Stardock announced a huge free update for Sins of a Solar Empire today, the award-winning title from developer Ironclad Games. Additionally, fans that pre-order the expansion will be included in the upcoming beta for "Entrenchment". Fans can pre-order the expansion at www.impulsedriven.com.
Highlights from the 1.1 change log include:
� Alloy Networking Technology -- allows for seamless multiplayer without needing to deal with port forwarding or other router settings
� Major upgrade to the graphics engine for better performance on all systems
� Updated/improved graphics (textures, new models, explosions and more)
� Mini-Underground Window – allows you to buy/sell resources and make pirate bids on the main gameplay screen
� Improved game balance
� Improved AI
* Bug fixes and much more
The entire change log can be viewed here: http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/329902.
For more information about Stardock or the pre-order, please visit www.impulsedriven.com or www.stardock.com.
About Stardock
Stardock is one of the world's leading developers and publishers of PC games and desktop software. Its PC games include Sins of a Solar Empire, the highest rated and best selling PC strategy game of 2008 as well as the critically acclaimed Galactic Civilizations series. Its desktop software includes Object Desktop, WindowBlinds, and a host of other programs for customizing the Windows experience. Learn more about Stardock by visiting www.stardock.com.
Kamis, 20 November 2008
The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Launches
Turbine, Inc. announced today that The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria is now available for purchase across North America and Europe. Mines of Moria expands the award-winning online world of Middle-earth and allows players to explore the ancient underground cities of the dwarves, battle epic characters in the depths, face off with the Watcher, be a part of the fateful release of Durin's Bane and more! In addition to extending the challenge to new heights, Mines of Moria will introduce two new classes, ten additional levels, hundreds of new quests, and the highly anticipated Legendary Item system.
"The Lord of the Rings Online has established itself as one of the world's premium MMOs for successfully integrating story into a game that features innovative and entertaining advancement through an immersive and breathtaking world," said Jeffrey Steefel, Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online. "Mines of Moria will raise the bar with the introduction of Legendary Items, a massive new system that will let players advance unique and powerful weapons and items that grow in might alongside their hero. These unique and powerful weapons will be by our players' sides to aid in the challenging adventures that await them as we continue to journey through Middle-earth through the next several volumes of the game in years to come."
Some of the new features in the Mines of Moria expansion include*:
* Forge Legendary Items! – The Mines of Moria introduces Turbine's revolutionary new item advancement system to LOTRO. Players can now forge unique weapons and class-related equipment and evolve them to build a legacy the likes of Bilbo's Sting and Gandalf's Glamdring. These legendary weapons grow in power along with the player through their adventures and are customized by advancing the item's virtues, adding runic legacies and modifying its title.
* Speak Friend, and Enter – Moria, called Khazad-d�m by the dwarves, was their capital and the grandest of cities. This enormous underground world in north-western Middle-earth comprises an immense network of tunnels, chambers, mines and huge halls beneath the Misty Mountains and represent one of the largest and most dangerous online underground environments ever created. Starting today players can journey through hundreds of new adventures and battle goblin hordes and the Nameless of the Deep in the ancient city underground which has served as the foundation for the modern-day dungeon-crawling adventures.
* The Epic Story Continues! — The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria begins Volume II of The Lord of the Rings Online storyline. Players will experience six new books rich with new characters and content and face the fiery wrath of Durin's Bane, battle the Watcher, bring aid to the Lady Galadriel and more.
* Increased Level Cap — Players can now advance their characters up to level 60, opening access to a wealth of new traits, virtues, skills and class quests. The crafting system also now offers a new Tier and gives players the ability to join crafting guilds to create even more powerful items.
* Discover Two New Classes — The Rune-keeper and the Warden, the first new classes to be introduced since the launch of the game, offer players the opportunity to create all-new characters and experience LOTRO in exciting new ways.
The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Complete Edition, which includes the original game, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (Volume I), all content updates released since launch, and Mines of Moria (Volume II) is now available for purchase at major retailers across North America. The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Collector's Edition is also now available for purchase at major retailers and includes all of the content of the Complete Edition as well as certain unique digital and physical items for collectors. A third option for existing LOTRO subscribers is The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Digital Expansion, available online at www.lotro.com. For more information on The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria, please visit www.lotro.com/moria.
About Turbine
Turbine, Inc. is the premier creator, operator and publisher of massive, persistent online worlds that foster powerful social gaming communities. Turbine is one of the largest privately-held online gaming studios in North America and was recently chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the OnHollywood 100 Top Private Companies, a power list of the top private emerging technology companies in digital entertainment and media. Turbine has created some of the world's most popular and award-winning online games, including The Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online and Asheron's Call. For more information on Turbine, its products and services please visit www.turbine.com.
About Tolkien Enterprises
The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Tolkien Enterprises is the holder of worldwide motion picture, legitimate stage, merchandising, and other rights in J.R.R. Tolkien's literary works The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Tolkien Enterprises has been producing and licensing films, stage productions and merchandise based on Tolkien's works for more than 30 years. Its headquarters are in Berkeley, California, and its website may be found at www.tolkien-ent.com.
"The Lord of the Rings Online has established itself as one of the world's premium MMOs for successfully integrating story into a game that features innovative and entertaining advancement through an immersive and breathtaking world," said Jeffrey Steefel, Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online. "Mines of Moria will raise the bar with the introduction of Legendary Items, a massive new system that will let players advance unique and powerful weapons and items that grow in might alongside their hero. These unique and powerful weapons will be by our players' sides to aid in the challenging adventures that await them as we continue to journey through Middle-earth through the next several volumes of the game in years to come."
Some of the new features in the Mines of Moria expansion include*:
* Forge Legendary Items! – The Mines of Moria introduces Turbine's revolutionary new item advancement system to LOTRO. Players can now forge unique weapons and class-related equipment and evolve them to build a legacy the likes of Bilbo's Sting and Gandalf's Glamdring. These legendary weapons grow in power along with the player through their adventures and are customized by advancing the item's virtues, adding runic legacies and modifying its title.
* Speak Friend, and Enter – Moria, called Khazad-d�m by the dwarves, was their capital and the grandest of cities. This enormous underground world in north-western Middle-earth comprises an immense network of tunnels, chambers, mines and huge halls beneath the Misty Mountains and represent one of the largest and most dangerous online underground environments ever created. Starting today players can journey through hundreds of new adventures and battle goblin hordes and the Nameless of the Deep in the ancient city underground which has served as the foundation for the modern-day dungeon-crawling adventures.
* The Epic Story Continues! — The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria begins Volume II of The Lord of the Rings Online storyline. Players will experience six new books rich with new characters and content and face the fiery wrath of Durin's Bane, battle the Watcher, bring aid to the Lady Galadriel and more.
* Increased Level Cap — Players can now advance their characters up to level 60, opening access to a wealth of new traits, virtues, skills and class quests. The crafting system also now offers a new Tier and gives players the ability to join crafting guilds to create even more powerful items.
* Discover Two New Classes — The Rune-keeper and the Warden, the first new classes to be introduced since the launch of the game, offer players the opportunity to create all-new characters and experience LOTRO in exciting new ways.
The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Complete Edition, which includes the original game, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (Volume I), all content updates released since launch, and Mines of Moria (Volume II) is now available for purchase at major retailers across North America. The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Collector's Edition is also now available for purchase at major retailers and includes all of the content of the Complete Edition as well as certain unique digital and physical items for collectors. A third option for existing LOTRO subscribers is The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Digital Expansion, available online at www.lotro.com. For more information on The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria, please visit www.lotro.com/moria.
About Turbine
Turbine, Inc. is the premier creator, operator and publisher of massive, persistent online worlds that foster powerful social gaming communities. Turbine is one of the largest privately-held online gaming studios in North America and was recently chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the OnHollywood 100 Top Private Companies, a power list of the top private emerging technology companies in digital entertainment and media. Turbine has created some of the world's most popular and award-winning online games, including The Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online and Asheron's Call. For more information on Turbine, its products and services please visit www.turbine.com.
About Tolkien Enterprises
The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Tolkien Enterprises is the holder of worldwide motion picture, legitimate stage, merchandising, and other rights in J.R.R. Tolkien's literary works The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Tolkien Enterprises has been producing and licensing films, stage productions and merchandise based on Tolkien's works for more than 30 years. Its headquarters are in Berkeley, California, and its website may be found at www.tolkien-ent.com.
Young mother kills her own baby
JAKARTA: A young mother killed her four-month-old baby boy with insecticide in an empty house in Griya Karawaci housing complex in Curug district, Tangerang regency, on Tuesday evening.
After forcing her baby boy Raihan Azka Syarief to drink insecticide, the mother, Neni Sriana, 37, also tried to kill herself by cutting her wrists and drinking the same liquid.
The murder was first discovered when Neni's landlord, Sulasmi, 41, became suspicious.
"Neni came to me carrying her baby, asking to borrow a mat in the empty house next to my house," Sulasmi said. Neni then went to the empty house in a hurry.
Sulasmi said Neni's behavior was strange that day, so she asked her neighbors to join her to check on Neni in the empty house.
While trying to see inside the empty house, Neni emerged, crying for help and asking them to take her baby to the nearest clinic.
Afterwards, Neni proceeded to cut her wrists with a piece of sharp glass and drank insecticide in front of her confused neighbors.
The wounded mother was taken to Al-Qadr hospital for treatment, but her baby, whose skin had turned blue, died.
