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Contrary to Catholic pronouncements Condoms prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS The Philippine Inquirer, Thursday 11 March 2010

She may have antagonised the Roman Catholic Church for distributing condoms during Valentine’s Day but Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral’s effort to make condoms available to Filipinos is supported by militant workers.
However, we urge the Department of Health (DOH) to distribute artificial contraceptives not as a PR gimmick but as a permanent program and on a “large-scale” to enable men and women, especially the poor, to have access to reproductive health services.
The DOH should provide Filipinos, especially the poor, with condoms and other artificial contraceptives on a regular basis through the barangay health centers.
The distribution should go hand in hand with educational discussions on the use of contraceptives in relation to the spread of HIV-AIDS, spacing of children, unwanted pregnancies, teenage pregnancies, among others.
The government, through the health department, should address the unmet need for effective contraception among women, especially poor women.
Reproductive health is a primary concern of individual women yet a woman’s choice has always been challenged by institutions based on moral standards.
Contrary to the Church’s pronouncements that this is a moral issue, the distribution of condom to address the spread of HIV-AIDS is rather a reproductive health concern that should be practically addressed through widespread education and provision of appropriate social services.
According to “The Incidence of Induced Abortion in the Philippines: Current Level and Recent Trends” by Fatima Juarez, Josefina Cabigon, Susheeia Singh and Rubina Hussain (Guttmacher Institute, New York, 2005), “one of every two married women did not want a child soon or wanted no more children, but were not using a contraceptive method.”
This only means that women and men actually want to reduce the number of children but do not have the means to do so.
In poorer communities, one condom would amount to a pack of noodles.
To countless half-starved families, food would definitely come first over safe sex.
We support the passage of the reproductive health bill which promotes active government role in providing reproductive health care and education among women and men, including the use of artificial contraceptives.

Judy Ann Miranda,
Secretary general,
Quezon City,
Philippines

Predominant culture in Indonesia Shaped by colonialism The Jakarta Post, Wednesday 10 March 2010

One thing that needs to be considered is the fact that many countries in the
southern hemisphere are byproducts of colonialism.
Colonial legacies pretty much play a major part in how once colonized countries such as Indonesia turn out.
I agree with Ronen’s ideas “The real root causes of poverty”, in The Jakarta Post, March 2 about how people living in tropical countries are pretty much endowed with natural resources and how those living in the northern hemisphere must struggle to get resources.
But, I think, weather plays only a small part in determining the trajectory of a
country.
There’s more to it.
One needs to learn some history, and how the predominant culture has been shaped in Indonesia.
Colonialism itself has engendered a system that perpetuates poverty itself.
Such a system is what we today call capitalism.
The plundering of the New World, the battles between the colonizers and the
colonized, etc, all of these examples are still translated into today’s society
in a sense that they still work under the political, economic and social clouts
of capitalism.
Companies hiring unskilled low-paid workers; politicians working for their own
party’s interests; etc, all of these are geared towards the mushrooming of new
capital, of new power.
Ronen said “solidarity [financially], long-term planning, fairness, good
management skills, efficiency, the promotion of sharp minds, creativity,
accuracy, reliability, honesty, the rule of law and accountability” were parts
of the formula for Indonesia to somehow eradicate poverty.
I do agree with this, but again, only those with educated minds and with
decision-making positions are equipped with the above faculties, and we can’t
eradicate poverty if we don’t tackle it from its roots, which I think lies in
the exploitation of humans and their relative happiness based on materialistic
measurements.
Our current capitalistic system has to be deconstructed and reconstructed if we
want to eradicate poverty, that is, by changing its paradigm that embraces a
concept called “humanitarian competition”.
If you are interested in such a concept, you can read an essay by the Japanese
philosopher Daisaku Ikeda. He says:
“As a concept, it [humanitarian competition] allows us first to directly
confront the reality of competition while ensuring that it is conducted firmly
on the basis of humane values, thus bringing forth a synergistic reaction
between the values of humanitarian concerns and competitive energies.
“It is this that qualifies it to be a key paradigm for the 21st century. In our
quest for new paradigms, it is crucial that we heed Gabriel Marcel’s warning
always to keep concrete realities firmly in view. The impatience and arrogance of people who think they know all the answers and are ready to offer a grand design toward which human history should advance, demonstrates that they have fallen victim to the negative aspects of the spirit of abstraction.”

James S.
Jakarta,
Indonesia

The Pearl of the Orient An environmentalist's nightmare The Star, Tuesday 9 March 2010

Someone, most probably a writer, said once you left home you could never really
go back.
I am reminded of this each time I make my monthly pilgrimage back to my
hometown Penang, dubbed the “Pearl of the Orient”.
Once a pearl that shone bright in the Andaman Sea, catching even the fancy of colonial-minded Francis Light, it is now a concrete jungle of the worst sort that haunts every environmentalist’s sleep.
To get an idea as to what sort of a nightmare this island of erstwhile natural
beauty has become, all you need to do is to rent a car and attempt – yes,
“attempt” is the word – to drive around.
You will not fail to notice them, those high-rise condominiums that have sprung up like nasty weeds all over George Town and beyond in the past 10 years.
Every billboard you drive by will be an invitation to own a “stately home in the
middle of paradise”; every empty patch of land you see is being prepped for yet
another “prestigious home project”.
Foreign investments, they say.
Land development brings in money by the truckload, obviously, and we must not stop Penang from reaching its full commercial potential, must we?
So let us flatten hills and uproot trees, which we have too many to speak of
anyway.
Let us clear a couple of dilapidated, worthless heritage buildings, which we have too many anyway, and make space for a grand, multi-storey shopping mall.
Since we are on the subject of shopping malls, let us consider the incredible
revenues shoplots will reel in.
Never mind that Queensbay Mall, which has been opened for close to two years, can hardly interest enough entrepreneurs to fill all its lots.
Never mind that the new Time Square building, opened since early 2009, is
standing empty in the middle of George Town, unable to attract businesses.
Never mind that Komtar, the glory of 80s Penang, has been left to rot for more
than a decade and nothing and no one in the human realm can resuscitate it.
Let me get concrete.
Take a district I know well, Farlim.
Twenty years ago this was no man’s land.
It was considered the heart of darkness, underdevelopped and undesired.
A good friend of mine moved there from the more populous Air Hitam, and we all
thought he had moved out of the country, so remote it was.
Today’s Farlim is the island’s beating heart, but it is dangerously clogged and
faces, on a daily basis, some of the island’s worst traffic congestions.
For a major residential area that it is now (population 200,000), it is only
accessible, rather puzzlingly, via two ancient two-lane roads – one coming from
Jalan Batu Lanchang (where there are three schools), and one from Jalan Air
Hitam, which is of course another perennially congested affair as it leads to
some of Penang’s famous landmarks.
There is another hillside road leading from Paya Terubong, but this one is out
of the way and inconvenient to most travellers.
To compound the irony, along the narrow Lorong Batu Lanchang, next to a
centuries-old Chinese graveyard, two development projects (both luxurious
condominiums) are under way.
Why is the Pearl the way it is?
Politicians blinded by self-interest.
This may not be as heinous a crime as their inability/unwillingness to admit to having
failed the very people who voted for them.

Edward Ong.
Kota Damansara,
Selangor,
Malaysia

Agriculture in East Nusa Tenggara Driven by subsistence farming The Jakarta Post, Monday 8 March 2010

I refer to an article "Indonesia calls on developed states to invest in agriculture," in the Jakarta Post, March 1.
These are very valid comments which have been repeatedly made by government
officials over the years: Stocking food for emergency situations such as floods
and drought.
However, little has been done to implement these plans.
What is more important is addressing food security, especially in areas prone to drought such as many parts of eastern Indonesia.
East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), for instance, is now, once again, under the influence
of El Nino, prolonging the dry season and adversely affecting the cropping
cycle.
Stocking basic commodities such as rice and corn will help; however, introducing
alternative or improved cropping methods/systems and upgrading/expanding
irrigation facilities would do more to sustain the major livelihood of NTT's
population.
This, of course, requires a proactive agricultural extension service, which, after the government-introduced autonomy, has become dormant.
The main reason is that regencies do not attach a high priority for such a service in their budgets.
To a large extent, the agricultural sector in NTT has been driven by small,
often subsistence, farming.
Although the methods used in these farming systems have been proved, through risk aversion, over many, many years, it is a system of survival. Nevertheless, improvements can be introduced to decrease risk, reduce poverty and address food security.

Henry Manoe,
Kupang,
East Nusa Tenggara,
Indonesia

Indonesia has no chance Of competing with ACFTA The Jakarta Post, Sunday 7 March 2010

As the ASEAN China Free Trade Agreement, or ACFTA, has been implemented from January 1, panicked voices have arisen especially from the industries which see no chance at all of competing with China’s products such as garments, textiles,
manufactured goods and steel.
They all voiced the demand to cancel the agreement, or at least to postpone its implementation for some time. Ironically, there has been no such demand from another member countries of ASEAN, even from the so-called “less developed” countries like Cambodia, Laos or Myanmar.
Since its inception in 1967, ASEAN has never been so “popular” as a center of
“media coverage”, debate, discussion and reaction from the public as the
present.
Trade unions have voiced their concerns of losing their jobs if the industries have to be closed down.
ASEAN now is no more just an association of frequent, expensive get-togethers in various forms, such as senior officials’ meetings, informal meetings, retreats and many others inventing new vocabulary for meeting titles.
ASEAN is now a more legally binding organization with three pillars to be achieved, namely economic, politic and sociocultural.
The question is: What is wrong with Indonesia that its industries are not ready
yet for free market trade.
The government officials’ statements are of the positive impacts of the implementation of the ACFTA.
Nevertheless the ACFTA had been negotiated since early 2000 and gradually implemented since 2005, January 1 is just the implementation of the whole agreement with zero tariffs.
What amazes us is how 10 years, from 2000-2010, was not long enough to prepare ourselves.
What have we been doing all this time?
There are many answers to this question.
First, there might have been no flow of information and communication between the government officials and the industries concerned.
But, if that was the case, why did the industries not anticipate that and respond properly.
It is general knowledge that many Indonesian companies still have a comfortable mentality dating from the good old days, when the government facilitated them not only financially but also with protection against competitors to give them monopolies.
However, now is not the time for pointing fingers at one another.
To just cancel the agreement as demanded by many people would not be wise at all, considering the Indonesian position in ASEAN as the biggest country and often claimed as the informal leader of ASEAN, it would be very awkward for
Indonesia.
With or without the ACFTA, the Indonesian market will be flooded by Chinese products.
Getting onboard the ACFTA boat as a forum for dialog would be better, as we could negotiate a win-win settlement. For the time being, the best thing is to look at the possibility of renegotiating on certain sensitive products.
Indonesia can still apply some non-tariff barriers such as quality standards, health or environmental requirements and even aspects of respect for human rights in the production process.
The industries should start innovating to achieve production efficiency so that
they can cut their overall costs.
The governmental institutions have to improve coordination not only among themselves, but also with all stakeholders related to the ACFTA. It is publicly known that coordination is one of the weakest points of our bureaucracy.
The so-called sectoral egoisms and the mindset that the government officials can do better or know better than others, on acts to make the situation worse.

