INDONESIA A NEWS

More than likely, fear pervades the palace these days. Fear that the president's political opponents are planning a serious attack. Fear that the media are intent on malicious rumor-mongering about unproven allegations that a US$700 million bailout of failed Bank Century last November was used to finance the president's political party. Fear that stern action against the police and attorney general's office over the mess involving what appear to be fraudulent charges against officers of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) will not solve the problem but exacerbate it. Such fear can result in paralysis that reinforces a public perception that either the president is incompetent or has some hidden motive for stalling. One manifestation of fear is also anger. Palace insiders say that Yudhoyono has become more emotional and thin-skinned than usual as the intertwined scandals dominate the news. If true, he is building a wall between himself and those who might talk straig...

Some 56 Sri Lanka asylum seekers still refuse to leave the Australian customs ship [AFP] A group of Sri Lankan asylum seekers have agreed to leave an Australian custom's ship and go to a detention centre in Indonesia, partially easing a standoff which began last month.The 22 men were among a total of 78 ethnic Tamils on the Oceanic Viking anchored off Bintan island near Singapore.The men left by ferry for an immigration detention at Tanjung Pinang, local police intelligence chief Zainal Arifin said.However, the majority of those who remain still refuse to leave the Australian ship that plucked them from the sea in Indonesia's search-and-rescue zone last month. The asylum seekers, who have already had their refugee claims accepted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, have been assured of rapid resettlement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said.Asked if resettlement would be in Australia, Faizasyah said: "I believe so." He added that the Ocea...

Control of one of the richest prizes in the mining world - the US-based Newmont Mining Corp's US$4 billion Batu Hijau copper and gold mine on the remote island of Sumbawa, 1,500 kilometers east of Jakarta in Indonesia - appears likely to fall into the hands of companies headed by Aburizal Bakrie, the politically powerful head of the Golkar party. In March, an international arbitration court ordered the consortium owning the mine to divest 51 percent of its stake. The consortium, called PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara, was 45 percent owned by Newmont as operator, 35 percent by Japan-based Sumitomo Corp, and Indonesian interests, which held the rest. Under the Contract of Work signed when the consortium won the concession, Newmont and Sumitomo were required to sell a controlling interest to qualified domestic entities before the end of March 2010. Twenty percent has previously been sold to Pukuafu Indah, a local Indonesian group. The next major chunk - 10 percent -- was officially sold Fri...

Aceh, Indonesia's famously fundamentalist Islamic province, is known for the devastating tsunami of December 2004 that swept away the political past, and for a separatist civil war. But a new wave is heading for the beaches. Miss Aceh, Qori Sandioriva, born in Jakarta but with a mother from Aceh, has just won the Miss Indonesia contest and is going on to try for Miss World --in a bikini. But the headlines in the BBC and the Jewish and Israeli Blog Network "Qori Sandioriva Outrages Muslim Prudes" are based partly on hogwash, spin, and political opportunism that bring Islam into ridicule. The Jakarta "concession" that introduced sharia law into Aceh during the separatist civil war was an unrequested political diversion from the anger of Acehnese at the way Jakarta stole their money, whilst Aceh stayed poor. This was the root. Not religion.The attempt to bring in stoning for adultery in Aceh was a belated act of political revenge in the last two weeks of a defeated...