Indonesia To Hold National Condom Week To Curb Spread Of HIV, Reach Youth
Indonesia’s National AIDS Commission recently announced competitions for journalists and university students to promote the country’s upcoming National Condom Week, which takes place the first week in December. According to Commission Secretary Nafsiah Mboi, the competitions are being launched in an effort to engage younger generations in the country’s second condom week, adding that more than half of the country’s youth under age 30 are living with a sexually transmitted infection. Funding will be awarded to the top three designers to implement their campaigns at their respective university campuses. During the condom week, other events and campaigns, such as concerts and conferences, will be held at malls, office buildings, campuses and other locations frequented by young people throughout the country. In addition to encouraging condom use, the events will promote abstinence as one of the best methods of preventing STIs and unplanned pregnancies. (November 5th 2008, Kaisernetwork.org)
Teenage Girl Bird Flu Suspect Dies in Indonesia
A teenage girl suspected of suffering from bird flu in Central Java died on Friday (7/11) after being hospitalized for four days, The Jakarta Post reported. Agus Suryanto, a physician from the Kariadi public hospital, said that the 15-year old girl died from respiratory failure after suffering from fever exceeding 39 Celsius. “There was a chance that she got infected by bird flu as she had been living nearby a chicken abattoir,” said the physician. He said that the hospital had taken and diagnosed a blood sample from the deceased but had yet to know the result of the test. (November 7th 2008, Xinhua)
Indonesian Prosecutors Drop Corruption Case Against Suharto Son
Indonesian prosecutors said Friday (7/11) they had dropped a multimillion dollar graft case involving a clove monopoly agency chaired by Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra, a son of former President Suharto, saying the funds had been returned to the state. The Attorney General’s Office also decided to halt the investigation into the case because “based on the facts,” it said, the agency operated according to the rules and did nothing wrong. “The agency’s activities did not cause any state losses, so the case can not be brought to court,” Jasman Pandjaitan, the office spokesman, told reporters. The Attorney General’s Office had investigated the case involving the Clove Marketing and Buffer Agency set up by the government to protect farmers from fluctuating clove prices since last year. Tommy was the chairman of the agency, locally known as the BPPC. The BPPC dealt with clove trading and was accused of misusing the Indonesian central bank’s liquidity fund of Rp. 175 billion ($16 million) and an estimated Rp. 1 trillion fund belonging to clove farmers, excluding interest. The government used to channel soft loans to the agency so it could buy cloves directly from farmers. The BPPC, however, required the farmers to sell cloves to it at a low price and banned them from selling their cloves directly to clove-cigarette companies. The agency then sold the cloves to the cigarette companies at a higher price. Clove-flavored cigarettes are extremely popular throughout Indonesia. The BPPC was disbanded in 1998 following an agreement between Suharto and the International Monetary Fund to eliminate the clove-trading monopoly. By halting investigation into the case, the Attorney General’s Office also lifted a travel ban on Tommy. In February this year, an Indonesian court ruled in a civil lawsuit against Tommy that he did not commit corruption in another case as accused and ordered the state to pay 5 billion rupiah for immaterial losses. (November 7th 2008, Indonesia News.net)
Traffic Accidents Claim 82 Lives per day in Indonesia
Road accidents claim an average of 30,000 lives per year, or 82 per day in Indonesia, making it the No.3 biggest cause of death in the country, said an official at a seminar on Thursday (6/11). “The numbers are based on official data. I personally believe road accidents are like the iceberg phenomenon,” Indonesian Consumers Foundation coordinator Tulus Abadi said at a discussion on transportation safety here. “Traffic accidents are currently the third most frequent cause of death after heart attack and stroke,” he added. Tulus said poor road conditions were to blame along with poor driver standards. Director of state insurance company PT Jasa Raharja Diding Anwar said his company spent 500 billion rupiah (50 million U.S. dollars) annually on compensation for road accident victims and their families. (November 6th 2008, Xinhua)
Bali Rejects Pornography Law