Aloysius L.Madja,
Jakarta

Where there is a fraudulent land transfer There is an unscrupulous land officer The Star, Saturday 6 March 2010

Prior to the Federal Court reversal of the Adorna Properties vs Boonsam case, it
would be safe to assume that all fraudulent transfers of land were done with the
connivance of unscrupulous land officers.
Without their cooperation and assistance, it would have been impossible for any land transfer whether legal or illegitimate to be concluded.
Land officers had complete access to the land records and most likely would pick
the most vulnerable victims to effect their illegal land transfer to another party for monetary gain.
What perhaps defies logic is the ability of the unscrupulous land officers to escape any punishment for their nefarious role in the illegal land transfer.
One would imagine that the first person who would be culpable for the crime
would be the personnel working in the land office.
If scrutiny of the transferor’s identity was properly done, it would have been
impossible for any fraudulent transfer to be effected.
In fact, a simple statutory declaration made by the transferor would have established beyond a shadow of doubt the identity of the person.
And if the declaration was falsely made by the transferor, the person who
prepared the statutory declaration would be held liable for attesting to the
authenticity of the transferor.
So the million dollar question is: Why has no land officer been brought to face
the book in every fraudulent land transfer?
Are they immune to the law?

Richard Teo,
Kota Baru,
Malaysia

Philippine island inhabitants Driven off by private army The Philippine Inquirer, Friday 5 March 2010

This is regarding the letter titled “His children ‘bought’ the island, says Tawi-Tawi gov.” in the Philippine Inquirer, 6 December 2009.
Whoever bought it, the governor is still accountable for the sale of a protected area.
As to the island of Small Bakungan (Bakungan Ketcil in Malaysian) as part of territorial domain of Turtle Islands, the proposition is misleading and seriously endangers the Philippine-Malaysian bilateral agreement on the establishment of the Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area (TIHPA).
The governor also forgot to mention - or maybe he does not know - the
existence of Baguan Island, which is part of the Marine Turtle Wildlife Sanctuary.
He said that the purchase was made in 2007, eight years after the issuance of Presidential Proclamation No. 171 in 1999 and the surveyor, Cenon C. Moreno, was a private surveyor.
A private surveyor does survey work for whoever engages his services but does
not have the authority to title a land in favor of anybody.
Today, this authority rests solely with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
In a protected area, one can only be an “occupant” and can never own or have a title to any portion, much less the whole, of it.
Besides, the buyers and most of the “vendors” in the purchase can never qualify as Turtle Islands occupants, much less as owners of the protected area.
Gov. Sadikul Sahali and his children are skirting the real issues: the invasion of the islands by a private army and a group of security guards who drove away the inhabitants with a volley of fire from automatic weapons; and the takeover of the island by “recruits” to replace the evacuees.
Reportedly, Governor Sahali allowed the use of his speedboats for the invasion and supplied the invaders their other “needs,” in connivance with police elements in the locality.
Today, hundreds of families from the Great Bakungan Island are in different evacuation sites in Sabah, Malaysia; Bongao, Tawi-Tawi; Jolo, Sulu; Zamboanga City and Basilan.
They are suffering from hunger and the lack of basic necessities.
No one is helping them, not the ruling family in Tawi-Tawi who are rejoicing over what it has done to them.
Certainly, these issues cannot be resolved merely by news reports, commentaries and letters to the editor.
The best recourse is to bring this matter to the proper bodies or, possibly, to the courts of law so that evidence can be openly evaluated and those concerned
can be heard.
This, however, would be risky and costly for the affected families.
Should the need arises, we will call on all Filipinos for assistance in this fight between “David and Goliath.”
We are now calling the affected individuals to file complaints against the concerned provincial officials.
We will always be behind them.

Jawad Hasim,
Alliance Against Tyrant, Corrupt and Inefficient Local Officials,
Bongao,
Tawi-Tawi

Executioners in Thaksin's war on drugs Should not be above the law Bangkok Post, Thursday 4 March 2010

So the verdict on the asset case has now been determined.
So now I hope and pray that our PM Abhisit Vejjajiva keeps his word and commences with the investigation into Thaksin's ''war on drugs'' and the extra-judicial killings of thousands of our Thai brothers and sisters.
Thaksin has been known to have quoted many times: ''The rule of law must
prevail''.
Where was the rule of law applied to the innocent victims in his initiated ''war on drugs''?
Doesn't our law state very clearly that everyone is entitled to their day in court?
As the saying goes, the ''buck'' stops with him, as he initiated this ''illegal'' war on drugs.
He must be taken to task as must a lot of the ''executioners'' during this form
of ''genocide'' in which many innocents were executed for no reason and their
property confiscated and to this day not returned.
Isn't that your own quote PM Abhisit: No one is above the law?
For once, show us Thais and the world that you are a man of action, not just
spouting off.
There must be ''closure'' for many of the families of the innocents slain during
this ''war on drugs'' atrocity.

Pakorn,
Bangkok,
Thailand

Indonesia's palm oil plantations Classified as forests The Jakarta Post, Wesdnesday 3 March 2010

I can only be suspicious that the plan by the Forest Ministry to classify oil palm plantations as "forest" is for statistical and propaganda purposes.
Oil palm plantations are just another agricultural crop and no different to cocoanut, cocoa, mango, papaya, banana, etc.
A forest is usually native species and more an ecosystem, not an agricultural
crop.
Oil palm plantations are non-native species and are all but sterile when it comes to wildlife; they are not an ecosystem.
So when more huge tracts of our already-threatened native forest (an ecosystem)
are destroyed and converted, with resulting massive increases in carbon emissions, to oil palm plantations (an industrial agricultural crop) we will not have to record that as deforestation because statistically it will still be "forest".
The ministry can smile again.
And the world will not even notice that anything has happened and can be happy that Indonesia has at last stopped "deforestation".
Who are they trying to fool?
As the famous saying goes: "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics".

Nairdah,
Sydney,
Australia

Global warmists Should remain in safe, fast-forward gear Southeatst Asian Times, Tuesday 2 March 2010

I am not ‘with’ Cha-am Jamal when he states, in a letter to Southeast Asian Times 27th February 2010, that ‘global-warmists’ are running in reverse gear.
If the general public believes that, they have been dishonestly hoodwinked.
It has never been claimed that the “Himalayan mountains are melting”, as the letter asserts.
It is their glaciers that are melting.
Although it may not happen within 25 years, under present conditions the glaciers may disappear before the end of this century.
Despite melting there being slower than originally thought, it is faster than at any time for 3000 years.
Adjustment is from increased precipitation (due to global warming effects on weather patterns); at high, cold altitudes as snow: and adjustment is from new realisation; not from earlier fraud.
The issue is serious because those glaciers are reservoirs providing for irrigation in downstream, highly-populated, Asian countries.
There is no evidence to suggest that the Katrina phenomenon, which conforms to any general; global-warming theory, was not caused by global-warming.
I do not understand a claim; or even its positive citing; that “the Amazon forest is about to be devastated by carbon dioxide”.
Amazonian rainforest trees, along with those in West Africa and Indonesia, are felled for logging and to clear land for agricultural development, and the forest is, undeniably, being radically destroyed. Loss of growing rainforest increases atmospheric carbon dioxide through associated reduction of global photosynthesis.
Sea-levels are rising from polar ice-melt; threatening many Pacific islands.
A few islands are subsiding for geological reasons, and their position is worsened with rising sea-levels.
Only iconoclasts; the blind; or/and the corrupt would deny that the Arctic ice-cap is melting at an unprecedented rate. New oil-exploration there depends on that fact (see later).
There have been criticisms of data used in modelling global predictions.
However, there has been no criticism whatsoever of copious, hands-on facts that determine that global-warming - from whatever cause - is taking place.
Not only that, but there remains copious good evidence that anthropomorphic factors are exacerbating solar, global-warming effects.
If there was “fraud” in obtaining any pertinent data; and I am not convinced there was; adjustment to related errors has left the main arguments about global-warming unaffected.
The high proportion of remaining good evidence means that the ‘global-warmists’ are safely progressing in fast forward gear.
Recent criticisms were levied as a result of overt theft of intellectual property and skullduggery, along with subsequent, deliberate distortion by manipulative skeptics. Thus any important, actual fraud has been from skeptics to enable unscrupulous profiteers to try to publicly justify further archaic exploration for virgin oil-fields; supported by dangerously playful, adolescent iconoclasts. It seems that, to them, the loss of the Arctic ice is not so much a threat to mankind, as a means of making yet more fast bucks for themselves out of newly accessible, but outmoded, oil.

