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GATHERINGS:
An informed guide to happenings throughout the region.
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Schools
must close, says judge
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 16: Indonesia Chief Justice Mohammad
Mahfud insists that all international-standard pilot project
schools and international-standard schools must close
by April in accordance with a Constitutional Court ruling
for their disbandment.
The Education Ministry had been given a four-month deadline
to close all the schools, The Jakarta Post quotes him
as saying during a news conference in the capital on Sunday.
The Constitutional Court ruled earlier this month that
Article 50 (3) of the 2003 National Educational System
Law, which governs the implementation of the programme,
was unconstitutional and, therefore illegal because the
schools provided unequal access to quality education.
Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh had said that
he was confident that the ruling was applicable only to
public schools.
But the Chief Justice said that all schools in the programme,
public or private, had to be shut down. “The article
[in the law] does not mention private or state schools,”
he said.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Malaysia plans construction court
From News Reports:
Putrajaya, January 15: The Malaysia government will create
a dedicated construction court in Kuala Lumpur and Shah
Alam, the Bernama news agency quotes Chief Justice Arifin
Zakaria as saying at the opening of the 2013 legal year.
“Construction cases are unique as they involve technical
issues, multiple parties and varying terms of payment,”
he told about 400 judges, lawyers and court officials
who attended the opening ceremony at the Palace of Justice.
“Thus, a specialised construction court would be
beneficial to the industry,” he said.
“By having specialised judges, it will help in the
speedy disposal of such cases.”
The chief justice said the new court was among several
initiatives to enhance performance and work quality.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Churches agree Allah is God for Malay Christians
From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, January 14: The Malaysia Council of Churches
will continue to use the word “Allah” for “God”
in the Malay version of the Bible, says its general secretary
Dr Hermen Shastri in statement issued after a three-day
Ipoh retreat that ended Thursday.
Malaysian Christians have been using the word in their
Malay Bible and devotional life for centuries, says the
statement.
“Also, many indigenous communities in our nation
have incorporated this word in their everyday language,”
it says.
“That being the case, we shall continue this practice,
and call on all parties to respect this fundamental right”
and “guaranteed Article 11 of the Federal Constitution
which addresses freedom of religion.
The Sultan of Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah issued
a decree last Tuesday that bars non-Muslims in the State
from using “Allah” as a substitute for “God”
because, he argued, it was a sacred word exclusive to
Muslims.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Corridor created for elephants
From News Reports:
Kota Kinabalu, January 13: A corridor has been created
between Segaliud Lokan-Deramakot and the Malua Forest
Reserve to allow easier access for about 300 pygmy elephants.
The Star newspaper quotes Borneo Conservation Trust conservation
and research programme director Raymond
Alfred as saying a 10-month study had found that the riverine
forest was the key habitat for elephants in Sabah.
"The movement patterns of the elephants are unique,
emphasising the importance of the riverine forest and
a logging road as their main migratory path, from one
forest compartment to another," he said.
"The research team had also found that the main tree
species used by the orang utans (either for food sources
or shelter) are pioneer species, or hardy species which
are the first to colonise previously disrupted or damaged
ecosystems.
"Thus, the restoration programme that is being carried
out in this area will also improve the density and diversity
of the tree species," said the director.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Governor’s help for new embassy
sought
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 11: Australia Ambassador to Indonesia
Greg Moriarty is seeking the support of newly-elected
Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo for the
construction of a new mega embassy in the mega city, reports
The Jakarta Post.
The newspaper says the envoy met with the governor at
City Hall on Tuesday as members of the Islamist Hizbut
Tahrir, The Party of Liberation, Indonesia, rallied outside
to demand the governor reject permission from the United
States government to enlarge its embassy in Jakarta.
“We very much look forward to working with him in
the future, including plans to build a new Australian
Embassy in Jakarta, which will be the largest Australian
Embassy anywhere in the world,” the newspaper quotes
the ambassador as having told reporters after the meeting.
The new embassy complex would be built on a 40,500-square-metre
in Patra Kuningan, South Jakarta – a block from the
existing Australian Embassy.
Some of the land was bought from a private company with
the rest bought from the city administration.
The embassy announced in September that the joint venture,
Leighton Contractors Indonesia and Total Bangun Persada,
had won the $241 million contract to build the new complex.
Nine Indonesians were killed and 180 injured when a bomb
exploded outside the embassy gates in 2004.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Refugee camp becomes a museum
From News Reports:
Batam, January 11: The Batam municipal government in the
Riau Islands has reopened the former camp for Vietnamese
fleeing Saigon after the city fell to liberation forces
to end the American War in Indochina in 1974 as a museum
for tourists.
“The renovation is part of maintenance, the Antara
news agency quotes Batam City Tourism Board director Yusfa
Hendri as saying about the “museum” on Galang
Island on Sunday.
“Now many tourists will visit the museum, especially
at the weekend or on national holidays,” he said.
The renovation was of structures the then Indonesian government
of President Soeharto had built in cooperation with the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR,
in 1975.
These included an administrative office, school and residence.
But the Maria Immaculate Church was among the buildings
in need of repair.
The former camp is about 70 kilometres from the downtown
of Batam.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Veteran Viet Nam diplomat assumes Asean post
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 10: Veteran Viet Nam diplomat Le Luong
Minh, 61, began his five-year term as Association of Southeast
Asian Nations, Asean, Secretary General yesterday.
The former deputy foreign minister, who joined the Foreign
Service in 1975 and studied at Viet Nam’s Institute
of Foreign Affairs as well as the Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi, succeeds Thailand’s Surin Pitsuwan.
Le Luong Minh represented Viet Nam at the United Nations
for more than eight years and was Security Council chairman
in 2008 and 2009.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Abu Bakar Ba’asyir publishes book from prison
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 9: Militant Islamic clergyman Abu Bakar
Ba’asyir, 74, published a book from prison on Sunday.
The 176-page publication says: “The rulers have to
replace the law of the land, the positive law of the Unitary
State of Indonesia, with sharia.”
The clergyman is in the maximum security prison on Nusakambangan
Island off the coast of Cilacap, Central Java.
The Indonesian Supreme Court reinstated in February last
June the 15-year-jail sentence three judges of the South
Jakarta District Court ordered him to serve in June 2011
after they found him guilty of organising acts of terror.
The Jakarta High Court reduced the sentence to nine years
in October the same year and the reinstatement of the
original sentence followed the Muslim cleric’s appeal
against the verdict and punishment and the prosecution’s
appeal against its supposed leniency.
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was accused of planning and persuading
people to support a military-style training facility on
Jantho Mountain, Aceh, and having collected rupiah 350
million, about US$ 41,000, from two donors, Haryadi Usman,
rupiah 150 million, and Syarif Usman rupiah 200 million.
The cleric was originally charged with “mobilising
people for acts of terror,”- a charge that carries
the death penalty - and the armed robbing of Bank CIMB
Niaga, Medan.
Arrested after the discovery of a paramilitary training
camp in Aceh, northern Sumatra, in February last year,
he denied the charges.
This was the third effort to have Abu Bakar Ba'asyir convicted
for “terrorism” since 2000 although he served
almost 26 months in jail before he won his appeal in 2006
against his conviction for conspiracy following the Bali
bombings of 2002 in which more than 200 people, most of
them Australians, died.
The cleric was the rector of the Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding
school in Ngruki, Central Java, and members of Detachment
88, the Indonesian police's counterterrorism unit, arrested
him at Ciamis, West Java.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Look
East secretariat sought
From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, January 8: The Malaysia government should
appoint a secretariat to coordinate policies and programmes
following its decision to continue with the Look East
policy that former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad
argues Malaysia-Japan Economic Association secretary-general
Mohammad Iqbal Rawther.
The secretariat would help refine and broaden the policy
to spearhead the country's aspiration to become a developed
nation, The New Straits Times quotes him as saying.
“There is a need to coordinate the policy and programmes
under a single entity with a strong secretariat,”
he said.
The policy, implemented in 1982, was initially aimed at
encouraging Malaysia to embrace the work principles of
such countries as Japan and South Korea, and transform
the economy from agriculture to industry.
The International Trade and Industry and the Malaysian
Investment Development Authority co-hosted a conference
dealing with Malaysia’s Look East Policy and titled
“A New Dimension” at the Istana Hotel, Kuala
Lumpur, in October.
