First Condom Shop Opens in Bali
The first shop specializing in condoms has opened in Bali
on Saturday 7th April. The bright pink “Condom Store”
located in the Discovery Bali Mall and is the first of its
kind in Bali. A spokesperson at the store said that the shop
only stocked condoms and related items and did not sell sex
toys as did similar retail outlets overseas. Pornographic
items are frowned upon in Indonesia, however Bali was one
of the provinces that has rejected the anti pornography bill
that was proposed by the National Government. (April 8th 2007,
Radar Bali)
Indonesia Quake Caused Huge Coral Die-Off
A strong earthquake that struck Indonesia’s Sumatra
Island two years ago caused one of the biggest coral die-offs
ever documented, a study by scientists from two conservation
groups found. The quake itself killed nearly 1,000 people
on Nias island off the western coast of Sumatra island. The
scientists, who surveyed 35 sites on the coastline, found
that the earthquake had raised the island of Simeulue near
Nias by up to 1.2 metres (3 ft 11 in), exposing most of the
coral reefs ringing the island over about 300 km (190 miles)
of sea floor, a news statement said. The scientists were from
the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society and the government-backed
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral
Reef Studies (ARCCoERS). Dr. Andrew Baird of ARCCoERS said
the earthquake had provided a one-off chance to study such
a phenomenon. “This is a unique opportunity to document
a process that occurs maybe once a century and promises to
provide new insights into coral recovery processes that until
now we could only explore on fossil reefs.” The team
said it had documented, for the first time in Indonesian waters,
extensive damage to reefs caused by the crown-of-thorns starfish,
a coral predator that has inflicted huge damage on reefs in
Australia and other parts of the world. “People monitoring
Indonesian coral reefs now have another threat to watch out
for, and not all reef damage should be immediately attributed
to human influences,” said Baird. Indonesia has some
of the richest reef environments in the world, but many have
also suffered from human interference. The government has
banned the use of chemicals such as cyanide and bombing to
catch fish, but such practices still go on in many parts of
the huge tropical nation made up of more than 17,000 islands.
(April 13th 2007, Reuters)
Indonesia is World’s Biggest Ecstasy Producer : Police
Official
Data collected by the National Police Criminal Investigation
Department show Indonesia is the biggest ecstasy producer
in the world, a narcotics police official said. “Apart
from being a lucrative market for various kinds of narcotics,
Indonesia is also the world’s biggest ecstasy producer,”
Adjunct Senior Commissioner Dedi Permana, an officer at the
drug directorate at the National Police Headquarters, said
here Thursday. (12/4). Other ecstasy producing countries were
Germany, the Netherlands and India, he said.Although in Indonesia
the raw materials to make ecstasy had to be imported, international
drug syndicates considered the country an ideal place for
making the drug, according to Dedi. Ecstasy made in Indonesia
was now being supplied to many other countries whereas previously
Indonesia was only known as the producer of top-quality marijuana.
Indonesia became the biggest ecstasy producer in the world
since it was chosen as the location of an ecstasy factory
capable of turning out 11 million ecstasy pills per month.
The factory which was set up in Tangerang, Banten province,
was discovered and closed down by police some time ago. Foreign
drug syndicates came to consider Indonesia an ideal place
to invest in because trade in precursor (the chemical compound
that constitutes the main ingredient of ecstasy and amphetamine)
in the country was regulated only in a ministerial-level ordinance
which did not provide for a prison sentence for violators.
“The government should actually regulate the trade in
a law that imposes more severe penalties on violators. The
absence of such a law makes it easy for international drug
barons to operate in Indonesia,” Dedi said. (April 13th
2007, Antara News)
RI, Australia to Bring Forest Conservation Issue to Bali Conference
The Indonesian and Australian governments have agreed to bring
the issue of forest conservation to an international conference
on climate change to be held in the island resort of Bali
from December 3 to 12, 2007. The agreement was reached by
the environment ministers of both countries after a closed-door
meeting to discuss bilateral cooperation in the environmental
field here on Monday (2/4). “Its complete platform is
under discussion but it will be about deforestation, reforestation
& forest conservation,” Indonesian Environment Minister
Rachmat Witoelar said. Rachmat said the issue would be brought
to the Bali conference because there had been little appreciation
so far for parties or countries which were able to protect
their forests. “Yet, forests are not merely a natural
resource of a particular country but they also serve as the
world’s lungs,” Rachmat said. Meanwhile, his Australian
counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, said like in other tropical
countries, forests in Indonesia were currently neglected even
by the Kyoto Protocol. “What the governments of Australia
and Indonesia have been doing so far is to give a fresh breath,”
Malcolm Turnbull said, adding that the two countries were
committed to placing the forest conservation issue on the
main agenda of climate change. On the occasion, Turnbull also
said that although Australia did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol,
the country would try to meet the target of emission reduction
as stipulated in the protocol. Earlier, over the weekend,
Rachmat said Indonesia would host the biggest international
conference on the environment to discuss climate change. He
said the conference would be attended by at least 10,000 participants
from 189 countries around the world. “The conference
will be a venue of negotiations between developed & developing
countries,” Rachmat said, adding that in the next 10
years, about 20 to 30 billion dollars would be spent on the
management of global warming which caused climate change.