Raymond Groves

Open letter to Australian Prime Minister From Australian West Papua Asociation The Southeast Asian Times, Tuesday 2 March 2010 The Hon Kevin Rudd MP Prime Minister Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 1 March 2010 Dear Prime Minister, We are writing to urge you to raise the human rights situation in West Papua with the Indonesian President during his visit to Australia in March. AWPA believes the situation in West Papua is deteriorating. Since last July there have been 14 incidents of shootings around the Freeport copper and gold mine including one on the 11 July in which Australian mine technician Drew Grant was killed. Although the Indonesian military have tried to blame the Free Papua Movement (OPM) for the ambushes, the OPM has denied any involvement in the shootings. The leader of the OPM in the area, Kelly Kwalik was killed by the Indonesian security forces on the 16 December, nevertheless, since his death another attack occurred near the mine on the 24 January in which nine people were injured. Many analysts suspect the shootings around Freeport are part of a turf war between the police and military about whom should receive payments from Freeport for protecting the mine. An AFP report dated the 22 March 2009 stated that “The Arizona-based company said its local subsidiary paid "less than" 1.6 million dollars through wire transfers and cheques in 2008 to provide a "monthly allowance" to police and soldiers at and around the Grasberg mine. The disclosure, made in response to questions from AFP, means the company continues to pay soldiers in contravention of a series of legal measures aimed at stopping military units working as paid protection, rights activists said” Numerous reports have documented the military’s involvement in resource extraction in West Papua including their involvement in illegal logging and receiving protection fees paid by resource companies. A report by researchers at the University of Indonesia and the International NGO Forum for Indonesian Development said “Indonesia's military is deeply involved in illegal logging that threatens some of the world's largest remaining forest, university researchers said Friday. Officials in the military and police covertly finance, coordinate or enable logging rackets in vast jungle, the second largest in the world after the Amazon”. We could go on ad infinitum about reports of the security forces’ involvement in resource extraction and human rights abuses in West Papua. However, the specific questions we are asking is why are we involved in training and exercising with the Indonesian military? What benefits have the West Papuan people gained by our cooperation with the Indonesian security forces? We understand that it is in the interests of the Australian Government to have good relations and friendship with Jakarta and to have a stable region to our north, but good relations with Jakarta should not be at the expense of the West Papuan people who are struggling for their right to “self-determination”. In fact, it is the policies of the Indonesian Government, compounded by the actions of the Indonesian security forces which will lead to the very instability the Australian Government is trying to avoid. Although Indonesia has made great progress towards democracy in recent years, unfortunately this has not translated to an improvement in the human rights situation in West Papua. There are ongoing human rights abuses and a large number of political prisoners jailed simply because they raised the West Papuan national flag. We would like to thank your government for the aid already given in support of HIV/AIDS programs in West Papua but we believe more could be done and West Papua should be an area of priority in our foreign aid contributions. West Papua is rich in natural resources but the West Papuan people have one of the poorest health standards in the archipelago. Although the Indonesian government has established health centers in the majority of sub-districts in West Papua, these centers lack properly trained staff ,medicines , diagnoses of illness and accountability of causes of death particularly in the more remote areas of the territory. We believe that Australia can contribute greatly to peace and stability in West Papua by supporting the West Papuan people in capacity building in the fields of health, education and in attaining economic security. AWPA urges you to raise the deteriorating situation in West Papua with the Indonesian President during your discussions with him on his visit to Australia. We ask you to urge the Indonesian President to, release all West Papuan political prisoners arrested for simply taking part in peaceful rallies which is their democratic right as a sign of good faith to the West Papuan people control the security forces in West Papua, urging that the security forces halt their intimidation of human rights defenders and peaceful demonstrators as a way of avoiding further escalation of the situation and avoiding possible bloodshed. As the West Papuan people are calling for dialogue with the Indonesian Government to try and solve the many issues of concern in West Papua. AWPA urges you to encourage the Indonesian President to dialogue with genuine representatives of the West Papuan people And finally the Australia West Papua Association urges you to cease all ties between the Australian military and the Indonesian special forces unit Kopassus, until such time that Indonesian military personnel involved in past human rights abuses are brought to justice and the culture of the Indonesian military becomes of an acceptable standard to both the Australian military and the Australian people. We also encourage the government to send a cross -parliamentary delegation to visit West Papua to investigate the human rights situation in the territory. Yours sincerely, Joe Collins AWPA (Sydney) Australia West Papua Association PO Box 28, Spit Junction, Sydney, Australia 2088

Tell the Philippine poor To vote for change The Philippine Inquirer, Monday 1 March 2010

Philippine presidential candidate, Manny Villar's apiration to 'Lift the poor from the the dungeons of misery and from a less than human life.' is not just an empty promise.
It is a manipulative mechanism targeting the very reason why 24 million Filipinos remain poor: the poor do not understand why they are poor.
They don’t see that “poverty is not the lack of income but the deprivation of basic freedoms” in creating a life that they have a “reason to value.”
Villar, should he become the next president, will not solve the problem of poverty. He runs on a platform based on that malicious promise which is akin to man landing on Mars and coming back to earth inside a plastic balloon.
But the poor don’t understand this.
They see Dolphy and Willie Revillame, and they see that life is a matter of luck. Luck brings fortune to one or two, but to lift millions from their unhappy lives, a country needs its basic structure to work for the benefit of the least advantaged.
Politics is persuasion.
The biggest question that young men like us should ask ourselves right now is how to explain to the poor, in the most logical way, that nobody puts money into politics unless he is assured of profit.
This is no longer a question between good and evil.
The good will win in the end, but the end is too far in sight.
The time is now.
The time is ripe.
Young men and women should now go and tell the poor to vote for change.
Villar is all but change.
While it is plausible to say that candidates can be beholden to those who are financing them, there is however greater evil in having someone venture into the greatest fight of his life, winning the presidency by using his own money.
Is the presidency the greatest job available?
The answer is a big no.
But when one asks, is the presidency the most lucrative job there is?
In real politics, where taking advantage and exploiting the weakness of the electorate matter more than anything else in order to win, the answer is a
resounding yes.
The logic is simple.
Does one spend several billions of pesos to reap honor?
No, you sacrifice your life for it.
Men of honor do not dream of being kings.
It is destiny.
Why does one use his massive resources in order to be in the highest position of the land?
The answer is simple.
It is about power.
If money is used to acquire power, then money fuels the unending desire for more. Politics is a game among men but it is not their future that is at stake.
Odysseus said, “War is young men dying and old men talking.” But change is possible.
It happens when people will begin to believe in themselves and not on a false claim that he is “one of us,” because in fact he is not.

Christopher Ryan Maboloc,
Ethical Development Strategies,
Philippines Inc.,

Indonesia's polygamists Accused of twisting the Prophet Muhammad's words The Jakarta Post, Sunday 28 February 2010

The current marriage bill being deliberated as to whether foreign men should pay
Rp 500 million (US$50,000) deposit is nothing but discrimination.
If passed, Indonesia should account for its actions to the Human Rights Court because all men are equal before Allah.
I am married to a foreigner and am not concerned as I have more than required in
bonds and joint bank accounts, but wonder if an Indonesian husband would treat
me so well.
When first married, my husband did not have much as he had been cheated out of
his money in Indonesia, and it was only through the grateful help of the police
that he regained his funds
Let us think of how many young couples have this money to start with; surely it
is the basis of a strong marriage to work together and build your wealth slowly
and surely
I think, as an Indonesian, we should concentrate on getting our own house in
order; we expect other countries to be nice to us when we travel but do not want
to return the courtesy.
We should concentrate more on Indonesian men having more than one wife, which is degrading to women.
These men brag of the fact yet know for a fact they cannot support them; this
they are twisting the Prophet Muhammad's words for their own benefit, and yet a
foreigner acting in good faith is persecuted.
Surely the member who raised this bill should present his own accounts to the
nation to show there is no hidden agenda in his action or if it is another
method of increasing his own wealth.
In closing, I state again the government lawyers should check international laws
and advise if this bill takes Indonesia into conflict with discrimination laws
for which it would be accountable.

Asri Latifah,
Jakarta

Who should be exterminated In world population reduction? The Southeast Asian Times, Saturday 27 February 2010

Within an interesting letter here, dated 20th February, is the observation that Prince Philip urges a steep reduction in the human population - from the present 6.8 billion to less that 2 billion.
Of course this has led to an idea of using some kind of mass genocide.
Perhaps there is a hidden assumption that developed nations; in the future and in a fit of craziness; might exterminate most people living in the third world.
However, this appears to me to be an irrational extension to the idea of genocide. It would surely be more sensible to exterminate the richest two thirds of the world population, for it is surely they who assert the largest carbon footprints; and, applying that principle, perhaps Prince Philip would be among the ‘first to go’.

Raymond Groves

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change In retreat on carbon dioxide emissions The Southeast Asian Times, Saturday 27 February 2010

The once fearful hype about catastrophe from carbon dioxide emissions now appears to be running in reverse gear.
The failure of the global warming advocacy groups to make their case at the Copenhagen summit came on the heels of leaked emails from climate scientists that
exposed a conspiracy to defraud.
Even as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was in damage control mode, there were further even more damaging revelations of scientific fraud and incompetence.
It is now known that their claim that hurricane Katrina was caused by carbon dioxide emissions, that the Amazon forest is about to be devastated by carbon dioxide, that the Himalayan mountains are melting and will be gone in 25 years, that
the sea level is rising and inundating atolls in the Pacific, and that the Arctic will be ice free in 15 years are all lies.
The damage control department at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is now busy retracting one scary claim after another.
Their credibility and its fear factor are both gone.
The global warming house of cards is falling apart.

Cha-am Jamal,
Thailand

Philippine Business Told what not to do The Philippine Inquirer, Friday 26 February 2010

In this year's election, business leaders and influential families should choose a presidential candidate with a clear vision and a proven track record to catapult our country, economically, to even greater heights.
As movers and shakers of our country, they should set aside the practice of asking favors (e.g., government contracts)
from the election winner whose candidacy they have supported.
They should not again be deceived by these politician’s false promises and professions of concern for the poor and downtrodden.
As a group, they could influence the political, economic and social changes in our society today.

Pedro Refuerzo Jr.,
Makati City,
Philippines

Former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra Wants justice Bangkok Post, Thursday 25 February 2010

From his words via video link to his friends, the ''justice'' demanded by
Thaksin Shinawatra is nothing short of the release of all his frozen assets.
His reference to the International Court of Justice in case of dissatisfaction
on his part is misconceived.
The International Court of Justice (sometimes referred to as the World Court) is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations to settle legal disputes submitted by states and not by any individuals.
If he meant the International Criminal Court, then he is wrong again.
This court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
This court can judge cases against him, not for him.
Please advise him to google to confirm the above clarifications before uttering
such incomprehensible ''last straw'' graspings.