The gathering coincided with the Malaysia-Japan Economic
Association and the Japan-Malaysia Economic Association’s
31st Joint Conference.
“The Look East Policy involves the study of policy,
research and selection of examples from Japan pertaining
to their culture and value system, including discipline,
work ethics and patriotism,” said Malaysia Investment
Development Authority Chief Executive Officer Noharuddin
Nordin.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Muslims
discuss religious intolerance
From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, January 7: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
was to have held a meeting with eminent lawyers and human-rights
specialists in Istanbul yesterday and today to address
religious intolerance against Muslims, reports the Bernama
news agency.
OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu would open
the meeting, the newsagency quotes the organisation as
saying in a statement issued last Thursday.
The Council of Islamic Foreign Ministers had decided to
hold the meeting at their meeting in Djibouti in November,
it said.
Their resolution required the secretary general to create
a committee of eminent people to advise OIC member States
about international law and to combat discrimination and
intolerance against Muslims.
The results of the meeting will be presented at the 12th
Islamic Summit in Cairo in February.
The
Southeast Asian Times
State funeral for decorated Dayak
From News Reports:
Kuching, January 6: The Malaysian Armed Forces most decorated
soldier, Temenggong Kanang anak Langkau, of the Iban Dayak
community, Sarawak, will be given a State funeral with
military honours in Sarawak today.
The veteran, who was 68, died in the Sarawak General Hospital
on Thursday after he collapsed while watching television
at residence in Sg Apong.
He fought alongside British, Australian and New Zealand
troops in the Konfrontasi campaign of 1962 and in Perak
during the “second Malaysian emergency” in 1981.
His last posting was as a Warrant Officer 1 in the 8th
battalion Royal Rangers Regiment; he retired in 1982.
He was awarded the Panglima Gagah Berani and Seri Pahlawan
Gagah Perkasa medals from the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan
Ahmad Shah, on June, 3, 1981.
The Bernama news agency quotes Defence Minister Dr Ahmad
Zahid Hamidi as saying Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak
had given instructions that he be given a State funeral.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Leftist
flag removed at New Year celebration
From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, January 5: Police removed the leftist Sang
Saka flag when it was flown near Dataran Merdeka on New
Year’s Eve.
Several people also flew the red, white and yellow “Bendera
Rakyat” at the stroke of midnight, reports The Star
newspaper.
Supporter of the Sang Saka Mohammed Haizal Yatiran, 28,
told the newspaper the flag was to recognise the contributions
of leftist groups in fighting for then Malaya’s independence.
“People don’t know about this flag, so I guess
some got a shock when they saw it and assumed it was a Communist
flag. We have absolutely no intention of wanting to change
the Jalur Gemilang,” he said.
“I think people don’t know history. They should
refer to the true version of events from a historian. Which
side of history are they talking about?” he asked.
The All Malaya Council of Joint Action introduced the Sang
Saka Malaya in 1947 as the proposed national flag.
The Jalur Gemilang is the official flag of Malaysia.
Police detained two youths for possible violation of Section
9(1) of the Sedition Act after the waving of the red and
white Malay Sang Saka flag at the Dataran Merdeka on the
eve of Malaysia’s 55th Independence Day celebration,
August 30, was submitted to the attorney-general.
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak described any attempt replace
the national the Jalur Gemilang with a new flag as a disgraceful
act amounting to treason.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Indonesian diaspora seeks own electorate
From
News Reports:
Jakarta, January 4: The about 4.4 million Indonesia citizens
living abroad have demanded a separate electoral district,
reports The Jakarta Post.
Their votes are now pooled for the seven-seat Jakarta II
electoral district, which covers Central and South Jakarta,
it says.
The proposal for a separate electoral district was raised
during the first Congress of the Indonesian Diaspora in
Los Angeles earlier this year.
The newspaper quotes Ilhamsyah Abdul Manan, a native of
Medan who now lives in Georgia, the United States, as saying
last Thursday that Indonesians living abroad had their own
interests that differed from those of voters in the Jakarta
II district.
“We are facing problems different from those the people
in Jakarta deal with,” he said.
Migrant Care representative Wahyu Susilo said the parliamentarians
representing the Jakarta II district had never listened
to members of the Indonesian diaspora.
“And none of them are members of the House’s Commission
I overseeing foreign affairs, nor Commission IX overseeing
labour issues,” he said.
“So How can they really represent us, especially migrant
workers who account for 80 to 90 percent of Indonesian people
living abroad?” he asked.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Indonesia seeks China expansion
From News Reports:
Beijing, January 3: Indonesia ambassador to China and Mongolia
Imron Cotan has designated 2012 as the year for his country
to extend its “footprint” in China, reports the
Antara news agency.
“China has cultures as varied as that of Indonesia,”
he said.
However, the Indonesian footprint in China was relatively
small compared with that of China in Indonesia, he said
in Beijing on Monday.
The
Southeast Asian Times
East meets West for Christmas
From News Reports:
Atambua, January 2: The number of people crossing the border
between Indonesia West Timor and East Timor for family visits
during the Christmas –New Year has risen sharply, reports
the Antara news agency
About 600 people were crossing the border each day at Mota'ain,
about 118 kilometres west of Dili, each day.
The usual figure is about 200.
The United-Nations 13-year integrated peacekeeping mission
in newly-independent East Timor ended New Year’s Eve.
The 1,500-strong mission began withdrawing troops in October
when East Timor police resumed responsibility for security,
following the election of a new president and parliament.
The United Nations organised the 1999 referendum that ended
Indonesia’s 24-year occupation of East Timor in which
around 183,000 people — then a quarter of the population
— died.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Peacekeepers
farewell East Timor
From News Reports:
Dili, January 1: The United-Nations 13-year integrated peacekeeping
mission in newly-independent East Timor ended yesterday.
The 1,500-strong mission began withdrawing troops in October
when East Timor police resumed responsibility for security,
following the election of a new president and parliament.
The United Nations organised the 1999 referendum that ended
Indonesia’s 24-year occupation of East Timor in which
around 183,000 people — then a quarter of the population
— died.
It oversaw East Timor until 2002 and returned in 2006, when
desertion from the armed forces prompted fighting between
military factions and police and street violence left at
least 37 people dead and tens of thousands displaced.
The violence prompted the resignation of first Prime Minister
Mari Alkatiri and the emasculation of his Fretilin government.
Its instigators have never been identified.
The
Southeast Asian Times
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Read the letters to The
Southeast Asian Times...open
here
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The
Southeast Asian Times regrets to inform its readers
that the editor, John Loizou, passed away suddenly
late Wednesday night.
The Southeast Asian Times will not be published until
further notice |
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| Soldiers
ordered to halt protest against Thai newspaper |
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| Soldiers
gather outside the ASTV Manager headquarters in Bangkok
to demand the newspaper apologise to Army chief of
staff Prayuth Chan-ocha, 58, for its denunciation
of the general
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From News Reports:
Bangkok, January 16: Thai army chief of staff Prayuth
Chan-ocha, 58, has ordered his soldiers to halt their demonstrations
outside the office of the ASTV Manager Daily newspaper office
in Bangkok.
About 50 soldiers of the First Army Region rallied outside the
media conglomerate’s office on Phra Arthit Road on Friday
and 30 on Saturday to demand an apology from the newspaper.
The soldiers objected to the newspaper’s denunciation of
the army chief of staff.
General Prayuth Chan-ocha had thanked his men for protecting the
dignity of the army but ordered all unit commanders to stop the
protest against the newspaper, The Bangkok Post quotes army spokesperson
Colonel Sansern Kaewkumnerd as saying.
“The army commander would like all soldiers to stop going
to ASTV Manager and to end their action,” he said.
It was also reported that some army personnel had barred reporters
of ASTV-Manager and its satellite TV station from reporting from
inside military compounds.
General Prayuth Chan-ocha said earlier that the men were standing
up for the army and not for him personally.
Senior People's-Alliance-for-Democracy, Yellow Shirt, coordinator
Sondhi Limthongkul founded ASTV Manager which has declared Prayuth
Chan-ocha a failure for his role in the territorial dispute with
Cambodia over the surrounds of the historic Preah Vihear Hindu
Temple and the continuing violence in Muslim southern Thailand.