After forcing her baby boy Raihan Azka Syarief to drink insecticide, the mother, Neni Sriana, 37, also tried to kill herself by cutting her wrists and drinking the same liquid.
The murder was first discovered when Neni's landlord, Sulasmi, 41, became suspicious.
"Neni came to me carrying her baby, asking to borrow a mat in the empty house next to my house," Sulasmi said. Neni then went to the empty house in a hurry.
Sulasmi said Neni's behavior was strange that day, so she asked her neighbors to join her to check on Neni in the empty house.
While trying to see inside the empty house, Neni emerged, crying for help and asking them to take her baby to the nearest clinic.
Afterwards, Neni proceeded to cut her wrists with a piece of sharp glass and drank insecticide in front of her confused neighbors.
The wounded mother was taken to Al-Qadr hospital for treatment, but her baby, whose skin had turned blue, died.
A sculptor's 'black dreams' of an anti-porn nation
Sex and the human body in its naked form have become major concerns among Indonesia's predominantly Muslim population in the post-Soeharto era that is often hailed as an era of freedom.
In recent years, there has been an urge to control "unbridled" sexuality at all cost, even though this means traversing the limits of the public and the private, the secular and the religious.
Through his artworks which are on display at Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center's Galeri Cipta II, from Nov. 12 to 20, sculptor Ibnu Nurwanto aims to break the politico-religious discourse on sexuality by disturbingly exposing a center of sexuality: the phallus.
Yang Mulia (Your Highness) by Ibnu Nurwanto, jackfruit wood, width 26 cm X 23 cm, thickness 44 cm (2006). (JP/Ary Hermawan)Yang Mulia (Your Highness) by Ibnu Nurwanto, jackfruit wood, width 26 cm X 23 cm, thickness 44 cm (2006). (JP/Ary Hermawan)
Yang Mulia (Your Highness) -- a wooden sculpture of a phallus -- is his critique of Indonesian politics.
"Whatever they (politicians) do, whatever they say," he remarks bluntly, "it all, eventually, is a matter of gratifying their penises."
His work is perhaps proof that you do not have to be a Freudian to regard the phallus as the unconscious actor that forms human behavior.
As a virtual anti-intellectual artist, his Freudian remark did not come from subtle discussions with Lacanian academics, nor was it a result of an extensive reading of psychoanalytical literature.
It came from his silent confrontation with Indonesian realities -- the sex scandals involving parliamentarians and their supposedly angelic determination to pass the controversial pornography bill into law.
Yang Mulia, a figure of a male waist with an erect penis, emblematically poses a ticklish question to those who support the pornography bill: Are we controlling sexuality, or being controlled by it?
Many artists have long been infatuated by human bodies and the idea of making phallic sculptures is, of course, far from a novelty.
Ancient societies, which regarded the male genitalia as a symbol of procreative power, also used phallic sculpture in sacred ceremonies and rites.
But the presence of a phallic figure in public display in Indonesia today is indeed worth special attention.
The exhibition is among the first art events that esthetically, and in a challenging manner, showcase sculptures of naked female bodies and genitals after the House approval of the pornography bill last month.
Yang Terindah (The Most Beautiful) by Ibnu Nurwanto, jackfruit wood, width 34 cm X 11 cm, thickness 48 cm (2006). (JP/Ary Hermawan)Yang Terindah (The Most Beautiful) by Ibnu Nurwanto, jackfruit wood, width 34 cm X 11 cm, thickness 48 cm (2006). (JP/Ary Hermawan)
As if pairing the brown phallus, Yang Terindah (The Most Beautiful), made from a yellowish wood from the jackfruit tree and resembling female thighs and a vagina, is also displayed in the exhibition. The figure is more simple than Yang Mulia, but is equally striking.
Asked whether he was afraid of being criminally charged by displaying "pornographic" art, Ibnu said he would never, not even slightly, be deterred by the law.
Born in Yogyakarta in 1957, the eccentric artist is one of only a handful of Indonesian artists who have the talent and willingness to labor with three dimensional artwork -- arguably the most difficult artform, combining resourceful artistic imagination and prodigious craftsmanship.
"He is still consistent with three-dimensional art, while many contemporary artists have been drawn to combining different media in their work," said art critic Sri Wahyu Wahono who has known Ibnu since they were students at Jakarta Art Institute (formerly LPKJ).
Most of Ibnu's works are figurative and abstract sculptures, and touch social issues, especially poverty and the subjugation of women.
His sculptures resembling naked female bodies are mostly incomplete, mutilated or deformed, such as Si Narsis (The Narcissist) and Wanita Tangerang (Tangerang Woman), which is his critique of sharia-inspired bylaws in the regions.
He has also crafted complete female bodies, one of which is Perempuan dengan Topeng Babi (A Woman in a Pig Mask). To Indonesian Muslims, a pig is the symbol of the haram (forbidden).
Ibnu uses male figures to represent the cruelty of urban society, depicted as indifferent to the presence of the poor. His works, Urban and Buruh Tua (Old Laborer), resemble malnourished men in rags.
Ibnu's abstract works, such as Ruang Waktu (Space and Time) and Menari (Dancing), are philosophically more subtle both in form and meaning, revealing his exceptional mastery of his material.
Having been exposed to continual bad news in the media, ranging from sex and graft scandals to the global financial downturn, Ibnu says he is more than anxious and pessimistic about the future of Indonesia.
"I am scared because I know the predicament is real."
He thus decided to title the exhibition "Black Dream", which may refer to different kinds of dreams; his own dreams as an artist, the dreams of the poor or the dreams of corrupt leaders who will do anything to materialize their worldly dreams.
Art, indeed, has its own language in depicting such a complex nation as Indonesia
In recent years, there has been an urge to control "unbridled" sexuality at all cost, even though this means traversing the limits of the public and the private, the secular and the religious.
Through his artworks which are on display at Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center's Galeri Cipta II, from Nov. 12 to 20, sculptor Ibnu Nurwanto aims to break the politico-religious discourse on sexuality by disturbingly exposing a center of sexuality: the phallus.
Yang Mulia (Your Highness) by Ibnu Nurwanto, jackfruit wood, width 26 cm X 23 cm, thickness 44 cm (2006). (JP/Ary Hermawan)Yang Mulia (Your Highness) by Ibnu Nurwanto, jackfruit wood, width 26 cm X 23 cm, thickness 44 cm (2006). (JP/Ary Hermawan)
Yang Mulia (Your Highness) -- a wooden sculpture of a phallus -- is his critique of Indonesian politics.
"Whatever they (politicians) do, whatever they say," he remarks bluntly, "it all, eventually, is a matter of gratifying their penises."
His work is perhaps proof that you do not have to be a Freudian to regard the phallus as the unconscious actor that forms human behavior.
As a virtual anti-intellectual artist, his Freudian remark did not come from subtle discussions with Lacanian academics, nor was it a result of an extensive reading of psychoanalytical literature.
It came from his silent confrontation with Indonesian realities -- the sex scandals involving parliamentarians and their supposedly angelic determination to pass the controversial pornography bill into law.
Yang Mulia, a figure of a male waist with an erect penis, emblematically poses a ticklish question to those who support the pornography bill: Are we controlling sexuality, or being controlled by it?
Many artists have long been infatuated by human bodies and the idea of making phallic sculptures is, of course, far from a novelty.
Ancient societies, which regarded the male genitalia as a symbol of procreative power, also used phallic sculpture in sacred ceremonies and rites.
But the presence of a phallic figure in public display in Indonesia today is indeed worth special attention.
The exhibition is among the first art events that esthetically, and in a challenging manner, showcase sculptures of naked female bodies and genitals after the House approval of the pornography bill last month.
Yang Terindah (The Most Beautiful) by Ibnu Nurwanto, jackfruit wood, width 34 cm X 11 cm, thickness 48 cm (2006). (JP/Ary Hermawan)Yang Terindah (The Most Beautiful) by Ibnu Nurwanto, jackfruit wood, width 34 cm X 11 cm, thickness 48 cm (2006). (JP/Ary Hermawan)
As if pairing the brown phallus, Yang Terindah (The Most Beautiful), made from a yellowish wood from the jackfruit tree and resembling female thighs and a vagina, is also displayed in the exhibition. The figure is more simple than Yang Mulia, but is equally striking.
Asked whether he was afraid of being criminally charged by displaying "pornographic" art, Ibnu said he would never, not even slightly, be deterred by the law.
Born in Yogyakarta in 1957, the eccentric artist is one of only a handful of Indonesian artists who have the talent and willingness to labor with three dimensional artwork -- arguably the most difficult artform, combining resourceful artistic imagination and prodigious craftsmanship.
"He is still consistent with three-dimensional art, while many contemporary artists have been drawn to combining different media in their work," said art critic Sri Wahyu Wahono who has known Ibnu since they were students at Jakarta Art Institute (formerly LPKJ).
Most of Ibnu's works are figurative and abstract sculptures, and touch social issues, especially poverty and the subjugation of women.
His sculptures resembling naked female bodies are mostly incomplete, mutilated or deformed, such as Si Narsis (The Narcissist) and Wanita Tangerang (Tangerang Woman), which is his critique of sharia-inspired bylaws in the regions.
He has also crafted complete female bodies, one of which is Perempuan dengan Topeng Babi (A Woman in a Pig Mask). To Indonesian Muslims, a pig is the symbol of the haram (forbidden).
Ibnu uses male figures to represent the cruelty of urban society, depicted as indifferent to the presence of the poor. His works, Urban and Buruh Tua (Old Laborer), resemble malnourished men in rags.