Songdej Praditsmanont,
Bangkok,
Thailand

Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Sikhs and Bahas Want to go to Mecca too The Star, Wednesday 24 February 2010

The pilgrimage, as a journey to a shrine or other sacred place undertaken to gain divine aid, is an act of thanksgiving or penance or to demonstrate one’s devotion.
The tradition of pilgrimage is important for followers of practically all the major religions and faiths in the world.
Like our Muslim brothers and sisters, followers of Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Sikhism, the Baha’i faith etc also have their religious obligation to pay homage to their scared site at least once in their life time.
The pilgrimage to Mecca by Muslims in Malaysia has been superbly organised and
facilitated by Tabung Haji, and year in and year out, thousands of Malaysian
Muslims make their spiritual journey there.
Among them are many serving civil servants.
They are granted paid leave for the whole duration of their stay in Mecca to fulfil their religious obligation.
This is indeed a highly commendable and noble gesture by the Government.
Having said that, I wish to draw the attention of the Government to the plight
of non-Muslim government servants who wish to make the spiritual journey to
their respective sacred sites overseas but are unable to do so due to the lack
of annual leave.
I appeal to the authorities to consider extending the paid leave privileges to
all non-Muslim civil servants who intend to perform their pilgrimages overseas.
The authorities can consult the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism,
Christianity, Hinduism and Taoism to get a better idea of non-Muslim
pilgrimages.

S. Param,
Ipoh,
Malaysia

Corruption Is endemic in Bali Jakarta Post, Tuesday 23 Feb 2010

I would like to comment on a news report “Bali touted as anticorruption icon”
in the Jakarta Post, January 12 on the Bali page.
Bali is one of the most corrupt places in Indonesia!
With so much foreign money, and just so much money flowing here, corruptors are having a picnic, it’s a cakewalk, and they are picnicking and cakewalking all over the place.
It’s so endemic in Bali at every level, even down to the banjars (neighborhood units), schools, and families.
This is not a corruption bright spot.
It is a corruption black hole.
But I certainly salute the “ambition” to work toward eradicating corruption.
Being perfectly objective, I would say that within 20 years, corruption could be
reduced by perhaps 50 percent, but it’s not easy to know how to quantify or
count corruption.
I feel quite certain that anybody tasked with evaluating corruption in Bali and
quantifying it and then determining whether Bali has “succeeded” in reducing
corruption, would himself be eaten up with corruption.
So really, what’s the point of putting forth the notion of Bali as a possible “anticorruption icon”.
It’s patently ridiculous.
In Bali, corruption is rife to the point of being ubiquitous - in the schools,
the universities, healthcare, public welfare, sanitation, community governance,
village governance, municipal governance, regental governance, provincial
governance, public works contracting, private works contracting, prisons, the
electrical service, the telephone service, the public water supply, agricultural
associations, regulatory bodies, markets, banks, community savings and loan
associations, transportation, law enforcement, courts of law, the media, NGOs,
and within every business that operates in Bali with more than one person
operating it.
Bali is so corrupt that it’s considered normal here for people to skim money off
their own family members.
Not “bad” just “normal”.
It’s expected.
I’m not bitter; I’m just practical,
objective and realistic about avoiding setting goals that are absurd.
Like with substance addiction, the addict cannot begin to recover until they
have admitted their addiction and their helplessness in overcoming it.
I say, for Bali, it would be best to start there.
Within a few years, it may be possible, with great effort, to acknowledge the problem and recognize the extent and strength of its grip.
Then and only then can Bali even begin to incrementally address the horrible
plague of corruption that has so sickened this society and begin to reduce its
grip.
Let’s just get real.

Susi Johnson
Seminyak,
Bali

No plan for British To establish Afghan colony The Star, Monday 22 February 2010

Antasari trial Ends in mystery The Jakarta Post, Sunday 21 February 2010

Our justice system again created a mystery when the judges at the South Jakarta
District Court sentenced former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Antasari Azhar to 18 years in prison.
The verdict was handed down to Antasari for his role in the premeditated assassination of Nasruddin Zulkarnaen, a director of state company PT Putra Rajawali Banjaran, in 2009.
From the beginning, when the case that enmeshed Antasari showed up in public,
during the trial, and until today when the chief judge banged his gavel, the
public have kept asking whether Antasari is guilty or not.
A similar case was the assassination of human right activist Munir Said Thalib, when the court acquitted former deputy head of state intelligence (BIN) Muchdi Purwopranjono: the case remains a mystery until today.
This proves that our justice system never ends with total finality but mystery that makes us always question our claim as a legal state (rechstaat).
Prosecutors alleged Antasari ordered the murder after Nasruddin attempted to
blackmail him when he was caught red-handed with Nasruddin’s third wife, golf
caddie Rhani Juliani, in a hotel room.
Would a person of the caliber of Antasari, who once headed the Prosecutor’s Office in South Jakarta and later chaired the KPK, take the “hackwork” to kill someone because of a sexual affair with a golf caddie?
Was the motive behind the high-profile murder as simple as that?
We were disappointed as the court kept concentrating on this as the sole motive behind the murder with Antasari accused of attempting to cover up the extramarital
affair.
Suppose the affair was true, what was the difficulty in Antasari covering it up
without having to commit such a risky act as that?
With his performance and achievements at the time he was KPK chairman, when he was hailed by the public for corruption eradication, wouldn’t it have been easy for him to convince the public that he was being blackmailed by Nasruddin?
So, ordering the assassination of Nasruddin just because of a golf caddie did not make any sense for Antasari.
The verdict is more confusing when we learn of Antasari’s 18-year sentence.
This was the same verdict handed down to Daniel Daen Sabon, one of the five hit men who were sentenced by Tangerang District Court for pulling the trigger on
Nasruddin.
How come the mastermind received the same punishment as the field operator in this murder case?
If the judges were really sure Antasari was guilty of masterminding the
premeditated murder, moreover as a law enforcer who supposedly upheld the law,
the judges should have sentenced him to death as demanded by the prosecutor.
Otherwise, Antasari should have been acquitted because the judges should have
decided only on those two possibilities, i.e. guilty or innocent.
A verdict of guilty would give him the death sentence, innocent would free him totally, as there was no “in-between” verdict on such a high-profile crime involving such a high-profile figure as Antasari.
During Antasari’s trial, there was public suspicion that he was a target of the
weakening the KPK, as the powerful institution in the war against corruption.
One of co-defendants, senior commissioner Wiliardi Wizard claimed in court he
had been set up by his superiors at the National Police headquarters who were
trying to bring Antasari down.
Antasari has committed to file an appeal.
It will be a long journey for him to seek real justice. He may win, he may lose.
No matter what will happen to him, whether he wins or loses, it is not easy to answer this question: Is Antasari the good guy or the bad guy?
It remains a mystery.

Titus Jonathan
Tangerang,
Banten

Murder, rape and snatch thieves Deter tourists from Malaysia The Star, Sunday 21 February 2010

Has a culture of violence emerged in our nation?
This is the question I can’t help posing as brutal killings and grisly murders continue to dominate newspaper headlines.
Undoubtedly, the gruesome and depressing things that happen around us such as
killings, murders, rape and mayhem always make news in our media.
There are critics who complain that such reports would put fear into the people
and deter tourists from visiting our country.
Some people are so paranoid about publicity on crime that their reflex action is
to go for the censorship button.
There are others who are even more ridiculous.
It reminds me of a shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur, which flatly rejected a request to use its venue for an anti-snatch theft campaign on the grounds that such a campaign will drive away shoppers despite the fact that it is a known target of snatch thieves.
Pretending that a problem does not exist will not make it go away.
On the contrary, if a problem exists and nothing is done, it will further aggravate and harm more victims due to a lack of awareness.
We cannot stop the media from reporting crimes.
With responsible reporting, the media helps to create an awareness and make the public more safety conscious.
It will also serve as a wake-up call to the authorities that they must not be
complacent and need to improve their performance in eradicating and deterring
crime.
Crime reporting by the media in a factual and responsible manner should never be
made into an issue.
The media should not only report crime, it should also work together with the
relevant authorities and NGOs to educate the public on crime prevention and in
particular, to address the issue of violence and violent crimes in the country.
The frequent occurrence of brutal and violent crimes is a serious reminder to
all of us that something has to be done, besides law enforcement to address the
issue of violence.
What has gone wrong with our society?
With all these brutal killings, even of one’s own children, can we claim that we are living in a civilised age?
Have we lost our senses and human compassion?
Hardly a day passes without some form of violence committed, be it at home or
outside.
Is it due to the brutal tendencies of individuals as a way of setting scores.
If this is so, what are the reasons?
Or is it due to the fact that our young are seriously influenced by the violent movies that are shown on TV or VCD?
What has happened to our value system, the noble values including moral
education which we are seeking to inculcate in the young to enable them to
differentiate between good and bad.
It is time for a serious reappraisal of the efforts undertaken so far for the
creation of noble values among Malaysians and the building of a caring society.

Tan Sri Lam Thye,
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia

Monetarist system runs empires That control government The Star, Saturday 20 february 2010

It is a popular myth that governments of countries run the world.
However, the truth as exposed repeatedly by Lyndon LaRouche, the world’s most accurate economic forecaster for over 50 years, is that an international financial
oligarchy has for 3,000 years run a succession of empires that control national
governments.
The Persian Empire was replaced by the Roman Empire.
That was then replaced by the Venetian Empire of the Middle Ages which morphed in the 18th century into the (misnamed) present “British” Empire.
Who controls the money supply, controls the world.
This 3,000-year-old “monetarist system” run at any given time by a dominant
empire allows a tiny elite and a larger group of hangers-on to treat and manage
the vast remainder of mankind as an inferior species, as if they were herded
domestic animals.
Yet every single human being is born with a natural creative ability that no animal species possesses, such that every child on earth is a potential genius if given a poverty-free upbringing, a classical education and worthwhile employment opportunities by society.
Given man’s creative ability to discover the scientific and artistic principles
of the universe and develop technologies to satisfy human needs, and the needs
of the other 50 million species that cohabit earth, there are simply no limits
to human development and population growth.
Mankind’s 21st century mission is to colonize the moon and Mars and then the
universe beyond.
The cutting edge research and development required for a resurrected manned space mission, such as fusion energy to get humans in a healthy state to Mars in less than one week and biosphere technologies to protect and feed a human colony on Mars, can be directly applied to solving hunger and poverty on earth.
All that stands in the way is the selfish needs of the powerful but dying British Empire to maintain its rule.
Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband and world leader of the Malthusian
green environmental movement, is the spokesman for the British Empire that does
not believe in science and technology.
Prince Philip has campaigned publicly for the last 40 years to reduce the population worldwide, now 6.8 billion and growing, to less than 2 billion barely existing under medieval conditions as herded animals.
The banks, controlled by the British Empire, are now bankrupt and collapsing and
the LaRouche movement is calling their bluff and exposing their weakness,
hopefully before these banks do any further damage by passing on the burden and
further impoverishing the population of America and Europe.

