The Southeast Asian Times
NEWS FOR NORTHERN AUSTRALIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
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established 2000
Friday, May 18, 2012
GATHERINGS:
An informed guide to happenings throughout the region.
 

Indonesia takes to peace keeping
From News Reports:
Yogyakarta, May 18: The Indonesia government has deployed 1,966 military and police personnel to United Nations-sponsored peacekeeping forces, the Antara news agency quotes Peacekeeping Mission Centre Commander Brigadier General Imam Edy Mulyono.
“The personnel are assigned to various countries, including Lebanon, South Sudan, and Haiti,” he told a seminar titled, “Indonesia as Rising Middle Power” in Yogyakarta last Wednesday.
The top contributors to the UN`s peacekeeping forces are Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Jordan, Ghana, and South Africa.
The Indonesian government established the Indonesia Peace and Security Centre to train peacekeeping personnel.
The Southeast Asian Times


Viet Nam wants non-aligned solidarity

From New Reports:
Ha Noi, May 17: Viet Nam Deputy Foreign Minister Le Luong Minh has wants member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement to enhance solidarity based on the Bandung principles, fundamental regulations of the United Nations Charter and international law.
Tuoi Tre, Youth, newspaper said the deputy foreign minister had made the appeal at the movement’s ministerial meeting in Egypt earlier this month.
The movement’s member countries should also address their disputes peacefully and respect each side’s independence, national sovereignty and peaceful co-existence, he said.
This is the foundation that would enhance the movement’s role and voice in dealing with disarmament, terrorism, climate change and epidemics as well as the implementation of United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
Armed violence was still occurring in many member countries, partially due to outside intervention and imposition, and developing countries were struggling with the impact of globalisation, unequal financial systems, international commerce, climate change and food security and energy, he said.
The deputy foreign minister affirmed Viet Nam’s support of the Palestinian people in their just struggles to build a sovereign state and understood the difficulties the Cuban government and people faced because of the United States embargo.
The Southeast Asian Times


Trans Female president stands for election

From News Reports:
Bangkok, May 16: Yonlada Kirkkong Suanyos, 30, who has undergone surgery to change from male to female, has registered to represent the Provincial Administration Organisation in the Nan provincial election about 500 kilometres north of Bangkok on Sunday, May 27.
The Nation newspaper says the PhD candidate, who underwent the surgery at 16, owns a jewellery enterprise, manages a satellite television station and is Trans Female Association of Thailand president.
“I am confident that my experience and ability will be useful to the development of Nan,” the newspaper quotes her as saying.
“I believe trans genders and homosexuals will support me.”
The Southeast Asian Times

Viet Nam, China plan marine hotline
From News Reports:
Ha Noi, May 15: Viet Nam marine police and the China Public Security Ministry and Border Administration are to establish a hotline in an effort to avoid off-shore disputes.
Thanh Nien, Youth, newspaper quotes marine police political commissar Colonel Nguyen Van Tuong as saying Viet Nam and China would also conduct joint patrols in the Gulf of Tonkin based on their 2000 border agreement.
A communications channel would also be negotiated with the Cambodia maritime police, he said.
A hotline between the Viet Nam and China foreign ministries to respond to maritime disputes was established in March.
The Southeast Asian Times

Prime Minister accepts lese majeste law
From News Reports:
Bangkok, May 14: Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will not change Section 112 of the Criminal Procedure Code - Thailand’s notorious lese majeste law - despite the fate of Ampon Tangnoppakul, 62, who died in jail while serving a 20-year term for having sent text messages that insulted the Thai Queen Sirikit.
“I want to reaffirm that my government's policy is to stay put,” The Bangkok Post quotes her as saying.
"I have already told groups who push for amendment that the government's urgent mission is to solve economic problems."
The Campaign Committee for the Amendment of Article 112 has issued a statement dated Thursday, May 10, saying it had collected more than 10,000 signatures - enough to initiate the amendment process.
The committee is now verifying the signatures and was expected to announce the exact number of them on Sunday, May 27, says the statement.
The statement describes Ampon Tangnoppakul as a "political prisoner" and a "victim" of Section 112 of the Criminal Code.
The offence imposes harsh punishment without any regard for human rights or humanitarian reasons, asserts the statement.
"That's why political prisoners under Section 112 are denied bail which is a basic right.
"Ampon was old and frail. He had been treated for mouth cancer. He was poor and had little education. He had no relatives outside the country."
A preliminary autopsy reportedly showed that Ampon Tangnoppakul died in a prison hospital of liver cancer.
He also suffered from cancer of the mouth.
The dead man had been accused of having sent the messages to Somkiat Krongwattanasuk, a private secretary to former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva via a mobile phone between May 9-22, 2010.
Thai criminal court judges found him guilty on four counts of having breached Section 112 of the Criminal Procedure Code and Section 14 of the 2007 Computer Crime Act that supposedly governs national security on November 24 last year.
The defendant, known as “Uncle SMS” among those who followed his messages or “Ah Kong” or grandfather to his acquaintances, denied the charges saying his mobile phone was being repaired at the time of the offences and he did not know how to send text messages.
But Presiding judge Chanathip Muanphawong said he and his fellow judges found the defendant's evidence without basis.
The defendant was refused bail when he decided to appeal his conviction and sentence and his lawyer Anont Nampa applied to the Criminal Court to have the appeal on Tuesday, April 3 because, he said, his client, who was old and suffering cancer, wanted to seek a royal pardon.
The request was granted.
The harsh lese-majeste law is purportedly designed to ensure that King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 84, and his family are never insulted
The Southeast Asian Times

Philippine travel suspended
From News Reports:
Beijing, May 13: Most of China’s domestic travel companies have suspended trips to the Philippines, reports the Xinhua newsagency.
The Philippine Tourism Department says Chinese tourists account for about 9 percent of total arrivals, after South Korea, United States and Japan.
The Southeast Asian Times

Book celebrates Malacca’s “Old Boys”

From News Reports:
Malacca, May 12: The history of Malacca’s Methodist school has been celebrated with the publication of a 300-page book MACS Centenary 1910-2010: Dear ACS, We're Proud of Thee.
The New Straits Times says it was written, edited and published by a former student Tedin Ng Abdullah and contains the cherished experiences and memories of former pupils in the form of essays, poems and photographs.
The newspaper says the idea to publish the book together came about when former students, fondly referred to as "Old Boys", expressed the wish to own a book about the school in remembrance of the golden years they had spent there.
“We had a meeting in June 2009 where we decided to turn that idea into a reality, a book where 'Old Boys' could share their memories,” he said.
It was a long process that started with the digitalisation of the school's yearly magazine from 1948 to 2009 and the collection of contributions from former students before the book was completed in March.
Donations from the "Old Boys" met the book's ringgit 55,000, about US$17,889, publishing cost.
The Southeast Asian Times

OIC wants emergency rule eased

From News Reports:
Bangkok, May 11: Visiting Organisation- of-Islamic-Cooperation representatives have asked the Thai government to lift emergency rule in the majority Malay-speaking Muslim provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani and Songhkla on the Malay Peninsula, southern Thailand.
The Bangkok Post reports that OIC secretary-general-adviser, Egyptian Sayed Kassem El-Masry made the request during a meeting with foreign minister Dr Surapong Tovichakchaikul.
The OIC conceded that emergency rule was required in some part of disputed southern Thailand that borders with Malaysia but its existing application was excessive.
The Thai cabinet approved a three-month extension of the decree for the 27th time at its meeting on Tuesday, March 13.
The representatives, who are making a seven-day visit to Thailand, will publish their findings in a report during an OIC conference in Djibouti, East Africa, in November.
Defence Minister General Yutthasak Sasiprapa has warned that violence was possible during the visit and troops, including militia, were on alert.
The Southeast Asian Times

Tran Hung Dao now on Spratly display
From News Reports:
Ho Chi Minh City, May 10: An 11-metre-high stone statue depicting Tran Hung Dao, who as the Tran Dynasty’s supreme commander repelled three Mongol invasions of Viet Nam in the 13th Century, has been installed in the Truong Sa, or Spratly, archipelago in the South China or East Sea.
Work on the statue began after a large stone was bought in north-central coastal Thanh Hoa Province for VND6.5 billion, about US$313 million, from State coffers and money donated by residents of Nam Dinh, the northern province that was the home of the legendary commander last June, says Thanh Nien, or Youth, newspaper.
A similar statue stands in Nam Dinh town.
Tran Hung Dao, whom the Vietnamese hail as one of the most accomplished military tacticians in history, fought the Mongol Yuan Dynasty when it was led by Kublai Khan.
The Southeast Asian Times


Mines delay border gate opening

From News Reports:
Phnom Penh, May 9: Landmines have slowed the opening of a new crossing between Cambodia and Thailand intended to reduce the volume of commercial transport through a checkpoint at Poipet, reports The Phnom Penh Post.
Thai and Cambodian officials are working to remove mines near the Stung Bath crossing in Banteay Meanchey province, it says.
It quotes Banteay Meanchey province governor Ung Oeun as saying demining required caution and an official opening of the gate would not likely happen until May next year.
The checkpoint would allow passage to commerce vehicles only.
Almost 3 million passengers used the Poipet border crossing about six kilometres south of Stung Bath last year, the governor said and the combination of tourists and traders had meant long delays.
A Thai soldier lost his right leg when he stepped on a landmine while patrolling the Thai-Cambodian border earlier this month.
Illegal loggers have been accused of planting the mines.
More than 64,000 people are reported to have been either killed or maimed by unexploded ordnance in Cambodia since 1979.
The Southeast Asian Times


Muslim team for southern Thailand

From News Reports:
Bangkok, May 8: Organisation-of-Islamic-Cooperation representatives were to have begun a seven-day visit to Thailand yesterday.
Their itinerary includes the majority Malay-speaking Muslim provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani and Songhkla on the Malay Peninsula, southern Thailand.
Their findings will be published in a report during an OIC conference in Djibouti, East Africa, in November.
The Bangkok Post quotes Thai foreign ministry spokesperson Thani Thongphakdi as saying the representatives, who include OIC secretary general adviser, Egyptian Sayed Kassem El-Masry, would meet with foreign minister Dr Surapong Tovichakchaikul as well as senior members of the National-Security-Council; the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre and army commanders.
The tour would give the international Muslim organisation a greater understanding of Thailand during which they would meet both academic and civil society representatives, said the spokesperson.
Earlier, Defence Minister General Yutthasak Sasiprapa warned that violence was possible during the visit and troops, including militia, were on alert.
The Southeast Asian Times