Ibnu's abstract works, such as Ruang Waktu (Space and Time) and Menari (Dancing), are philosophically more subtle both in form and meaning, revealing his exceptional mastery of his material.
Having been exposed to continual bad news in the media, ranging from sex and graft scandals to the global financial downturn, Ibnu says he is more than anxious and pessimistic about the future of Indonesia.
"I am scared because I know the predicament is real."
He thus decided to title the exhibition "Black Dream", which may refer to different kinds of dreams; his own dreams as an artist, the dreams of the poor or the dreams of corrupt leaders who will do anything to materialize their worldly dreams.
Art, indeed, has its own language in depicting such a complex nation as Indonesia
Rano Karno hospitalized for dengue
JAKARTA: Actor-turned-politician Rano Karno was being treated in hospital Monday for dengue and typhoid.
Rano, who is the deputy regent of Tangerang, was diagnosed with dengue and typhoid on Saturday morning at Puri Cinere Hospital in South Jakarta.
“I felt ill for two days. When I came here for a check up, I was advised to stay in hospital for treatment,” Rano was quoted as saying by Okezone.com on Sunday.
Rano said he had visited areas in Tangerang recently where he might have caused the illness.
“Tangerang is one of the most infected areas for dengue. I might have to take a rest for a while because even on the weekend I didn’t stop working,” said the 48-year-old, who gained popularity through the TV soap Si Doel Anak Sekolahan.
“My body temperature is high and my blood pressure is also getting lower,” explained the man who won the Indonesian Film Festival (FFI) award for Best Actor through his role in Taksi in 1991.
A hospital spokesperson said Rano, who has acted in more than 70 movies since his debut in Malin Kundang in 1971, would remain at the hospital for five more days.
Rano Karno and running mate Ismet Iskandar were elected as Tangerang’s deputy regent and regent respectively earlier this year.
Rano, who is the deputy regent of Tangerang, was diagnosed with dengue and typhoid on Saturday morning at Puri Cinere Hospital in South Jakarta.
“I felt ill for two days. When I came here for a check up, I was advised to stay in hospital for treatment,” Rano was quoted as saying by Okezone.com on Sunday.
Rano said he had visited areas in Tangerang recently where he might have caused the illness.
“Tangerang is one of the most infected areas for dengue. I might have to take a rest for a while because even on the weekend I didn’t stop working,” said the 48-year-old, who gained popularity through the TV soap Si Doel Anak Sekolahan.
“My body temperature is high and my blood pressure is also getting lower,” explained the man who won the Indonesian Film Festival (FFI) award for Best Actor through his role in Taksi in 1991.
A hospital spokesperson said Rano, who has acted in more than 70 movies since his debut in Malin Kundang in 1971, would remain at the hospital for five more days.
Rano Karno and running mate Ismet Iskandar were elected as Tangerang’s deputy regent and regent respectively earlier this year.
Dewi 'Dee' files for divorce
JAKARTA: Dewi "Dee" Lestari, the author of popular sci-fi novel trilogy Supernova , has filed for divorce against R&B singer Marcell Siahaan at the Bale Bandung District Court, Antara reported.
The first trial, which commenced Tuesday, came after Dewi filed for divorce on June 27 citing irreconcilable differences.
"It is now in the process of mediation," presiding judge Eka Kartika said.
Dewi was a member of the former pop group Rida Sita Dewi before turning to literature. Her first novel, Supernova Satu: Ksatria, Putri dan Bintang Jatuh (Supernova One: A Knight, a Princess and a Shooting Star), which was translated into English and published in 2002, was nominated for a Katulistiwa Literary Award.
She married popular singer Marcell Siahaan in 2003 and gave birth a son, Keenan Sidharta, in 2004
The first trial, which commenced Tuesday, came after Dewi filed for divorce on June 27 citing irreconcilable differences.
"It is now in the process of mediation," presiding judge Eka Kartika said.
Dewi was a member of the former pop group Rida Sita Dewi before turning to literature. Her first novel, Supernova Satu: Ksatria, Putri dan Bintang Jatuh (Supernova One: A Knight, a Princess and a Shooting Star), which was translated into English and published in 2002, was nominated for a Katulistiwa Literary Award.
She married popular singer Marcell Siahaan in 2003 and gave birth a son, Keenan Sidharta, in 2004
Tora’s wife files for divorce
JAKARTA: Although his wife has filed for divorce, actor and comedian Tora Sudiro is optimistic the lawsuit could end in a re-conciliation.
“We are still in the mediation process, we are trying to be together again. As to whether we will divorce or not, we will talk about it,” Tora was quoted as saying by okezone.com after the first court hearing at the Depok Religious Court on Wednesday.
Tora, who won a Citra award for best actor at the 2004 Indonesian Film Festival (FFI), said, however, that divorce might turn out to be the best solution.
“We are looking for the best solution through these hearings,” said the 35-year-old entertainer, whose real name is Taura Danang Sudiro.
Tora’s wife, Anggraini Kadiman, also confirmed the possibility of a reconciliation. “We are still looking at that possibility,” said the woman who has two children with Tora.
A second hearing is scheduled for Nov. 24, with mediation as the agenda.
“We are still in the mediation process, we are trying to be together again. As to whether we will divorce or not, we will talk about it,” Tora was quoted as saying by okezone.com after the first court hearing at the Depok Religious Court on Wednesday.
Tora, who won a Citra award for best actor at the 2004 Indonesian Film Festival (FFI), said, however, that divorce might turn out to be the best solution.
“We are looking for the best solution through these hearings,” said the 35-year-old entertainer, whose real name is Taura Danang Sudiro.
Tora’s wife, Anggraini Kadiman, also confirmed the possibility of a reconciliation. “We are still looking at that possibility,” said the woman who has two children with Tora.
A second hearing is scheduled for Nov. 24, with mediation as the agenda.
Forum: Condom Week
In regards to your article titled "Condom Week sets sights on youths" I ask that you please ask the National AIDS Commission secretary Nafsiah Mboi to confirm her statistics. She is quoted as saying that "over fifty percent of our youths below the age of 30 are already infected with sexually transmitted diseases". This seems ridiculously high!
Also your article says that "Nafsiah called on all those under the age of 40 to abstain from free sex and drugs, to be loyal to one partner, and if they still chose to have sex, to take precautions by using a condom."
Does this mean that those of us over 40 are encouraged and free to use drugs and engage in condomless free sex behind our partners backs?
BIMA
Jakarta
Bombers' bodies -- Nov. 09, Online
Under most circumstances I wouldn't be comfortable with the use of the death penalty. I'm pleased the death penalty was abolished in my home country, for example, and I wish it could be abolished here. But that is not possible.
If life imprisonment meant keeping the bombers in isolation in maximum security facilities then I'd rather they got life. The reality in Indonesia is that the bombers have had ready access to the mass media throughout their sentence and have been in regular contact with all their old associates.
Executing them was the only way to prevent further loss of life due to their continued activities as terrorists. True, they couldn't actually plant any bombs themselves while in custody, but due to the state of the Indonesian prisons they were able to do virtually anything they wished -- short of that.
They were free to spread their version of "jihad" and to encourage and support other terrorists. Lessons must be learned by the prison authorities.
DAVID
Jakarta
Families of some victims have been quite vocal in opposing this so I think that's a nonargument. I agree that this has simply made them martyrs and sadly, will not provide a happy future. The craziest have a cause celebre now and it can only get worse. I pray I'm wrong.
ALAN
Jakarta
Also your article says that "Nafsiah called on all those under the age of 40 to abstain from free sex and drugs, to be loyal to one partner, and if they still chose to have sex, to take precautions by using a condom."
Does this mean that those of us over 40 are encouraged and free to use drugs and engage in condomless free sex behind our partners backs?
BIMA
Jakarta
Bombers' bodies -- Nov. 09, Online
Under most circumstances I wouldn't be comfortable with the use of the death penalty. I'm pleased the death penalty was abolished in my home country, for example, and I wish it could be abolished here. But that is not possible.
If life imprisonment meant keeping the bombers in isolation in maximum security facilities then I'd rather they got life. The reality in Indonesia is that the bombers have had ready access to the mass media throughout their sentence and have been in regular contact with all their old associates.
Executing them was the only way to prevent further loss of life due to their continued activities as terrorists. True, they couldn't actually plant any bombs themselves while in custody, but due to the state of the Indonesian prisons they were able to do virtually anything they wished -- short of that.
They were free to spread their version of "jihad" and to encourage and support other terrorists. Lessons must be learned by the prison authorities.
DAVID
Jakarta
Families of some victims have been quite vocal in opposing this so I think that's a nonargument. I agree that this has simply made them martyrs and sadly, will not provide a happy future. The craziest have a cause celebre now and it can only get worse. I pray I'm wrong.
ALAN
Jakarta
Bali unlikely to reach target growth
Bali is unlikely to reach its target of 6 percent economic growth this year because of dwindling orders for non-oil products from countries hit by the global financial crisis, the Bali Central Statistics Agency (BPS) says.
"We forecast growth at 5.9 percent because exports are slow and the number of tourists at the end of the year may not be high enough to boost the growth," Bali BPS head Ida Komang Wisnu told The Jakarta Post after a media briefing Tuesday.
With the economy growing by 4.55 percent from January to September this year, the island still needs growth of 1.47 percent during the last three months of the year.
Exports in the third quarter were 7.48 percent lower than in the second quarter, although they were 11.68 percent higher than in the same period last year, according to the BPS.