Mohd Peter,
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia

Chinese New Year in KL proves No reason to stop work The Star, Friday 19 February 2010

I have a neighbour who has been renovating his house extensively since late
October last year.
He tore down the whole house, leaving only the frame.
My family and I were not informed of the renovation, neither do we know how long it will take to complete.
The contractor did not raise any board to inform the public of the renovation
and of course, there isn’t any scaffolding as well.
We have to endure not only the sound pollution but also the dust and dirt due to
the construction work.
We finally asked the contractor to put up something to block the dust and dirt,
and all they did was to put up some canvas to cover the fence between the two
houses.
Their working hours too are weird.
Sometimes they work even on Saturdays.
Imagine the pain of being woken up by sounds of drilling or hammering on a
Saturday morning?
I have suffered insufficient rest and sleep since the renovation began.
They even worked on the second day of the Chinese New Year.
I wonder if this is legal?

Irritated neighbour,
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia

Private colleges and universities profit From Filipino nurses The Philippine Inquirer, Thursday 18 February 2010

The 39.73 passing percentage in the latest Nursing Licensure Examination is the lowest in history, while the total of 94,462 who took that exam is the highest number on record.
As students, we are quite alarmed at and frustrated with the low passing percentage because it shows that the quality of nursing education in the
Philippines continues to decline.
According to the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), there are now 463 nursing schools in the country.
All together, they produce thousands of graduates every year.
For years now, we have observed that we students are not getting enough training because of the lack of facilities and disproportionate patient-student ratio.
Ideally, the ratio should be two students to every patient.
But at present, it is 15 students to one patient.
As a result, we are having difficulty in meeting the number of (patient or medical) cases we are required to attend to.
Many students thus just have to exercise their “creativity and resourcefulness” in meeting this graduation requirement, without necessarily handling cases or performing the various nursing procedures.
Because of government laxity, nursing education in the Philippines has become for private colleges and universities a business whose primary objective is to make excessive profits.
We, specifically our parents and guardians, have to bear the combined burdens of
exorbitant fees, high-priced school services and hospital
affiliation fees.
Yet these do not necessarily guarantee quality education, which is impossible to obtain without adequate facilities, modern equipment and sufficient clinical exposure.
Whose task is it to ensure quality nursing education?
The government’s, which has been exporting nurses to other countries?
The Commission on Higher Education’s, which has tailored the nursing
curriculum to job qualifications abroad?
Education, especially in health-related courses like nursing, should serve our own people’s needs.
In reality, because the government’s only concern is to produce nurses for “export” to bring in more OFW remittances and because the profits of nursing schools are not regulated, this problem—poor nursing education - will continue.
In the end, we students suffer from the poor quality of nursing education.
Health Students’ Action (HSA) believes therefore that we, students, should come together to demand what is due us.
After all, we have all the right to demand quality education for which we are
charged and are paying for.
We are health service providers.
We should not allow ourselves to be forever treated as commodities, to be manufactured and sold for export.

Kevin Yves Duane Asuncion,
Secretary general,
Health Students’ Action (HSA),
Manila,
Philippines

Malaysia pays foreign workers 35 ringgit a day The Star, Wednesday 17 February 2010

I don’t see any good in hiring foreign labour.
They have brought a lot of misery to our country.
Rampant crime, pollution, diseases, social ills, lowering our wages and even taking over some of our streets that have slowly but surely become their “territory”.
I believe many Malaysians are disturbed by their presence.
When we employ them, we are actually depriving our locals of opportunities. Thousands of locals have lost their jobs and become runners for Ah Longs, pirated DVD sellers, parking touts and even gangsters.
What’s the starting pay for a foreign worker in the construction business?
RM35?
Given the rising cost of living, what can a local worker do with RM35 a day?

Gracious,
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia

Wanted: Better explanation From Jakarta minister for wage rise The Jakarta Post, Tuesday 16 February 2010

It has been years since I have paid much attention to newly appointed Cabinet
ministers, election after election, one after another.
With today's hectic breadwinning activities, I can only remember a few ministers
who regularly make the headlines and deal with the fields I am interested in.
I am no longer that fourth-grade student who was so fascinated to find out who
was still in the Cabinet, and who was out. I knew all the ministers' names and
faces and I loved it!
Unfortunately, now I remember even less names, let alone faces.
However one morning when I read The Jakarta Post January 30, I remembered one name effortlessly: Gamawan Fauzi, the home minister, when I read the article about his defense of the officials' salary increases.
He argued that if the officials' salaries increased, it would still be below
private company directors' salaries.
I honestly expected another explanation from one of his kind
Putting aside whether the 20 percent rise is too much or not, I really would
like to know the relationship between jobs and the salaries they deserve.
We cannot merely compare what we have got to what others have.
Moreover, this humble mind thinks the responsibilities ministers carry are
somehow different than private company directors; surely the latter bring
consequences to their cash flow.
Please, correct me if I am wrong.
Should any minister get a chance to explain this issue, please give a wise
explanation, so you will be remembered in the minds of those who haven't got a
good memory and are "too busy" earning a living and who therefore don't have
much time to watch TV or read newspapers.

Dhea Inda,
Bandung,
Indonesia

Ubud could become A UNESCO world heritage site The Jakarta Post, Monday 15 February 2010

This is a comment on an article titled "Best City’ is still dirty and noisy," in
The Jakarta Post, February 8, on Bali page.
I have been living in Ubud since 1986.
I have been an Indonesian citizen for 13 years.
I have two children that were born here.
Ubud is our home.
And I have many other friends in the same position.
We all remember what Ubud was like 25 years ago.
Traffic and parking, cleanliness, sidewalks, and a more traditional, esthetically pleasing look to the buildings are essential.
Sustainable progress that is controlled by a group of overseers needs to begin immediately.
It is almost too late to save our lovely town of Ubud, but if we start now we
can overcome the obstacles.
I believe Ubud could become a UNESCO World Heritage site if certain parties begin to understand that something must be done.
We cannot continue to ignore what is going on here.
We do not need huge neon signs in Ubud.
Smaller, traditional handcrafted signs that show tourists the talents of the Balinese craftspeople are enough to keep the cozy, artistic feel and advertise shops.
Use places like Santa Fe and Taos as examples.
Create a board controlled by one representative from each neighborhood (Banjar)
in Ubud.
This board would decide what kinds of building fronts and signage were allowed and which were not.
Start now, before it is too late.
If a charity organization (a yayasan) was formed to create a way to fund the
work, I am certain that many Ubud citizens would be more than happy to donate
money, time, etc. to such work.

Caroline Miksch
Ubud,
Bali

Malaysia's illegal wildlife trade Proves highly profitable The Star, Sunday 14 February 2010

Sahabat Alam Malaysia (Consumers Association of Penang) is concerned that the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry has delayed the enactment of the proposed amendment to the Wildlife Act.
The amendment is necessary to prevent and combat the illegal trade in wild
animals, plants and terrestrial fauna as well as to improve enforcement against
poaching and other wildlife crimes.
It should also allow a wider coverage to more species that are in danger of becoming threatened.
Some wild population of species, such as rhinoceroses and tigers, are on the
brink of extinction and the high value of wildlife products makes illegal trade
extremely profitable, generating millions of dollars each year.
Organised crime groups are associated with this trade and the wildlife law
enforcement community faces daily challenges including poaching gangs, threats,
harassment and bribery attempts.
The new act should review the legal framework to prevent and control wildlife
crime, identify threats and networks, examine the main drivers of supply and
demand, and look at factors enabling trafficking and how to counteract them.
Sahabat Alam Malaysia is also concerned with the potential problems of the introduction of non-native, or exotic species of birds and animals into native ecosystems.
The Act should address these concerns to curb and prevent alien species from
invasion of the environment.
We look forward to legislation on the protection of wildlife in captivity,
whether in zoos or wild animal parks or other similar establishments.
This was mooted in 1997 and after the initial enlightened proposal, however, nothing has materialised to date.
While details have yet to be disclosed to the public, SAM hopes it will be in
accordance with internationally-recognised standards assuring wildlife in
captivity a new lease of life and enhanced standards of dwelling similar to
their habitat and conducive to their growth and well-being.
The need to strengthen the Act by introducing suitable changes and stringent
measures is long overdue.
Long judicial procedures and a paltry sum as penalty do not help to solve this problem of wildlife crime.
At the same time, the introduction of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Wildlife Department, Customs and Excise, anti smuggling unit, the State Forestry Department and State governments to ensure effective wildlife conservation and strengthening of border areas to prevent crime should be seriously considered.

S.M.Mohd Idris,
President,
Sahabat Alam Malaysia,
Consumers Association of Penang,
Malaysia

 

 

The lust for power Has brought disgrace to the Filipino nation The Philippine Inquirer, Saturday 13 February 2010

Take note of the following: A political activist who bravely fought the Marcos conjugal dictatorship and suffered imprisonment before escaping to the United States, heretofore known as graft buster and moral crusader, is now a mouthpiece of the inept, corrupt and abusive Arroyo administration.
Two street parliamentarians (one of them, an outspoken critic of the Marcos regime, led protest rallies against the martial law regime and escaped from his military escorts after casting his vote in the election of officers of a media organization) are now in the senatorial lineup of a controversial presidential aspirant together with the son of the ousted strongman and dictator.
A former youth activist, who strongly denounced martial law, the gagging of press freedom and the corruption in government, is now a top apologist of the most graft-ridden administration in Philippine history.
A former newspaperman, appointed by President Corazon Aquino to head
several big government corporations, used to score political dynasties.
But now, he, his daughter and three nephews - all five of them bearing the same surname - are running for elective posts in the nation’s former capital city.
He used to be a regional chairman of Sanlakas, and a young, fearless firebrand who offered alternatives to traditional politics.
Then he became a Cabinet member and a staunch defender of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
A loser in the 2007 senatorial derby, he is now seeking the highest elective post in Metro Manila’s biggest city.
A brilliant technocrat who used to be with the Development Academy of the Philippines and an advocate of agrarian reform, he became one of the defenders and idea men of a former populist leader who is now known as a plunderer and philanderer.
He used to berate government officials who refused to answer questions during investigations in the guise of executive privilege vis-à-vis probes on reported irregularities.
Now, this lawmaker defends to the hilt a fellow lawmaker who stubbornly evades or refuses to answer questions concerning a multimillion-peso government project believed to be tainted with irregularities.
A veteran member of legislature, incarcerated several times by a dictatorial regime for standing up for his principles and for his tirades against martial law, and regarded as a gentleman fighter, recently used gutter language in a desperate effort to deflect the issue regarding an obnoxious road project.
There are many other instances of well-known, respected and principled leaders metamorphosing into pathetic and questionable members of society.
Where have all their principles gone?
What caused their shameful transformation?
Is it lust for power, influence and material possessions?
Whatever the reasons, they have brought disgrace to themselves and to the Filipino nation.
Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!