Perak seeks national single-mother policy

From News Reports:
Ipoh, May 7: Perak’s Barisan Nasional, or National Front, coalition government will ask the Malaysia government to create a national single mother policy.
The decision to make the request was made at a National-Single-Mother-Policy seminar in conjuction with International Women's Day 2012.
The Perak government and Perak Bar Committee organised the seminar.
The Perak government wanted the policy to be given the same recognition as other welfare policies, the Bernama news agency quotes Perak Industry, Investment, Entrepreneur Development, Tourism and Women's Affairs Committee chairperson Hamidah Osman as saying.
“This is one of the resolutions reached through this seminar,” she said.
“We will bring this matter to the prime minister so that it can be implemented immediately.”
National government policy was necessary so that efforts to defend the welfare of single mothers were standardised and more efficient for a more harmonious socio-community environment, she said.
So called “baby dumping” is rife in Malaysia and the national government decided in August 2010 that a mother whose abandoned baby dies should be executed.
“The Cabinet has decided to have the Home Ministry, through the police, investigate these cases as murder when a baby dies,” said then Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.
The action was necessary to punish those responsible for the deaths of the babies, she said.
Such acts are tantamount to baby killing.
Police would be asked to conduct DNA tests to identify the parents of dead infants.
Section 302 of Malaysia’s Penal Code proscribes death as the punishment for murder but “baby dumping” which leads to death was mostly investigated in accordance with Section 317 (abandonment), Section 318 (concealment of birth by secret disposal of body), Section 309 (infanticide) or Section 31 of the Child Act (abandonment), explained the ministry’s legal advisor Salahudin Shariff.
These offences carry sentences of 10 to 30 years in jail.
Police Inspector-General Musa Hassan said police had always considered the dumping of babies either as murder or attempted murder and advised administrators to make a thorough study before declaring for punitive measure.
Malaysia’s Women’s Aid Organisation and Human Rights Commission both argue that awareness and proper education are better than capital punishment to stop “baby dumping.”
Malaysia’s first so-called baby hatchery, Orphan CARE, took delivery of its first baby – a new-born boy in June 2010.
The one-day-old infant was born to a young, unmarried couple in their early 20s.
The Southeast Asian Times


Schools join anti-
corruption battle

From News Reports:
Manado, May 6: Indonesia’s anti-corruption curriculum has been implemented at all the schools in Manado, North Sulawesi, reports the Antara news agency.
The agency quotes Manado education office spokesman Dante Tombeg as saying: "We have applied the anti-corruption curriculum in the subjects of civics, social sciences and religion at all schools in Manado."
Democrat Party Regional Legislative Assembly member Jeane Rumimpunu described the anti-corruption curriculum as the most appropriate measure to form good characters in students.
“It is a way of helping the students become people with honesty and integrity, because the man of integrity walks securely while he who takes the crooked path will be found out,” she said." Rumimpunu added.
Newly appointed Education and Cultural Ministry inspector general and former Corruption Eradication Commission deputy chairman Haryono Umar announced in March that an anti-corruption curriculum would be introduced to all of Indonesia’s schools this year.
The Southeast Asian Times


Viet Nam, Laos women boost ties

From News Reports:
Ha Noi, May 5: Representatives of the Viet Nam and Lao Women’s Unions have signed a five-year A cooperative agreement.
The agreement, signed during a visit of Lao Women’s Union members to Viet Nam, led by their president Lao Sisay Leudetmounsone, is intended to ensure a strengthened exchange of information and promotion of the status of women in both countries.
The Southeast Asian Times


Workers
want May
Day holiday

From News Reports:
Palu, May 4: Hundreds of people have rallied in Palu, Central Sulawesi, in support of their demand that May Day be declared a national holiday.
“It is time labourers received attention and have a place in this country," said rally coordinator Sunardi Katili, during his speech at the Central Sulawesi Regional House of Representatives building. “The Central Sulawesi People`s Struggle Front also demands a five-day work week for workers, because there are still many companies that make their employees work more than eight hours a day and six days a week,” he said.
The participants also demand that employers allow their employees to form worker unions to express their opinion to the company.
“The union does not intend to fight the capitalists but to make progress together,” said the coordinator.
The Southeast Asian Times


Indonesia worker council
formed

From News Reports:
Jakarta, May 3: Worker representatives have established a new worker council.
“Worker struggles have thus far been fragmented, which is why we are creating this council,” Confederation of Prosperous Indonesian Labour Unions Mudhofir told a May Day rally at Bung Karno Stadium, Jakarta, on Tuesday.
“It’s the largest worker organization in Indonesia, maybe even the world,” he said.
The Indonesian Worker Council would be an “umbrella organisation” and represent eight million members from 11 of Indonesia's major unions.
It would be the voice of 170 million Indonesian workers, most of whom were informal and non-unionised.
Three-thousand buses were used to carry workers to Jakarta from all over the country, with traffic grinding to a halt around the five-kilometre march to the stadium.
Indonesian Institute of Sciences director Lukman Hakim warns that Indonesian workers have yet to exploit their political potential.
“Law Number2 of 2000 on worker-labour associations should have made workers strong, but internal conflicts among unions have so far weakened them,” he told a May-Day seminar titled,” Opportunities and Challenges of Labour Movements in Indonesia after Reform.”
Worker achievements after the reform were not as spectacular as the freedom they gained, he said.
"Besides the conflict of interests among union executives, the quality of personnel has also been a main factor behind it," he explained.
The pattern of their struggle so far had been too normal in that the workers only took to the streets.
The workers could become a power to be reckoned with if they focused on capacity, as well as dialogue with government institutions and employer associations, he forecast.
The Southeast Asian Times


Police ban square for May Day rally

From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, May 2: Police rejected an application by the National Union of Bank Employees) and a number of non-governmental organisations for permission to hold a rally at Dataran Merdeka, Independence Square, for May Day, reports the Bernama news agency.
Kuala Lumpur Magistrates Court Judge Zaki Asyraf Zubir issued an order that prohibited the square for public rallies until Tuesday, May 1.
The Thai newsagency says workers had submitted a petition for better wages and conditions as well as a higher standard of living to Prime Minister Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra before attending a rally at Sanam Luang.
In Ha Noi, Viet Nam’s major English-language newspaper reported that extra police patrols had been deployed for a four-day holiday to celebrate Reunification Day May Day and May Day.
The former Saigon – now Ho Chi Minh City – fell to liberation troops on April 30, 1975.
The Southeast Asian Times

Owners seek May-Day protection
From News Reports:
Medan, May 1: Proprietors in North Sumatra have asked the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to prepare for labour disputes today, May Day.
“I am already seeing workers in trade unions getting their banners ready for action. We are asking the government and the authorities to make sure that there won't be any disruptions to exports and imports on May Day," tribunnews.com quotes Khairul Mahalli, who reportedly represents the Indonesian Exporters Association; the Indonesian Importers Association and the Indonesian Container Depot Association, as saying.
The Jakarta Post says thousands of workers are expected to attend May Day rallies throughout Indonesia.
About 35,000 are expected to gather in central Jakarta, it says.
The Antara news agency quotes Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar as having asked the public ensured May Day was orderly and peacefully.
The Southeast Asian Times

Lower volume for prayers sought

From News Reports:
Jakarta, April 30: Deputy President Boediono has asked the Indonesian Council of Mosques to start begin the discussion of the possible regulation of the use of loudspeakers at mosques.
"We are all aware that azan is a holy call for Moslems to fulfill their obligation to pray," he said during the opening of the council’s 6th congress on Friday.
But he, and perhaps most others, reckoned that a soft azan sound was felt much stronger in the heart than those blared close to the ears.
The deputy president also suggested that mosques become an example of cleanliness.
“We have all heard or read about the Prophet`s well-known Hadith that cleanliness is part of faith. Every Moslem is required to maintain his or her cleanliness, as well as that of the environment,” he said.
Cleanliness starting from mosques would certainly spread to other places such as homes, schools, and workplaces, he assured the council.
The Southeast Asian Times


Australian school opens
in Balipapan

From News Reports:
Balikpapan, April 29: East Kalimantan Governor Awang Faroek Ishak has officially inaugurated the Australian International School in Balikpapan’s Batakan subdistrict.
Balikpapan Mayor Rizal Effendi, East Kalimantan legislative assembly Ence Widiany and former Indonesian ambassador to Australia Sabam Siagian, who also serves as an advisor to the school’s founding directors, attended the ceremony.
The Australian International School also has schools in Jakarta and Bali.
A non-profit foundation chaired by Penny Robertson with Bruce Ferres as its principal, created the school was created to accommodate expatriate family children.
Australia Ambassador to Jakarta, Greg Moriarty, who was present at the inauguration ceremony, said that the Australian school is expected to become a bilateral bridge to strengthen diplomacy between Australia and Indonesia.
The Southeast Asian Times

 