The main contributors of growth in the third quarter were trade, hospitality and agriculture, head of the BPS statistical analysis division Yudhadi said.
But consumer spending remains the island's economic engine, contributing 57.47 percent of growth, 10 percent of which came from the administration.
"Well, this is not a very good sign of growth. It would be much better if investment played the major role," he said.
Wisnu said inflation at the end of the year would be far from the projection of 6 percent, as inflation from January to October reached 8.83 percent in Denpasar.
He said the inflation figure would not fall, but the government's plan to decrease the price of subsidized fuel could offset it.
"Inflation is easily affected by the public perception. The plan to decrease the fuel price is a chance to control it," he said.
Although many parts of Indonesia, especially Java, see a rise in inflation at the end of each year because of Christmas and New Year celebrations, Wisnu said inflation in Bali usually remained stable during that period.
"Historically, Bali never sees soaring inflation in November and December. October alone saw only 0.32 percent inflation. I think we may not reach two digits for inflation at the end of the year, or we may just reach it," he said.
The Bali branch of the Bank Indonesia earlier made the same forecast for economic growth, putting it at 5.9 percent at the end of this year, with inflation at 9.28 percent as of September, below the national average of 12.4 percent.
"We forecast growth at 5.9 percent because exports are slow and the number of tourists at the end of the year may not be high enough to boost the growth," Bali BPS head Ida Komang Wisnu told The Jakarta Post after a media briefing Tuesday.
With the economy growing by 4.55 percent from January to September this year, the island still needs growth of 1.47 percent during the last three months of the year.
Exports in the third quarter were 7.48 percent lower than in the second quarter, although they were 11.68 percent higher than in the same period last year, according to the BPS.
The main contributors of growth in the third quarter were trade, hospitality and agriculture, head of the BPS statistical analysis division Yudhadi said.
But consumer spending remains the island's economic engine, contributing 57.47 percent of growth, 10 percent of which came from the administration.
"Well, this is not a very good sign of growth. It would be much better if investment played the major role," he said.
Wisnu said inflation at the end of the year would be far from the projection of 6 percent, as inflation from January to October reached 8.83 percent in Denpasar.
He said the inflation figure would not fall, but the government's plan to decrease the price of subsidized fuel could offset it.
"Inflation is easily affected by the public perception. The plan to decrease the fuel price is a chance to control it," he said.
Although many parts of Indonesia, especially Java, see a rise in inflation at the end of each year because of Christmas and New Year celebrations, Wisnu said inflation in Bali usually remained stable during that period.
"Historically, Bali never sees soaring inflation in November and December. October alone saw only 0.32 percent inflation. I think we may not reach two digits for inflation at the end of the year, or we may just reach it," he said.
The Bali branch of the Bank Indonesia earlier made the same forecast for economic growth, putting it at 5.9 percent at the end of this year, with inflation at 9.28 percent as of September, below the national average of 12.4 percent.
Doctors say marrow transplant may have cured AIDS
An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said.
While researchers - and the doctors themselves - caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.
Dr. Gero Huetter said Wedneday his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.
"We waited every day for a bad reading," Huetter said.
It has not come. Researchers at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school say tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.
However, Dr. Andrew Badley, director of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said those tests have probably not been extensive enough.
"A lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological samples would be required to say it's not present," Badley said.
This isn't the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported.
Huetter's patient was under treatment at Charite for both AIDS and leukemia, which developed unrelated to HIV.
As Huetter - who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist - prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway.
"I read it in 1996, coincidentally," Huetter told reporters at the medical school. "I remembered it and thought it might work."
Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient's marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.
Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system - a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.
He was also taken off the potent drugs used to treat his AIDS. Huetter's team feared that the drugs might interfere with the new marrow cells' survival. They risked lowering his defenses in the hopes that the new, mutated cells would reject the virus on their own.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure. But he said it could inspire researchers to pursue gene therapy as a means to block or suppress HIV.
"It helps prove the concept that if somehow you can block the expression of CCR5, maybe by gene therapy, you might be able to inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate," Fauci said.
David Roth, a professor of epidemiology and international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said gene therapy as cheap and effective as current drug treatments is in very early stages of development.
"That's a long way down the line because there may be other negative things that go with that mutation that we don't know about."
Even for the patient in Berlin, the lack of a clear understanding of exactly why his AIDS has disappeared means his future is far from certain.
"The virus is wily," Huetter said. "There could always be a resurgence."
While researchers - and the doctors themselves - caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.
Dr. Gero Huetter said Wedneday his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.
"We waited every day for a bad reading," Huetter said.
It has not come. Researchers at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school say tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.
However, Dr. Andrew Badley, director of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said those tests have probably not been extensive enough.
"A lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological samples would be required to say it's not present," Badley said.
This isn't the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported.
Huetter's patient was under treatment at Charite for both AIDS and leukemia, which developed unrelated to HIV.
As Huetter - who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist - prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway.
"I read it in 1996, coincidentally," Huetter told reporters at the medical school. "I remembered it and thought it might work."
Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient's marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.
Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system - a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.
He was also taken off the potent drugs used to treat his AIDS. Huetter's team feared that the drugs might interfere with the new marrow cells' survival. They risked lowering his defenses in the hopes that the new, mutated cells would reject the virus on their own.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure. But he said it could inspire researchers to pursue gene therapy as a means to block or suppress HIV.
"It helps prove the concept that if somehow you can block the expression of CCR5, maybe by gene therapy, you might be able to inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate," Fauci said.
David Roth, a professor of epidemiology and international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said gene therapy as cheap and effective as current drug treatments is in very early stages of development.
"That's a long way down the line because there may be other negative things that go with that mutation that we don't know about."
Even for the patient in Berlin, the lack of a clear understanding of exactly why his AIDS has disappeared means his future is far from certain.
"The virus is wily," Huetter said. "There could always be a resurgence."
Doctors say marrow transplant may have cured AIDS
An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said.
While researchers - and the doctors themselves - caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.
Dr. Gero Huetter said Wedneday his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.
"We waited every day for a bad reading," Huetter said.
It has not come. Researchers at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school say tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.
However, Dr. Andrew Badley, director of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said those tests have probably not been extensive enough.
"A lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological samples would be required to say it's not present," Badley said.
This isn't the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported.
Huetter's patient was under treatment at Charite for both AIDS and leukemia, which developed unrelated to HIV.
As Huetter - who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist - prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway.
"I read it in 1996, coincidentally," Huetter told reporters at the medical school. "I remembered it and thought it might work."
Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient's marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.
Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system - a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.
He was also taken off the potent drugs used to treat his AIDS. Huetter's team feared that the drugs might interfere with the new marrow cells' survival. They risked lowering his defenses in the hopes that the new, mutated cells would reject the virus on their own.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure. But he said it could inspire researchers to pursue gene therapy as a means to block or suppress HIV.
"It helps prove the concept that if somehow you can block the expression of CCR5, maybe by gene therapy, you might be able to inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate," Fauci said.
David Roth, a professor of epidemiology and international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said gene therapy as cheap and effective as current drug treatments is in very early stages of development.
"That's a long way down the line because there may be other negative things that go with that mutation that we don't know about."
Even for the patient in Berlin, the lack of a clear understanding of exactly why his AIDS has disappeared means his future is far from certain.
"The virus is wily," Huetter said. "There could always be a resurgence."
While researchers - and the doctors themselves - caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.
Dr. Gero Huetter said Wedneday his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.
"We waited every day for a bad reading," Huetter said.
It has not come. Researchers at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school say tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.
However, Dr. Andrew Badley, director of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said those tests have probably not been extensive enough.
"A lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological samples would be required to say it's not present," Badley said.
This isn't the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported.
Huetter's patient was under treatment at Charite for both AIDS and leukemia, which developed unrelated to HIV.
As Huetter - who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist - prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway.
"I read it in 1996, coincidentally," Huetter told reporters at the medical school. "I remembered it and thought it might work."
Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient's marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.
Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system - a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.
He was also taken off the potent drugs used to treat his AIDS. Huetter's team feared that the drugs might interfere with the new marrow cells' survival. They risked lowering his defenses in the hopes that the new, mutated cells would reject the virus on their own.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure. But he said it could inspire researchers to pursue gene therapy as a means to block or suppress HIV.
"It helps prove the concept that if somehow you can block the expression of CCR5, maybe by gene therapy, you might be able to inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate," Fauci said.
David Roth, a professor of epidemiology and international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said gene therapy as cheap and effective as current drug treatments is in very early stages of development.
"That's a long way down the line because there may be other negative things that go with that mutation that we don't know about."
Even for the patient in Berlin, the lack of a clear understanding of exactly why his AIDS has disappeared means his future is far from certain.
"The virus is wily," Huetter said. "There could always be a resurgence."
Shuttle Endeavour links with space station
Space shuttle Endeavour linked with the international space station on Sunday, kicking off a huge home makeover that will allow twice as many astronauts to live up there beginning next year.
Commander Christopher Ferguson guided the shuttle to a smooth docking as the two spacecraft soared 212 miles (342 kilometers) above India. His ship's radar worked just fine, despite earlier trouble with the antenna.
"We understand that this house is in need of an extreme makeover and that you're the crew to do it," the space station's skipper, Mike Fincke, said as he welcomed the seven shuttle astronauts aboard.
His crewmate, Gregory Chamitoff, was especially excited to see Endeavour. He's been living on the space station for almost six months, and the shuttle is his ride home.
"Wow," Chamitoff exclaimed. "You look beautiful ... I am smiling from ear to ear."