Eusebio S. San Diego,
Founder,
Kapisanan ng mga Gurong Retirado (Kaguro) and former president,
Quezon City,
Philippines

Thai beer proves the best In Thailand The Bangkok Post, Friday 12 February 2010

I wish to come to the defence of Thai beer.
I have been drinking Thai beer for nearly 10 years.
Even after the few times I'd had far too much of it, I never suffered the next day from any hangover symptoms.
Mr Wetherspoon, ''Additives spoil beer,'' Bangkok Post, February 6, reminds me of a bunch of German fellow-countrymen who religiously stick to their German beers, citing the purity laws which are applied in Germany.
Fair enough, but I have my doubts whether beer shipped half-way round the world
into tropical climates stays fresh without any additives.
As for the enjoyment of drinking, I don't feel the need to spend even one baht more for the overpriced German beers in Thailand.

Horst Bullinger,
Bangkok,
Thailand

 

Failure of Philippine elections Not a remote possibility Philippine Inquirer, Thursday 11 February 2010

With what is happening now in the country, it is doubtful whether there will still be elections in May 2010.
President Macapagal-Arroyo’s running for Congress is no guarantee that she will make good her sworn commitment to step out of Malacañang when her term of office expires.
The Maguindanao massacre showed her and her minions opportunities for a nationwide imposition of martial law.
With warlords controlling police and military officials, a failure of election is
not a remote possibility.
With the thousands of firearms on the loose - a fact made more apparent after the discovery of caches of war materiel in the hands of the Ampatuans - a situation could be staged between now and election day to justify the use of extraordinary
powers by the President.

Ligorio G. M. Naval,
Manila,
Philippines

Personal belief or conviction Did not justify war on Iraq The Philippine Inquirer, Wednesday 10 February 2010

Testifying in the Iraq war inquiry, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed a dangerous doctrine that threatens the stability and existence of independent states, not to mention the lives of millions of innocent people all over the world.
He said he ordered British troops to join the US military invasion of Iraq because he was absolutely convinced that Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein was a “monster” who was a menace to Britain, the United States and some other countries, and who possessed weapons of mass destruction.
It turned out that there were no weapons of mass destruction.
It also turned out that Blair and US President George Bush had decided to invade Iraq even without the assent of the United Nations Security Council - the only international body authorized to sanction police action against a state.
In short, the invasion was a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and international law.
Blair’s (and Bush’s) doctrine of preemptive war reminds us of the Nazi doctrine of “lebensraum,” which Hitler used as a reason to invade Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and eventually Russia.
The doctrine was that Germany needed more land to survive.
It also reminded us of Hitler’s reason for exterminating the Jews.
Hitler was “absolutely convinced” that the Jews were a degenerate people who corrupted the blood of the Germans.
Thus, with the apparent support of the vast majority of “civilized” Germans, he
ordered the extermination of the entire Jewish race by burning them in ovens to save the “purity” of the Aryan race.
The absolute belief of the wartime leaders of Germany and Japan in the rightness of their cause did not prevent the international tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo from convicting them of - and hanging them for - war crimes.
So why should the same “belief of rightness” on the part of Blair (and Bush) save them from undergoing the same trial?
Personal belief or conviction is no justification for war or murder.
The only accepted basis for depriving a man of his life is domestic law, and that for waging war is international law.
Under international law, the only just war is the war of self-defense or the defense of another state that has been subjected to aggression.
The leaders of the United States and Britain have always been preaching the need for observing the rule of law in order to preserve world peace and achieve human progress.
Let them set the example or suffer the consequences of their failure or their
violations.

Manuel F. Almario,
Spokesman,
Movement for Truth in History,
Manila,
Philippines

West Papua Always only an Indonesian project The Jakarta Post Tuesday 9 February 2010

I totally agree with Izak Morin, This time, Papuans speak louder, The Jakarta
Post, January 29.
There's obviously something missing in the handling of the Papuan case.
Indonesia can claim to be a state, but certainly not a nation since the "sense of belonging to Indonesia" is one thing many parts of Indonesia lack.
Raising the West Papua flag is not just a way of getting heard but an act to gain recognition as a different race with a different culture, but they should still be treated equally.
One thing the government doesn't seem to care much about.
I, myself, spent more than 25 years in Papua.
I grew up there, although, due to my physical appearance, many would consider me an immigrant.
But what I learned from living there is that there is a strong feeling of resentment toward the government.
A feeling often called "Papuan nationalism": A sense of belonging to a minor,
differently treated and peripheral society within a country.
Papua is not just a case of economic and social injustice.
It also involves issue of human rights, race and cultural problems which require not only government help but help from the larger Indonesian society as well.
For those who haven't realized it, Papuans have always had a hard time integrating into the larger Indonesian society.
It's often not just because of the Papuans' lack of confidence but involves their treatment by the larger community.
Comments like "Oh yeah, you wouldn't know. You're just from Papua" is certainly not something that helps us integrate into the larger community.
We're still Indonesians, you know, only with a different race and culture.
Papuans lack "recognition" in many senses.
We have to admit when you look at Papua, it looks like a poor, marginalized and uneducated people.
Papua is always like a "project" for the government.
Look beyond that, please.

Erza Killian,
Malang,
East Java,
Indonesia

Enrique de Malacca, Enrique el Negro or Henry the Black Sailed with Ferdinand Magellan The Jakarta Post, Monday 8 February 2010

At school we were taught that the first man to circumnavigate the earth was
Ferdinand Magellan (Fernao Magallhaes in Portuguese, Fernando de Magallanes
in Spanish) in 1521.
Being killed in Mactan, the Philippines on April 27, 1521, Ferdinand Magellan did not complete the “circumnavigation of the earth”.
His farthest previous journey to the eastern part of Southeast Asia archipelago was
to Brunei.
The other source of information about this most amazing voyage in the history of
humankind is a report written by Maximillianus Transylvanus who interviewed
Magellan’s surviving men who managed to return to Spain.
The report was printed in 1523 under the title of “De Moluccis Insulis” (“The Moluccas Island”).
MaximilianusTransylvanus was an assistant to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
(1519-56) who was also the King of Spain Charles (Carlos) I (1516-56).
In the record of his world tour Pigafetta wrote that Magellan was assisted by an
assistant who Pigafetta said came from Sumatra, Enrique de Malacca, or Enrique
el Negro (Henry the Black).
In other transcripts he was also called Enrique de Molucca, perhaps by Transylvanus, because it was Transylvanus who declared that Henry Black came from the Moluccas.
Pigafetta wrote one of the reasons Magellan could convince King Carlos I of
Spain to finance his voyage was the presence of Enrique el Negro who fascinated
the curious king with his physical looks and his multilingual talent.
Ferdinand Magellan set out from Sanlucar de Barrameda on September 20, 1519 carrying about 270 men of various ethnic, racial and national origins.
For more than 400 years, no one ever thought about the possibility that Enrique
el Negro was the first human to circumnavigate the earth.
In 1958, a Malay novelist Harun Aminurrashid said that Enrique el Negro was the first man to have that honor.
And he said that Enrique el Negro is a Malayan Malay (Malaysia did not exist until 1963), as opposed to an Indonesian Malay.
The Malay writer was polite enough to say that Enrique el Negro was a Malay who came from Sumatra.
In 1980, Carlos Quirino, a Filipino historian and author, said that Enrique el
Negro was a Filipino, with the argument that he could directly communicate with
the natives when he arrived in Cebu, while Pigafetta’s records clearly stated
that Enrique el Negro could not understand what the natives said.
Enrique el Negro is Indonesian!
Why was he called black?
A Sumatran being black is a rarity.
Magellan must have cautiously prepared his voyage westward to the Moluccas and turned back to Spain.
He needed a person who understood everything about the archipelago, especially the Moluccas.
One more argument that supports this theory is that during his journey Pigafetta
wrote a dictionary of the languages he encountered during the voyage.
Of 460 words in his dictionary, only 160 words are not Malay.
One can argue that he was assisted by Enrique, who was on the same ship as him for 18 months.
Among the words collected, a lot of them came from the Moluccas as admitted by Pigafetta.
Whatever the case, Enrique had completed the 360 degree circumnavigation of the
world, because Mactan is at longitude 123 ° 58 ‘E, and Ambon is 128 ° 12’E.
People from the Scandinavian countries were proud about the fact the first
European to discover American was their countryman Leif Eriksson, who had
visited Nova Scotia in Canada, and not Columbus.
We too can do the same thing.

Reinhard R. Tawas
Jakarta,
Indonesia

Who really runs the world? The answer is obvious The Southeast Asian Times, Sunday 7 February 2010

Surely, a direct and very timely question viz:- “ Who really runs the world”?
Is it a beneficent model of democratically elected forms of government that are accountable to, and representative of, a nation?
Or is it an entrenched (unelected) international affiliation of conspiratorial like-minded-persons who offer nothing more than a continuance of social disruption in the forms of war, repression, depression, recession and dispossession?
The answer then, after a deal of serious research, has been found to lie in the latter province within the lethal embrace of the asphyxiating anacondas of Wall Street; “Government by Corporation’ = The US Zionist controlled Federal Reserve System.
‘Government by Corporation” prospers through the perfidious preferential treatment by its’ contemptible minions festering in strategic positions within public administration; those prepared to prostitute their sacred oath of office for 30-pieces-of-silver.
So, may we now return to the original question: “Who really runs the world”?
The answer is obvious.
Those autocrats, whose position in society - and business- elevates them to an exclusive economic/judicial stratosphere where they are considered to be
“too-big-to-fail”, are also seen to be (apparently) too-big-to-jail.
And so, finally, we reach the conclusion that the ultimate political power and dominant influence lies within the domain of those with “the authority of money creation’- The Zionist controlled US Central Banking System and it’s autonomous money printing capacity.
The fact that these “merchants-of-death” have effectively operated, virtually unchallenged since the year 1694, has produced an uninterrupted history of murder, mayhem and misery.
It makes one wonder how much longer people will tolerate this blatantly oppressive (united) state of affairs.

