INDONESIA A NEWS

U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Indonesia, the place of his childhood, in March. It is important that the President does not waste this opportunity and uses his good relations with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to raise the issue of religious tolerance in Indonesia. Late last year Obama stated that "Indonesia is important... as one of the world's largest democracies, as one of the world's largest Islamic nations... it has enormous influence and really is... a potential model for the kind of development strategies, democracy strategies, as well as interfaith strategies that are going to be so important moving forward." While his statement is no doubt true in some respects, the essence of Obama's remark is at odds with the current situation in Indonesia. In recent years the United Nations has expressed disquiet at religious discrimination and intolerance in the country. There is continuing concern at the distinctions made in legal d

INDONESIA, the world's most populous Muslim nation and the site of more Australian deaths at the hands of terrorists than any other country, will not be included in a list of 10 countries targeted for toughened visa screening rules aimed at thwarting terror attacks. As Kevin Rudd released his government's long-awaited counter-terrorism white paper yesterday, The Australian has learnt that Indonesia, Pakistan and India will not be among the 10 countries singled out for for toughened visa screening. This is despite those countries playing host to the overwhelming number of regional terror attacks.Yemen and Somalia -- identified in the white paper as the emerging epicentres of radical Islamic terrorism -- will be included.The white paper fingers home grown extremists -- as opposed to transnational groups such as al-Qa'ida -- as the main terror threat now confronting Australia.The Prime Minister said the threat of terrorism had become a "persistent and permanent feature&qu

It is beginning to appear that Vice President Boediono, who was elected last July in a decisive vote along with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, may be in more trouble than initially thought, not because of the Bank Century scandal but because of internal politicking and the hardball tactics of one of the country's richest men. Increasingly, insiders say, the battle over the 2008 Bank Century bailout is coming down to a face-off between the president and Aburizal Bakrie, the wealthy mining and media tycoon who chairs the Golkar party. Both the president and Bakrie were sequestered with their political teams Wednesday afternoon. The controversy over Boediono and his ally, internationally respected Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, has been dragging on for months. Now, however, the current crisis is threatening the president's credentials as a political reformer and contributing to the growing perception that he is weak and indecisive. An ongoing investigation by a speci

They say you need a thick hide for public office but Indonesia's President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has said he was hurt when his photo was affixed to a buffalo's bottom at a recent rally. A highly politicised parliamentary inquiry into the 2008 bailout of a small bank has sparked several small and mostly peaceful protests in Indonesia. One protest featured a buffalo with anti-government graffiti and a picture of the president stuck to its behind. Yudhoyono, who is often referred to as SBY after his initials, was quoted in the English language newspaper Jakarta Post on Wednesday saying the buffalo stunt was offensive. "Then there was a group of protesters leading a buffalo. They said 'SBY is lazy, big and stupid, like a buffalo.' Was that really a demonstration? " the president was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post, adding that he would discuss protest etiquette with several district governors and ministers. "We will discuss how people can conduct pe