The Bangkok Post quotes First Army Region Lieutenant General Paiboon
Khumchaya as saying he gave the soldiers permission to gather
at the newspaper offices and denied that the army was threatening
the media.
“Those soldiers just wanted to express their opinion. They
did not threaten (ASTV Manager)," he said.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Exchange of Thai nationalists jailed in Cambodia
sought
From News Reports:
Bangkok, January 16: The Justice Ministry will seek to have jailed
Thai nationalists - Veera Somkwamkid and Ratree Pipattana-Paiboon.
- exchanged for two Cambodian prisoners, reports The Nation newspaper.
It quotes Corrections Department deputy director-general Korbkiat
Kasiwiwat as saying that while those detained for espionage were
normally not included in a prisoner exchange,- negotiations between
diplomats, Justice Ministry representatives, the police, the Office
of the Attorney-General and officials of the Criminal Court were
continuing.
Justice permanent secretary Kittiphong Kittayarak was chair of
the talks, he said.
The deputy director-general said that as Ratree Pipattana-Paiboon
had served one-third of her sentence in Cambodia and been given
a royal pardon, she was now eligible to return to Thailand.
And although Veera Somkwamkid sentence had been reduced by six
months, he had yet to serve a third of his eight-year sentence.
The Cambodia Foreign Ministry has issued a statement saying the
Justice Ministry has responded to Prime Minister Hun Sen's instruction
to reduce the prison term for Veera Somkwamkid and to provide
a royal pardon to Ratree Pipattana-paiboon.
The statement says Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra had
asked the Cambodia prime minister to consider pardoning the two
imprisoned Thais during the Asean Summit in Phnom Penh in November.
Thailand-Patriots-Network member Veera Somkwamkid and his secretary
Ratree Pipapatana-paiboon dropped their appeals against their
jail sentences for “collecting information which might damage
Cambodia's national security” in December 2011.
Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge Suos Sam Ath sent the former
People’s Alliance for Democracy, or Yellow Shirt, coordinator
jail for eight years and fined him riel 1.8 million riel, about
US$ 454.321, the previous February.
His secretary was sentenced to six years in jail.
The two in jail were arrested together with five other Thai nationals,
including Democratic Party member for Bangkok in the House of
Representatives Panich Vikitsreth Democrat Panich Vikitsreth while
inspecting the border near Sa Kaew province's Ban Nongchan.
The MP and four others were repatriated to Thailand after Phnom
Penh Municipal Court judges found them guilty, sentenced them
to nine months in jail; fined them rial one million, US$247.5
for trespass and then set them free.
The
Southeast Asian Times
| Perak
squatter families given title to disused railway land
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| Muniandy
Parsuraman, Adnan Khamal and Nadarajah Parsuraman
and Chew Kim Meng receive title for railway land on
which trains stopped running in 1941 from Perak Menteri
Besar, or Chief Minister, Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir, at
Simpang Halt, Taiping, on Sunday |
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From News
Reports:
Taiping, January 15: The Perak government has awarded title to
more than 94.5hectares of railway land to 643 squatter families
in Kuala Sepetang, formerly Port Weld, after the Railway Asset
Corporation agreed to surrender it to the State without charge.
Negotiations for the land started two years ago and initially
the corporation wanted ringgit 35 million, almost US$11.6million,
for it, reports The New Straits Times.
The Perak cabinet had approved tile of the land for the families
and other owners of premises, including 12 religious buildings,
on January 27, 2010, it says.
The newspaper quotes Perak Menteri Besar, or Chief Minister, Dr
Zambry Abdul Kadir as saying while presenting land titles to about
some 30 squatters at Simpang Halt on Sunday that more than 60
per cent of the families had now received land titles from the
government.
“All squatter families occupying the railway reserve land
between Kuala Sepetang and Taiping will be receiving their land
titles in stages, which are expected to be completed this year,”
he said.
The land has not been used for railway operations since 1941.
A railway from Port Weld to Taiping via passing Jebong and Simpang
Halt began service on February 1, 1885.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Indonesia government approves limited anti-tobacco
regulations
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 15: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has signed
into law regulations that will require cigarette packets to carry
photographic warnings and bans the use of such terms as “mild”
and “light” for tobacco products.
But the regulations posted on a government website late Wednesday
continue to allow most forms of advertising.
Tobacco companies will have 18 months to implement them, says
The Jakarta Post.
The newspaper quotes Coordinating People’s Welfare Minister
Agung Laksono as saying the tobacco regulations effective from
Monday, December 24, were aimed at protecting consumers from tobacco-related
disease.
“Certain groups think the regulations will affect tobacco
farmers and industry. I tell you such thinking is not true; it’s
baseless,” the minister told a news conference at the Communications
and Information Ministry in Jakarta last Friday.
“We just want to regulate smoking so that vulnerable groups,
such as underage children, don’t get into the unhealthy habit
of smoking cigarettes,” he said of the regulation that includes
eight chapters and 65 articles.
The People’s Representative Council’s decision to make
the tobacco bill a priority for 2013 at its final plenary session
of the year last month prompted immediate objections.
Tobacco-control-commission member Hakim Sorimuda Pohan questioned
the seeming rush to deliberate the bill without public consultation.
“Every bill must be proposed with a draft and academic documents,”
he said.
“But the tobacco bill has only a name. We don’t know
the purpose of the bill,” said the physician and former parliamentarian
at a news conference less than two hours after the plenary session.
The Jakarta Post says both the tobacco control commission and
the Consumers Protection Foundation worry that the bill will protect
the country’s tobacco industry because it was initially proposed
by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle with the support
from the Indonesian Tobacco Society Alliance.
The parliament has previously rejected two bills designed to deal
with tobacco.
The World Health Organisation estimates that Indonesia has 57.6
million male smokers — the world’s third-highest total
— and 2.3 million female smokers.
About 70 percent are from low-income groups.
The Indonesia government was paid rupiah 77 trillion, about US$7.98
billion, in tobacco taxes last year but the Health Ministry estimates
the yearly economic losses and health costs from smoking-associated
diseases at rupiah 245.4 trillion.
An estimated 7,000 tobacco farmers rallied outside the Health
Ministry in Kuningan, South Jakarta, in July against proposed
Tobacco Impact Control legislation that would require cigarette
packs in Indonesia to carry a graphic warning on their cover,
limit tobacco advertising and regulate smoking in buildings.
About 250 police officers deployed to maintain order.
The
Southeast Asian Times
| People’s Action Party faces challenge in January
26 by-election |
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| Singapore
Democratic Party's chairman Jufrie Mahmood, left,
and its secretary Dr Chee Soon Juan, right, speak
at news conference in late December. The public has
spurned the party’s suggestion that it join with
the Singapore Workers Party to campaign for the single-member
Punggol East constituency by-election on Saturday,
January 26
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From News
Reports:
Singapore, January 14: Nominations for the single-member Punggol
East constituency will close on Wednesday with the minority Singapore
Workers Party; the Singapore Democratic Alliance, which stood
a candidate in 2011, the Reform Party and Singapore Democratic
Party all likely to challenge the candidate for the ruling People’s
Action Party for a place in parliament.
The Straits Times suggests that its occasional contributor, former
People’s-Action- Party-member and Christian business consultancy
I-deo Asia Limited managing director Benjamin Pwee, has also expressed
his intention to stand as a candidate.
Three candidates contested the 31,649-strong north-eastern Singapore
constituency in the 2011 general election but there will be 1,632
fewer voters this time.
The Singapore Democratic Party’s proposed a joint campaign
with the Workers Party for the election has not won the support
of the electorate and its secretary Dr Chee Soon Juan argued at
news briefing on Saturday night that the public, particularly
“net citizens,” had misinterpreted the proposal.
“People must understand that we want to make sure that we
avoid a three-cornered fight any way we can,” he said.
The Workers Party, which ended the May 7 selection with six seats
in parliament - the best result against the People’s Action
Party since Singapore’s independence from Britain, has spurned
the Democratic Party proposal and will focus on its own campaign.
The
Southeast Asian Times
HIV/AIDS infections jump in Java’s industrial
hub Tangerang
From News Reports:
Tangerang, January 14: The Tangerang HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation
agency identified at least 675 new infections in their Banten
regency, about 25 kilometres west of Jakarta, between January
and September last year.