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Bersih co-chairperson refused permission to quiz minister
Malaysian Malay army veterans show their displeasure with Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, Bersih, Co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenavasan outside her residence in Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, earlier this wee
From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, May 18: High Court judge Rohana Yusuf has refused the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, Bersih, committee and its co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenavasan permission to question Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein's decision to declare their planned July 9, 2011, “Walk for Democracy” in Kuala Lumpur illegal.
The rally was to have reinforced a 2007 “walk” and had the support of Pakatan Rakyat, or People’s Alliance - the Parti Keadilan Rakyat, People’s Justice Party; the Democratic Action Party and the Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party – that opposes the ruling Barisan Nasional or National Front government.
The judge, who delivered the ruling in chambers, also rejected the co-chairperson’s application to question the Inspector General of Police and alleged 1,706 police reports against her and the committee.
Her lawyer, Azizan Mohammad Arshad later told reporters: “The judge held that Ambiga should have filed the application within 14 days after the court allowed her leave for a judicial review to quash the Home Minister's decision, instead of four months later.”
The hearing of the judicial review had been set for Tuesday, June 26, he said.
The deputy chief of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat, People’s Justice Party, for Rasah, Negeri Sembilan, Tangam, 50, was charged in a Kuala Lumpur court earlier this month with two counts of violating the order that prohibited supporters of Bersih, - the word means clean in Malay,- from the city’s Dataran Merdeka, or Independence Square, in a mass rally of Saturday, April 28.
The former soldier pleaded not guilty before Judge Mahmud Abdullah after the charges were read to him in Tami.
The defendant, who participated in the rally, is accused of violation of an order issued by magistrate Zaki Asyraf Zubir in accordance with Section 143 of Malaysia’s Penal Code in Kuala Lumpur two days before the rally.
He is also accused of knowingly taking part with in the rally although he had been barred from taking part in any gatherings at Dataran Merdeka between April 28 and Tuesday, May 1.
This charge – made in accordance with Section 188 of the penal code - carries a jail sentence of six years or a fine of up to ringgit 2,000, about US$ 657.678, or both on conviction.
The judge allowed the unemployed father of six bail of ringgit 2,000; public prosecutor Mohammad Hanapiah Zakaria had asked that bail be set at ringgit 5,000 and set Tuesday, June 5 for the next hearing.
Bersih Co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenavasan conceded that some of an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 of her coalition’s followers gathered at the police barricades during the rally either failed to hear or ignored her message to disperse.
The breach of the barricade, despite the efforts of Pas, Pan-Malaysian-Islamic- Party members and Bersih organisers to stop them, sparked violence that the police ended with teargas and water cannon.
Representatives of the coalition of 84 “civil” societies that was formed in on November 23, 2006 to win electoral reform and purportedly has no political affiliations had pledged the barricades would not be breached.
“We want the police to fully investigate all who engaged in violence. This was not what we wanted,” said the former Bar Council president.
The Southeast Asian Times


.MEDIA CHECK . Viet Nam and China news agencies have
aaagreedtto cooperat
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.....Open page here

Lapindo Brantas wins permission for new well near mudflow
From News Reports:
Surabaya, May 18: Lapindo Brantas, the oil-and-gas exploration company that is- part of a conglomerate owned by the family of former Welfare Minister and now Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie, has been given permission to begin drilling a new gas well in Tanggulangin, near the site of the continuing mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java.
The subsidiary had obtained the permission of residents for the drilling, although some, who feared it would trigger another mudflow, opposed the decision, The Jakarta Post quotes upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas spokesperson Gde Pradnyana as saying.
“The financial plan for the project has been approved by BPMigas, “he said.
“As to the location, it depends on the regional government. We don’t know yet about that. We have to do drilling to compensate for declining gas production from existing wells.”
The Tanggulangin well was estimated to contain 5 million standard cubic feet per day of gas and the subsidiary had agreed to pay compensation for any damage.
The Jakarta Post says the regional government has yet to give its permission for the drilling because Lapindo Brantas has reportedly paid only rupiah 2 trillion, about US$216 million, of the rupiah 3 trillion it is required to pay in compensation.
In April it was revealed that the Indonesian government would continue to use taxpayer money to pay for the consequences of the continuing mud flow at Sidoarjo, about 20 kilometres south of Surabaya, east Java, at least until at least 2014.
Most Indonesians believe that the eruption in 2006 was the fault of Lapindo Brantas. Santos of Australia and the Medco Group were shareholders in the project.
But the Government Work Plan, 2011, shows that the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has approved the use of State revenue to finance the Sidoarjo Mud Disaster Mitigation Agency’s distribution of mudflow compensation.
The government has earmarked an initial amount rupiah 734 billion, about US$80.01 million, to pay compensation for 61 hectares of land this year.
It is expected to pay another rupiah 1.1 trillion to buy 164 hectares in 2013 and rupiah 1.3 trillion for 201.5 hectares in 2014.
The agency has so far provided more than rupiah 3 trillion in compensation and infrastructure, says The Jakarta Post.
The People’s Representative Council increased the agency’s funds for 2012 from rupiah 1.33 trillion to rupiah 1.6 trillion after a dramatic plenary session approved the government’s revised 2012 State budget.
Parliament has also authorised the agency to pay compensation for land outside those declared as having been impacted by the mud flow.
The mud flow from a natural gas well is reported to have displaced more than 50,000 people.
The drilling company has been accused of failing to install mandatory safety casings in the lower section of the exploratory well.
Company representatives say a tectonic shift in central Java touched off the flow of hot, toxic mud.
The Southeast Asian Times

800 garment-industry workers end two-week strike
Cambodia garment-industry workers rally outside their factory in central Kandal province’s Ang Snuol district. The workers say a suriptious name change has robbed them of seniority entitlements
From News Reports:
Phnom Pen, May 18: More than 800 workers at the Su Tong Fang Kim Yan garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district, which exports to North America via California and Missouri, are expected to end a two-week strike today.
The Phnom Pen Post quotes factory employee and Free Trade Union representative Hai Soven as saying: “The company has agreed to give us US$3-a-month attendance money; $5 for accommodation and $2 for transport.”
The workers had asked for an extra $20 each month to pay for accommodation and transport.
In November, female workers at the factory were taken to hospital following mass faintings attributed, in part, to diesel fumes from their sewing machines.
More than 5,000 workers are reportedly still on strike at the Tai Nan garment factory in central Kandal province’s Ang Snuol district.
The workers rallied last week when it was realised that the unannounced change of the factory’s name from Tai Yen to Tai Nan in 2010 had robbed them of their seniority bonuses.
“We demand the company gives us the annual seniority bonus – for me, it means about US$1,400 because I have worked for Tai Yen for 14 years,” the newspaper quotes striker Sreng Srey Touch as saying.
The International Trade Union Confederation issued a statement for May Day saying Cambodia garment-industry workers and their trade union representatives had long been subjected to numerous serious violations of their rights.
These included excessive hours of work and poor working conditions that had led to several episodes of mass fainting.
The statement says collective bargaining agreements were being breached and employers were refusing to negotiate with independent unions.
Workers fired for anti-union motives were not reinstated, despite binding arbitration awards in their favour.
The statement accused the garment- industry proprietors and managers of having shifted to using short, fixed duration contracts in an effort to create employment instability and undermine the exercise of fundamental rights.
The International Trade Union Confederation 175 million workers in 153 countries and territories and has 308 national affiliates.
The May-Day statement quotes its Brussels-based general secretary Sharan Burrow as saying: “It’s simply unacceptable that employers are calling on the authorities to ‘crack down’ on legitimate strikes and worse that they are publicly demonising independent unions who have had the courage to stand up for their members and demand respect on the job.”
The Southeast Asian Times

Lynas licence postponed while minister makes his decision

From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, May 17: The issuing of a temporary operating licence to Australia’s Lynas Corporation for its US$230million rare-earth processing plant in Kuantan’s Gebeng industrial zone has been postponed until Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Dr Maximus Ongkili decides the fate of three appeals against it.
The minister had been expected to announce his decision last month.
But he had instructed the Atomic Energy Licensing Board to defer the issuing until the decision was made, the Bernama news agency quotes its executive secretary Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan as saying in a statement.
Last month, High Court judge Rohana Yusuf denied ten residents of Balok Makmur, a village near the corporation’s rare-earth processing plant permission to seek a judicial review of the Atomic Energy Licensing Board’s decision to grant the Australian miner a two-year conditional operating licence.
The ten residents, who are also members of the Anti-Rare Earth Refinery Action Group, lodged their application with the High Court Appellate and Special Powers Division Registry on Friday, February 17.
The Atomic Energy Licensing Board approved the contested licence on Monday, January 30.
The respondents in the High Court hearing were the Atomic Energy Licensing Board; the Environment Department’s director-general of environmental quality and Lynas Malaysia.
The residents also sought an order prohibiting the licensing broad from issuing any licence to Lynas until the company had submitted a Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment and work at the refinery to stop until the issue is decided.
In denying their application, the judge said the residents could have lodged their objections to the processing plant through the appeal that has been made to Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Dr Maximus Ongkili.
There were five other persons appealing the licensing board’s decision to the minister and that process must be given due deference, said the judge.
“Under the circumstances, in my view, the judicial review by the (10) applicants is premature. It may lead to confusion and embarrassment in the event that the findings of the minister differ from that of the court,” she said.
It would be “a sheer waste of public resources and public funds” for all branches of the government to deliberate on the same issue.
Co-counsel for the residents, Shanmuga, said his clients would appeal against the judge’s ruling.
The Lynas plant had originally been scheduled to start working in the third quarter of last year.
Lynas will process ores taken from its Mount Weld mine at the edge of the Great Victoria Desert, about 960 kilometres, north-northeast of Perth and shipped to Pahang, Malaysia through the port of Fremantle.
It has built the plant in Malaysia to exploit labour that is cheaper than in Australia.
The rare earth contains radio-active thorium and thousands of Malaysians have campaigned against allowing the processing plant in their country.
Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group owns 9.9 per cent of the Lynas Corporation mostly held through Morgan Stanley, of which Mitsubishi owns 22 per cent.
Mitsubishi holds about 0.3 per cent of Lynas in its own right.
The Japanese trader Sojitz has agreed to buy the rare earth that the corporation produces.
China produces 90 per cent of the world's supply of rare-earth.
The Southeast Asian Times


