INDONESIA A NEWS

Once again, it’s that time of year when areas of Jakarta find themselves hip-deep in water, the victims not so much of the seasonal downpours but of poor sanitation, lagging infrastructure and substandard drainage. It is estimated that the health of as many as 5 million of Jakarta official 10.1 million residents are being threatened by river water that is polluted by household and industrial waste. As many as 50,000 people die annually in Indonesia, attributed to poor sanitation and hygiene, according to a March, 2008 study by the World Bank, which estimates that as much as 6 million tonnes of human waste are released into Indonesia inland water bodies without treatment. Unfortunately, Jakarta is far from alone. As cities have grown to unmanageable size in third-world countries, the problem is being compounded by climate change, which climatologists believe has increased the number of adverse weather events. Anothe...

"Things happen for a reason" ... Rizni Aulia believes this week's earthquake, like the one in 2004, was a warning from Allah. "Things happen for a reason" ... Rizni Aulia believes this week's earthquake, like the one in 2004, was a warning from Allah. Photo: Michael Bachelard WHEN pentecostal pastor Danny Nalliah thundered that the 2009 Victorian bushfires were caused by God's wrath at that state's decision to decriminalise abortion, he was an outlier even among radical Christians. But in Aceh, Indonesia's most devout province (and its most disaster prone), it's not just common but mainstream to believe that Wednesday's terrifying earthquake, like the tsunami before it, was a messages from Allah that people were not taking their religion seriously enough. Like many, Acehnese man Rizni Aulia's suffering from the 2004 tsunami was profound. Of his family, only he and his wife survived the wave. Together they watched from the second st...