INDONESIA A NEWS

An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 people gathered across Jakarta on Thursday to mark the 100th day of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's second term in office. Waving banners and shouting into bullhorns, students, workers and activists lashed out against the former general's failure to curb high-level graft in government. Their numbers at present pose little real challenge to the second-term president. While many here criticize him as weak and ineffectual, his leadership still represents a significant improvement on past heavy-handed military and incompetent democratic leaders. Leading Indonesia through five years of relative political and economic stability helped Yudhoyono win a landslide re-election in July. With an even stronger mandate headed into his second term, for which he was sworn into office last October, Yudhoyono set out an ambitious agenda for his first 100 days, including vows to eradicate corruption, take action to help curb global warming, and move to revitalize ...

Great! Great! News about the album SBY spread abroad, especially in countries Middle Eastern friends. If SBY sings in Arabic may be able to have a big market there, and with so much filthy lucre flowing petro dollars to strengthen reserves in the Republic of Indonesia. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, suffering from falling domestic popularity despite winning plaudits from investors, has found time to release his third album of pop songs in Jakarta. The president's album, entitled I'm Certain I'll Make It, comes as his government's popularity has declined over the expensive bailout of a local bank in 2008. "In my struggle to serve the country, sometimes during my leisure time, I express my feelings in the form of arts," yesterday's edition of an English-language newspaper, the Jakarta Post, quoted Yudhoyono as saying. Andi Mallarangeng, the Minister of Youth and Sports Affairs and a former presidential spokesman, said yesterday that the presi...

Karen AgustiawanA growing number of women lead influential government agencies "The tide is high but I'm holding on. I´m gonna be your number one." So sang the girl band Atomic Kittens. Indonesia is entering what will become its nuclear age, driven by a huge expansion in energy, with key companies like Pertamina and ministries like Finance, Trade, Energy and Mines led by a new and growing band of women breaking though the glass ceiling. After initial doubts, Karen Agustiawan keeps her job as president director of Pertamina, Indonesia's top state-owned oil and gas company, while all the directors around her have been washed away by a tsunami of change. Agustiawan is hardly alone across the government, a trend that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted in a speech during her visit to Jakarta year ago as part of the new Obama administration. "I have to compliment Indonesia for the growing role that women are playing at all levels of society," Clinton said...

Nasir Abas' easy smile grows when asked to explain the aims of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the radical Southeast Asian terror group he once led and which stands accused of plotting some of Indonesia's most deadly terrorist attacks, including the 2002 bombing of a Bali nightclub that took more than 200 lives. JI has long called for the creation of an Islamic caliphate in Muslim areas of Southeast Asia, including across Indonesia, but that objective has over the years come at the expense of civilian lives. Nasir remains at heart a jihadi, but he now uses words rather than weapons to challenge Islamists about the killing of other Muslims. Over a plate of sushi and a cup of Oolong tea, Nasir spoke with Asia Times Online on his views about the diminished threat of Indonesian extremism, why the creation of an Islamic state would never work in Indonesia and how talking with terrorists is the best way to stem the spread of violence and radicalism. After his arrest in 2003, Nasir was the fir...

Indonesia's military business reforms are totally inadequate and have failed to dismantle the armed forces' business empire, Human Rights Watch says. US-based group alleges that many of the military's businesses have been implicated in human rights abuses - charges the Indonesian army denies. The military was stripped of its once significant political powers after Indonesia became a democracy. It was also meant to cede management of its businesses by 2009. Indonesia's army used to be one of the most powerful in South East Asia. Under the "dwifungsi" (dual function) concept of former Indonesian President Suharto's government, soldiers were not only entrusted with defending the state, but played an active role in politics and business. All of this changed when Indonesia became a democracy, and the army's influence in political spheres has been waning. Blurred boundariesUnder the terms of a 2004 law, it was also expected to divest management of its milita...

Praise poured in to honor Indonesia's fourth president, Abdurrahman Wahid, on his death last week at the age of 69. The richly deserved tributes recalled Wahid's wit, his leadership of the country's largest grassroots Muslim organization, and his commitment to pluralism. There's even talk of declaring Wahid, affectionately known as Gus Dur, a national hero. His usually reticent successor and some-time rival, Megawati Sukarnoputri, said, "Gus Dur meets the requirements, " and indicated that her political party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), had already endorsed his enshrinement. But the plaudits ignore the dark side of Wahid's 21-month presidential term, which marked the nation's definitive break with Suharto's New Order authoritarianism. The national mourning for Wahid failed to examine what has become of the reformasi (reform) movement that brought Wahid to power, the backlash against his presidency, and why Wahid was the l...