600 police deployed to protect petroleum company
Police protect a convoy of vehicles on its way James Price Point James Price Point, about 50 kilometres north of Broome, north-western Australia, where Woodside Petroleum plans to build a US$30-billion liquefied natural gas processing plant and port on pristine Aboriginal-owned land
From News Reports:
Broome, May 16: More than 600 police officers have been deployed to ensure that protesters do not halt a start to Woodside Petroleum’s planned US$30-billion liquefied natural gas processing plant and port on pristine Aboriginal-owned land at James Price Point, about 50 kilometres north of Broome, north-western Australia.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation quotes Western Australia Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan as saying he did not expect Perth-based Woodside Petroleum to pay for the police escort to the site.
Last year, protesters chained themselves to equipment to stop bulldozers and vehicles from accessing the land.
“We don't want a lot of interaction with the protesters; we don't want to be fighting with them,” said the police commissioner.
"We just want to do our business and enable Woodside to go about their business, that's why we're up there.
"This is a public road, the public are allowed to use it and I have a responsibility as police commissioner to make sure that people can move freely on public access," he said.
"It's not for private companies necessarily to pay that sort of money."
The Sydney Morning Herald quotes protest coordination Nic Wevers as saying: “I guess we're surprised that so many police.
“It was over the top.”
Hundreds of the project’s opponents gathered outside the Broome police station on Monday to deliver a petition against the increased number of police in town.
“Are they supposed to protect the community of Broome or a corporate entity?” asked one of the participants Mitch Torres
In December, Supreme Court Chief Justice Wayne Martin has declared a Western Australian government’s plan to compulsorily land at James Price Point for the project invalid.
The judge ruled that Western Australian Lands Minister Brendon Grylls’s notices to take control of the land for the proposed gas precinct did not provide a description of the land as the law required.
“'I will declare that each of the notices is invalid,” he said.
“However, that declaration will not prevent the minister from issuing further notices of intention to take land in the area, and for the purpose required, provided those notices comply with the requirements of the Land Administration Act.”'
Premier Colin Barnett said of the decision: “It doesn't mean a great deal. It won't hold up the development.”
The Australian government’s Resources Energy and Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson said of the ruling: “It's a technicality.
“'The Supreme Court has acknowledged that in bringing down its decision. The West Australian government is in the process of rectifying it.”
But a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Andrew Chalk said: “It's back to square one for the James Price Point option.”
The judge’s ruling raised the possibility that separate decision negotiated between the Kimberley Land Council, the federal and state governments and Woodside, for the development of the hub had also been invalidated.
And it was made before a claim that the proposed project will disturb Aboriginal song lines and contravenes laws protecting Aboriginal heritage sites is heard.
The land council, which represents traditional landowners, agreed abandon to its claim to the site in exchange for a $1.3billion package of jobs and compensation.
The gas to be refined at
But the agreement was possible only after the Western Australian government began to compulsorily acquire the land.
The proposed acquisition prompted the dissident indigenous owners to mount their successful Supreme Court challenge.
Joseph Roe, a member of the Goolarabooloo group, said that James Price Point was “a special place... for me and my people” because a song line – a track followed by ancestral spirits during the “Dreamtime” the era of creation era – passed through it.
The initiations of young men and other cultural ceremonies, known as “secret men's business,” took place there, he said.
The gas to be processed at James Price Point will be piped to the precinct from numerous off-shore fields.
The Southeast Asian Times

Lao official confirms suspension of Xayaburi dam project
From News Reports:
Vientiane, May 16: Lao Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sithong Chitgnothin has confirmed that work on the US$3.8 billion Xayaburi dam on the lower Mekong River.
“No construction is going on. It’s discontinued, postponed,” he told Radio Free Asia.
“The agreement of the four Mekong-River-Commission members still stands, and the Lao government will always abide by it.”
The confirmation follows a Lao delegate’s announcement at the Mekong River Commission’s Mekong 2 Rio International Conference at Karon, Phuket, earlier this month that any work on the dam had been suspended.
The meeting was held to discuss Trans boundary River Basin Management.
The Thai government is to finance the dam in the northern Lao province of Xayaburi and buy the electricity but their Association-of Southeast-Nations-neighbours warn it will disrupt fish supplies and rice production – especially in the Mekong Delta.
The Lao government notified the Mekong-River-Commission of its proposed Xayaburi project - the first of 11 proposed for the lower Mekong – last September.
The Mekong and its tributaries provide food, water and transport to about 60 million people in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam.
The commercial production of electricity is expected to begin in January 2019 and in December, Thailand's National Energy Policy Committee approved an electricity purchase agreement that will ensure supply to the country’s State-owned power utility.
About 95 percent of the project's 1,260MW capacity will be exported to Thailand.
China has built three dams across the upper reaches of the Mekong, but otherwise its 4,900-kilometre mainstream flows free.
Xayaburi Dam developer Ch Karnchang announced to the Thai Stock Exchange on Tuesday, April 17 that it had signed a US$711 million contract with the Xayaburi Power Company to build the dam and that work started on Thursday, March 15, 2012.
The Southeast Asian Times

Police unlock defiant Yellow Shirt coordinator from his vehicle
Senior People’s-Alliance-for-Democracy, Yellow Shirt, coordinator and former senator Karun Saingam, 59, refused to leave his vehicle when Crime-Suppression-Division officers tried to arrest him for his part in the seizure of Bangkok’s Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi airports in 2008
From News Reports:
Bangkok, May 15: Senior People’s-Alliance-for-Democracy, Yellow Shirt, coordinator Karun Saingam, 59, emerged from the locked cabin of his utility Sunday night where he had remained for more than 24 hours in a bid to avoid arrest and charges for his alleged part in the seizure of Bangkok’s Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi airports in 2008.
The Bangkok Post says the former senator and refused to leave his pickup truck even as about 200 police, who had to break through about 100 Yellow Shirt supporters, loaded it onto the back of a truck in Buri Ram, about 410 kilometres northeast of Bangkok, and took it to their headquarters in the capital.
Crime-Suppression-Division officers had intercepted the utility while Karun Saingam was on his way home to Buriram province’s Prakhon Chai districts.
A locksmith was eventually hired to unlock the cabin.
The seizure of Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi airports in 2008 was part of a campaign to topple the government of Somchai Wongsawat – a protégé of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawarta –that paralysed Thailand.

The Southeast Asian Times

Viet Nam’s richest citizen, MP, reported ready to resign
From News Reports:
Ho Chi Minh City, May 15: One of the Viet Nam’s richest citizens, Dang Thi Hoang Yen, 53, will reportedly resign from the National Assembly rather than wait for an expected vote for her expulsion later this month.
Thanh Nien, Youth, newspaper says the chairman of the industrial park and infrastructure developer, Tan Tao, as well as the credit-information provider Tan Duc Investment, did not attend the meeting the assembly’s Standing Committee meeting to discuss her possible dismissal.
The Standing Committee, which meets between the parliament’s plenary sessions, had asked the Viet Nam Fatherland Front to assess the accuracy of information Dang Thi Hoang Yen – the Vietnam-US Business Forum chairwoman - provided before her selection as a candidate for the May 2011 election.
It decided that the assembly should decide the parliamentary future of the member for southern Long An Province when it sits on Saturday, May 26.
Two thirds of the assembly’s 500 members would have to approve her expulsion.
News portal VietNam Net quotes Deputy Nguyen Thi Nuong as saying that her fellow parliamentarian wanted to resign because was “too tired” and suffering from “too much public pressure.”
The Fatherland Front Central Committee voted last month to have expelled from the National Assembly.
The decision of Viet Nam’s major “mass organisation” followed an unscheduled meeting of the Long An Fatherland Front Central Committee where most of the 76 participants are reported to have voted for the parliamentarian’s expulsion.
Article 56 of the law governing the National Assembly says deputies no longer worthy of the people's trust will be removed from office.
The Long An Father Land Front Central Committee approved Dang Thi Hoang Yen as a non-Communist candidate for the National Assembly.
She is accused of not telling the front that she had been a member of the Viet Nam Communist Party and that police were seeking her second husband, Vietnamese-American Jimmy Tran, 57, who the Public Security Ministry has accused of “abusing trust to appropriate assets” when he was general director of Vietnam Urban Development Joint Stock Company (Vietnam Land), located in the Tan Duc Industrial park, Long An.
The former public servant is founder-president of the privately-owned Tan Tao University that describes itself as having “an educational philosophy, standards, and practices based on the American liberal arts model of higher education” and a member of the National Assembly’s Culture, Education and Youth Committee.
Jimmy Tran returned to the United States in 2010 – two months before the Public Security Ministry announced its investigation of his activities.
The Southeast Asian Times

Malaysia anti-Corruption officers quiz Irene Fernandez
Tenaganita, or Women’s Force, director Irene Fernandez
From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, May 14: Malaysia’s law-enforcement officers regularly harassed the country’s “guest workers” whom they forced to pay bribes, Tenaganita, or Women’s Force, director Irene Fernandez, 65, told the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on Saturday.
The director, who was summoned to the commission’s headquarters where she was questioned for about 90 minutes about her assertion in The Jakarta Post newspaper that Malaysia was not safe for “guest workers,” later told reporters that she had provided her anti-corruption interviewer with six examples of the alleged corruption.
“Migrant workers are regularly confronted by enforcement agencies such as RELA, and they ask for documents,” she said.
“But when migrant workers ask enforcement agencies for their identity, the workers are slapped and beaten for asking that question. They are searched and money is taken from them.
“We are unable to identify them because officers refuse to reveal their identity. Therefore how can we bring about issues of corruption on an individual level?”
Police had also failed to rescue migrant workers, she said.
The director said that she had suggested the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission investigate her allegations.
The Malaysia government established the RELA or Ikatan Relawan Rakyat Malaysia or Volunteers of Malaysian People as a paramilitary civil volunteer corps that checks the travel documents and immigration permits of foreigners.
The Jakarta Post interview of Irene Fernandez was a response to the police slaying of three Indonesian “guest workers” at a housing estate in Linggi, near Port Dixon, Negeri Sembilan, on Saturday, March 24.
Senior Malaysia police said their officers were forced to open fire after the undocumented “criminals” – three neighbours in Pancor Kopong, Pringgasela district, East Lombok, who went to Malaysia in 2010, where they supposedly worked in the construction industry - tried to attack them with machetes when ordered to surrender.
The deaths sparked speculation in Indonesia that the organs of the dead men had been harvested and foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said his government would continue to ask the Malaysia government to ensure a thorough investigation to determine the cause of the deaths.
Irene Fernandez told The Jakarta Post: “Malaysia has no legal framework or a particular law to protect workers. Even worse, the Malaysian Government has upheld discrimination against housemaids and plantation workers, both of whom are excluded from the newly-issued regulation on minimum wages.
“Migrant workers have been objects of exploitation, physical abuse, violence and rape in line with the emergence of caregiving industries and the privatisation of healthcare, which are part of the neo-liberal capitalism which has damaged Malaysia's economic system and raised inequalities among migrant workers, mostly women.”
Malaysia Deputy human Resources Minister Maznah Mazlan described the director’s assertions as unethical, inaccurate and unpatriotic.
The Indonesia government has lifted the moratorium on the supply of housemaids to Malaysia, but its Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar warns that none will be sent unless their protection is assured.The Malay-language newspaper, Utusan Malaysia, was ordered to pay Irene Fernandez ringgit 91,000 in legal costs as part of the settlement of her defamation suit against it in April 2010.
In November 2008, High Court Judge Mohammad Apandi Ali found Irene Fernandez not guilty of maliciously publishing an expose of the abuse of migrant workers in a detention camp 13 years earlier.
The judge announced his decision after prosecutor Shamsul Sulaiman said he would not pursue an answering appeal filed by the prosecution.
The publisher established the Tenaganita, or Women’s Force, Non Government Organisation in 1991 to represent the rights of migrant workers.
She was arrested on March 18, 1996, and charged under Section 8A (1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 and found guilty of publishing the memo entitled “Abuse, torture and dehumanised treatment of migrant workers at detention camps” on August 25, 1995.
She was sentenced to one year's jail in 2003 and immediately appealed.
High Court judge Mohammad Apandi Ali overturned her conviction and acquitted her on November 24, 2008.
She had not been allowed to leave Malaysia or stand for election till then.
The Southeast Asian Times

