INDONESIA A NEWS

An Indonesian maid badly beaten by her Saudi employer is recovering but faces more operations, an Indonesian diplomat said on Saturday, as the Saudi labour ministry said it regretted the case. Members of Migrant Care Indonesia protest over the torture of domestic worker Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa, outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Jakarta on November 19. An Indonesian maid badly beaten by her Saudi employer is recovering but faces more operations, an Indonesian diplomat said on Saturday, as the Saudi labour ministry said it regretted the case.   Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa, 23, remains in hospital in Medina but faces more operations after being found two weeks ago suffering from stab wounds, burns to her scalp and other injuries from an abusive employer, said Diddi Wahyudi, an official of the Indonesian consulate in Jeddah. "Sumiati is recovering now. She is in a good state of health... her appetite is good," Wahyudi told AFP. "But she needs to be operated on at

THE appearance of Indonesia's most notorious corrupt tax official, Gayus Tambunan, in an ill-fitting wig at a Bali tennis tournament has illustrated, in absurd relief, the entrenched culture of graft in the country. Mr Gayus is a mid-level tax official who, despite a modest monthly salary of $1400, amassed a $3.2 million fortune. He came to national fame when he was mysteriously acquitted of corruption charges in March. It later emerged that he had paid the judges, prosecutors and police huge sums to get the charge reduced to a minor embezzlement offence, which was then dismissed. Mr Gayus was promptly arrested, along with, curiously, the man who alerted the public to the affair, senior police officer Susno Duadji. Mr Susno was pinged for another alleged corrupt deal involving a fish farm, although it was widely viewed as payback for his whistleblowing. But, not deterred with twice being caught making corrupt payments, or the fact he is one of the most high-profile

Indonesia's notoriously corrupt National Police are back in hot water after a former tax official supposedly under lock and key while awaiting trial for corruption and bribery charges was photographed by a sharp-eyed Jakarta Globe photographer at a Bali tennis match. The publication of the Globe's photos of Gayus Tambunan, wearing a wig and eyeglasses, led to nearly a week of denials that Tambunan, a mid-ranking official who is accused of paying billions of rupiah in bribes to judges, prosecutors and police, had ever been out of his prison cell. Adj. Cmdr Ketut Budiman said in a text message to reporters: "Where do these rumors come from? Gayus is still inside his cell and I have confirmed this with the security unit. This allegation is totally groundless."   Another official said Tambunan was "in the custody of the district court and any leave by the defendant must first be approved by prosecutors. " Tambunan's lawyer said it couldn't have been

The US President, Barack Obama, landed in his boyhood home Jakarta last night to woo a country that has been transformed in the 40 years since he left but remains dogged by old problems of human rights abuses and corruption. Mr Obama focused overwhelmingly on the positives during his 24-hour visit to Indonesia, including on its remarkable emergence as a democracy, moderate brand of Islam, tolerance of other religions and potential as an economic dynamo. At a joint news conference with the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he heralded a ''comprehensive partnership' ' between the US and Indonesia. Mr Obama said the Indonesia he has seen on his return bears little similarity to the country where he lived from the age of six to 10. Mr Obama said it was ''wonderful to be here'' but confessed it was ''barely recognisable' '. The bicycle rickshaws and bemo taxis were no longer around and the city's one mall he remembered wa

TEN years ago, as Indonesia emerged from economic chaos and the military-backed Suharto regime, the government was everywhere planting seeds of democratic reform. Among them was to split the national police from the armed forces in 2000. Ever since Indonesia declared independence in 1945, the police had been the neglected, ill-equipped little brother of the army. The idea of detaching them was to make them solely responsible for law enforcement across the vast Indonesian archipelago, while the armed forces retreated to their barracks. A decade on, this reform effort has worked-but not necessarily in the ways that its drafters envisioned. The army is relatively quiet these days, having been forced to begin selling its business interests and attempt, somehow, to modernise despite tiny budgets and antiquated equipment. What is more, it has not intervened in the democratic process. The national police, meanwhile, have indeed managed to assert themselves as the country'