Earlier in the afternoon, before Endeavour began its final approach from eight miles out, Fincke and his crew captured striking video of it and the moon, which was also prominent in many of the launch-night photos.
"It's a big day here today," Fincke said.
Once Endeavour closed to within several hundred feet, Ferguson guided it through a 360-degree backflip so Fincke and Chamitoff could take zoom-in photos of all its thermal shielding. About 200 digital images will help NASA determine whether Endeavour sustained any damage during liftoff Friday night. Fincke said he noticed nothing amiss.
Only one piece of debris has been spotted so far in launch pictures. It was probably ice and did not strike Endeavour, said LeRoy Cain, chairman of the mission management team. Flight controllers initially thought it might be one of the shuttle's thermal blankets.
NASA officials were delighted with how everything was going.
"The team down here on the Planet Earth wanted to compliment you on a well-done, very nicely done rendezvous and docking," Mission Control radioed up.
The first priority for the 10 astronauts was a crew member swap.
Astronaut Sandra Magnus moved into the space station for a 3{-month stay, replacing Chamitoff. The two greeted each other with a bear hug. "Welcome to your new home," Fincke told her.
As soon as everyone embraced, Fincke declared: "On to work. Man, this place just got smaller."
Besides Magnus, Endeavour was delivering thousands of pounds of home improvement gear: an extra bathroom, kitchenette and exercise machine, two more sleeping compartments, and a fancy new recycling system for converting urine and condensation into drinking water.
NASA cannot double the size of the space station crew - currently at three - until all the new equipment is installed, checked out and working properly. The goal is to have six people living permanently on the orbiting outpost by June.
Most of the new stuff is inside a giant cylinder that Endeavour's astronauts will attach to the space station on Monday.
Endeavour and its crew will spend almost two weeks at the space station, a little longer than usual. Four spacewalks will be carried out beginning Tuesday, primarily to clean and lubricate a solar wing-rotating joint that broke down more than a year ago. It's clogged with metal shavings from grinding parts
Commander Christopher Ferguson guided the shuttle to a smooth docking as the two spacecraft soared 212 miles (342 kilometers) above India. His ship's radar worked just fine, despite earlier trouble with the antenna.
"We understand that this house is in need of an extreme makeover and that you're the crew to do it," the space station's skipper, Mike Fincke, said as he welcomed the seven shuttle astronauts aboard.
His crewmate, Gregory Chamitoff, was especially excited to see Endeavour. He's been living on the space station for almost six months, and the shuttle is his ride home.
"Wow," Chamitoff exclaimed. "You look beautiful ... I am smiling from ear to ear."
Earlier in the afternoon, before Endeavour began its final approach from eight miles out, Fincke and his crew captured striking video of it and the moon, which was also prominent in many of the launch-night photos.
"It's a big day here today," Fincke said.
Once Endeavour closed to within several hundred feet, Ferguson guided it through a 360-degree backflip so Fincke and Chamitoff could take zoom-in photos of all its thermal shielding. About 200 digital images will help NASA determine whether Endeavour sustained any damage during liftoff Friday night. Fincke said he noticed nothing amiss.
Only one piece of debris has been spotted so far in launch pictures. It was probably ice and did not strike Endeavour, said LeRoy Cain, chairman of the mission management team. Flight controllers initially thought it might be one of the shuttle's thermal blankets.
NASA officials were delighted with how everything was going.
"The team down here on the Planet Earth wanted to compliment you on a well-done, very nicely done rendezvous and docking," Mission Control radioed up.
The first priority for the 10 astronauts was a crew member swap.
Astronaut Sandra Magnus moved into the space station for a 3{-month stay, replacing Chamitoff. The two greeted each other with a bear hug. "Welcome to your new home," Fincke told her.
As soon as everyone embraced, Fincke declared: "On to work. Man, this place just got smaller."
Besides Magnus, Endeavour was delivering thousands of pounds of home improvement gear: an extra bathroom, kitchenette and exercise machine, two more sleeping compartments, and a fancy new recycling system for converting urine and condensation into drinking water.
NASA cannot double the size of the space station crew - currently at three - until all the new equipment is installed, checked out and working properly. The goal is to have six people living permanently on the orbiting outpost by June.
Most of the new stuff is inside a giant cylinder that Endeavour's astronauts will attach to the space station on Monday.
Endeavour and its crew will spend almost two weeks at the space station, a little longer than usual. Four spacewalks will be carried out beginning Tuesday, primarily to clean and lubricate a solar wing-rotating joint that broke down more than a year ago. It's clogged with metal shavings from grinding parts
Danareksa: Indonesian corporate bonds; not always the poor relation
In a recent movie about King Henry VIII of England, he talked about the difficulties of being less favored than his sibling who was considered to be smarter, braver, or more accomplished.
For a long time now, the fate of Indonesia's corporate bonds has been akin to that of a child whose sibling i.e. Indonesian government bonds - is better appreciated. Indeed, investors have tended to shy away from Indonesian corporate bonds.
Looking at the monthly market turnover ratio (that is the total value of bonds traded to the total value of bonds outstanding) for both corporate and government bonds in the period from January 2002 to October 2008, there were only three occasions when corporate bonds had a higher turnover ratio (that was in the months of April, June and September 2002).
Moreover, in the same period, the market turnover ratio for corporate bonds only managed to surpass the 10 percent level on three occasions - in June 2003, November 2006, and July 2007.
The low level of the market turnover ratio shows that most corporate bondholders prefer to hold their bonds until maturity.
As they have a much lower credit risk, it is natural that government bonds should offer lower yields than corporate bonds. However, this is not currently the case since the illiquidity of corporate bonds has resulted in a negative yield spread between the government bonds yield index and the corporate bonds yield index in every month since April 2008.
This phenomenon reflects weaker conditions in the financial markets which prompted investors to reduce their holdings of government bonds. This pushed bond prices down and yields higher. The consequence of this was to make it more difficult for the government to issue more bonds to raise funds to help plug the state budget deficit.
At the same time, bondholders tended to hold on to their corporate bonds rather than sell them.
As a result, the corporate bonds yield index does not reflect the current condition of the bond markets. In such a condition, investors will prefer to trade government bonds since they offer higher yields; hence, corporate bonds become even more illiquid, making them even less attractive to investors.
So does this mean that investors should avoid corporate bonds? Well, not necessarily.
By comparing the total year-to-date return indices for both government bonds and corporate bonds, we discover that corporate bonds actually give better returns than government bonds for most of the time.
Government bonds only provided better year-to-date returns in January 2005, for most of 2006, and then again in May-July 2007. As such, we believe that Indonesian corporate bonds offer some interesting opportunities - especially to investors who are looking for superior returns.
Another reason to consider investing in corporate bonds is that it allows for greater diversification of investment funds. Thus, rather than investing in the country as a whole i.e. in government bonds - we can instead choose to invest in business sectors that we believe will have bright prospects going forward.
Looking back to the early part of this year, we can see that corporate bonds in the business sectors we cover actually outperformed government bonds. In the year up to October 2008, the infrastructure sector is the worst performing sector (it has recorded four months of negative year-to-date returns). Also showing poor performance is the banking sector (with two months of negative year-to-date returns).
Meanwhile, the telecommunications, multifinance and property sectors have recorded only positive year-to-date returns so far.
Government bonds, however, recorded only two months of positive year-to-date returns in the year up to October 2008. Thus, by diversifying into corporate bonds we would have attained better overall returns than if we had invested in government bonds only.
In addition, we can make investments in bonds that match our risk appetite. By investing in corporate bonds we can choose to either invest in highly-rated bonds - in return for lower coupon payments - or in lower-rated bonds which pay out higher coupons.
Nonetheless, investors still need to be cautious. The main concern is definitely the credit risk. At the current time, with the credit crunch biting hard, highly leveraged (indebted) companies are much more risky. This is basically because they might find it difficult to get their maturing debts refinanced in the future.
Industry risk is another consideration for investors. The slowdown in the global economy will have far-reaching implications and some industries will be harder hit than others. The business environment for companies with operations in natural resources/commodities will be tougher. In addition, if interest rates remain high, the banking, multifinance and property sectors may face more challenging times ahead.
The third consideration is business risk. Having a good market share and a competitive advantage can help give larger sized companies the edge over their rivals.
Smaller companies, by contrast, will find it more difficult to raise funding - especially if there is less liquidity.
Finally, as we have mentioned before, corporate bonds are still illiquid. As such, it may be difficult to buy them at fair values.
In short then, it can be seen that corporate bonds can be attractive to investors. Just like in the movie, in which King Henry VIII left a bigger mark on history than his brother, corporate bonds deserve the attention of serious investors for their greater potential returns than government bonds. After all, it is not always the case that the less-favored should be less worthy!
The writer is an analyst at PT Danareksa Sekuritas' Debt Research
For a long time now, the fate of Indonesia's corporate bonds has been akin to that of a child whose sibling i.e. Indonesian government bonds - is better appreciated. Indeed, investors have tended to shy away from Indonesian corporate bonds.
Looking at the monthly market turnover ratio (that is the total value of bonds traded to the total value of bonds outstanding) for both corporate and government bonds in the period from January 2002 to October 2008, there were only three occasions when corporate bonds had a higher turnover ratio (that was in the months of April, June and September 2002).
Moreover, in the same period, the market turnover ratio for corporate bonds only managed to surpass the 10 percent level on three occasions - in June 2003, November 2006, and July 2007.
