Jail for Importing Cold Tablets in Shipping Container from
Bali
A 45 year old Brisbane furniture retailer will spend the next
15 months in jail paying for recklessness that allowed her
Indonesian organizer to import in her shipping container 2
million cold tablets containing more than 92 kilograms of
pseudoephedrine - capable of making up to $56 million worth
of the narcotic drug ice. Judge Peter Berman said he agreed
with the jury’s guilty verdict, on which he jailed Belinda
Mary Campbell on Friday for 21⁄2 years for importing
more than 70 times the commercial quantity of the banned precursor,
a necessary ingredient in the manufacture of methyl amphetamine.
With few, if any, similar cases, the judge found Campbell’s
role was “reluctant”, but that she had known of
three earlier undetected importations of pseudoephedrine in
containers of furniture bound for her shop, Chic Teak, but
carried on anyway - with only perfunctory protests to her
business partner in Bali, who was vital to her business. (November
19th 2007 Brisbane Times)
Indonesian Corruption Body Overwhelmed with Cases
Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)
has received tens of thousands of reports of suspected corruption
since 2003 but has resolved just a tiny fraction of them,
an official said Wednesday (14/11). The creation of the KPK
was part of the reform movement that swept Indonesia following
the downfall of Suharto; ingrained corruption, which makes
the nation one of the worlds most graft-prone and keeps many
foreign investors away, is largely seen as a result of his
legacy. Since 2003 the KPK has opened 148 investigations,
66 of which resulted in the naming of suspects. Fifty-four
cases were brought to trial, resulting in 39 convictions,
according to commission figures. The KPK has the authority
to investigate and prosecute cases that were previously the
domain of police and prosecutors. The International Monetary
Fund called for the establishment of the body amid criticism
that graft was undermining Indonesia’s investment climate.
(November 15th 2007, Antara News)
Australian Man on Narcotic Charges to be Released next Month
Australian expatriate Mr. Barry Hess (50) will be released
from jail in December after serving a four month jail term
for possession of 14.4 grams of hashish, and 2.7 grams of
marijuana. Earlier reports stated that Mr. Hess may be given
the death sentence. The courts then decreased the punishment
to five months, and then cut it another month, to a total
of 4 months. He should be released by December 20th. (November
16th 2007, Denpost)
Indonesia Against Halt to Death Penalty
Indonesia has voted against a UN moratorium on the death penalty,
in a further blow to the hopes of six Australians on death
row in the country. The UN General Assembly voted 99 to 52,
with 33 abstentions, in favor of the resolution which calls
for a global moratorium on executions with a view to eventually
abolishing the death penalty entirely. But Indonesia - along
with countries including the United States, Iran, Iraq, China
and Singapore - rejected the resolution saying the death penalty
was still the part of the country’s positive law. Six
Australians, members of the so-called Bali Nine - are on death
row in Indonesia for attempting to smuggle more than 8kg of
heroin from Bali to Australia. They were caught by Indonesian
police in April 2005, after a tip-off from the Australian
Federal Police. (November 17th 2007, AAP)
Number of HIV/AIDS Cases Increases in East Bali, Nusa Lembongan,
Nusa Penida
Recent studies by the Department of Narcotics and Drug Abuse
have shown that the number of HIV positive cases continues
to rise in Bali’s eastern provinces. Klungkung regency
now has 21 confirmed cases, and it is estimated that a further
eighty percent of injecting drug users in the region will
soon start to show positive. The study showed that HIV cases
had reached almost thirty percent amongst prostitutes and
“night café” workers in Nusa Lembongan
and Nusa Penida. (November 17th 2007, Bali Post)
Dengue Fever Takes Three Lives in Only One Day - Denpasar
No less than three people died from the deadly Dengue Hemorrhagic
Shock Syndrome (DSS) on Saturday (17/11). Ketut Artika Atmaja
(66) of Ketewel, Gianyar died in the Sanglah Intensive Care
Unit at 10am on Saturday after suffering from the disease
for only six days. I Ketut Sudana (33) of Ubung, Denpasar
passed away the same day after being treated in the unit for
four days. Mela, a six month old baby from Tuban also died
of the disease on the same day. (November 18th 2007, Radar
Bali)
Indonesia Seeks 59 Million Dollars from Tommy Soeharto
Indonesian state prosecutors said Monday (19/11) they were
seeking 59 million dollars from the son of former President
Soeharto in stolen assets, damages and interest in a civil
suit related to a land scam. Tommy is accused of overseeing
a land swap when he was president of company Goro Batara Sakti
(GBS), with the national logistics agency Bulog, in the 1990s.