(April 4th 2007, Antara News)
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar holds Art of Living Seminar / Prayers
in Bali
Over one thousand followers of the “Art of Living”
seminar gathered at the Garuda Kencana Wishnu Park for a mass
prayer & meditation on Saturday (14/4). The seminar, headed
by the founder of the foundation Sri Sri Ravi Shankar , ran
over a period of six days in all and was held at the Grand
Bali Beach in Sanur. The event was attended by a huge crowd
from 27 different countries. A spokeswoman for the organization
Haseena Mukhi said that The Art of Living workshops were a
combination of the best of the ancient wisdom and modern science
and taught methods to achieve a healthy body and a stress
free mind. The program has reached over 20 million people,
irrespective of age, sex, color, religion, economic status
or cultural background. (April 14th 2007, Antara News)
Blind British Pilot Lands Micro-Light in Indonesia
Blind British aviator Miles Hilton-Barber landed his micro-light
aircraft here on Sunday (15/4) to complete another leg of
his London-Sydney charity flight. With the aid of co-opilot
Richard Meredith-Hardy, Hilton-Barber safely flew his Pegasus
Mainair GT 450 in to East Jakarta’s Halim Perdanakusumah
at around 2:00 pm (0700 GMT.) “He came here to raise
funds for fighting avoidable blindness, notably cataracts,”
said Rastra, who represents the financial organization sponsoring
the flight and uses only one name. Hilton-Barber, who has
been blind for 25 years, is traveling 22,000- km across 19
countries with the aim of raising one million dollars to fund
cataract surgery in developing countries. “There are
so many blind people who have no opportunity to undergo the
operation,” said Rastra. Hilton-Barber plans to land
in five Indonesian cities, en route to Darwin in northern
Australia. (April 16th 2007, AFP)
Indonesia Says Indian Missile Test Forced Garuda Passenger
Jet to Turn Back
An Indonesian jet carrying hundreds of passengers was forced
to turn around over Indian airspace after a nuclear-capable
ballistic missile streaked across the sky, the Foreign Ministry
said Friday. Indonesia demanded an explanation from New Delhi,
which insisted that aviation authorities had been informed
about Thursday’s test launch well in advance. The Garuda
Indonesia Boeing 747 was flying from Jakarta to Saudi Arabia
when the Indian control tower told pilots the missile had
been launched, said Ari Sapari, the national carrier’s
director. India said one day after successfully test-firing
its longest-range missile, the Agni III, that Indonesia and
other air traffic controllers across the region had been properly
informed about its plans. Aviation officials were told “about
the launch window date, danger time, zone and height,”
he said, and had been advised to “issue notice to aviators
and mariners.” The Agni III missile, which is designed
to reach 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles), was launched from
Wheeler Island off the eastern state of Orissa and is said
to be capable of carrying up to a 300-kiloton nuclear warhead.
(April 13th 2007, AFP)
Indonesian Jetliner Makes Emergency Landing
An Indonesia Garuda Boeing 737-400 jetliner with 142 people
on board made an emergency landing at an eastern Indonesian
airport Thursday (12/4) after a problem developed with one
of its wheels. The plane, Garuda Flight GA-602, was carrying
134 passengers and a crew of eight, en route from the Indonesian
capital Jakarta to Manado, the provincial capital of North
Sulawesi, via the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar. “The
plane has finally landed smoothly. All passengers on board
the plane were unhurt,” Yan Daulina, spokesman of Makassar’s
Hasanuddin airport, told the state-run Antara news agency.
Daulina said the airport was operating normally after it was
closed for about 30 minutes due to the emergency landing.
Press reports quoted witnesses as saying that the plane’s
left tyre was flattened when it touched down at Makassar’s
airport runway. An unidentified passenger told Antara news
agency that the majority of the people onboard the plane were
in a panic when stewardesses informed them of a problem with
the plane’s wheel. (April 13th 2007, Antara News)
Three State Plantation Firms to Build Biodiesel Plant
Three state plantation firms will cooperate in building a
biodiesel plant with a capacity of 300,000 tons per year,
a spokesman said. “The three state firms will begin
construction of the joint biodiesel plant in 2008 and the
plant is expected to start operating in 2009,” Hidayat,
a spokesman of state plantation company PTPN IV, said here
on Monday (16/4). He however stopped short of revealing the
amount of funds needed to build the plant, arguing that the
three state firms were still discussing the percentage of
their respective shares and the location of the plant. To
be sure, the plan to build the biodiesel plant was already
in place, he said. The plan to build the biodiesel plant was
based on prospects for palm oil-based biodiesel, he said.
“Like CPO, demand for biodiesel will be on the rise
as petroleum deposits are shrinking,” he said. The government
is planning to produce 200,000 barrels of biofuel a day by
2010. Director for Energy Resources Development at the Agency
for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) Unggul
Prayitno said last month the Finance Ministry is in the process
of formulating two types of incentives to be offered to investors
involved in biofuel projects, The planned incentives consist
of tax breaks and subsidized interest on loans.(April 16th
2007, Antara News)