The low level of the market turnover ratio shows that most corporate bondholders prefer to hold their bonds until maturity.
As they have a much lower credit risk, it is natural that government bonds should offer lower yields than corporate bonds. However, this is not currently the case since the illiquidity of corporate bonds has resulted in a negative yield spread between the government bonds yield index and the corporate bonds yield index in every month since April 2008.
This phenomenon reflects weaker conditions in the financial markets which prompted investors to reduce their holdings of government bonds. This pushed bond prices down and yields higher. The consequence of this was to make it more difficult for the government to issue more bonds to raise funds to help plug the state budget deficit.
At the same time, bondholders tended to hold on to their corporate bonds rather than sell them.
As a result, the corporate bonds yield index does not reflect the current condition of the bond markets. In such a condition, investors will prefer to trade government bonds since they offer higher yields; hence, corporate bonds become even more illiquid, making them even less attractive to investors.
So does this mean that investors should avoid corporate bonds? Well, not necessarily.
By comparing the total year-to-date return indices for both government bonds and corporate bonds, we discover that corporate bonds actually give better returns than government bonds for most of the time.
Government bonds only provided better year-to-date returns in January 2005, for most of 2006, and then again in May-July 2007. As such, we believe that Indonesian corporate bonds offer some interesting opportunities - especially to investors who are looking for superior returns.
Another reason to consider investing in corporate bonds is that it allows for greater diversification of investment funds. Thus, rather than investing in the country as a whole i.e. in government bonds - we can instead choose to invest in business sectors that we believe will have bright prospects going forward.
Looking back to the early part of this year, we can see that corporate bonds in the business sectors we cover actually outperformed government bonds. In the year up to October 2008, the infrastructure sector is the worst performing sector (it has recorded four months of negative year-to-date returns). Also showing poor performance is the banking sector (with two months of negative year-to-date returns).
Meanwhile, the telecommunications, multifinance and property sectors have recorded only positive year-to-date returns so far.
Government bonds, however, recorded only two months of positive year-to-date returns in the year up to October 2008. Thus, by diversifying into corporate bonds we would have attained better overall returns than if we had invested in government bonds only.
In addition, we can make investments in bonds that match our risk appetite. By investing in corporate bonds we can choose to either invest in highly-rated bonds - in return for lower coupon payments - or in lower-rated bonds which pay out higher coupons.
Nonetheless, investors still need to be cautious. The main concern is definitely the credit risk. At the current time, with the credit crunch biting hard, highly leveraged (indebted) companies are much more risky. This is basically because they might find it difficult to get their maturing debts refinanced in the future.
Industry risk is another consideration for investors. The slowdown in the global economy will have far-reaching implications and some industries will be harder hit than others. The business environment for companies with operations in natural resources/commodities will be tougher. In addition, if interest rates remain high, the banking, multifinance and property sectors may face more challenging times ahead.
The third consideration is business risk. Having a good market share and a competitive advantage can help give larger sized companies the edge over their rivals.
Smaller companies, by contrast, will find it more difficult to raise funding - especially if there is less liquidity.
Finally, as we have mentioned before, corporate bonds are still illiquid. As such, it may be difficult to buy them at fair values.
In short then, it can be seen that corporate bonds can be attractive to investors. Just like in the movie, in which King Henry VIII left a bigger mark on history than his brother, corporate bonds deserve the attention of serious investors for their greater potential returns than government bonds. After all, it is not always the case that the less-favored should be less worthy!
The writer is an analyst at PT Danareksa Sekuritas' Debt Research
Indonesia, a Nation in Transition
Although hundreds of ethnic groups have been know as the indigenous of Indonesia for hundreds and thousands of years, Indonesia did not exist in its present form until the turn of the 20th century.
Of the so-called natives of Indonesia, archaeologists have speculated that the first people to populate Indonesia migrated from mainland China some 1,000 years ago and inhabited a stretch of islands along the equator, later known as Nusantara.
Over the centuries they built and refined their statecraft in the form of kingdoms and principalities. Sharing similar characteristics with other Southeast Asian kingdoms, these Nusantara kingdoms based their conception of state more on people than on space or territory. But intercourse with the western world changed the course of history in Nusantara.
In 1511, the Portuguese conquered Malacca, located on the Malay peninsula, which was then still an inseparable part of Nusantara. The Dutch followed in 1512 and landed on Banten shore in Java. At first, the Dutch came more as traders under the trading umbrella of the Royal East Indies Company (Vereniging Oost Indische Compagnie, VOC). For the next two centuries, the Dutch conducted business with the natives, although in many cases the trade was not on equal terms. Often, trade was accompanied by violent pacification processes.
Then the VOC went bankrupt and the Dutch government took over the business in Nusantara (called the East Indies by the Dutch). Starting from about the mid-seventh century and lasting until the arrival of the Japanese in 1942, was the "real colonization" called "high colonialism" in literature. The period was disrupted briefly when the British took over colonial rule in 1811 to 1814. Among other things that the natives learned from colonization was statecraft based on territorial conception rather than on people.
In the early 20th century, the natives of Nusantara learned that as diverse as their ethnicities were, they could imagine themselves as a unified community. A nationalism had grown in a process that Benedict Anderson, a doyen of Indonesian studies, calls an "imagined community". During the first half of 20th century Nusantara, its people built an imaginary nation called Indonesia -- the name itself was borrowed from the West. By the end of the 1930s, it was clear that the end of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia was only a matter of time.
During World War II, 1942-1945, the Japanese occupied Indonesia. Although short-lived, the occupation enabled Indonesians to arm themselves for the very first time. Shortly after Japan's defeat in WWII, Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed Indonesia an independent state, and they became the founding fathers of the new country. The largest archipelago in the world, with over 17,000 islands -- only 3,000 of which are inhabited -- has emerged into a new Indonesia.
When the Dutch returned and tried to reestablish colonial rule, armed Indonesians resisted. The Dutch were forced to recognize an independent Indonesia in 1949.
The new Indonesia adopted a federal system of governance for a short time. But for a longer period, within a five-year span (1950-1955), leaders of the new country were eager to adopt a liberal system of government. Although there is no proof that the system ruined the economy, it was clear that the elite's political stability was shaky. The longest serving prime minister was only two years in office.
The government then held a general election in 1955, the first and only democratic general election Indonesia ever had. But feeling that the country was still unstable two years after the election, president Sukarno, backed by the Army, declared the 1950 Provisional Constitution void and reintroduced the 1945 Constitution. The latter provided an ample opportunity for Sukarno, popularly known as Bung Karno (Comrade Sukarno), to balance three political powers -- the Indonesian Communist Party, the Army and himself.
In the first half of the 1960s, Bung Karno leaned toward the left. On domestic politics, he was trying hard to balance the communists and the Army; on the international stage he was establishing himself as leader of a new world, free from Cold War antagonism. But economic decline and mounting conflicts, especially between communists and noncommunists, the latter of which was backed by the Army, caused him to lose control over the situation.
On Sept. 30, 1965, an abortive coup occurred. There are two conflicting versions of events surrounding the attempted coup. The official Army version insists that the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was behind the coup attempt, while the communist version asserts that the coup was an internal matter of the Army. In fact, several members of PKI's central bureau were involved, as well as many Army officers and personnel.
The abortive coup cost Indonesia dearly. It took the lives of seven high-ranking Army generals, followed by a pogrom of communists -- a moderate estimate ranges between 300 thousand and 500 thousand alleged members of PKI. Soeharto, who then was a major general and commander of the Army Strategic Reserves Command, took over leadership and deposed Bung Karno from his presidential seat.
In 1966, Soeharto received a letter known as the March 11 Letter of Instruction which reportedly transferred state power from Sukarno to him.
In 1967, Soeharto unseated Sukarno as president in the special session of the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS).
Consolidating his power under a new regime called the New Order, Soeharto launched a "regime cleansing" against the Old Order.
Together with Hamengkubuwono IX, the sultan of Yogyakarta, and Adam Malik -- the three were known as the triumvirate -- Soeharto divided the tasks for economic and political reconstruction. Sultan Hamengkubuwono was assigned to lead efforts for economic recovery, Adam Malik was assigned to redirect Indonesia's foreign policy toward the West, and Soeharto himself was "assigned" to rebuild the lamentable domestic politics.
Soeharto was determined to change Indonesia's course, from its emphasis on politics to prioritizing economic development. He set up the trilogy of development: political stability, economic growth and equality.
To gain political legitimacy, perceived as a prerequisite to economic growth, the government conducted a general election in 1971. The election, however, was far from democratic. Soeharto introduced the "floating mass" concept that banned political parties from operating at village level.
From the 1971 election and throughout the New Order period, the Functional Group (Golongan Karya, or Golkar) served as Soeharto's main political machinery. Golkar legally operated not as a political party, although in fact it was a party. Golkar ran in the 1971 elections against 10 other political parties -- including PKI and Masyumi which were two of the four biggest parties in 1955 but which had been out of political scene -- and won 62 percent of the vote.
In 1974, Soeharto forced all political parties to merge into three: Golkar, the United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). Again, legally speaking Golkar was not a political party. Five more elections were conducted every five years. During those years, Soeharto tightly controlled politics; not even the slightest room was available for opposition.
There were several cases of serious opposition during the New Order regime. The first came rather as a blow in 1974, when students protested against Japanese investments. Added by political rivalry between Gen. Soemitro and Maj. Gen. Ali Moertopo, student protests in Jakarta turned into riots. The movement ended with the removal of Soemitro from his powerful position as deputy commander of the Armed Forces and chief of staff of the Operation Command for the Restoration of Security and Order (Kopkamtib).