Thai police to join joint Mekong murder team
From News Reports:
Bangkok, May 14: A Thai police team will join the investigation of the slaying of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River on October 5 last year from Thursday, reports the Thai News Agency.
Thai investigators detained nine Thai soldiers for the murder in December.
Provincial police commander Lieutenant General Suthep Detraksa said investigators had determined that “parts of the incident” occurred near the Myanmar-Lao border and about 25 kilometres from Thailand's northernmost border in Chiang Rai province’s Chiang Saen district.
It was not clear who killed the sailors, but the nine members of the army's Pha Muang Task Force were suspected of involvement in the murders because they boarded the two vessels and reported they found about 920,000 amphetamine pills and one dead body during their anti-drug mission on the Mekong River on October 5.
More bodies were later retrieved from the river. Most were blindfolded, tied and had been shot.
The nine soldiers denied the charges.
Trade on the Mekong dropped 90 per cent after the murders and the China government deployed more than 300 armed police to patrol the river in collaboration with the governments of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos.
The Xinhua News Agency reported last week the capture of murder suspect “Naw Kham” in Laos and quotes China Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu as saying the arrest marked the successful application of cooperation in law enforcement along the Mekong River.
“Naw Kham” had since been extradited to Beijing aboard a chartered aircraft, he said.
The Bangkok Post quotes Deputy National Police Chief General Pansiri Prapawat as saying China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand had successfully acted together to apprehend “Naw Kham” who is suspected of planning the murders on Wednesday, April 25.
The Southeast Asian Times


Police stop burning of Chinese flag at Manila rally
The banner saying “Hengyang -Panatag to Filipinos and Scarborough Shoals on most of the world’s maps – belongs to China was displayed outside the Philippine embassy in Beijing on Friday
From News Reports:
Manila, May 13: The more than 100 police deployed outside the embassy of the People’s Republic in the Makati financial district, Manila, have stopped the burning of a People’s Republic flag.
The scores of demonstrators – ranging from representatives of nationalist political organisations, including Akbayan, or the Citizens Action Party, to students and Filipino-Chinese business associations rallied in support of Philippine sovereignty in the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
Both governments have deployed vessels to the uninhabited islands to reinforce their claims.
The administration of President Benigno Aquino did not provide overt support for the rally, but its spokesperson, Abigail Valte, freedom of expression was guaranteed.
Retired banker economist and now regular columnist Victor N. Arches II wrote in the Manila Standard Today newspaper that China’s fishermen had long worked the disputed islands and historical documents showed the shoal was an integral part of China's territory since ancient times.
The confrontation was part of the Aquino administration’s efforts to revive its dwindling popularity, he later told the Xinhua newsagency.
Faced with dwindling popularity and diminished credibility, Aquino is resorting to this “underhanded tactic” to avoid a possible heavy blow to his Senate seats in the 2013 mid-term elections, the writer argued.
"The legal circles - especially congress - are supporting the president for their own vested interests. It's all political, and they are all playing dumb and blind," the author said.
“Asean, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, remains neutral. The United States has already declared that it would not take sides on the issue. So, game over. A big slap on Aquino's face.”
The author, who said he had no personal or commercial links with China, said: “I wrote my article to educate my people and the reading public on the untruths and the twisted facts being presented in local Philippine newspapers.
“I can support my position with facts; I am only telling the simple truth; I am concerned about waging a stupid war we cannot win,” he said.
In Beijing, the Liberation Army Daily newspaper editorialised: “The United States' shift in strategic focus to the east and its entry into the South China Sea issue has provided the Philippines with room for strategic manoeuvre, and to a certain extent increased the Philippines' chips to play against us, emboldening them to take a risky course.”
The Manila rally organisers planned similar gatherings in the United States, Canada, Australia, Italy and other Asian capitals but no one showed up to a scheduled protest in Sydney.
The Southeast Asian Times

Funeral-parlour owner prompts massacre trial walkout
From News Reports:
Manila, May 13: Funeral-parlour proprietor Eliseo Gollago was called to give evidence for the prosecution in the trial of those accused of the Maguindanao Massacre of November 23, 2009 and five defence lawyers walked out.
The witness told the trial judge Jocelyn Reyes that 13 of the 58 victims, including lawyer Cynthia Oquendo Ayon and her father, were embalmed at his premises.
He had also received the lawyer’s cellular phone which had been hidden in her underwear and supposedly contained text messages that she sent moments before she died.
The defence lawyers left the courtroom without hearing the evidence after saying their clients, prime suspects Andal Ampatuan Sr, Andal Ampatuan Jr and Zaldy Ampatuan, were not included in a February order for the funeral parlour proprietor to appear at the trial.
Assistant prosecutor Olivia Torrevillas said that although the clients of the defence counsels who walked out were not included the February pre-trial order, the funeral-parlour proprietor’s testimony showed that the Ampatuans and others had conspired to kill the massacre victims.
The recipient of the dead lawyer’s messages, lawyer Arnold Oclarit, testified last week that Oquendo-Ayon had sent several messages in the morning of November 23 expressing fear that she and her companions would be killed.
Former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr pleaded not guilty last March to electoral sabotage.
The family patriarch accused of rigging the 2007 senatorial elections in his province with election supervisor Lintang Bedol at the instigation of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, 64.
Both the former president, who is now congresswoman, and the election supervisor have already been charged.
The former Maguindanao governor is accused of having played a key role in the massacre of the 58 people, including 32 journalists, near Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao Province, south-western Mindanao.
Earlier this year, three Appeals Court judges confirmed the decision of a subordinate court to dismiss the charge of rebellion against him and 23 others.
In a 63-page decision written by Associate Justice Elihu Ybanez, the trio found that the prosecutor could not bring charges in “in the hope that some credible evidence might later turn up during trial.”
The prosecutors had argued that Ampatuans and their co-accused conspired with each other and “commanded their followers to rise publicly and take arms against the Republic for the purpose of removing allegiance to the government.”
The Southeast Asian Times


Russian investigators arrive to find cause of Superjet crash
Wreckage of the Russian Sukhoi Superjet passenger aircraft on the sheer face of Gunung Salak outside the city of Bogor, south of Jakarta on Wednesday
From News Reports:
Jakarta, May 12: Russian investigators have arrived in Jakarta to find out why a twin-engined Sukhoi Superjet hit Gunung Salak in the Bogor regency of West Java during an exhibition flight on Wednesday afternoon.
The investigators from the Industry and Trade Ministry; the Interstate Aviation Committee; the United Aircraft Corporation and the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Corporation would stay in Indonesia until they had a result, said Russia embassy press attaché Dmitry Soelodov.
Their spokesperson Vladimir Markin said the investigators would assess possible criminal negligence linked to the disaster and this would include an assessment of the technicians who prepared the aircraft for its exhibition flight and the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Corporation employees responsible for the Sukhoi project.
They would assess “the procedure for preparing the flight crew and also the technical condition of the craft itself before its departure from Russia.”
Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev ordered the investigation.
The latest manifest has eight Russian crew and 45 passengers aboard the ill-fated aircraft and the Itar-Tass news agency says the recovery teams which located it say all were killed.
The pilots of the display aircraft lost contact with traffic controllers while trying to descend from 10,000 to 6,000 feet near a small airport in Bogor after taking off from the Halim Perdana Kusuma airbases, East Jakarta, said Indonesia Transport Ministry spokesperson Bambang Ervan.
If and why air traffic controllers allowed the descent in heavy fog is likely to be among the questions investigators will seek to answer.
They will also ask why the aircraft’s emergency locator transmitter did not activate on impact.
The aircraft, which was about 50 minutes into its exhibition flight when it hit the mountain, had made similar flights in Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Myanmar and was expected to fly to Laos and Viet Nam.
The 95-100-seat regional aircraft has been in development since 2000. The Boeing Aircraft Corporation is listed as a major partner in the project as is Italy's Alenia Aermacchi.
It was reportedly equipped with other advanced warning features including Minimum Off Route Altitude; and Tactical Airborne Warning Systems with the new version of the Ground Proximity Warning System.
“I expect that there will be a full and careful investigation,” Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told a telecast news conference broadcast.
The Jakarta Post quotes, Erwin Sofyan, 30, as asking: “Why did they fly over Gunung Salak? It is not a popular route to test an airplane — many aircraft have crashed in the area.”
Erwin Sofyan’s cousin, Insan Kamil Jatnika, 43, an employee with PT Indo Asia, was aboard the aircraft.
Eighteen people died when an Indonesia Air Force NC-212 hit Gunung Salak in June 2008.
The Southeast Asian Times

Company president jailed for pollution
From News Reports:
Tangerang, May 12: Tangerang District Court judges have sent Power Still Mandiri president director Agus Santoso to two years in jail and fined him rupiah one billion, about US$108,254, for polluting the environment with factory waste.
Power Still Mandiri makes metal plates at the Millennium Industrial plant in Cikupa, the Tangerang regency.
“The defendant is proven guilty of being negligent in managing the factory’s waste that it polluted the environment in the area,” The Jakarta Post quotes the presiding judge, Suparta, as saying
But prosecutor Sukamto, who wanted the defendant jailed for five years, said he would appeal the leniency of the sentence.
“We will file an appeal with the Banten High Court, because the punishment did not reflect the sense of the people’s justice. It’s unbelievable that a polluter only gets two years in prison,” he said.
The defendant’s lawyer Gunawan Nanung announced his client would also appeal.
“The punishment is too severe. My client should walk free from the court,” he said.
The prosecutor charged the defendant with the violation of Articles 98, 99, 102 and 116 of the 2009 environmental management law.
The Articles carry a maximum punishment of up to ten years in prison.
The newspaper also reports that villager Fransiska Hadia, 35, of East Manggarai, Flores, has died after drinking water contaminated with insecticide in her rice field.
It quotes Kota Komba district administrator Adrianus Salomon Adjid as saying the victim and five friends were rushed to a community health centre when they fell ill after drinking the contaminated water
Tests later confirmed the water had made them ill.
Neighbouring Elar district administrator Yoseph Durahi explained that the six were forced to consume the contaminated water due to difficulties with access to clean water.
The Southeast Asian Times

