INDONESIA A NEWS

Recruitment authorities in the Kingdom have urged Saudi employers not to apply for visas for Indonesian domestic workers until April. In a statement on Sunday, the National Committee for Recruitment at the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry urged people not to worry if they find any delays in the supply of Indonesian workers. The statement added that the committee will keep informing people about developments in recruitment issues. It also warned people against swindling attempts by unlicensed recruiting agencies to supply maids instantly. Saad Al-Baddah, chairman of the recruitment committee, said the committee's current negotiations with Indonesian officials to sort out the issues would continue until April. The agreement to reduce recruitment fees for Sri Lankan maids from SR8,500 to SR5,500 has not been implemented so far because of a disagreement between the workers' union and officials in Sri Lanka. Issues related to the recruitment of housemaids fro...

THE Australian government has quietly blacklisted a prominent Indonesian political figure implicated in the Balibo Five killings while working with Indonesian authorities to manage the fallout from the scandal. Secret US diplomatic cables reveal that Australia has declared Yunus Yosfiah - a special forces captain during the 1975 invasion of East Timor - to be ''persona non grata'', a sanction that would bar him from entering Australia. The NSW Deputy Coroner Dorelle Pinch found in 2007 that Yosfiah had ordered and participated in the murder of the five Australian newsmen at Balibo. He later became a general, the minister of information in the late 1990s, and remains an influential figure in Indonesian politics.   Cables sent from the US embassy in Jakarta confirm that Australian officials worked privately with the Indonesian government as it tried to ''manage'' the political reaction to the coronial finding. In a cable dated November 21, 2007, obtain...

The Trade Ministry estimates that this year's cigarette exports may surpass US$400 million (Rp 3.6 trillion), with Cambodia being the country's main export destination with a total export value of almost $150 million.   The ministry's secretary-general, Ardiansyah Parman, said Thursday that the current cigarette export achievement had shown a positive trend despite the US ban on clove cigarettes significantly influencing Indonesia's cigarette exports to the country. "Currently, Cambodia is the largest export destination for our cigarettes," he said at a discussion in Jakarta as quoted by detikFinance news portal.   The US ban on clove cigarettes would not have too much of an impact on Indonesia's overall cigarette exports, he added.   Ardiansyah explained that Indonesia's cigarette exports in the first nine months of the year reached $357.05 million, a 25 per cent increase from only $283.75 million in the same period last year. In 2009, the country...

Undeterred by sickening tales of abuse, Indonesian women are lining up to work as maids in Saudi Arabia where in just a few years they can achieve an almost unthinkable dream-financial independence. Most think they will be treated well by fellow Muslims in the land of the Islamic holy places, despite the repeated cases of Indonesian women being subjected to physical and mental violence by their Saudi employers. One recent example was so shocking it prompted Indonesia to summon the Saudi ambassador and send a ministerial delegation to the oil-rich kingdom. Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa, 23, remains in hospital in Medina after her employer, a Saudi woman who has since been arrested, allegedly beat her causing internal bleeding and broken bones, scalded her head with an iron and slashed her with scissors, leaving her horribly disfigured and traumatized. Earlier in November the beaten body of another Indonesian maid, Kikim Komalasari, 36, was found near Abha. Two people, her employers, hav...

TWO alleged people smuggling kingpins set to be extradited to Australia have been released from prison in Indonesia, a move that has raised questions about co-operation between the countries on people smuggling. The decision to release Sajjad Hussain Noor and Amanullah Rezaie is understood to have angered and perplexed Australia as it gives the men the opportunity to continue involvement in human trafficking. While both are technically still subject to extradition proceedings, they will now be able to flee Indonesia and avoid facing justice in Australia, where each could face a 20-year prison term for their alleged activities. The unravelling of the case comes as the federal government continues to face political heat about asylum seekers arriving by boat. This year, the number has topped 6000, a record. A spokeswoman for the Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O'Connor, refused to criticise Indonesia but confirmed the release of the men. Mr Amanullah was released in July and Mr...

Human rights activists are characterizing a court-martial ostensibly conducted to punish Indonesian soldiers for torturing two Papuan farmers as a show trial to provide cover for the military during visits last month by US President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.  Posted anonymously on YouTube last month, video footage of the two farmers being tortured by Indonesian soldiers shocked the world, coming as it did just weeks before the Obama and Gillard visits. Although President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged that those responsible would be prosecuted, a month on, investigations into the abuse appear to have been dropped.  In the video, farmer Anggen Pugu Kiwo screams in pain as a burning stick is held against his genitals. He is bound and naked as Indonesian military officers demand he give them information about weapons allegedly being stored by Papuan independence fighters in his village. It is just one of several brutal images in the footage....

The mid-November announcement that banking scion Nathaniel Rothschild had acquired 25 percent of Bumi Resources, controlled by Aburizal Bakrie, has largely been met with astonishment by those familiar with the operations of Indonesia's most famous and notorious businessman. That is because what Bakrie has done to minority shareholders over the last couple of decades is the stuff of legend. The Bakrie family empire has nearly capsized twice since the 1997-1998 Asian Financial Crisis, the first time bobbing back to the surface only because a thoroughly corrupt Indonesian government bailed Bakrie out. The second time, amid allegations of massive share manipulation, Bakrie shares fell by 30 percent and resulted in the closure for three days of the Indonesian Stock Exchange at the onset of the global credit crisis. That later resulted in a months-long campaign by furious bankers and shareholders to get their money back after the then-Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati blocked anoth...