INDONESIA A NEWS

Indonesian smokers and the country's tobacco industry have slammed a move by the nation's top Islamic body to place restrictions on tobacco use by Muslims, calling it an interference in private lives.Health campaigners welcomed the move, but said the government now needed to do more if there was to be any impact on curbing smoking in the world's fifth largest tobacco market.While stopping short of an outright ban, the Ulema Council, or MUI, issued a fatwa at the weekend prohibiting smoking in public places or by pregnant women and children."I am angry about the fatwa, because both my father and grandfather are smokers and the new fatwa now makes them sinners," said Abdul Hardiyanto, 38, a Muslim stock broker. Fatwas are not legally binding in the world's most populous Muslim nation, but there is pressure to adhere to them or be regarded as sinful.Smoking is widespread in Indonesia, with cigarettes among the cheapest in the world at around $1 a pack and the na...

In a nation torn between an authoritarian past and growing Islamic radicalism, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has held the center. But while presiding over five years of respectable economic growth free of major upheaval, Yudhoyono hasn't expanded that space. Despite his cool approach, the center has shrunk like an ice floe in the nation's tropical waters. Yudhoyono - popularly known as SBY - beat incumbent Megawati Sukarnoputri in 2004 in Indonesia's first direct presidential election, the last piece of the country's political reformasi following the end of president Suharto's three decades of autocratic, military rule. SBY ticked all the right boxes for the emerging democracy. He was a general under Suharto, but his signature command was in United Nations peacekeeping. He was the first to endorse a key post-Suharto reform by resigning his military post to become minister of mines under president Abdurrahman Wahid; under Suharto, generals regularly...

Islamic hard-liners in Indonesia are calling for the closure of the country's only synagogue as a protest to Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip. Protesters enraged by Israel's three-week-long operation in Gaza marched to the synagogue's gates chanting, "Go to hell, Israel!" The only Jewish religious site in the world's most populous Muslim state - which has no rabbi and only a few followers - then closed its doors. AdvertisementAcross Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, sentiments are running high about the conflict, fueled by disturbing TV footage of Palestinian casualties. "This is the way to show our solidarity for the Palestinian people and to condemn the Israeli attacks," said Abdusshomad Buchori, a local leader of the Ulema Council, which is pushing for the permanent closure of Beth Hashem synagogue in Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city. "If Israel refuses to stop its attacks and oppression of the Palestinian people, we don...

Indonesia announced on Monday plans to spend rapidly $3.56bn saved from the 2008 budget on infrastructure projects and tax breaks to stimulate the economy and mitigate the impacts of the global economic crisis. Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the finance minister, said much more money could be available if conditions warranted it. She said this could come from either a $5.5bn (?4bn, £3.8bn) standby budget facility co-ordinated by the World Bank or new bonds. She claimed international demand for Indonesian debt was mounting because yields were many times higher than anything available in the west.Analysts say Indonesia's macroeconomic fundamentals are more robust than most countries in the region and much healthier than was predicted only two months ago. This is thanks largely to exports accounting for only about 14 per cent of economic growth, which was about 6.1 per cent last year and is forecast to be between 4 per cent and 5 per cent this year.But they warn against complacency, citing th...

Capital Market and Financial Institution Supervisory Body (Bapepam-LK) reported on Tuesday that the Indonesian bourse posted the third largest drop in share prices in 2008.The composite index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange was at 1,340.89 or fell 51.17 percent from the late 2007 index.In a year end presser at the IDX office, head of the supervisory body Fuad Rahmany said almost all regional bourse experienced index losses, China's Shenzhen and Shanghai had the biggest index drop of 62.72 percent, followed by Mumbai index by 53.83 percent. Market capitalization in the IDX was also down by 46.37 percent from Rp 1,988.3 trillion (US$ 179.9 billion) to Rp 1,072.5 trillion (US$ 96.96 billion). Despite the drop, annual daily transaction at the bourse rose by 4,19 percent to Rp 4.447 trillion (US$ 401.7 million).Singapore followed Indonesia on the list, posting a 50.21 percent drop followed by Hong Kong with 49 percent, the philippines 48.29 percent, Taiwan 47.98 percent, Thailand 47.95...

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia's president, has vowed to uncover the orchestrators of the murder of one of the country's most prominent human rights activists after a former senior spy was acquitted of planning the crime. Muchdi Purwoprandjono, a former Indonesian deputy intelligence chief, was found not guilty on Wednesday of charges that he assigned an agent to poison Munir Thalib, who died on a flight to Amsterdam in September 2004. The murder and the willingness of authorities to investigate it has become a barometer for accountability and the rule of law in democratic Indonesia, where many of former dictator Suharto's former elite remain influential. Andi Mallarangeng, a presidential spokesman, said Mr Yudhoyono, a Suharto-era general, was committed to solving the killing of Munir and would summon the police chief and attorney-general to prepare the best way forward. "The president's instruction to the police and the prosecutor's office is that they ...