“The spread of HIV in the regency has reached a worrying
level because the majority of infected people are in their most
productive years,” The Jakarta Post quotes agency manager
Hady Irawan as having told reporters last Wednesday.
The significant increase of infection was within people aged between
24-45, he said.
“These figures are just the tip of the iceberg.
“Not everyone is willing to be tested,” he said.
The statistics did not include data collected between September
and December.
The agency figures show that 1,515 people in the regency living
with HIV in 2012 – with 214 suffering from fully developed
AIDS.
The total of those suffering from fully developed AIDS in 2011
was 146.
The agency had previously suspected the virus was spread through
needle sharing by intravenous drug users, but most infections
found in the Kosambi district were due to unsafe sex. The district
includes the red-light district.
The number of sex workers in the regency was growing by between
500 and 650 each year.
“The problem we now face is lack of officers to identify
new HIV infections, said agency manager Hady Irawan.
“We don’t have enough volunteers to support people with
HIV.”
The Jakarta Post reports that the capital’s administrators
have taken blood samples from 187 street sex workers in a bid
to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS in the municipality.
“We take blood samples in separate joint operations with
the Public Order Agency to find out whether or not they have contracted
HIV,” it quotes communicable diseases prevention unit at
the South Tangerang Health Agency director M. Rusmin as saying
on Thursday.
The Indonesia Health Ministry had instructed all local offices
across the country to take at least 200 blood samples in each
region.
The samples would be sent to the ministry’s laboratory for
tests.
“Those who tested positive for HIV, we must place them in
a quarantine centre for medication and education on HIV/AIDS,”
the director said.
The
Southeast Asian Times
| 700
Rohingya Muslims face deportation
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|
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| Rohingya
at a temporary shelter at a rubber plantation near
the Thai- Malaysia border 700 Stateless Rohingya Muslims
face deportation from southern Thailand |
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From News
Reports:
Bangkok, January 13: Seven-hundred-and-four Rohingya Muslims found
in Songkhla province on the Malay Peninsular, about 984 kilometres
south of Bangkok after entering Thailand illegally, will be deported
to Myanmar, the province’s deputy police chief Colonel Krissakorn
Paleetunyawong has told the Reuters news agency.
“These illegal migrants have been handed over to immigration
authorities and will be deported back to Burma,” he said.
Police and government officials found 307 Rohingyat - 230 men,
31 women, 22 boys and 24 girls –in a warehouse in Ban Dan
Nok, in the province’s Sadao district on the Thai-Malaysian
border, on Friday.
Almost 400 Rohingya, including 14 children and 8 women, were found
at a rubber plantation at Ban Chaikhuan Thungmaiduan, near the
border town of Pedang Besar, Songkhla province, on Thursday.
They had reportedly been at the plantation for about three months.
The Bangkok Post says the Rohingya told police they were waiting
to go to Malaysia. There each was to be sold off for baht 60,000,
about US$ 1,981, to baht 70,000 to work on fishing boats.
They were apparently the remainder of about 2,000 that Thai and
Myanmar traffickers had brought into Thailand on 10-wheeled trucks
via Ranong – the Andaman-Sea border port on the west coast
of Thailand about 377 kilometres to the north.
“The Rohingyas were en route to Malaysia and the camp we
found was used as a holding facility by middlemen paid to facilitate
their journey,” The Nation newspaper quotes Lieutenant Colonel
Katika Jitbanjong of Padang Besar police station as saying.
The Bangkok Post quotes Songkhla deputy police Chief Colonel Krisakorn
Pleethanyawong as saying eight people - four Myanmar nationals,
two Rohingya and two Thais – had been detained after the
second group of illegal immigrants was discovered.
The eight had been charged with people trafficking, sheltering
people illegally and possessions of firearms, he said.
Police would also summon two suspects for questioning, including
Padang Besar deputy mayor Prasit Lemlae, who owned the rubber
plantation where the Rohingya were found on Thursday.
One-hundred-and-twenty-seven of the Stateless Muslims from Rakhine
province on the southwest coast of Myanmar – were arrested
in southern Thailand and returned to Ranong after police stopped
a convoy of five minivans at a checkpoint in southern Satun province
on Monday, December 24, bound for the border crossing to Malaysia
at Padang Besar.
The first two vehicles each contained 22 men and boys – the
youngest was ten - and the drivers of the other three minivans
fled.
Brokers on the Thai-Malaysia border are known to systematically
transfer the displaced Muslims south from hidden camps in Thailand
with the connivance of officials in both countries.
The Bangkok Post quotes and unidentified Thai intelligence officer
as saying at least 3,000 Rohingya travel through Thailand to Malaysia,
usually Kelantan, each year.
This figure did not include those who move by land.
Most work as day labourers, mainly at rubber and palm plantations
across the region. Many Rohingya have also gone to the Middle
East, especially Saudi Arabia. Some have been naturalised in their
adopted countries.
In December, the Singapore government refused to allow a Viet
Nam cargo vessel to dock with 40 Rohingya who survived a sinking
in the Bay of Bengal of Wednesday, December 5 when 200-250 people
are thought to have drowned.
The Malaysia government, which hosts an estimated 24,000 Rohingya,
later provided the 40 shipwreck survivors with sanctuary.
The United Nations General Assembly approved a consensus a non-binding
resolution on Monday, December 24, that expresses “particular
concern about the situation of the Rohingya minority in Rakhine
state, urges the Myanmar government to take action to bring about
an improvement in their situation and to protect all their human
rights, including their right to a nationality.”
But Iran parliamentarian Mehrdad Baouj-Lahouti dismissed the non-binding
resolutions as ineffective.
The United Nations must abandon double-standards to deal with
global human rights violations, he said.
The Rohingya are probably Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish,
Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as
the 8th century.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Spy agency monitoring of new Indonesian bird flu
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 13: The National Intelligence Agency will monitor
the outbreak of a new strain of avian influenza in Indonesia.
“My agency has been closely watching this phenomenon since
the beginning,” The Jakarta Post quotes agency director Lieutenant
General Marciano Norman as telling reporters at the presidential
palace last Thursday.
“We have to stay alert, as the global development of biological
weapons is very fast,” he said.
The new strain, identified as H5N1 clade 2.3.2, is reported to
have killed tens of thousands of ducks throughout Indonesia.
Although the director quelled speculation that the new strain
was a biological attack, he warned: “In the future, a biological
attack will be frequently used in wars.
“We are closely monitoring developments. But we can’t
jump to conclusions without strong evidence. We are asking relevant
agencies to look into the new strain of the virus more closely,
and we will support their efforts.”
Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Djoko
Suyanto told the briefing that that there were possibilities that
the new strain of the virus had been “engineered” and
several government agencies were investigating it
“We have formed a team to look into it. The team comprises
the intelligence agency and the Health Ministry, among others,”
he said.
The Jakarta Post reported on Thursday, December 27, that tests
at the Yogyakarta Veterinary Centre had found that a new strain
of the H5N1 virus had killed thousands of ducks in Yogyakarta,
Central Java, and East Java.
The centre’s epidemiologist Putut Djoko Purnomo said: “There
have been reports of sudden chicken deaths, but we are still examining
if they were caused by the new virus.”
The scientist said Indonesia did not yet have the vaccine for
the virus, which was first identified in Nepal in 2010 and then
spread by migratory birds to India, China and Japan.
At least six people, including four children, have died from bird
flu in Bali since 2005.
The mortality rate among people infected with the H5N1 virus is
very high.
The
Southeast Asian Times
| Casino
to appeal Viet Nam court order to pay winner $55.5
million |
|
 |
| Vietnamese
American Ly Sam, 61, in the Ho Chi Minh People’s
Court, District 1, which ordered the owner of the
five-star Sheraton Saigon, the Dai Duong Joint Venture
Company, to pay him the winning amount of more than
dong 1,154 billion, about US$55,542,291.70, shown
on the screen of game machine No 13 in the hotel’s
Palazzo Club on October 25, 2009. Sam had gambled
$300 |
|
From News Reports:
Ho Chi Minh City, January 12: The owner of the five-star Sheraton
Saigon, the Dai Duong Joint Venture Company, will appeal an order
of the People’s Court of District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, that
it pay Vietnamese-American Ly Sam, 61, the winning amount of more
than dong 1,154 billion, about US$55,542,291.70, shown on the
screen of game machine No 13 in the hotel’s Palazzo Club
on October 25, 2009.