Investigators seek cause of fire that killed 17
Some of the at least 17 women who died in an early-morning department-store fire in Butuan City, southern Mindanao, about 790 kilometres southeast of Manila, gathered in body bags after their remains were recovered reportedly near a fire escape on the third floor of the former theatre
From News Reports:
Manila, May 11: Fire-Protection officers have been sent to Butuan City, southern Mindanao, about 790 kilometres southeast of Manila, where at least 17 people – most of them young women – died in a two-hour fire that destroyed a three-story department store on Montilla Boulevard before dawn Wednesday.
“We will send a team from Manila to investigate and establish accountabilities,” The Star newspaper quotes Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo as saying.
The investigators would try to determine the cause of the fire and if fire regulations had been violated.
The proprietors of many Philippines stores allow their “out-of-town” employees to stay on the premises and the dead women were asleep when the fire started in the third-floor living quarters of the commercial building.
Their bodies were reportedly recovered near the fire escape.
The Philippine Inquirer quotes employee Mylene Tulo, who escaped with two co-workers, as saying she was roused from sleep as the fire spread rapidly.
“We wanted to rouse others from sleep, but the fire was already too strong,” she said.
Tenants in the converted theatre included Western Union.
The Southeast Asian Times


Elderly lese majeste prisoner died of liver cancer
From News Reports:
Bangkok, May 11: A preliminary autopsy reportedly shows that Ampon Tangnoppakul, 62, who was serving 20 years jail having sent text messages that insulted the Thai Queen Sirikit, died in a prison hospital of liver cancer.
He also suffered from cancer of the mouth.
The dead man had been accused of having sent the messages to Somkiat Krongwattanasuk, a private secretary to former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva via a mobile phone between May 9-22, 2010.
Presiding judge Chanathip Muanphawong delivered the verdict and sentence over a poor video link to the Bangkok remand prison isolated in the floods on November 24 last year.
.The prison houses 11 people either convicted of lese majeste or awaiting trial.
The judges found him guilty on four counts of having breached Section 112 of the Criminal Procedure Code - Thailand’s notorious lese majeste law - and Section 14 of the 2007 Computer Crime Act that supposedly governs national security.
The defendant, known as “Uncle SMS” among those who followed his messages or “Ah Kong” or grandfather to his acquaintances, denied the charges saying his mobile phone was being repaired at the time of the offences and he did not know how to send text messages.
But the judges found the defendant's evidence without basis.
He had failed to identify the shop where he said his telephone was supposedly sent for repair and investigators found that the mobile phone and SIM card belonged to him.
Telecommunications traffic data which mobile phone operators Dtac and True were required to keep was considered reliable evidence, said the presiding judge.
Lawyer Anont Nampa applied to the Criminal Court to withdraw Ampon Tangnoppakul’s appeal against his conviction and sentence on Tuesday, April 3 because, he said, his client, who was old and suffering cancer, wanted to seek a royal pardon.
The request was granted.
The harsh lese-majeste law is purportedly designed to ensure that King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 84, and his family are never insulted
The Southeast Asian Times

Extra spending sought in Viet Nam
From News Reports:
Ha Noi, May 11: The Planning and Investment Ministry has asked the National Assembly for permission to use an extra VND4.47 trillion raised through sovereign bonds for two bridges, a university dormitory and an oncology hospital, reports news website VnExpress.
The parliament has already approved the use of VND5.5 trillion raised from government bonds issued in 2012-2015 for irrigation projects, it says.
It quotes Planning and Investment Minister Bui Quang Vinh as saying the extra projects were urgent and should be funded.
The news portal says legislators are worried about allowing the extra spending at a time when the national government is trying to reduce public spending.
It quotes National Assembly deputy chairman Uong Chu Luu as saying capital shortage was a “chronic” difficulty for Viet Nam with its limited financial resources and the government should focus on projects that are at the top of its the priority list.
“Some hospitals that are funded by government bonds have not been completed after four or five years,” he said.
The deputy chairman suggested: “Instead of investing in 20 projects, for example, just pick 10 and complete them as soon as possible.”
The Viet Nam’s government originally intended to save VND13 trillion of VND180 trillion raised from the sale of sovereign bonds between 2012 and 2015.
The Southeast Asian Times

British High Court judges asked to approve Batang Kali slayings
Descendants of 24 unarmed Chinese workers slaughtered by 14 Scots Guards at the rubber estate Sungai Rimoh, Batang Kali, Malaysia, on December 12, 1948, Loh Ah Choi, 71, Chang Koon Ying, 74, and Lim Ah Yin,71, outside the High Court, London
From News Reports:
London, May 10: Two High Court judges have been asked to end the refusal of successive British governments to fully investigate the slaying of 24 unarmed Chinese workers by 14 Scots Guards at the rubber estate Sungai Rimoh, Batang Kali, Malaysia, on December 12, 1948.
The soldiers torched the dwellings of the workers after the slayings.
Michael Fordham, Queen’s Counsel, who represents relatives of victims, asked judges Sir John Thomas and Seamus Treacy to overturn the British government’s refusal last November to order a formal investigation of the massacre.
There was enough evidence before the court to justify an independent inquiry into the “war crime” killings, said the lawyer who described the slaying as “a blot on British colonisation and decolonisation.”
Britain’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and its Defence Secretary. Liam Fox, jointly resisted the application for the two-day judicial review at a High Court hearing last September.
The duo argued that previous British government decisions not to hold any form of inquiry were reached lawfully.
The lawyer for the descendants of the victims said former British defence secretary Denis Healey had instructed Scotland Yard to establish a team to investigate the massacre before an incoming Conservative government dropped it in 1970 due to an ostensible lack of evidence.
Six Scots Guards had admitted to the unlawful slaughter of the 24 workers before hiding the massacre, he said.
Their admittance was in their statements to the police in 1970.
One member of the Scots Guards platoon, Alan Tuppen, maintained that a sergeant had said beforehand: “The (villagers) were going to be shot and we could fall in or fall out.”
Key British Foreign Office correspondence about past investigations of the slaughter by the British was provided lawyers for the families of the victims together with Cabinet Office guidance as to when inquiries should be held in January.
But the Foreign Office has so far refused to release any additional documents from its still unreleased colonial-era archive.
The descendants of the dead, who have twice petitioned the Queen, want an official apology and compensation.
The two judges are expected to reserve their decision.
The last Malaysian adult witness to the massacre, Tham Yong, 78,died in April last year.
British colonial officials said at the time of the incident — at the beginning of a 12-year communist insurgency in the former Malaya — that the 24 men were shot because they were suspected guerrillas fleeing the scene.
The massacre occurred during a brutal guerrilla war that followed the British government's declaration of a state of emergency in its Malay-Peninsular colony in June 1948.
The Southeast Asian Times

Health workers charge former president with human-rights violations
From News Reports:
Manila, May 10: Eight health workers have charged former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, 64, with violation of their human rights in accordance with the principle of command responsibility - the doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes.
The Philippine military and police arrested 43 health workers – the Morong 43 - who included the eight in Morong, Rizal Province, on February 6, 2010.
They included r 26 women and two physicians and were arrested as supposed members of the New People’s Army – the military wing of the Philippines Communist Party -at a guest house owned by Consultant to the Philippine General Hospital and professor emeritus of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine Dr Melecia Velmonte.
They were charged with the possession of firearms and explosives and freed without having stood trial after President Benigno Aquino assumed office.
The eight have also charged several senior military and police officers with violations of the Anti-Torture Act of 2009, reports Bulatlat online news magazine.
“This will not be easy but it must be done,” the magazine quotes one of the eight Jane Beltran Balleta as saying.
“We know that our enemies are human rights violators who respect no one but it is important to file the case if only to show that the government is violating its own laws.”
The affidavit lodged with the eight’s accusation says they were subjected to torture, both physical and psychological.
The complainants also allege that the officers who arrested them took and had not returned personal belongings, office equipment and cash amounting to more than peso165, 000, about US$3,837.
The former president asked a Quezon Court Judge Luisa Q. Padilla to dismiss the peso 15-million, about US348, 109, claim for damages the health workers have lodged against her in January.
The damages are sought for alleged physical and psychological torture and other indignities
But Mrs Arroyo argues her name is not the affidavits lodged in support of the claim lodged on April 4 last year.
“The claim does not contain any allegation of bad faith, malice or gross negligence on the part of defendant,” says the eight-page petition for its dismissal.
The plaintiffs cannot just sue the now member for Pampanga in the House of Representatives based on her past position as president or her alleged failure to stop any supposed abuses, it argues.
The basis of the complaint - her alleged failure to stop human rights abuses - was “a duty owed to the people in general and not to anyone in particular.”
The complaint was a “suit against the State.”
They complainants says the damages they suffered were a consequence of their illegal detention and torture as part of the implementation of the military’s United States-funded anti-insurgency operation Oplan Bantay Laya, which the former president knew about.
The Southeast Asian Times