Harry A Boniface,
Queensland,
Australia

Fatwa's are directives Not laws The Jakarta Post, Saturday 6 February 2010

This is a response to the article written by Julia Suryakusuma titled “Dirty dancing or the sound of the MUI-Sic?” published in The Jakarta Post on January 27. 
First, I would like to correct Julia’s statement that the fatwa was produced by the Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI).
The prohibition banning pre-wedding photo shoots and female motorcycle taxi (ojek) drivers were made at the consultative forum meeting for women’s Islamic boarding schools (FMP3) in East Java, which ended on January 14.
We have to look every fatwa carefully and comprehensively.
Some of the fatwa issued by the FMP3 in East Java are in accordance with the opinion of the MUI, but other fatwa need to be critically studied because there are different views among clerics.
The fatwa on women ojek drivers should be criticized intelligently because, in fact, the presence of female ojek driver could be a solution for women passengers who feel uncomfortable when an ojek is driven by a male driver.
In Iran, local ulema allow women taxi drivers to serve women passengers.
We do not need to think too much about the fatwa because, in reality, the fatwa itself are only used as a norm, in this case a religious (Islamic) norm.
Only those who believe and know the norms will ultimately obey the fatwa.
There is no compulsion for those who do not perform their religious norms because norms differ from laws.
After all, no one is harmed if there are people who obey the fatwa.
How about the pornographic law?
Here, we must distinguish between areas of the application of norms and areas of law enforcement.
An area of application of norms is a private area.
A norm is closely related to one’s beliefs.
A norm is only obeyed by those who have faith in the basis or background of these norms.
A norm background can come from a belief, custom, or religion.
Norms are not exhaustive or forcible.
This means that if there is someone who violates the norms, he will not be punished.
The pornography law is a product of democracy and forces people to abide by it. We can see the diversity in our society – customs, religions, and beliefs.
The existence of pornography and pornographic activities in public spaces creates restlessness in specific community groups.
This anxiety will lead to harmful conflicts.
Therefore, through democracy, the people who do not agree with pornography and pornographic activities proposed a rule that limited the activities in public areas, so as not to cause restlessness.
We need to appreciate the people who proposed the pornography law because they followed the democratic route.
It is unfortunate if, in fact, the group using the democratic path for the proposed pornography law is considered conservative or hard-line.

Muhammad Aldhira,
Bandung,
Indonesia

Indonesia The world's major Muslim country The Jakarta Post, Friday 5 February 2010

Again, on Republic of Indonesia, India relations
Your editorial on January 26 congratulating India was quite interesting to read, as
was its appreciation by K.B. Kale, "India, Indonesians cross cultures" on January 30.
Adding to the editorial and the letter by Kale, I would like to clarify that the
assistance to Indonesia from the subcontinent in its fight against the
colonizers, in fact, came from the 600-odd Muslim soldiers who deserted the
British Indian Army in 1945 to join hands with their Indonesian brethren.
They never returned to areas now part of India's immediate neighbor from
whence they came and eventually the surviving ones settled in Indonesia, but
before that they saw to it that Indonesia did achieve independence.
Their third generation is now living in this beautiful country and still has
fond memories of what their elders did for Indonesia.
I hope some of them will read this piece and send a comment or two to verify the contention.
As far as Indonesia is concerned, its record in maintaining perfect harmony
among various ethnic groups and minorities has been unblemished, thanks largely
to the Pancasila ideology that its founders incorporated in its Constitution.
Indonesia never had any expansionist designs or a policy of encroachment,
territorial or political, so is unique in that important aspect.
There is much the largest democracy in the world could learn from the third-largest.
Although the editorial never touched on this subject, Kale says the Indian Army
never raped the whole country; well, it had another alternative on which to
practice this sort of a pastime.
What the Indian troops did to the Darbar Sahib and the Sikhs is still fresh in the memory.
Facts are facts.
I have no authority to make claims on behalf of Indonesians but the fact remains
that Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country in the world and its people are proud of their Islamic heritage.
They don't wish to associate themselves with any other ideology or entity.

Farhan Qutab and Faraz Liaquat
Jakarta,
Indonesia

English is all important In the development of an Asean communinty Bangkok Post, Thursday 4 February 2010

Jurin Laksanavisit, our previous minister of education, vowed to make Thailand
an educational hub of Southeast Asia.
Applaudable.
One of several urgent matters is to improve the English of our kids.
Until now, however, I haven't seen any serious action.
Now that we have a new minister, I hope the policy doesn't change.
Let's put aside the fact that Thai kids are now also having problems using even
the Thai language.
That is another problem that also needs urgent attention.
English is crucially important, especially as we are entering the ''One Asean
Community'' in 2015.
I have seen much improvement in youths in countries around us.
Sad to say, we are running far behind most nations.
With the official attitude being business-as-usual, I can't see how we can
become an educational hub.
It seems like a daydream or a political joke.
Many parents are sending their kids to study in Malaysia and Singapore.
Let's face the fact: educationally, we are a spoke; the hub is next door.
May I suggest one simple thing that most other nations are doing?
Set up a free (national) English TV channel.
I know there are several paid English channels available, but what about poor kids around the country?
This channel could lose money, to begin with, therefore it would need some
subsidy from the government.
At the same time, it must be run by high-calibre professionals, competitive with current Thai language TVs.
Believe me, no investment is better than education, especially for the kids.
The funding needed to support poor children around the country amounts to less than the cost of building a few kilometres of skytrain track to please people in Bangkok.

Chatchai Songkhla,
Bangkok Post,
Thailand

Put the tiger back In the jungle The Star, Wednesday 3 February 2010

A local radio station has somehow procured a tiger cub and has been taking it on
a “roadshow” to offices in the Klang Valley.
The tiger cub is led on a leash into corporate offices and boardrooms, and
employees are given the opportunity to touch and pet it.
This is not only a shocking act of cruelty, but is also extremely dangerous, as it is very possible that the tiger, in its state of confusion and disorientation, could attack someone.
It is ironic that this gross exploitation of an endangered species comes on the
back of the National Tiger Action Plan to increase the number of tigers in our
jungles, launched by our Government in collaboration with WWF Malaysia.
I urge the Department of Wildlife and National Parks and WWF Malaysia to not
only take urgent steps to put this tiger back where it belongs, but to tighten
our current laws and regulations to ensure no more animals have to suffer in
this way for the sake of human amusement.
Tigers belong in the jungles, not boardrooms.

Outraged,
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia

Indonesia's backpacker Lake Toba Is a ghost town The Jakarta Post, Tuesday 2 February 2010

Indonesia’s tourism potential is handicapped by a serious lack of talent and
imagination both at a government administration level and from within the industry, both of which, like Indonesia itself, tends to be defensive and inward-looking.
Let’s look at some examples: The death of backpacker tourism.
It is hard now to comprehend, that back in the early ‘70s, Indonesia was the world’s pioneering leader in backpacker tourism.
Several of the world’s leading travel guide book series, such as Lonely Planet,
Periplus editions and Apa Insight guides were founded by tourists backpacking in
Indonesia.
Backpacker tourism is a multi-decade long-term investment; today’s budget traveler returns in the future with entire families in tow.
But backpackers bring tourist dollars directly into the pockets of village
people.
There was nobody from the village level to lobby in Jakarta on behalf of the
humble backpackers’ needs, so nowadays, once-busy backpacker destinations such as Lake Toba are sad and empty ghost towns.
Two or three decades ago, Indonesia’s earlier generation of tourism leaders, saw
the potential in short-haul weekend tourism from Malaysia and Singapore into
Bintan and Batam.
Expensive hotels and golf courses were developed.
Long-term club memberships and tourist visas were made easy to arrange.
Batam and Bintan enjoyed a temporary boom in golf and weekend tourism.
But, due to short-sighted government taxes and regulations, a quick weekend
visit from Malaysia/Singapore to Bintan, Batam or Karimun is now no longer worth
the hassle.
Tourist arrivals in those places, once nearly 2 million per year, now barely achieve 1 million.
Expensive resorts struggle to cover their costs.
Hotels continue to close down.
Our policy makers make no efforts to improve the deteriorating regional ferry and immigration counter services.
As the world’s largest island nation, it is quite evident that Indonesia’s
tourist planners have never visited Langkawi and Phuket, the Caribbean or the
Greek Isles to see an enormous industry perfectly suited to Indonesia’s
geography and seafaring skills.
The few intrepid pioneering operators who bring divers, surfers and nature
lovers to beautiful places in Eastern Indonesia, the Natuna Sea and off the
coast of Sumatra only ever deal with local officialdom in terms of paying bribes
to not have their small businesses closed down; they receive zero encouragement
and support for their pioneering efforts.
The foregoing examples mention three from dozens of seriously unrealized tourism
sectors.
So long as Indonesia’s tourism industry is managed by inward-looking, untalented hacks, inbound arrivals will remain at current stagnant levels. I suggest that the industry is in such bad shape that the government should ask Malaysia, Thailand and Australia to lend some qualified policy makers to help get Indonesia’s tourism back on it feet.

Evan Jones
Batam,
Riau Islands,
Indonesia

Thai justice stops Map Ta Phut The Nation, 1 February 2010

Re: "Prolonged impasse might lead to flight of capital, says JCC", Business.
I read that about one-third of the members of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce (JCC) are deeply concerned about the Map Ta Phut impasse, with many of those
affected considering relocating their planned investments to other Asean
countries if it is not resolved within six months as promised by the prime
minister.
JCC president Yo Jitsukata said after meeting Industry Minister Charnchai
Chairungrueng and the Board of Investment that Japanese companies hit by the
crisis both directly and indirectly were in the petrochemicals, construction,
steel and financial industries.
The justice system halted the construction of the projects in Map Ta Phut
because they were breaking the law.
Does the JCC believe that if they apply pressure on the government, they will be allowed to break the law, and the Constitution of Thailand?
If the companies with suspended projects had followed the law and the Constitution, they would not have the problem they have now.
The judges have pledged to His Majesty that they will uphold the law, and they
are doing the job they have sworn to do.
Thailand should be proud of its judicial system and the judges that work there.