The sum includes interest of $3.5 million for the unpaid wining
amount.
Tuoi Tre, Youth, newspaper quotes the corporation’s lawyer,
Vo Ha Duyen, who announced the intention to appeal, as saying
the decision would create serious difficulties for the Dai Duong
Joint Venture Company.
The suit was very complicated and although the district court
had never dealt with one like it before, neither the relevant
agencies nor the makers of the game machine had been consulted
before the decision which was delivered last Monday.
The lawyer insisted that plaintiff had not provided sufficient
evidence for him to be declared the winner and that the maximum
prize from the machine No 13 was o $46,000.
But the Dai Duong Joint Venture Company had provided sufficient
evidence to show the winning result was invalid and the result
of a technical failure in the machine the plaintiff had used.
Presiding judge Mai Xuan Binh and his jurors rejected this argument
saying the winning amount had been displayed on the machine’s
screen which had not posted an error.
The Ho Chi Minh Tax Office says Ly Sam will owe it $5.5 million
in personal income tax if the verdict is upheld.
Tuoi Tre quotes Vietnam Tax Consultants Association Chairwoman
Nguyen Thi Cuc as saying the amount would be the highest tax payment
yet collected from a Viet Nam casino.
Viet Nam’s first casino opened in Hai Phong City in 1992.
There are now 50 – all out of bounds to Vietnamese –
and the Finance put there 2011 revenue at $240million.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Former beauty queen jailed for abuse of parliamentary
power
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 12: Two judges of the Jakarta Anti-Corruption
Court sent People’s- Representative- Council-member Angelina
Patricia Pinkan “Angie” Sondakh, 35, to four-and-a-half-years
two jail on Thursday for abuse of authority as a member of parliament’s
budget committee and its sports commission.
The judges also ordered the former beauty queen and member of
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party to
pay a fine of rupiah 250million, about US$ 26,000.
The judges found the Australian-born-and-education parliamentarian
guilty of having received almost US$3.5million from the Permai
Group - a holding company for Muhammad Nazaruddin, 34, - between
2009 and 2014.
Former Democratic Party treasurer, Muhammad Nazaruddin, was sent
to jail for almost five years in April for rigging a government
tender for the construction of an athletes village in Palembang,
South Sumatra, for the November, 2011 Southeast Asian Games in
return for an illegal commission of at least rupiah 4.6 billion,
about US$506,000.
He was also ordered to pay a rupiah 200 million, about $21, 776,
fine or serve an additional four months in prison.
“It has been proven that [the defendant] received rupiah
2.5 billion and $1.2 million,” said presiding Judge Sudjatmiko
as he announced the verdict and sentence. “The money, from
the Permai Group, was paid to secure budget allocation at the
Education and Culture Ministry.”
The prosecutors had sought a 12-year jail sentence and an order
for the defendant to refund the stolen State money.
The defendant, who said: “I have heard the charges and I
submit myself to God,” when her trial began, argued in a
six-hour emotional closing statement on Thursday, January 3 that
there was not sufficient evidence to prove her guilt.
She also pleaded that Corruption Eradication Commission officers
not be allowed to seize her residence in Cilandak, South Jakarta,
“It belongs to his fatherless children; please don’t
confiscate it,” she said.
The defendant was referring to Adjie Massaid, her late husband
and former Democratic Party parliamentarian who died of a heart
attack in January 2011.
She also accused businesswoman Mindo “Rosa” Rosalina
Manulang — a Nazaruddin confidante — of trading her
testimony for money during the trial.
“Rosa once asked me to collect money from names she proposed
to me. However, she never mentioned those names during her trial,”
she said.
“I am a victim of a conspirator who is hiding behind the
mask of justice collaborator.”
The
Southeast Asian Times
| Visiting
diplomats seek stop to robbing of Phuket tourists |
|
 |
| Britain’s
Ambassador to Thailand Mark Kent introduces Phuket
Governor Maitri Inthusut to a website listing scores
of incidents in which tourists were robbed and beaten
by taxi and tuk-tuk drivers on the resort island
|
|
From News Reports:
Phuket, January 11: The British, Canada and Netherlands Ambassadors
to Thailand asked Phuket Governor Maitri Inthusut why more had
not been done to stop taxi and tuk-tuk drivers from robbing international
visitors to the resort island at a meeting on Tuesday.
The trio also asked about the absence of metered taxis in Phuket
compared with other of Thailand’s major tourist destinations,
including Bangkok and Chiang Mai and why the fares on the island
were much higher than elsewhere.
The Phuket Gazette reports that Britain’s Ambassador Mark
Kent introduced the governor to the website Phukettuktuks.com,
which lists numerous examples of taxi and tuk- tuk drivers cheating
and assaulting tourists.
“The police are doing their best, but there is a serious
shortage of officers in Phuket,” the governor replied.
Phuket Land Transport Office director Teerayut Prasertpol, who
attended the meeting, said: “The PLTO is trying to get metered
taxi drivers to charge by the meter, but the drivers do not want
to because if they charged only by the meter they would not make
enough as a living.”
Canada Ambassador Philip Calvert questioned the Phuket media’s
use of pictures of corpses and passports photos in news stories
about international visitors.
But the Phuket tourism news portal Phuket Wan says that when its
reporters asked the ambassador about the mysterious deaths of
Canadians, Noemi Belanger, 26, and her sister Audrey, 20, in their
hotel room on Phi Phi island on June 14 last year, the diplomat
replied: “'That's an issue that is . . . for reasons of privacy,
we tend not to discuss these with the media.”'
The results of autopsies performed in Bangkok and Canada have
never been made public and Thai officials say Canadian diplomats
restrict the availability of information.
American Jill St Onge, 27, and Norwegian Julie Michelle Bergheim,
22, died mysteriously on Phi Phi in 2009 in circumstances similar
to the Belanger sisters.
Their deaths have also never been explained.
About 100 Thai tuk-tuk and taxi drivers blockaded the Kata-Karon
beach road about 20 kilometres from Phuket last week protest at
the allegedly unfair Russian competition.
Later, all Russian-owned tour counters on Kata-Karon beach were
ordered to close earlier this week and the Phuket Labour Office
instructed to investigate them for possible breach for foreign-worker
regulations.
The action follows complaints from tuk-tuk and taxi drivers at
the resort island’s major beach on the west coast about 20
kilometres from Phuket that Russian tour enterprises are offering
cheaper transport than their domestic rivals.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Prosperous Justice Party bans wives of officials
from seeking office
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 11: The Prosperous Justice Party has banned the
wives its members, who are public officials, from nominating for
next year’s elections for Indonesia’s parliaments.
“The ban is aimed at avoiding a conflict of interests and
dynastic politics,” Prosperous Justice Party President Luthfi
Hasan Ishaaq says in a media statement issued on Sunday.
Public officials included minister, governor, district head, mayor
and legislator, he said.
“And if husbands have been nominated for parliament, their
wives must not be also be nominated.”
The Islamic party has yet to decide a candidate for next year’s
presidential election.
The
Southeast Asian Times
| Central
Java anti-corruption judge stands trial for corruption |
|
 |
| Anti-Corruption
Court judge Kartini Marpaung appeared before two judges
of the Semarang District Court, central Java, last
Tuesday accused of having accepting rupiah 150 million,
about US$15,400, to find the speaker of the Legislative
Council of Grobogan Regency, southwest central Java,
not guilty of corruption. Pontianak Corruption Court
judge Heru Kisbandono and the sister of the parliamentarian
are also on trial |
|
From News Reports:
Semarang, January 10: The trial of former Anti-Corruption Court
judge, Kartini Marpaung, for allegedly accepting rupiah 150 million,
about US$15,400, to find the speaker of the Legislative Council
of Grobogan Regency, southwest central Java, not guilty of corruption
began in the Semarang District Court on Tuesday.
The Jakarta Post quotes prosecutor Pulung Rinandro as having told
her fellow judges, Ifa Sudewi, Suyadi and Kalimatul Jumro, that
Corruption Eradication Commission investigators caught her as
she accepted the money in August last year.
Grobogan Legislative Council speaker Mohammed Yaeni had been accused
of embezzlement of money from the regency budget for the maintenance
of the legislature’s official cars.
“The money was given to alter Yaeni’s verdict -to either
give him a light sentence or even clear him of all charges,”
said the prosecutor.
