her shocked family in a phone call that she felt miserable.
The 18-year-old was an outstanding student, as are all the 923 young Thais chosen under the scheme to go overseas to study for degrees in countries as diverse as India, Germany, The Netherlands, China and Japan.
The idea is to give their families - all earning less than 100,000 baht (S$4,000) a year - a door out of relative poverty and into the world.
But beyond the small towns and villages of tropical Thailand with its rice fields, temples and slow rivers, it can be a meat grinder of a world.
Miss Mekhee's tragic death was met with nationwide dismay. Officials and academics said the government had ill prepared young people - almost all of whom have never left Thailand - for life in a strange country.
The reasons for her actions may never be known. Officials and academics put it down to homesickness and the inability to cope with having to learn German in order to function in Mannheim, a small industrial town near Frankfurt.
Deputy secretary-general Mantana Piyamada of the Office of the Civil Service Commission, which together with the Ministry of Education oversees the project, told The Straits Times: 'The girl was an outstanding student, but she was overprotected at home, so she was not prepared for life in the outside world.'
Local papers quoted education officials as saying the programme may have been pushed through too quickly.
Officials moved swiftly to set up a three-day preparatory camp for students waiting in line to go overseas, which the Bangkok Post daily said was a case of 'too little, too late'.
The camp concluded late last week in Nonthaburi on the outskirts of Bangkok.
One of the students who went through it was Miss Khattiya Surarak, 19, who is off to The Netherlands next month to study international relations.
She agreed that the camp helped build camaraderie and hinted at what students could expect - but facing the realities of life overseas in a country with different social mores, food, culture and above all, language, would be a different matter.
'I feel very sorry for Mekhee and her family. It is such a waste,' she told The Straits Times.
Like her friend Saowaluk Jantaracheewin, 19, who is going to Vienna to study computer engineering, she will get an allowance of 860 euros (S$1,700) a month.
The girls are currently learning Dutch and German through CDs - criticised as totally inadequate by some teachers here.
But they hope their first six months of language training in Amsterdam will give them enough language skills to get by.
Following Miss Mekhee's suicide, a government official will stay in each country where students are deployed to monitor them for a few weeks and assist with logistics such as opening bank accounts and buying insurance policies, before leaving them on their own.
Afterwards, if there are Thai Embassy officials in those countries, they are supposed to keep in touch with the students, who either stay in hostels or as paying guests in local households. Some band together to rent apartments.
For Miss Khattiya's father, Mr Suchart Surarak, 46, a teacher, the project has the potential to make a huge difference.
'It reaches small villages, it opens up opportunities and the students can bring their skills back to Thailand.
'Of course, I am nervous, but it is best to let Khattiya have the opportunity to experience everything for herself.
'I am proud of her,' he told The Straits Times.
Taken from http://www.straitstimes.com/storyprintfriendly/0,1887,271678,00.html?
SEPT 9, 2004
Scholarships to help rural Thais result in tragedy
Officials move to help students after one kills herself because she was unable to adjust to life overseas
By Nirmal Ghosh
BANGKOK - The tragic death of a star pupil last month cast a pall over a well-intentioned scholarship scheme championed by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The government is now trying to retrofit the 'one tambon (municipality), one scholarship' scheme that is supposed to open doors to opportunity for Thailand's relatively poor rural families.
Miss Natchanon Mekhee, who killed herself while she was on a scholarship in Germany, had told her shocked family in a phone call that she felt miserable.
The 18-year-old was an outstanding student, as are all the 923 young Thais chosen under the scheme to go overseas to study for degrees in countries as diverse as India, Germany, The Netherlands, China and Japan.
The idea is to give their families - all earning less than 100,000 baht (S$4,000) a year - a door out of relative poverty and into the world.
But beyond the small towns and villages of tropical Thailand with its rice fields, temples and slow rivers, it can be a meat grinder of a world.
Miss Mekhee's tragic death was met with nationwide dismay. Officials and academics said the government had ill prepared young people - almost all of whom have never left Thailand - for life in a strange country.
The reasons for her actions may never be known. Officials and academics put it down to homesickness and the inability to cope with having to learn German in order to function in Mannheim, a small industrial town near Frankfurt.
Deputy secretary-general Mantana Piyamada of the Office of the Civil Service Commission, which together with the Ministry of Education oversees the project, told The Straits Times: 'The girl was an outstanding student, but she was overprotected at home, so she was not prepared for life in the outside world.'
Local papers quoted education officials as saying the programme may have been pushed through too quickly.
Officials moved swiftly to set up a three-day preparatory camp for students waiting in line to go overseas, which the Bangkok Post daily said was a case of 'too little, too late'.
The camp concluded late last week in Nonthaburi on the outskirts of Bangkok.
One of the students who went through it was Miss Khattiya Surarak, 19, who is off to The Netherlands next month to study international relations.
She agreed that the camp helped build camaraderie and hinted at what students could expect - but facing the realities of life overseas in a country with different social mores, food, culture and above all, language, would be a different matter.
'I feel very sorry for Mekhee and her family. It is such a waste,' she told The Straits Times.
Like her friend Saowaluk Jantaracheewin, 19, who is going to Vienna to study computer engineering, she will get an allowance of 860 euros (S$1,700) a month.
The girls are currently learning Dutch and German through CDs - criticised as totally inadequate by some teachers here.
But they hope their first six months of language training in Amsterdam will give them enough language skills to get by.
Following Miss Mekhee's suicide, a government official will stay in each country where students are deployed to monitor them for a few weeks and assist with logistics such as opening bank accounts and buying insurance policies, before leaving them on their own.
Afterwards, if there are Thai Embassy officials in those countries, they are supposed to keep in touch with the students, who either stay in hostels or as paying guests in local households. Some band together to rent apartments.
For Miss Khattiya's father, Mr Suchart Surarak, 46, a teacher, the project has the potential to make a huge difference.
'It reaches small villages, it opens up opportunities and the students can bring their skills back to Thailand.
'Of course, I am nervous, but it is best to let Khattiya have the opportunity to experience everything for herself.
'I am proud of her,' he told The Straits Times.
Taken from http://www.straitstimes.com/storyprintfriendly/0,1887,271678,00.html?
Thursday, September 09, 2004
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