Inadequately trained Merpati pilots killed 27 off West Papua
Twenty-one passengers and six crew died when this China-built Merpati- Nusantara-Airline Xian MA60 twin turboporp aircraft crashed into shallow water and disintegrated about 500 metres southwest of Kaimana airport, West Papua, on May 8 last year. Investigators have found the aircraft built in 2008 was airworthy and that the inadequately-trained pilots should not have attempted a visual landing in heavy rain
From News Reports:
Jakarta, May 9: The pilots of a Merpati Nusantara Airline Xian MA60 twin turboporp aircraft that crashed off Kaimana, West Papua, on May 7 last year killing its 21 passengers and six crew had been inadequately trained, reports the National Transportation Safety Committee.
Communications during the flight had also been poor during the flight from the Domine Eduard Osok airport, Sorong, West Papua.
The pilots had been each trained for less than 250 hours to fly the aircraft and this led them to take inappropriate procedures for their approach to landing using visual flight rules, commission chairman Tatang Kurniadi told a news conference in Jakarta on Monday.
“Inadequacy in training programme can lead to actions that deviate from the standard procedure and regress to previous aircraft type,” he said.
An instructor from the aircraft manufacturer had used the syllabus from China to train the co-pilot while a Merpati instructor had used a modified syllabus to train the pilot.
The commission’s accident report found that rain had reduced visibility to two kilometres and the pilots should not have attempted a visual approach;
The flight crew had not performed a check list or attended a briefing; and
The pilots lacked awareness of their situation when they discontinued their approach after trying to find the runway.
A Transport Ministry audit found that MA-60 was airworthy and safe to fly but should not operate into the difficult airports at Ende, Waingapu and Ruteng.
Members of the People’s Representative Council Transport Committee asked the airline to cancel the purchase of any more Chinese-made Xian MA-60 aircraft after the crash.
But Transport Minister Freddy Numberi said the purchase would not be cancelled because Merpati Nusantara Airlines was contracted to buy 15 of the twin turboprop aircraft.
“We have a contract,” he said.
The agreement to buy the aircraft was signed in 2006.
The Southeast Asian Times

 

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


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Privatisation kills, warns health worker
From News Reports:
Manila, May 18: Privatisation of medical and hospital services is killing patients, warns Philippine Heart Centre employee’s union deputy president Mark Defensor.
The Philippine government was devolving its obligation to provide the country’s citizens with primary health care to private investors to generate income that would benefit only them, bulatlat.com quotes him as saying.
“If a patient has a kidney problem he or she will have to pay peso 18,000, about US$428, before he or she will be given dialysis,” he said.
But they could die before they were able to raise the money.
Bulutat says the Japan-sponsored privately-founded Asian Development Bank, which has just held its yearly meeting in Manila, is assessing the country’s Research Institute for Tropical Medicine for privatisation.
Privatisation is essential to the prevailing neo-liberal market-driven ideology that puts “user pay” and supposedly efficient government ahead of enabling government.
The Southeast Asian Times


Chip maker jailed

From News Reports:
Singapore, May 17: Delivery Neo Seow Hua, 34, has been was jailed for 32 months after he pleaded guilty to three counts of using the counterfeit chips to play baccarat Resorts World Sentosa casino on January 22 last year.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Terence Chua sought a punitive sentence after saying the offence had been difficult to detect and the proprietor had spent more than US$650, 000 to replace the chips it had to recall.
The Southeast Asian Times

Discrimination allegedly follows pay decision

From News Reports:
Bangkok, May 16: Thai Labour Solidarity Committee chairman Chalee Loysung has accused employers of trying to dismiss trade union representatives since a daily minimum wage of baht 300, about US$9.77, was introduced for about 5.4 million workers in Bangkok as well as Phuket, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon, Pathum Thani, Nakhon Pathom and Nonthaburi provinces on Sunday, April 1.
The rise will apply in Thailand’s 70 remaining provinces from January next year.
But The Bangkok Post quotes the Labour Solidarity Committee chairman as saying: " Union members have been deemed as hostile [by employers] and some of them have been laid off in many cases, or assigned to non-paying duties or no longer given overtime work, which earns them extra income."
Many workers in companies where salaries rise according to seniority and work experience, especially those in electronics plants, were laid off even before April 1, he said.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra reaffirmed that her government would introduce the minim wage- a major Pheu Thai or For Thai Party, election promise- at this year’s May Day rally at the Royal Plaza, Bangkok.
The government would also keep the prices for commodities as low as possible to ease the financial burden on low-income earners, she said.
The prime minister reported that the House of Representatives was ready to discuss ratification of International Labour Organisation Convention No 87 dealing with the right to Freedom of Association and the Right to Organise (1948) and No 98 dealing with the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining (1949).
The Southeast Asian Times


Singapore Airlines loses $38million

From News Reports:
Singapore, May 15: Singapore Airlines lost US$38 million in the three months from January to March.
The loss meant that the national carrier’s earnings for the full financial year were $336 million, a dip of almost 70 per cent against 2010-2011.
The loss was the airline’s first quarter in the red in more than two years.
An airline statement attributes most of the loss to the cost of disposing of its last Boeing 747-400 aircraft.
The Southeast Asian Times


Tax package planned for Viet Nam

From News Reports:
Ha Noi, May 14: The National Assembly will be asked to approve a tax relief package worth dong 29 trillion, about US$1.4 billion, later this month in an effort to thwart more bankruptcies, reports Thanh Nien, Youth, newspaper.
The package would include a 30 percent reduction in the corporate income tax for small to medium companies and labour-intensive enterprises, the newspaper quotes government office chairman Vu Duc Dam as saying.
Enterprises would also be allowed to delay for six months their value-added tax payments for April, May and June, he told a news briefing in Ha Noi last Friday.
Almost 18,000 enterprises throughout Viet Nam either closed or suspended operation in the first four months of the year.
Deputy Finance Minister Vu Thi Mai said that although the tax concessions were valued at VND29 trilllion, their cost to revenue would be only VND9 trillion because much of the total figure consisted of payment extensions.
Planning and Investment Ministry figures show that 17,735 businesses closed or suspended operations in the first four months of the year, 9.5 percent higher than for the same months of 2011
More than 5,000 of the enterprises were wholesalers or retailers.
The State Bank of Vietnam capped the interest exporters, agriculture and small to medium-sized enterprises pay for credit at 15 percent from last Tuesday.
Although the limit was temporary, it would help ease difficulties for commerce, said central bank governor Nguyen Dong Tien.
The Southeast Asian Times

Bananas left
to rot in
China ports

From News Reports:
Manila, May 13: China government officials have refused entry to about 1,500 containers Cavendish bananas from the Philippines and the fruit is now reportedly rotting in the ports of Dalian, Shanghai and Xingang.
The Philippine Inquirer says importation of the bananas was halted after the officials allegedly found signs of Aspidiotus destructor in fruit from Mindanao.
The disease is usually found only in coconuts.
The newspaper quotes Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association president Stephen Antig as saying the ban could be the result of the standoff between the Philippines and China at Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
In Manila, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said the tighter inspections were a “technical issue” and the regulatory agencies of the Philippines and China were dealing with it.
The Southeast Asian Times

Superjet 100 sales suspended
From News Reports:
Jakarta, May 12: All planned Indonesia purchases of the twin-engined Sukhoi Superjet 100 have been suspended until the causes of Wednesday afternoon’s fatal flight are known, reports Kompas.com.
“The investigation will find out whether the accident was the result of bad weather or human error," the news portal quotes Indra Djani of Trimarga Rekatama – the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Corporation’s Indonesia representative – as saying.
Indonesia has four potential buyers of the aircraft including Sky Aviation and Queen Air.
Kartika Airlines has reportedly ordered 30 of the aircraft.
The aircraft is designed to carry95 100 passengers with an operational range of 3,048 kilometres for the basic version and 4,578 kilometres for long-range version at an altitude up to 12,200 metres.
The Prosperous Justice Party chairman of the People’s Representative Council Commission 1, Mahfudz Shiddiq, forecasts that the fatal flight will not affect plans to procure six Sukhoi Su-30 MKK jetfighters, worth US$470 million, to complete the Air Force’s Sukhoi squadron.
“The discussion to purchase the aircrafts is still ongoing. But don’t think the recent Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash will affect ongoing deliberations because the plane that crashed was different to the planes marked for procurement by the Air Force,” he said.
The Southeast Asian Times


Extra spending sought in Viet Nam

From News Reports:
Ha Noi, May 11: The Planning and Investment Ministry has asked the National Assembly for permission to use an extra VND4.47 trillion raised through sovereign bonds for two bridges, a university dormitory and an oncology hospital, reports news website VnExpress.
The parliament has already approved the use of VND5.5 trillion raised from government bonds issued in 2012-2015 for irrigation projects, it says.
It quotes Planning and Investment Minister Bui Quang Vinh as saying the extra projects were urgent and should be funded.
The news portal says legislators are worried about allowing the extra spending at a time when the national government is trying to reduce public spending.
It quotes National Assembly deputy chairman Uong Chu Luu as saying capital shortage was a “chronic” difficulty for Viet Nam with its limited financial resources and the government should focus on projects that are at the top of its the priority list.
“Some hospitals that are funded by government bonds have not been completed after four or five years,” he said.
The deputy chairman suggested: “Instead of investing in 20 projects, for example, just pick 10 and complete them as soon as possible.”
The Viet Nam’s government originally intended to save VND13 trillion of VND180 trillion raised from the sale of sovereign bonds between 2012 and 2015.
The Southeast Asian Times


Road to refinery blockaded
From News Reports:
Port Moresby, May 10: Landowners are reported to have blocked the road to Papua New Guinea’s first oil refinery, at Napa Napa, to show their anger at what they say is the national government’s non-payment of promised compensation.
They also demanded a meeting with public officials, says The National newspaper.
The newspaper quotes Napa Napa Landowners Association deputy chairman Mabata Ata said then Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare’s promise of compensation had not been honoured.
The promise had been for kina 286 million reduced to kina 136 million and then k70 million.
InterOil operations manager at the Napa Napa refinery, Anthony Huai said the land in dispute was State-owned with his corporation the leaseholder.
IOL had become a scapegoat for the landowners.
The Southeast Asian Times

Share divestment delayed until August

From News Reports:
Jakarta, May 9: The Indonesia Investment Agency and the Nusa Tenggara Partnership - the owner of Newmont Nusa Tenggara - have agreed to extend the requirements for the purchase of the last seven percent of the United Sates-based miner’s shares to Monday, August 6, 2012.
The Indonesia Finance Ministry-managed sovereign wealth fund Pusat Investasi Pemerintah, PIP, director Soritaon Siregar together with Blake Rhodes and Toru Tokuhisa from the Nusa Tenggara Partnership signed the agreement last Saturday, says an Indonesia-Investment-Agency statement.
Divestment of the last shares had been due this week.
The Jakarta Post reports that the People’s Representative Council has recommended that because the US$246.8 million for the purchase agreement will be drawn from the State budget without parliamentary approval, the money should go to the West Nusa Tenggara administration.
The newspaper says many members of the majority Golkar Party oppose the Finance Ministry’s effort to thwart the interest of their party chairman Aburizal Bakrie and Bakrie & Brothers, the holding company he owns with his family, supports the provincial government.
In April, Regional Representative Council member Baiq Diyah Ratu Ganefi argued that Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo should give the West Nusa Tenggara provincial government the first chance to buy the last seven percent of shares the United States-based miner Newmont Nusa Tenggara has to divest.
The purchase would allow the government to maximise gold mining’s contribution to the province’s people, she said.
Newmont Nusa Tenggara was ordered to divest 51 percent of its ownership to Indonesians by March 2010.
The Southeast Asian Times