The second serious opposition movement came in 1978. Again it came from students, who protested Soeharto's bid for a second term in office, which would be decided upon by the People's Consultative Assembly in its General Session in March 1978.
Several retired Army officers backed the students, while factionalism was apparent within the Armed Forces. Soeharto moved fast to crush the movement. Hundreds of opposition and student leaders were arrested, dozens of newspapers and magazines were closed down. The movement lost its momentum, and after that Soeharto enjoyed an incontestable position.
If Golkar served as Soeharto's main political machinery, the Army functioned as guardian of the state. And since the state was personalized around Soeharto alone, the Army also served to protect him. Under its dual function role doctrine -- the doctrine argues that the duties of a professional Indonesian Armed Forces includes attending to nonmilitary business, especially if it has to do with politics -- the military intervened in almost all sectors of public life. At its peak, the number of military personnel serving in nonmilitary affairs reached over 40,000. Later, history witnessed excesses of the doctrine.
Some businesspeople, many of whom were of Chinese descent, enjoyed state protection and sometimes two-digit economic growth; some grew to become tycoons and magnates. The privileges that these businesspeople enjoyed sparked resentment from other communities. As a result, racial tension grew.
But Chinese businesspeople were not the only ones to enjoy state protection and preference. Some indigenous businesspeople also enjoyed similar privileges. In general, what Kunio Yoshihara calls "ersatz capitalism", or pseudocapitalism, grew. Those "capitalists" were not real capitalists.
Then the financial crisis came. It first hit in mid-1997, and many believe it was a direct result of Thailand's economic crisis. The crisis worsen with the scheduling of the People's Consultative Assembly's General Session in March 1998, with the main agenda being to "elect" a "new" national leadership. It eventually turned into a political crisis too. But Soeharto was determined to run for his seventh consecutive five-year term in office. Supported by his political machine, Soeharto, as expected, became president again.
The economic and political crises made the political climate like a house of cards. Lacking sensitivity, Soeharto filled his new Cabinet with cronies, and appointed one of his daughters minister of social affairs. Less than two months after the formation of the new Cabinet, political tension mounted to an unbearable level. On May 12, four Trisakti University students were shot dead following a peaceful demonstration.
The shootings immediately sparked the emotions of the masses. To the majority of people, the New Order regime had become soulless. Within a week, Indonesia experienced one of its most tumultuous periods in history. For three days, from May 13 through to May 15, six of the country's largest cities were hit by massive riots, probably the largest riots in Indonesia's history. Days later, hundreds of thousand students and members of the public poured into the streets. Chanting and demanding total reform, thousands marched to the legislative building in Jakarta and occupied it for several days.
This forced Soeharto to step down. Instead of returning the presidential mandate to the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) he gave the mandate to vice president B.J. Habibie. The new president is weak, but his weakness is one of his strengths. Everyone close to him feels that they can use him, and thus balancing the power is everyone's interest. The government scheduled another general election on June 7, 1999, only two years after the last election.
Forty-eight political parties, instead of three, competed for 462 seats in the House of Representatives, with the remaining 38 seats going to the military. The election was the first democratic poll since 1965, and the results should have a long-term effect on domestic political stability. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) won a majority in the House (DPR) with 35 percent of seats, followed by Golkar, the United Development Party (PPP), the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Crescent and Stars Party (PBB) and the National Mandate Party (PAN).
Despite its position as a simple majority party, PDI Perjuangan lost the political battle to install chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri as president. In a tight race against a strategic coalition of Golkar and the Axis Force, a coalition of various Islamic parties, PDI Perjuangan also lost the strategic posts of speakers of the House and People's Consultative Assembly. After losing out on the presidency, Megawati was elected as vice president.
Of the so-called natives of Indonesia, archaeologists have speculated that the first people to populate Indonesia migrated from mainland China some 1,000 years ago and inhabited a stretch of islands along the equator, later known as Nusantara.
Over the centuries they built and refined their statecraft in the form of kingdoms and principalities. Sharing similar characteristics with other Southeast Asian kingdoms, these Nusantara kingdoms based their conception of state more on people than on space or territory. But intercourse with the western world changed the course of history in Nusantara.
In 1511, the Portuguese conquered Malacca, located on the Malay peninsula, which was then still an inseparable part of Nusantara. The Dutch followed in 1512 and landed on Banten shore in Java. At first, the Dutch came more as traders under the trading umbrella of the Royal East Indies Company (Vereniging Oost Indische Compagnie, VOC). For the next two centuries, the Dutch conducted business with the natives, although in many cases the trade was not on equal terms. Often, trade was accompanied by violent pacification processes.
Then the VOC went bankrupt and the Dutch government took over the business in Nusantara (called the East Indies by the Dutch). Starting from about the mid-seventh century and lasting until the arrival of the Japanese in 1942, was the "real colonization" called "high colonialism" in literature. The period was disrupted briefly when the British took over colonial rule in 1811 to 1814. Among other things that the natives learned from colonization was statecraft based on territorial conception rather than on people.
In the early 20th century, the natives of Nusantara learned that as diverse as their ethnicities were, they could imagine themselves as a unified community. A nationalism had grown in a process that Benedict Anderson, a doyen of Indonesian studies, calls an "imagined community". During the first half of 20th century Nusantara, its people built an imaginary nation called Indonesia -- the name itself was borrowed from the West. By the end of the 1930s, it was clear that the end of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia was only a matter of time.
During World War II, 1942-1945, the Japanese occupied Indonesia. Although short-lived, the occupation enabled Indonesians to arm themselves for the very first time. Shortly after Japan's defeat in WWII, Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed Indonesia an independent state, and they became the founding fathers of the new country. The largest archipelago in the world, with over 17,000 islands -- only 3,000 of which are inhabited -- has emerged into a new Indonesia.
When the Dutch returned and tried to reestablish colonial rule, armed Indonesians resisted. The Dutch were forced to recognize an independent Indonesia in 1949.
The new Indonesia adopted a federal system of governance for a short time. But for a longer period, within a five-year span (1950-1955), leaders of the new country were eager to adopt a liberal system of government. Although there is no proof that the system ruined the economy, it was clear that the elite's political stability was shaky. The longest serving prime minister was only two years in office.
The government then held a general election in 1955, the first and only democratic general election Indonesia ever had. But feeling that the country was still unstable two years after the election, president Sukarno, backed by the Army, declared the 1950 Provisional Constitution void and reintroduced the 1945 Constitution. The latter provided an ample opportunity for Sukarno, popularly known as Bung Karno (Comrade Sukarno), to balance three political powers -- the Indonesian Communist Party, the Army and himself.
In the first half of the 1960s, Bung Karno leaned toward the left. On domestic politics, he was trying hard to balance the communists and the Army; on the international stage he was establishing himself as leader of a new world, free from Cold War antagonism. But economic decline and mounting conflicts, especially between communists and noncommunists, the latter of which was backed by the Army, caused him to lose control over the situation.
On Sept. 30, 1965, an abortive coup occurred. There are two conflicting versions of events surrounding the attempted coup. The official Army version insists that the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was behind the coup attempt, while the communist version asserts that the coup was an internal matter of the Army. In fact, several members of PKI's central bureau were involved, as well as many Army officers and personnel.
The abortive coup cost Indonesia dearly. It took the lives of seven high-ranking Army generals, followed by a pogrom of communists -- a moderate estimate ranges between 300 thousand and 500 thousand alleged members of PKI. Soeharto, who then was a major general and commander of the Army Strategic Reserves Command, took over leadership and deposed Bung Karno from his presidential seat.
In 1966, Soeharto received a letter known as the March 11 Letter of Instruction which reportedly transferred state power from Sukarno to him.
In 1967, Soeharto unseated Sukarno as president in the special session of the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS).
Consolidating his power under a new regime called the New Order, Soeharto launched a "regime cleansing" against the Old Order.
Together with Hamengkubuwono IX, the sultan of Yogyakarta, and Adam Malik -- the three were known as the triumvirate -- Soeharto divided the tasks for economic and political reconstruction. Sultan Hamengkubuwono was assigned to lead efforts for economic recovery, Adam Malik was assigned to redirect Indonesia's foreign policy toward the West, and Soeharto himself was "assigned" to rebuild the lamentable domestic politics.
Soeharto was determined to change Indonesia's course, from its emphasis on politics to prioritizing economic development. He set up the trilogy of development: political stability, economic growth and equality.
To gain political legitimacy, perceived as a prerequisite to economic growth, the government conducted a general election in 1971. The election, however, was far from democratic. Soeharto introduced the "floating mass" concept that banned political parties from operating at village level.
From the 1971 election and throughout the New Order period, the Functional Group (Golongan Karya, or Golkar) served as Soeharto's main political machinery. Golkar legally operated not as a political party, although in fact it was a party. Golkar ran in the 1971 elections against 10 other political parties -- including PKI and Masyumi which were two of the four biggest parties in 1955 but which had been out of political scene -- and won 62 percent of the vote.
In 1974, Soeharto forced all political parties to merge into three: Golkar, the United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). Again, legally speaking Golkar was not a political party. Five more elections were conducted every five years. During those years, Soeharto tightly controlled politics; not even the slightest room was available for opposition.
There were several cases of serious opposition during the New Order regime. The first came rather as a blow in 1974, when students protested against Japanese investments. Added by political rivalry between Gen. Soemitro and Maj. Gen. Ali Moertopo, student protests in Jakarta turned into riots. The movement ended with the removal of Soemitro from his powerful position as deputy commander of the Armed Forces and chief of staff of the Operation Command for the Restoration of Security and Order (Kopkamtib).