The speaker’s sister, Sri Dartuti, had provided the money.
She, in turn, had sought help from her brother’s friend –
former Pontianak Anti-Corruption Court judge Heru Kisbandono –
to lobby Kartini Marpaung.
Sri Dartuti and Heru Kisbandono are also on trial.
The prosecutor said the accused former Semarang judge, who was
arrested just days before she was due to deliver her verdict,
had planned to share the money with at least three other judges,
including one who was later chosen to preside at the speaker’s
eventual trial.
Speaker Yaeni was sent to jail for 2.5 years and fined rupiah
50 million in the Semarang Anti-Corruption Court on August 28,
2012.
The Jakarta Post says Kartini Marpaung acquitted at least four
defendants charged with corruption before her arrest; these included
the former regent of Sragen, central Java, Untung Wiyono, who
was accused of stealing more than rupiah 11 billion.
She also annulled the verdict against Yanuelva Etliana who had
been accused of helping to steal rupiah 39 billion from the Central
Java Regional Development Bank.
The hearing was adjourned to next Tuesday and her lawyer Krisdo
Pulungan told reporters: “I will ask for the trial to be
moved to Jakarta.”
Judicial Commission spokesman Asep Rahmat Fajar warned before
the hearing began: “We want the court to consider any possible
conflict of interest when choosing judges to hear that trial.”
Former President Megawati Soekarnoputri established the Anti-Corruption
Court and its partner, the Corruption Eradication Commission,
or KPK, in 2004.
A decision to establish-anti-corruption courts in 33 of Indonesia’s
provinces each with six judges was announced in October 2011.
Supreme Court Chairman Harifin A Tumpa as said two of the judges
would be attached to the higher court and the remainder to the
district court of each of the 33 provinces.
The corruption courts would hold trial hearings with their secretariats
at existing district courts.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Thai employers
dismiss workers rather than pay higher wage
From News Reports:
Bangkok, January 10: Almost 2,500 Thai workers were dismissed
within five days of employees in 70 of the country’s 76 provinces
becoming entitled to a minimum daily wage of baht 300, about US$9.70,
on January 1.
The Bangkok Post reports that Labour Minister Padermchai Sasomsap
provided the Social Security Office figure on Tuesday as the Yingluck-Shinawatra
Cabinet approved a fiscal package designed to ease the strain
of the higher pay on almost 300,000 small- to- medium-sized enterprises.
It was also expected to create about 320,000 jobs.
The Labour Minister quotes the Social Security Office as reporting
that 2,479 workers were laid off between January 2 and January
6.
The Labour Minister said 243,141 workers in Bangkok as well as
Phuket, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon, Pathum Thani, Nakhon Pathom
and Nonthaburi provinces had been dismissed between Sunday, April
1 last year – when they became entitled to the higher rate
- and the end of December.
Some enterprises were turning to outsourcing to avoid their responsibility
for employee welfare.
He warned that workers for subcontractors were also eligible for
the minimum daily wage and violators faced up to six months or
a baht 100,000 fine or both.
Employers could not change terms of employment without the consent
of their employees, he said.
The Bangkok Post reported earlier this week that factory owners
had used a memorandum of understanding between the Thai and Cambodia
governments to employ labour from their Asean neighbour since
the introduction of the higher wage.
The newspaper said that although legal migrant workers are entitled
to the minimum wage, Thai factory owners paid them less through
deductions for electricity, water and accommodation.
Thai wages are thrice those paid in Cambodia and workers there
are now demanding rises.
Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-ranong said the fiscal package included
corporate tax exemption for the first baht 300,000 profit, up
from baht 150,000, for an estimated 210,000 SMEs with yearly revenue
of less than baht 30 million.
And a three-year reduction in the room tax paid by small-to- medium
hotels.
The
Southeast Asian Times
| Special
Detachment 88 kill seven Indonesian suspects in three
days |
|
 |
| A
West-Nusa-Tenggara police officer arrives at the site
where members of the United-States-and-Australia governments-financed-and-trained
Indonesia police “anti-terror “squad, Detachment
88, killed three suspected Islamic militants in the
Woja district of Sumbawa Island’s Dompu regency,
on Saturday |
|
From News
Reports:
Jakarta, January 9: The United-States-and-Australia governments-financed-and-trained
Indonesia police “anti-terror “squad, Special Detachment
88, has killed seven suspected Islamic militants at Bima and Dompu
on the island of Sumbawa and Makassar, South Sulawesi, in three
days.
The Jakarta Post quotes national police spokesman brigadier general
Boy Rafli Amar as having conceded last Sunday that no shots had
been fired against officers of the squad on Friday and Saturday
– when the seven were killed - but alleged the suspects in
at least one of location had explosives “ready” to detonate.
Special Detachment 88 was formed in 2003 after the Bali bombings
the previous year and the newspaper quotes Victims of Violence
Commission chairman Haris Azhar as saying that it appeared the
suspected militants were victims of “extrajudicial killings.”
The chairman demanded an independent investigation and warned
that animosity toward the anti-terror squad was promoting Islamic
militancy.
Five of the suspects were slain on Sumbawa Island where they supposedly
fled after three police officers were killed and others wounded
in a series of attacks in Poso, Central Sulawesi, on Thursday,
December 20.
“We have put the whole of Sumbawa on alert,” the Antara
news agency quotes West Nusa Tenggara Police chief brigadier general
Mochamad Irawan as saying.
Two of the suspects were killed earlier at the Wahidin Sudirohusodo
Hospital in Makassar, South Sulawesi.
Detachment 88 officers shot dead suspected terrorist, Abdul Halid
Tumbingoa, 24, a forestry worker and son of a former member of
the district Legislative Assembly in Poso during early November.
The Antara news agency reported that villagers had used tree trunks,
timber, tyres and stones to block the road that links Poso with
eastern, western and north-central Sulawesi, in Kayamanya Kota
Poso, Central Sulawesi, to support their demand that the dead
man’s body be returned to his family.
The family had denied that the victim was a terrorist.
The young man died in a police raid that began soon after dawn
and was part of an action in which suspected terrorist Khalid
Tumbingo, 24, was also shot dead and 20 people detained.
Khalid Tumbingo’s supporters later rallied outside the Poso
police station to declare: “We’ll never trust the police.”
Brigadier General Dewa Parsana said Abdul Halid Tumbingoa was
killed in a fire fight at a state elementary school in Kayamanya,
Poso Kota, after he threw explosives at police officers.
National police spokesman Brigadier General Boy Rafli Amar said
the police action followed violence in the region and planned
terrorist attacks against the provincial capital Palu.
“The raid was based on evidence collected by investigators,”
he said.
Earlier another alleged terrorist, Jipo, also known as Ibeng,
was killed during a reported shootout in Kalora, the North Poso
Pesisir district, Central Sulawesi.
The dead man was believed to have been from eastern Indonesia.
Brigadier General Dewa Parsana said the police found seven explosive
devices and seized a firearm in the house.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Muslim MP asked to clarify non-Muslim use of the
word Allah
From News Reports:
George Town, January 9: About 30 members of the Penang Muslim
Network rallied in George Town last Thursday to demand that Pan-Malaysian
Islamic Party, Pas, and Malaysia parliamentarian Dr Mujahid Yusof
Rawa clarify his view about the use the word “Allah”
as a synonym for the Christian “God.”
The New Straits Times quotes network co-ordinator Mohamed Hafiz
Mohamed Nordin as saying the member for Parit Buntar had used
English to condone non-Muslim use of the word "Allah"
in a church dialogue at Butterworth two years ago.
This was done although it deviated from the Pas view, he said.
Now an audio clip from an undisclosed source had arrived to use
as evidence against the Pas central committee member.
Religious Affairs Minister Jamil Khir Baharom announced in January,
2010, that the Malaysia Government would appeal High Court Judge
Lau Bee Lan’s ruling that the Catholic weekly, The Herald,
could use the word “Allah” as a synonym for the Christian
“God” in its articles intended to propagate Christianity
in its Malay-language editions although the word’s use must
be confined to publications intended for Christians.
The appeal would be organised from within the Prime Minister’s
Department and the Home Affairs Ministry, he said.
The minister used the statement to advise Muslim and non-governmental
organisations to be calm and respect the judge’s decision.
