INDONESIA A NEWS

INDONESIA's environment watchdog has failed in its efforts to have responsibility for the disastrous mudflows that began in Java 18 months ago slated home to the Banjar Panji drilling joint venture. About 6000 villagers living close to Indonesia's second city of Surabaya in eastern Java had to be relocated after mud began flowing from deep underground. The disaster has already cost millions of dollars, and experts believe the costs could rise substantially. The mudflows have led to claim and counter-claim as to who is responsible, and complaints that the Indonesian Government is not doing enough to resolve the issues, including providing compensation for the thousands whose livelihoods have been destroyed. Australian oil and gas exploration and production company Santos said yesterday the South Jakarta District Court had handed down a decision on proceedings brought by the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WAHLI) on the mudflows. Santos is a non-operating 18per cent partner...

Three years after the devastating tsunami hit the Indonesian province of Aceh, Dra Hanisah, a staff member at a local Sharia or Islamic court, said that one little noticed ripple effect of the killer wave is that more women than men are now filing for divorce in the local legal system based on Islamic law. In an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI), Dra Hanisah, described how the current trend started after the December 2004 tsunami that, in Aceh alone, killed nearly 170,000. "We used to have more men filing for divorce but now is definitely more women," said Hanisah who is a member of the Sharia court in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh. Although there isn't comprehensive data available, Hanisah hinted that the ratio is about 3-1. In June, for example, 93 women filed for divorce at the Banda Aceh Islamic Court compared to only 34 men.The clerk, who has access to the requests for divorce, blamed the many quick marriages that took place after the natural disast...

2008 will be a nightmare for residents of Jakarta and the surrounding areas. It is planned that the government will reduce the supply of 88 octane Premium gasoline to just Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi, the Greater Jakarta region, otherwise known as Jabodetabek. In return, the government will ask state oil & gas company Pertamina to make 90 octane gasoline available for private vehicles. Premium 88 gasoline will still be subsidized by the government but only for motorcycles and public transportation. This is one of the options that the government can take in the future in order to overcome further fluctuations in subsidized fuel as a result of global oil price increases. For the 2007 budget year, the government prepared fuel subsidies amounting to Rp55.6 trillion. This was with the assumption that oil prices on the international market would only be US$60 per barrel. In reality however, oil prices are far above the assumptions that were made in the Revised 2007 State ...

When Hendrik and Hesty flew into the local airport here earlier this month, they were given a ceremonial welcome with Papuan warriors in full battle regalia hopping about to the tune of traditional martial music. The warriors fell into two rows as the director of Freeport environmental division Johnny Prewitt, head of conservation bureau of Indonesian forestry ministry Awrya Ibrahim and Danish (one name), chief of the Wasur National Park, and executive staff from the Cikananga Animal Rescue Centre (PPSC) in West Java emerged. But the cynosure of all eyes was Hendrik and Hesty, rescued from the clutches of wildlife traders four years ago, and their extended family of 21 Papuan dusky pademelon, being returned to their natural habitat on Indonesian Papua. Pademelons, wallabies,and kangaroos are similar in body structure, and the names refer to marsupials of three different size groups. Besides their smaller size, pademelons are distinguished from wallabies by their shorter, thicker and sp...

Fuel has begun seeping from the engine of a small tanker that capsized at an Indonesian port this week, but its hold remains secure, the port master said yesterday.The Karisma Selatan, which has a capacity of 500,000 litres, capsized shortly after it was filled with marine fuel at Surabaya's Tanjung Perak port early Tuesday. Nobody was injured. "There is a very small quantity of fuel that has leaked out of the ship, but we already have rubber oil booms in place around the tanker," port master Rocky Ahmad Suherman said.Late Tuesday he said that the ship had been examined and "the cargo is still intact; we are sure that there is no leakage".Suherman said authorities were coordinating with the ship's owner as they tried to work out the best way to salvage the ship. The tanker was operated by local agent PT Pasifik Selatan. "We are trying to determine if it is best to upright the ship then suck the cargo out or the other way around," he said, adding th...

RADICAL Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has visited the three Bali bombers on death row in prison.Bashir, widely believed to be the spiritual head of South East Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiah (JI), said he wanted to boost the spirits of the three before they face the firing squad. He also warned Indonesia would suffer a big disaster if it went ahead with the executions. Bali bombers Amrozi, Bashir's former student Mukhlas and Imam Samudra are awaiting execution in Batu Prison on Nusakambangan Island, known as Indonesia's Alcatraz, off central Java. The trio played key roles in the 2002 Bali terrorist attacks, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. "I want to tell them to stay tough if they believe in what they are doing,'' Bashir told a press conference before visiting the trio. "I am worried there will be a huge disaster if Indonesia still wants to execute these three. "Because they three are mujahid (Islamic fighters). "Bashir vis...

An Indonesian Police general could not hide his anger in a recent TV interview about the Indonesian public perception ranking the police as the country's most corrupt institution, when he basically branded the findings of the Indonesian Chapter of Transparency International (TI) as rubbish. But with such rampant red tape, bribery and even extortion -- just look how police extort motorists for example -- perhaps even the general's colleagues in the force would laugh at his denial. In the TI 2007 Global Corruption Barometer issued last week, Indonesian respondents listed the police as the most corrupt institution, followed by the courts, legislatures and political parties. The findings are not surprising, since it approached members of the public, who made their observations from their personal experience in daily life. In nearly all sectors, the police are widely perceived as corrupt and connected with money. Hearing the result must have made the national police ashamed and mad,...

Here on the island of Sumatra, about 1,200 miles from the global climate talks under way on Bali, are some of the world's fastest-disappearin g forests. From here, to anybody looking out over a vast wasteland of charred stumps and dried-out peat, the fight to save Indonesia's forests can seem nearly impossible. "What can we possibly do to stop this? I feel lost, I feel abandoned," said Pak Helman, 28, a villager here in Riau Province, surveying the scene from his leaking wooden longboat. In recent years, dozens of pulp and paper companies have descended on Riau, which is roughly the size of Switzerland, snatching up generous government concessions to log and establish palm oil plantations. And villagers are in a state of panic. Only five years ago, Helman says, he earned nearly $100 a week catching shrimp. Now, with logging activity having poisoned the rivers snaking through the heart of Riau, he says he is lucky to find enough to earn $5 a month. Responding to global...