The Balinese people reject implementation of the anti-pornography law passed by the House of Representatives recently. Their rejection was put in a letter signed by the governor of Bali, Made Mangku Pastika and the chairman of the regional legislative assembly (DPRD) IB Wesnawa on behalf of all the people of Bali. The coordinator of the Balinese People, IG Ngurah Harta, said here on Saturday (8/11) he hailed the Balinese government’s stance that reflected the aspiration of the people. “The stance is very inspiring and in line with the philosophy and sociology developing in the island’s community,” he said. He said the governor and the DPRD chairman had agreed to prepare legal actions to face the implementation of the law which they said was discriminative. (November 8th 2008, Antara News)
Indonesian President Welcomes Obama
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono welcomed Barack Obama’s election to the US presidency Wednesday, saying he hoped the change in leadership would help solve the global economic crisis. “I want to congratulate Senator Obama for his success in being elected as US president. I also want to congratulate US citizens,” he was quoted by AFP as saying in a speech broadcast on national radio. “Indonesia hopes that the US will continue to play a role in bringing peace and security in the world and a fair global economy. “In particular, Indonesia hopes the US can take concrete measures to settle the global economic crisis and the financial crisis in the United States.” Indonesia’s share market and rupiah currency have been hard hit by the US-led turmoil in the world economy, which has forced foreign institutions to pull out of emerging markets. (November 11th 2008, Antara news)
Indonesia Launches Tsunami Early Warning System
A tsunami early warning system developed and funded by five donor countries began operations Tuesday (11/11) in Indonesia, nearly four years after the Asian tsunami of December 2004, which claimed 230,000 lives. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who attended the launch ceremony in Jakarta, expressed pride over the development of the technology in Indonesia but reminded the country that the equipment was not an end-all, be-all but would only provide help. The German government financed the 45-million-euro (58-million-dollar) project. The 2004 tsunami was triggered by an earthquake that measured 9.3 on the Richter scale off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The German Research Centre for Geosciences said the death toll would have been considerably lower if an early warning system had been in place at the time. The system makes use of sensors placed on the seabed that relay details of changes in water pressure to buoys on the surface. The information is then transmitted via satellite to a tsunami early warning centre in Indonesia. Indonesia is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries. The 2004 quake and tsunami, which struck off Aceh, killed more than 170,000 people in that province alone. Other tsunami early warning systems have been installed in other countries hit by the 2004 tsunami, including Thailand and India. (November 11th 2008, Antara News)
Airlines Helping Bali Travel Changes
The federal government is working to ensure Australians aren’t penalized if they defer holidays to Bali because of a greater risk of terrorist attack following the execution of the Bali bombers. Already Jetstar and Virgin Blue have waived charges for passengers who want to delay travel to the holiday island following the weekend executions of Amrozi, his brother Mukhlas and Imam Samudra. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has been warning young school leavers who are planning to have end-of-year celebrations in Bali to think again. “I welcome the news that Jetstar and Virgin Blue - two of the airlines that have flights to Bali - have waived their fees for travellers wishing to change the date of their travel to Bali in November,” he told parliament on Monday (10/11). “I’m advised that so far as Jetstar is concerned, that the waiver of this fee applies for changes made in November to as late as September of next year. “I again call on all airlines and the travel industry generally ... to exercise maximum flexibility.” The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s smarttraveller website warns of “credible information that terrorists could be planning attacks in Indonesia”. DFAT will organize a meeting of its Smarttraveller Consultative Group and the travel industry this week to work through ways to enable travellers to change their holiday plans. “(We’re going) to see whether more can be done to maximize the flexibility so far as changed travel arrangements to Bali and Indonesia are concerned,” Mr Smith said. Industry representatives suggested the warnings have so far failed to discourage school leavers planning a Bali celebration. “A lot of them are still going (to Bali),” said Flight Centre spokesman Haydn Long. (November 10th 2008, SBS News)