The second serious opposition movement came in 1978. Again it came from students, who protested Soeharto's bid for a second term in office, which would be decided upon by the People's Consultative Assembly in its General Session in March 1978.
Several retired Army officers backed the students, while factionalism was apparent within the Armed Forces. Soeharto moved fast to crush the movement. Hundreds of opposition and student leaders were arrested, dozens of newspapers and magazines were closed down. The movement lost its momentum, and after that Soeharto enjoyed an incontestable position.
If Golkar served as Soeharto's main political machinery, the Army functioned as guardian of the state. And since the state was personalized around Soeharto alone, the Army also served to protect him. Under its dual function role doctrine -- the doctrine argues that the duties of a professional Indonesian Armed Forces includes attending to nonmilitary business, especially if it has to do with politics -- the military intervened in almost all sectors of public life. At its peak, the number of military personnel serving in nonmilitary affairs reached over 40,000. Later, history witnessed excesses of the doctrine.
Some businesspeople, many of whom were of Chinese descent, enjoyed state protection and sometimes two-digit economic growth; some grew to become tycoons and magnates. The privileges that these businesspeople enjoyed sparked resentment from other communities. As a result, racial tension grew.
But Chinese businesspeople were not the only ones to enjoy state protection and preference. Some indigenous businesspeople also enjoyed similar privileges. In general, what Kunio Yoshihara calls "ersatz capitalism", or pseudocapitalism, grew. Those "capitalists" were not real capitalists.
Then the financial crisis came. It first hit in mid-1997, and many believe it was a direct result of Thailand's economic crisis. The crisis worsen with the scheduling of the People's Consultative Assembly's General Session in March 1998, with the main agenda being to "elect" a "new" national leadership. It eventually turned into a political crisis too. But Soeharto was determined to run for his seventh consecutive five-year term in office. Supported by his political machine, Soeharto, as expected, became president again.
The economic and political crises made the political climate like a house of cards. Lacking sensitivity, Soeharto filled his new Cabinet with cronies, and appointed one of his daughters minister of social affairs. Less than two months after the formation of the new Cabinet, political tension mounted to an unbearable level. On May 12, four Trisakti University students were shot dead following a peaceful demonstration.
The shootings immediately sparked the emotions of the masses. To the majority of people, the New Order regime had become soulless. Within a week, Indonesia experienced one of its most tumultuous periods in history. For three days, from May 13 through to May 15, six of the country's largest cities were hit by massive riots, probably the largest riots in Indonesia's history. Days later, hundreds of thousand students and members of the public poured into the streets. Chanting and demanding total reform, thousands marched to the legislative building in Jakarta and occupied it for several days.
This forced Soeharto to step down. Instead of returning the presidential mandate to the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) he gave the mandate to vice president B.J. Habibie. The new president is weak, but his weakness is one of his strengths. Everyone close to him feels that they can use him, and thus balancing the power is everyone's interest. The government scheduled another general election on June 7, 1999, only two years after the last election.
Forty-eight political parties, instead of three, competed for 462 seats in the House of Representatives, with the remaining 38 seats going to the military. The election was the first democratic poll since 1965, and the results should have a long-term effect on domestic political stability. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) won a majority in the House (DPR) with 35 percent of seats, followed by Golkar, the United Development Party (PPP), the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Crescent and Stars Party (PBB) and the National Mandate Party (PAN).
Despite its position as a simple majority party, PDI Perjuangan lost the political battle to install chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri as president. In a tight race against a strategic coalition of Golkar and the Axis Force, a coalition of various Islamic parties, PDI Perjuangan also lost the strategic posts of speakers of the House and People's Consultative Assembly. After losing out on the presidency, Megawati was elected as vice president.
Japanese-built school opens for kids with disabilities
he sounds of laughter and cheerful chatter filled the air at the new school building for children with disabilities in Tangerang on Tuesday.
The students, most of whom are from low-income families, knew something different was going on because the campus of SLB Yanaiz had been decked out for the building's inauguration ceremony.
SIMPLE GESTURE: Japanese Ambassador to Indonesia Kojiro Shiojiri shakes hands with a student of SLB Yanaiz, a school for disabled children and adults in Tangerang, as school founder Izak Timisela (center) looks on. The school’s new building was inaugurated Tuesday. (JP)SIMPLE GESTURE: Japanese Ambassador to Indonesia Kojiro Shiojiri shakes hands with a student of SLB Yanaiz, a school for disabled children and adults in Tangerang, as school founder Izak Timisela (center) looks on. The school’s new building was inaugurated Tuesday. (JP/Multa Fidrus)
Japanese Ambassador Kojiro Shiojiri presided over the ceremony at the campus on Jl. H. Ridwan, Bojong Poncol kampung in Pinang district, Tangerang municipality.
Tangerang officials also attended the event.
According to Shiojiri, the Japanese government had financed the construction project of the school under the Grassroots Program. The financial assistance amounted to US$85,994, he said.
"We want children with disabilities to be able to study at this school," he said.
Twenty-year-old Khalid, a fourth grader in a class for people with autism, said the new school building was closer to his home.
"I love the new classroom," Khalid said, who is suffering from hydrochepalus and needs regular medicine to control its symptoms.
The school's 123 students pay school fees of between Rp 5,000 (40 US cents) and Rp 10,000 each month.
"The most important thing is that I pay (school fees), no matter how much it is. The money is for the teachers' salaries," Khalid said.
SLB Yanaiz is managed by Erihatu Samasuru Lesuri Tapirone, a humanitarian foundation established by Izak Timisela in 2000.
"We started the school in a small rented house and now we have a three-story building with 12 classrooms, a health clinic, a kitchen, a teacher's office and a meeting hall, thanks to the Japanese government," he said.
Unfortunately, the classrooms have yet to receive new furniture so the students and teachers still use old desks and chairs. Some of the desktops even have holes in them.
The students, most of whom are from low-income families, knew something different was going on because the campus of SLB Yanaiz had been decked out for the building's inauguration ceremony.
SIMPLE GESTURE: Japanese Ambassador to Indonesia Kojiro Shiojiri shakes hands with a student of SLB Yanaiz, a school for disabled children and adults in Tangerang, as school founder Izak Timisela (center) looks on. The school’s new building was inaugurated Tuesday. (JP)SIMPLE GESTURE: Japanese Ambassador to Indonesia Kojiro Shiojiri shakes hands with a student of SLB Yanaiz, a school for disabled children and adults in Tangerang, as school founder Izak Timisela (center) looks on. The school’s new building was inaugurated Tuesday. (JP/Multa Fidrus)
Japanese Ambassador Kojiro Shiojiri presided over the ceremony at the campus on Jl. H. Ridwan, Bojong Poncol kampung in Pinang district, Tangerang municipality.
Tangerang officials also attended the event.
According to Shiojiri, the Japanese government had financed the construction project of the school under the Grassroots Program. The financial assistance amounted to US$85,994, he said.
"We want children with disabilities to be able to study at this school," he said.
Twenty-year-old Khalid, a fourth grader in a class for people with autism, said the new school building was closer to his home.
"I love the new classroom," Khalid said, who is suffering from hydrochepalus and needs regular medicine to control its symptoms.
The school's 123 students pay school fees of between Rp 5,000 (40 US cents) and Rp 10,000 each month.
"The most important thing is that I pay (school fees), no matter how much it is. The money is for the teachers' salaries," Khalid said.
SLB Yanaiz is managed by Erihatu Samasuru Lesuri Tapirone, a humanitarian foundation established by Izak Timisela in 2000.
"We started the school in a small rented house and now we have a three-story building with 12 classrooms, a health clinic, a kitchen, a teacher's office and a meeting hall, thanks to the Japanese government," he said.
Unfortunately, the classrooms have yet to receive new furniture so the students and teachers still use old desks and chairs. Some of the desktops even have holes in them.
Illegal dumps found in Bekasi
BEKASI: Authorities found illegal dumps created by trash pickers near the Bantargebang and Sumur Batu dumps in Bekasi.
Deddy Djuanda, head of the Bekasi administration's sanitation, park and funeral agency, said the trash pickers had asked the truck drivers to drop off their loads before the entrances to the dumps.
"The trash pickers opened the location without acquiring permits from the agency," he said Monday.
The agency found five illegal dumps near Sumur Batu dump, while an NGO found 12 near Bantargebang dump. Sumur Batu is managed by Bekasi administration and Bantargebang by Jakarta administration.
Deddy said the officers had been clearing the locations by prohibiting truck drivers from dropping off their loads at the areas.
"We will inform the trash pickers about the regulation so they will not open any more illegal dumps ... It's dangerous because the garbage piles can fall onto them." -- JP
Deddy Djuanda, head of the Bekasi administration's sanitation, park and funeral agency, said the trash pickers had asked the truck drivers to drop off their loads before the entrances to the dumps.
"The trash pickers opened the location without acquiring permits from the agency," he said Monday.
The agency found five illegal dumps near Sumur Batu dump, while an NGO found 12 near Bantargebang dump. Sumur Batu is managed by Bekasi administration and Bantargebang by Jakarta administration.
Deddy said the officers had been clearing the locations by prohibiting truck drivers from dropping off their loads at the areas.
"We will inform the trash pickers about the regulation so they will not open any more illegal dumps ... It's dangerous because the garbage piles can fall onto them." -- JP
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