Bulog received a worthless swamp in return for a prime piece
of commercial land that GBS built a hyper-store on. “The
plaintiff suffered material losses of 244.2 billion rupiah
(26 million dollars) and immaterial damages of 100 million
rupiah,” said state prosecutor Yoseph Suardi Sabda,
reading an indictment at the trial, which opened after mediation
between the two sides failed. (November 20th 2007, AFP)
Indonesia Prepares After Psychic Predicts Quake
Local officials in a quake-prone Indonesian province said
Monday (19/11) they were taking precautionary measures after
a Brazilian psychic warned a powerful earthquake would strike
next month. Husni Hassanuddin, a spokesman for Bengkulu province
on Sumatra Island, said the Indonesian embassy in Brasilia
had passed on a letter from a “professor” and
psychic predicting an 8.5 magnitude quake would rock the island
on December 23. “Though we call it a rumor, we take
this information seriously. We don’t want people to
blame us if it really happens,” he said. Antara said
da Luz had sent a letter in 1998 predicting the tsunami that
devastated Indonesia in 2004. He also issued a warning in
2006 forecasting September’s 8.4-magnitude quake in
Bengkulu, which left 23 people dead, it said. (November 19th
2007, Antara News)
Indonesia Police say 5,000 will Guard Bali Climate Meet
Indonesia is to deploy 5,000 police to provide security when
a global climate change summit on the resort island of Bali
is held next month, the national police chief said Monday
(19/11). “More than 5,000 Indonesian police officers
will stand guard on Bali island and other places on (the neighboring
island of) Java during the summit,” national police
chief Sutanto was quoted by AFP as telling reporters. He said
that police would begin fanning out from November 20 and remain
on duty until the summit’s end. Meetings leading up
to the key talks begin on December 3 & the summit concludes
on December 14. (November 20th 2007, Antara News)
Bali Nine Warder in Court on Drug Charges
The security chief of a Bali prison where 11 Australians are
serving time for drug offences today faced court for the first
time over drug and ammunition charges carrying a maximum penalty
of death by firing squad. The 39-year-old father of four was
arrested on September 8 on a Denpasar street allegedly in
possession of one packet of ice totalling 0.1gm. A search
of his house and office at Kerobokan prison allegedly yielded
another 0.2gm of ice and 50 bullets for a .22 firearm. At
the time of his arrest, Sudjarat was head of security at Kerobokan
where convicted Australian marijuana smuggler Schapelle Corby
and the Bali Nine heroin smugglers are being held on sentences
ranging from 20 years to death.(November 20th 2007, AAP)
Thousands of Dead Fish Washed up on Kuta Beach
Thousands of dead fish were washed up on Kuta Beach on Tuesday
(20/11). According to a beach patrol officer, the fish started
to appear late on Monday evening and continued up wash up
to shore through Tuesday. At first authorities assumed that
the phenomena was due to a toxic red tide, however marine
biologists from The Warmadawa University doubted this to be
the case. According to Ketut Sudiarta, toxic red tides come
in four to five year cycles, and Kuta beach experienced its
last episode only nine months ago in February 2007. (November
22nd 2007, Radar Bali)
Wing Part Breaks off Batavia Airways Jet
A two-meter-long piece of wing broke away from a jetliner
minutes after it took off from Indonesia’s main international
airport, but the plane managed to land safely, an airport
official says. The incident late Wednesday (22/11) adds to
concerns about the safety of flying in Indonesia, which suffered
a series of accidents earlier this year that killed more than
120 people. The wing section measuring around two meters by
1.5 meters fell from the Boeing 737 shortly after it left
Jakarta’s Sukarno-Hatta airport on a domestic flight,
said Totok Suwarto, a senior official there. Suwarto said
the plane was operated by Batavia Airways, one of scores of
cheap airlines to appear in Indonesia in recent years. (November
22nd 2007, AAP)
EC President Sending New Air Safety Mission to Indonesia
Europe will send another mission to Indonesia to help speed
up a review of airline safety, European Commission President
Jose Manuel Barroso said Friday (23/11). The European Union
in July slapped a ban on all 51 Indonesian airlines flying
in its airspace, including national carrier Garuda, following
a series of fatal aviation accidents in the archipelago nation.
Indonesia labeled the move as unfair. Speaking after talks
with his Indonesian counterpart Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,
Barroso insisted that the ban was “only a technical
issue”. A mission of European monitors reassessing the
ban on Garuda wrapped up here on November 9 but no outcome
has been publicized. Yudhoyono said that he had urged Barroso
in their talks to speed up the lifting of the ban. No Indonesian
airlines fly regularly to and from the EU, but under European
rules, passengers must be informed if an airline is on the
list of banned carriers and can demand reimbursement or an
alternative carrier for tickets bought in Europe for flights
that do not enter EU skies. The EU started its safety ban
list in March 2006 after a string of deadly accidents that
highlighted the fragmented approach to air safety in the then
25-nation bloc. It has been updated four times since then.
(November 23rd 2007, Yahoo News)
Indonesia Claims World’s Largest Melon
A group of Indonesian farmers from the main island of Java
have grown a melon weighing more than four kilograms that
the country’s record house claimed Friday was the world’s
largest. “The honey-globe melon weighed 4.26 kilogram’s
(9.37 pounds). We claim it to be the largest in the world,”
director of Indonesia’s Museum of Records (MURI) Paulus
Pangka told AFP. “We have carried out a survey and found
no other melon with such weight,” he said, clarifying
that the fruit was not to be confused with a watermelon. The
melon sold at auction for eight million rupiah (850 dollars).
A regular melon would normally weigh about two kilogram’s
and sell in Indonesia for around 20,000 rupiah. (November
23rd 2007, Antara News)