They should be patient and allow the matter to be resolved through
the legal process, he said.
The
Southeast Asian Times
lThe
Southeast Asian Times wishes its readers a Happy
lChristmas and all the
best for the New Year with a special lthankyou
to its regular and treasured letter writers |
| .MEDIA CHECK |
| A
new regulation that will apply from Thursday,
December 20 will make reporting easier for foreign
journalists in Viet Nam...Open
here |
|
|
| A
Requiem Mass for Vikki Anne Riley, 50, who was a regular
contributor to The Southeast Asian Times, was held
at St Paul’s Catholic Church, Nightcliff, Darwin,
Monday ...Open
here
|
|
| Copy
of letter dated 29 May 2012 from Vietnam Womens Union
to International Olympic Committee...open
here |
|
| A cartoon
goes inside the tour bus in Manila on the day that
ended with the slaying of eight Hong Kong tourists
...Open
page here |
|
| Bombed by the
Americans for Christmas in 1972, Ha Noi Bach Mai hospital
is still a war zone...Christina Pas reports...Open
page here |
|
Published by Pas Loizou Press Darwin Northern
Territory Australia
PASLOIZOUPRESSDARWIN@bigpond.com
|
|
|
Oz $ buys
|
|
Updated daily.
Prices indicative only
|
US...1.0547
Brunei...1.2916
Cambodia. 4,218.70
China..Yuan 6.5676
East Timor....1.0547
Euro..0.7893
Hong Kong..8.1772
Indonesia Rupiah..10,157.14
Japan...93.8800
Laos...8,386.16
Malaysia Ringgit...3.1731
Myanmar...905.762
Papua New Guinea..2.1957
Philippines Peso...42.7939
Singapore dollar...1.2921
Thailand...Baht...31.8095
Viet Nam Dong..21,976.62
Demand
for office space falls
From News Reports:
Ho Chi Minh City, January 16: Demand for office space fell in
the last quarter of 2012, reports property consultant Knight Frank.
Rents also fell, it says.
Demand for office space In Ha Noi was slightly higher.
Bloomberg reported in March that the Keangnam Hanoi Landmark Tower,
the tallest building in Southeast Asia after the Petronas Towers,
Kuala Lumpur, had increased prime office space in the capital
by half and threatened to drive rents to a five-year low.
The news agency quoted South Korea’s Keangnam Enterprises
Limited’s property manager, Choi Yong-Ho, as saying the tower,
which includes a hotel, luxury apartments and mall, was adding
100,000 square metres of office space to the city.
It also quoted Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated as having forecast
the extra space could drive Ha Noi’s office rents down as
much as 8 percent in the first half of this year to their lowest
since the fourth quarter of 2006.
The State Bank of Vietnam s ordered earlier that all the county’s
commercial providers of credit to identify the amount they have
loaned for real estate as the number of non-performing loans rise.
State-owned Agribank announced that non-performing loans totalled
6.67 percent of its total lending – much of it for real estate.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Bid to dampen Singapore real estate market
From
News Reports:
Singapore, January 15: The Singapore government has announced
size restrictions for executive condominiums, tighter loan-to-valuations
regulations and higher purchaser stamp duty in an effort to further
dampen the property market.
It has also introduced for the first vendor stamp duty for industrial
property to discourage speculation.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Bangladeshis to work Malaysia plantations
From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, January 14: The arrival of 10,000 Bangladeshis to
work in Malaysian plantations will reduce a critical labour shortage,
forecasts Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Bernard
Dompok.
The plantations were short about 26,000 to 30,000 workers and
the 10,000 co should “certainly help,” The Star newspaper
quotes him as saying.
The Malaysia government froze the importation of Bangladeshi workers
about five years ago and Indonesian workers now prefer to work
in the own burgeoning oil palm industry.
The Malaysia and Bangladeshi governments signed an agreement in
November for the recruitment of 500,000 workers in the Malaysia
manufacturing, service, agriculture and construction industries
over next five years.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Fish farmers demand compensation
From News Reports:
Bandar Lampung, January 13: Hundreds of grouper farmers have demanded
compensation from State-owned Panjang port operator, Pelindo,
for pollution in Lampung Bay.
Tonnes of grouper and other fish in Lampung Bay have died since
December and the farmers – members of the Lampung Grouper
Communication Forum – allege that the port operator is responsible
for the deaths of their fish cultivated in 100 floating nets off
Hanura Beach in Pesawaran regency.
The Jakarta Post says the more-than-100 farmers say red algae
bloomed in Lampung Bay after waste was dumped into the sea.
“We are not protesting the coastal dredging, but Pelindo
did not coordinate with us before dumping the waste into the sea,”
the newspaper quotes forum representative Mulia Bangun Sitepu
as saying on Wednesday.
“It should not have dumped the dredging sediment near our
floating nets.”
The aqua farming has been a model for several national programmes
and the fish are among Lampung’s primary exports.
Forum lawyer Sopian Sitepu estimates the losses to the farmers
at rupiah 8 billion, about US$821,352.
“The amount is based only on the value of the dead fish,”
he said.
It did not include the loss from having to re-start the breeding
of fish or loss of export revenue.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Johor plans to limit foreign house purchases
From News Reports:
Johor Baharu, January 12: Spiralling house prices, especially
in the Iskandar corridor, has promoted the Johor government to
review the procedures and conditions for the purchase of real
estate by non-Malaysians.
The Bernama news agency quotes Local Government, Housing, Arts,
Culture and Heritage Committee Chairman Ahmad Zahri Jamil as saying
the State Economic Planning Unit was studying ways to tighten
the rules on foreign ownership.
This was to control prices as Malaysians found it difficult to
buy houses.
“The price of property is determined by the market force.
However, the prices also reflect on demand and supply or just
because of extreme speculation. So, we have to conduct a detailed
study," he told reporters.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Japan diplomat denies war payment
From News Reports:
Petaling Jaya, January 11: The Japan government never paid the
Malaysia government ringgit 207billion, about US$ 68.15, compensation
for the country’s victims of the Thai-Burma “Death Railway”
in the 1940s, says Second Secretary at the Japan Embassy, Malaysia,
Takaharu Suegami.
“All questions arising out of the unhappy events with regard
to Malaysia have been fully and finally settled under the San
Francisco Treaty which entered into force in 1952,” said
the diplomat in a statement issued on Tuesday.
The Second Secretary was responding to former Perak Menteri Besar,
or Chief Minister, and secretary of the State’s wing of Pas,
the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, Nizar Jamaluddin, who was quoted
by the Pas newspaper, Harakah Daily, as saying the embassy had
confirmed the money was given to the Malaysia Government in 2004.
The report alleged that the money had yet to be distributed to
families of the estimated 30,000 Malaysians who were forced labourers
in the building of the 415-kilometre railway from Bangkok to Yangon
between 1942 and 1946.
Takaharu Suegami said both governments had also signed an agreement
on September 21, 1967, whereby Japan agreed to supply services
and products to Malaysia totalling ringgit 25million.
The money had been used to build two ships, among other projects,
but there had been no transfer of an undisclosed amount of it,
he said.
“Malaysia agreed that any question from the events of the
Second World War that might affect our good bilateral relations
would be fully and finally settled with the agreement.
“All the supply in accordance with the agreement was completed
by May 6, 1972,” he said.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Haj fund investigated
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 10: Corruption Eradication Commission officers
are investing the Religious Affairs Ministry‘s management
of the rupiah 80 trillion, about US$8.29 billion, haj pilgrimage
fund, reports The Jakarta Post.
The newspaper quotes commission spokesperson Johan Budi as saying
on Sunday that the investigation was the result of Financial Transaction
Reports and Analysis Centre allegation of irregularities in the
management of the savings of prospective pilgrims during the last
eight years,.
Earlier commission deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto said that
if the allegation was supported by sufficient evidence, investigators
could ask for detailed information of suspicious transactions
including details of the bank accounts of any individuals or officials
implicated.
Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali said that he would
resign if evidence was found to support the allegations of irregularities.
The
Southeast Asian Times
AirAsia offers 10,000 free tickets
From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, January 9: Budget carrier AirAsia is offering 10,000
free return tickets to Sabah and Sarawak from peninsular Malaysia
for travel between January 14 and February 4.
The offer is part of the 1Malaysia Integration Programme with
AirAsia that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak launched last Saturday,
says the airline in a statement.