Traders seek compensation

From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, May 8: Traders have rallied in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman in support of their demand to have day Coalition-for-Clean-and-Fair-Elections, or Bersih, Co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenavasan pay them compensation for revenue purportedly lost during the violence that followed the organisation’s mass demonstration in central Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, April 28.
The Bernama News Agency quotes Jalan-Tuanku-Abdul-Rahman drink vendor Hazmizi Abu Hashim, 50, as saying: “It's tough to be in our business; it’s difficult to eat if we don't work. Even though the assembly is for one day people are afraid to come out the next day as well.”
The vendor complained that he had not been compensated for the damage done during the Bersih rally of July last year when, he said, participants had kicked and broken his drinks containers.
Small and Medium Entrepreneurs Association of Malaysia president Mohammad Ridzuan Abdullah estimated the damage done to traders during the rally at ringgit 200,000, about US$65,295.
More accurate figures would be available in about a week, he said.
The Southeast Asian Times

Imelda Marcos declares her wealth

From News Reports:
Manila, May 7: Imelda Marcos, 82, has declared her net worth at US$22 million -almost 50 per cent higher than in 2010, parliamentary records show.
The figures, published last Thursday, make the widow of former president Ferdinand Marcos the second richest member of the Philippine congress after boxer Manny Pacquiao.
Mrs Marcos succeeded her son Ferdinand Marcos Jr, 54, as the member of the House of Representatives for Ilcocos Norte, northwest Luzon, in the general election of May 2010.
Her son “Bong Bong,” who was elected Nacionalista Party Senator for Ilcocos Norte Province, says that an estimated US$658 million that his father amassed before it was frozen in Swiss bank deposits has disappeared.
The Oxford-University-economics-and-Wharton Business-School-the-University-of-Pennsylvania-graduate was making an introductory tour of the senate when he made the revelation.
Asked the whereabouts of the money which is supposedly held in escrow at the Philippine National Bank, the senator answered: “I don’t know why it is now gone.
”What I’ve heard is that the money was used during the 2007 elections. You should look for it. Ask them where the money is because every time I asked them, they cannot answer me.”
The Swiss government froze the money after Ferdinand Marcos was toppled in a popular revolt in 1986 and transferred to the escrow account in 1998.
Marcos died in exile in Hawaii in September 1989.
The Southeast Asian Times


Rally threatened investment, says minister

From News Reports:
Kuching, May 6: Sarawak’s Resource Planning and Environment Minister Amar Awang Tengah Ali has blamed the Coalition-for-Clean-and-Fair-Elections or Bersih, rally in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, April 28, for prompting potential investors to question Malaysia’s socio-political stability.
“No investors have pulled out but they are worried about what had happened in the rally,” The Star newspaper quotes him as saying.
“All this while, they see Malaysia as safe but after watching the reports on Bersih 3.0, they are worried,” he said.
“This is what we call budaya samseng (hooliganism),” the minister said of the rally.”It tarnishes the country’s peaceful and stable image.
“It went too far in that it jeopardised the safety of others. Even some members of the media got hurt.
“It is easy to hurl accusations, provocative statements and simply blog about things without a care as to what the consequences are,” he said.
The Southeast Asian Times


Miners to pay export taxes

From News Reports:
Jakarta, May 5: Fourteen unprocessed minerals will carry export taxes ranging from 20 to 50 percent as part of new schedules to be announced tomorrow, reports The Jakarta Post.
The 14 are copper, gold, silver, tin, lead, chromium, molybdenum, platinum, bauxite, iron ore, iron sand, nickel, manganese and antimony.
The newspaper quotes Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa as saying the taxes were not intended to increase the country’s revenues, but as a disincentive to persuade mining companies not to sell unprocessed ore.
“We want miners to process and refine the ore in the country and therefore stimulate the construction of more smelters here,” he said.
“We want to control the exploitation of our natural resources, we don’t want companies to exploit them excessively.”
The 2009 Minerals and Coal Mining Law will prohibit mining companies will from exporting raw materials from 2014.
The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry issued a regulation in February requiring all mining permit holders to stop exporting raw materials from next Monday.
The regulation was later changed to accommodate the protests of the mining companies.
The Southeast Asian Times


Fuel costs
halt fishing

From News Reports:
Ho Chi Minh City, May 4: Fishermen are leaving their boats idle following the second rise in the price of fuel in less than two months.
And some plan to sell their vessels following the dong-500-a-litre rise on Friday, April 20, says Tuoi Tre, Youth, newspaper.
The newspaper says that fishing industry costs have soared but productivity has slumped and hundreds of vessels have been left idle.
The Southeast Asian Times

New workers flood labour market

From News Reports:
Jakarta, May 3: The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that the country’s number of unemployed increases by 1.3 million every year.
“There are 2.91 million new workers every year but we create only 1.6 million new jobs,” the Antara news agency quotes chamber chairman Suryo Bambang Sulisto as saying.
Lack of qualifications was another factor in the number of unemployed.
“Only 5.7 percent of about 8.14 million unemployed Indonesians have a bachelor's degree," he said.
The chairman estimated that Indonesia’s economy would have to grow 8 percent each year to eliminate the unemployment.
The Southeast Asian Times


Minimum wage set for Malaysia’s private sector workers

From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, May 2: Malaysia’s first monthly minimum wage for the private sector has been set at ringgit 900, about US$ 297.521, for Peninsula Malaysia and ringgit 800 for the remainder of the country.
About 3.2 million workers are expected to benefit from wage that Prime Minister Najib Razak announced on the eve of May Day.
The new minimum wage will be subject to review and rises will depend on economic fundamentals such as national income, competitiveness and productivity.
“The introduction of the minimum wage is a historic moment for Malaysia. The lowest-paid will now be guaranteed an income that lifts them out of poverty and helps ensure that they can meet the rising cost of living,” said the prime minister in a statement.
The rates were set on the advice of the National Wage Consultation Council after it “carefully assessed the economic conditions and the proposed rates take into account the needs of business, while ensuring that no Malaysian is left behind in the country's economic progress.”
The Southeast Asian Times

Minimum wage for Malaysia
From News Reports:
Kuala Lumpur, May 1: Malaysian Trade Union Congress secretary general Abdul Halim Mansor says Prime Minister Najib Razak announcement, on the eve of May Day, that Malaysia was to have minimum wage for private sector workers was proof that a 12-year struggle had been worthwhile.
“With a better pay scale, workers’ purchasing power will improve which will also be a boost for our economy, “This move will benefit all parties - the government, employees and employers,” he said.
“We are expecting employees from urban and rural areas as well as foreign workers to benefit from the revised pay scale.”
The prime minister was to announce the rise yesterday afternoon.
The Southeast Asian Times


Sailors warned against Ah Long

From News Reports:
Lumut, April 30: Navy commander Abdul Aziz Jaafar has given personnel who have accepted loans from unlicensed money lenders, Ah Long, one month to declare themselves or face disciplinary action.
"It was recently discovered that eight members had borrowed money from Ah Long,” the Bernama news agency quotes the commander as saying.
“This is unacceptable. They should borrow from the government if they need funds, not from Ah Long," he said after the navy's 78th anniversary celebrations at Lumut, Perak.
Such borrowings could endanger their families and cause the personnel to lose focus at work when they are unable to repay the loans.
"We will work with financial institutions to assist and resolve their problems," he said.
A notice that warns the public not to be deceived by offers of loans from Ah Long for bail was posted in the Kuala Lumpur court house in January.
Kuala Lumpur court director Azizah Mahmud said it was posted to make the public aware of such activities and to prevent them from falling prey to unlicensed money lenders, like loan sharks.
“We have also instructed all courts nationwide to put up the notice at their respective premises,” she said.
The Southeast Asian Times

US pays for port security
From News Reports:
Jakarta, April 29: The United States government has provided the Indonesia Transport Ministry training and equipment worth US$1.02 million to secure the country’s ports so far this year.
The equipment includes 74 personal radiation detectors and four radioisotope identification devices Deputy chief of mission at Washington’s Embassy in Jakarta, Ted Osius, delivered to the ministry’s sea transport director general Leon Muhammad on Friday.
“This assistance will support Indonesian efforts to manage the significant issues of transnational crime, including smuggling activities, trafficking in people, counter narcotics and potential terrorist transit,” said the diplomat.
The Southeast Asian Times

Viet Nam seeks to sell loss-making ship

From News Reports:
Ha Noi, April 28: Executives of Vinashinlines want to sell the passenger vessel Hoa Sen, or The Lotus, that State-owned Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group, Vinashin, bought in Italy in 2007 – reportedly for about US$60-million – and now idle in China.
Tuoi Tre, Youth, newspaper reports the executives are seeking permission from the Transport Ministry to offer the loss-making ship for sale to avoid heavy berth and maintenance costs.
Vinashinlines became a subsidiary of the Vietnam National Shipping Lines, Vinalines, as part of a government-ordered restructure of Vinashin.
The ship’s crew, whose employment has expired, are owed months of pay.
The Hoa Sen had to be docked in December 2008 after just 40 voyages between northern Quang Ninh Province and Ho Chi Minh City after fractures were found in her hull below the waterline.
The ship sailed for China in February 2011.
Eight of nine former Vinashin executives, including former chairman and general director Pham Thanh Binh, 59, who was sent to jail for 20 years after he was found guilty of the abuse of power and the deliberate violation of economic-management regulations with subsequent losses to the State of more than $US43 million, have appealed against their prison sentences.
Two more accused, Former Vinashin Financial Company director Ho Ngoc Tung, 54, and former Vinashin Ocean Shipping Company business manager Giang Kim Dat, 34, have reportedly fled Viet Nam.
Vinashin defaulted on the first payment of a $600 million loan in December 2010 after it all but failed with debts of more than $4.4 billion.
The Southeast Asian Times