AirAsia chief executive officer Aireen Omar said the programme
was the airline’s way of giving back to the rakyat for their
support.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Cambodians replace Thai workers
From News Reports:
Bangkok, January 8: Factory owners have used a memorandum of understanding
between the Thai and Cambodia governments to employ labour from
their Asean neighbour since Thai workers in 70 of the country’s
76 provinces became entitled to a minimum daily wage of baht 300,
about US$9.70, from the beginning of the year, reports The Bangkok
Post.
One-hundred and-fifty four Cambodians - 118 men and 36 women -
with work permit documents crossed the border in Sa Kaew Province’s
Aranyaprathet district on Monday of last week, it says.
The newspaper quotes Sa Kaew Provincial Immigration Division deputy
superintendent Lieutenant -Colonel Benchapol Rawdsawat as saying
four employers had sent vehicles to collect the Cambodian workers.
The newspaper says that although legal migrant workers are entitled
to the minimum wage, Thai factory owners pay them less through
deductions for electricity, water and accommodation.
Thai wages are thrice those paid in Cambodia and workers there
are demanding rises.
Workers in Bangkok as well as Phuket, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon,
Pathum Thani, Nakhon Pathom and Nonthaburi provinces became eligible
for the new rate on Sunday, April 1 last year.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Bali
visitors exceed target
From News Reports:
Denpasar, January 7: About 2.88 million foreign tourists and five
million domestic tourists visited Bali in 2012.
The number of international visitors had exceeded the provincial
government’s target of 2.8 million, the Bali Daily quotes
Bali tourism office director Ida Bagus Kade Subhiksu as saying
on Wednesday.
The target for 2013 was 3.1 million, he said.
Australia provided the most tourists followed by Chinese, Japanese,
Malaysians and South Koreans.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Cashless payments suggested to combat corruption
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 6: The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis
Centre has suggested limiting cash transactions to a maximum of
rupiah 100 million, about US$10,350, to help prevent stealing
from the State.
“Many of those the Corruption Eradication Commission arrested
used cash in their transactions,” centre director Muhammad
Yusuf told a news conference in Jakarta on Wednesday.
“There will be no more durian boxes if we limit the use of
cash payments,” he said.
Corruption Eradication Commission investigators arrested a businesswoman
and two officials from the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry
in 2011 after found rupiah 1.5 billion in a cardboard box that
had contained durian, says The Jakarta Post.
The money was bribes collected from a housing project in West
Papua.
The commission also confiscated rupiah 100 million in a brown
envelope, wrapped in a newspaper In 2010.
The money was confiscated from a street vendor in Bandung who
allegedly received it from someone just before the investigators
arrested a West Java Supreme Audit Agency official and two Bekasi
municipality officers for accepting bribes.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Bribery accusation investigated
From News Reports:
Ha Noi, January 5: Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has
ordered investigation of Vietnam Communist Party, Ha Noi, Inspection
Committee chairman Tran Trong Duc’s allegation that public-service
candidates had to pay at least dong 100 million, aboutUS$4,755,
in bribes to secure a job, reports Thanh Nien, Youth, newspaper.
The assertion needed immediate because it had caused public and
media consternation, newspaper quotes the deputy prime minister
as saying last Monday.
The Inspection Committee chairman made his allegation that it
was impossible to pass a public service recruitment test in the
capital without paying off the people in charge of hiring at a
meeting of the Ha Noi People’s Council on Tuesday, December
7.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Cooperative creates diversified economy
From News Reports:
Kuah, January 4: The cooperative Koperasi Komuniti Kampung Kilim
that 80 fishermen of Kampung Kilim, Langkawi, created in 2010
has enabled them to develop a successful diversified economy,
says The Star newspaper.
Their enterprises include that manage tour boats in Kilim Geoforest
Park and management of the Kilim Jetty and the rents it provides,
it says.
The cooperative also owns floating seafood restaurants and souvenir
shops.
The newspaper quotes cooperative chairman Ahmad Nizar Hanapiah
as saying efforts to develop the economy of the village began
in 2000 and the creation of the cooperative was done at the recommendation
of the Langkawi Development Authority.
The fishermen previously earned between ringgit 600, about US$197.60,
and ringgit 800 each month but that had risen to ringgit 1,800
since the establishment of the cooperative.
Cooperative members who own boats can earn at least ringgit 2,000
and up to ringgit 10,000 during the holiday season.
“There are no unemployed youngsters in the village,”
said the chairman.
“Many of them are not highly educated, but have learnt English
by participating in tour boat activities.”
There were also youths who could converse in Arabic due to the
rising number of Arab visitors.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Asbestos
victims appeal Tokyo judgement
From News Reports:
Tokyo, January 3: Three-hundred-and-thirty-seven plaintiffs lodged
an appeal in the Tokyo High Court on Tuesday, December 18 against
a lower court decision to exclude self-employed workers from State
compensation for damage to their health from exposure asbestos.
The Japan Press Weekly quotes their lawyer, Onodera Toshitaka,
as saying an utmost effort to achieve an early settlement would
be made because 60 percent of the plaintiffs had already died.
A law and a fund to guarantee relief to asbestos victims was required,
he said.
A Tokyo District Court judge ordered the Japan government to pay
about yen 1.06 billion in compensation for asbestos-induced ill-health
to 170 of the 337 victims, on Wednesday, December 5.
But he refused to acknowledge that individual makers of asbestos
products had been responsible and rejected the claim of self-employed
builders because the Industrial Safety and Health Act excluded
them from legal protection.
The 337 plaintiffs were the bereaved families and construction
workers suffering from such diseases as lung cancer following
exposure to asbestos at building sites in Tokyo.
They had sought compensation from the State and 42 building-products
makers.
The judge acknowledged that the government had failed to take
preventive measures such as the wearing protective masks until
1981 despite knowing the health risks of asbestos as early as
1972.
Such measures could have lessened the consequences, he said.
The Japan government appealed Osaka District Court judge’s
decision ordering it to pay damages to 26 people for failing to
impose measures against asbestos exposure in 2010.
The judge ordered that 26 former factory workers, their families,
and residents living near the factory in southern Osaka Prefecture
be paid 435 million yen in damages on May 19, 2010.
Twenty-nine former factory workers, their family members, as well
as neighbours of the factory in Osaka’s Sennan district launched
the action.
Claims of neighbouring residents were denied.
The judgement was the first for asbestos compensation in Japan.
The
Southeast Asian Times
Religious Affairs officers rob newly weds
From News Reports:
Jakarta, January 2: Religious Affairs Ministry inspector general
M. Jasin disclosed last Wednesday that employees of the Indonesia
Religious Affairs Office steal an estimated rupiah 1.2 trillion,
about US$124 million, each year from the registration of marriages.
The former Corruption Eradication Commission deputy chairman revealed
that although the official administrative fee for the registration
was rupiah 30,000, newly-weds were regularly asked for rupiah
500,000, The Jakarta Post quotes him as saying.
“There are 2.5 million weddings a year. That’s not including
divorces. If we multiply the rupiah 2.5 million by rupiah 500,000,
we have rupiah 1.2 trillion,” he told reporters after signing
a document to mark the collaboration between the ministry and
the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre in Jakarta.
The practice was systematic, he said.
“Apart from contributing the official administrative fees
to the Religious Affairs Office, the registration administrators
usually contribute a portion of the money to their superiors.
The superiors then give some of it to people higher up.”
The
Southeast Asian Times
Swift farming reviewed
From News Reports:
Ho Chi Minh City, January 1: The People’s Committee of Ho
Chi Minh City’s Can Gio District reviewed a three-year pilot
scheme for raising swifts in domestic households last Friday.
Sài Gòn Gi?i Phóng, Liberated Saigon, newspaper
says 10 households are raising the birds in Tam Thon Hiep Commune.
It says two of six house owners who have invested over the three
years, regularly harvest the bird’s nests
Agriculture and Rural Development deputy chairman Nguyen Phuoc
Trung cautioned that although revenue from the enterprise had
been healthy the committee should not allow haphazard investment
in raising the birds but focus on better management for future
sustainable development.
In Malaysia, The Bernama newsagency reports that guidelines for
the farming of swifts in Sabah will apply from today although
it will take two years to implement the regulations.
The
Southeast Asian Times
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