Tom,
Bangkok,
Thailand

The Morning Star flag West Papuan protest against injustice Jakarta Post, Sunday 31 January 2010

This is a comment on the responses, particularly from fellow Indonesians, to a
letter titled “Why are Papuans still struggling?” by Joe Collins, Sydney, in
The Jakarta Post, January 20.
Many Indonesians look down on West Papuans.
In the eyes of God, all races are equal.
No race is cleverer or better than others.
It is very hard for me to understand why fellow Indonesians consider us, West
Papuans, as knowing nothing.
They mock us as “monkeys” when our popular soccer team, Persipura, plays in Surabaya, Malang, Jakarta, Bandung and Makassar.
Is it because they have a different skin color to us?
Those Indonesians themselves make this judgment.
They make these differences.
But let me tell you this: Even though West Papuans may be stupid, they know that ethnically they are Melanesians, not Indonesians.
West Papuans know that Indonesians and Malaysians speak almost the same
language, have a similar physical appearance, but still claim they are different
from one another.
West Papuans know that South Koreans and North Koreans speak almost the same language, but they still claim they are different.
West Papuans know very well that Sri Lankans and Tamils still claim they are
different, although physically they look similar.
Do West Papuans and Indonesians look similar physically, or act similarly, culturally?
Raising the Papuan Morning Star flag is a means of protest against injustice and human rights violations in West Papua.
This is the only current, effective tool to force the Jakarta government to
establish law and order in West Papua.
In the past, West Papuans whispered, talked and shouted, but their voices were not loud enough to be heard by Jakarta.
So, they changed the course of action that they believed would be effective.
And it was/is/will be, but it is misunderstood by Indonesians.
Thus, please do not misinterpret “the raising of the flag” in West Papua, for if
you do, you are agreeing to allow injustices and human rights violations to
continue in West Papua.

Izak Morin
Jayapura,
West Papua

China's money in ASEAN Promotes regionalism not globalisation The Philippine Inquirer, Saturday 29 January 2010

I think the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) is a win-win situation for
ASEAN.
It will help speed the recovery of ASEAN from the global recession.
The CAFTA is an important vehicle for trade-led growth and recovery in the ASEAN region with growth of 3.9 percent in 2009 which most likely will increase in 2010.
Furthermore, the launch of a US$10 billion infrastructure investment fund by
China to improve roads, railways and airlines and strengthen telecommunication
links may help speed the ASEAN recovery.
The world's most populous nation has also committed to a $15 billion credit
facility to promote regional integration.
ASEAN should take advantage of this and not rely completely on the United States.
A US-led ASEAN is dwindling, as the US economy and leadership is in disarray and preoccupied with terrorism and Wall Street corruption, and it seems the US is in a decline as a world leader.
Besides, the US economic hegemony is only to dominate the world for its own
interests and nothing else.
This is a very selfish foreign and economic policy.
Times are changing and regional groupings like the CAFTA, the SCO, the EU, the NAFTA, etc., are more beneficial than so-called globalization.
Under the latter, one crisis, like the one in the US, has a domino effect to the
world economy, as we have just seen, whereas under regional groupings, one
region that falls into a crisis can be rescued by other regions not affected by it.
World trade will be more stable under divided regional groupings and still maintain world trade and investments globally.
While the CAFTA is not perfect, any shortcomings will outweigh its benefits.
And, last but not the least, in order to take advantage of the CAFTA and make it
work, ASEAN should cut down its bureaucratic red tape in its financial and
economic sectors to efficiently speed up trade and investment, and do it with
transparency.

Tomas Lasam,
Manila,
Philippines

Top dogs only Benefit from Western Australian boom The Western Australian, Friday 29 January 2009

We are told Western Australia is heading for another huge boom, even bigger than the last one.
I can't wait - not.
Increased rents, higher fuel and food prices and higher utility costs are all on the horizon.
The only overflow of the last boom was more McMansions along the coast and more expensive cars on the road.
No new improved airport, no new stadium, little spent on health and education and crime rates went up.
A few at the top of the pile benefit from a so-called boom, not the majority.

A. Morovich,
Winthrop,
Western Australia

Ambassador to Cambodia seeks apology For Vietnamese lineage claim Bangkok Post, Thursday 28 January 2009

The Royal Cambodian Government takes great exception to the article which
appeared in the Bangkok Post on January 18, 2010 under the headline: ''In spat with 'Siem', Hun Sen needs Hanoi in his corner.''
It is a very seriously damaging article which I totally refute.
The allegation that Cambodia's Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, Cambodia's
Ambassador to Thailand Mrs You Ah, and myself are of ''Vietnamese lineage'' is
totally and utterly false and potentially defamatory.
The approach to foreign policy by Cambodia - initiated by Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen, already being implemented by Foreign Minister Hor Namhong - is to forge constructive relationships with all nations, big or small, based on mutual trust and respect of Cambodia's territorial integrity and sovereignty and the respect, without condition, of the verdict of the International Court of Justice
concerning the issue of the Preah Vihear Temple on June 15, 1962.
Publishing such false information as if it were fact does no credit to the
Bangkok Post and not only damages the credibility of your newspaper, but also
the reputation of Thailand on the international stage.
On behalf of the three persons named, I demand that your newspaper either
substantiate the claim made in the offending article or publish an immediate
retraction and apology.

Hor Nambora,
Ambassador of Cambodia to the Court of St James

 

Oh my God But not Allah The Jakarta Post, Wednesday 27 Jan 2010

The unbeatable ship, Titanic, captained by Edward Smith, during its maiden
journey from London to the “New World” close to Newfoundland met and hit the
unseen iceberg. Edward Smith with despair and fear said “Oh my God, we are going to sink, help us!”
God, a holy name of the Supreme Creator, is well known by every civilization but the names vary depending on the place and feeling of the local people.
Javanese called Him Kanjeng Gusti, Balinese called Dewata and Timorese called
Maromak.
People feel the existence of God mostly when they are cornered, afraid, helpless, in pain and need assistance and solutions of problems.
People feel inferior and consider the Supreme Power should decide every matter
in the universe.
This feeling shows us about our subconscious awareness and understanding that human beings are nothing compared to the great universal phenomena.
Aramaic, the Semitic, old language of the Middle East, is used to describe a
variety languages spread over a vast area, today from Egypt to Iraq and Turkey
in the north.
The Aramaic language was spoken as a means of communication for
official business, diplomacy and as a divine language by Assirians, Babylonians,
Persians, Chaldeans, Jews and Syrians and by all the peoples in the Middle East
in ancient times.
Arabic, a Semitic language, and Hebrew, also a Semitic language, are close to
Aramaic.
Those three closely related languages expressed the subconscious feeling of the need of a Supreme Power in the same way.
Jews said “Elloi” or “Elloh” that some time later changed to become “Ellohim” or “Yahwe” to as the name of God. The Arab used Allah as the holy name of God, which was written down in the Koran.
So the three peoples with similar languages expressed the same for the name of God.
The original Bible was translated to the other languages by the Greeks and the
Romans.
The recent discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls proved the original part of
Bible was written in Aramaic. I am sure the Dead Sea Scrolls called God “Elloi”
or “Ellohim”.
I am a Muslim. I am proud to be a Muslim but I regret and am ashamed of my brother Muslims who, over a simple name, have burned down many churches recently in Malaysia.
The holy Prophet Moses, Prophet Isa and Prophet Muhammad brought the holy books the Torah, the Injil (the Bible) and the Koran in which those holy books
expressed the same for God, “Elloi”, “Elloh” or “Allah”.
People of the world have already suffered so many troubles: famine, hunger, climate changes, tsunamis and many others. We, the people of the world, have already experienced many wars, conflicts caused by politics, economics or self-interest but concealed in the name of God.
I think people who do things such as destroying and burning down holy sites like
churches, mosques or synagogues are not believers at all.
True believers should respect anything related the other holy sites.
Prophet Muhammad even offered his mosque in Medina to a group of Jewish people on their journey to perform their prayers.
Even during the war for Jerusalem, Salehuddin al Ayyubi ordered his followers to respect churches and let them be free because they were “People of the Book”. God knows best for His people, whatever you called Him, it doesn’t matter.

Sulistyo Pudjo H,
Bandung,
Indonesia

Indonesian Muslim woman Critical of latest fatwa The Jakarta Post, Tuesday 16 January 2010

I refer to an article titled "Clerics warn Muslim women against sinful hairdos, photo shoots," in The Jakarta Post, January 15.
I am an ordinary Muslim woman.
When I read this article for the first time, I could not believe the clerics of East
Java had issued this fatwa forbidding Muslims from dying and straightening
their hair and from holding pre-wedding photo sessions.
I am trying very hard to understand the reasons for the issuance of this fatwa,
but I still don't get it.
The most annoying fatwa that I have read in the related article is: Clerics forbid Muslim woman from being an ojek driver and Muslim woman cannot take an ojek because it is haram.
What if being an ojek driver is the only way for her to earn the money?
Have you had other better solutions for them?
I really feel this edict prevents women from what they want to do with their life.
My rights are being limited because of my condition as a woman.
This edict is being issued in order to eliminate the possibility that immoral acts are committed.
Frankly, as a woman, we know exactly how we should take care of ourselves.
We know how we have to live our lives as Muslim women.
In the religion, nobody can control the followers, even the clerics.
As believers, I try to do my best in my life based on my own religion.
Muslims always try very hard to follow and to apply all life's norms and values
from the right sources: the Koran and Hadiths.
Nobody knows what you have done in your life.
Nobody can control those kinds of things.
Nobody knows about all your good deeds and worship.
Allah is the one and only who knows whether your deeds have been accepted or
not.
Allah is the only one who can make the right judgment, not the people.
Clerics of course can issue new edicts to guide followers in carrying out a
normal and good life in accordance with Islam's norms and values.
But please, do not be afraid if the Muslims are not going to do things in their
life in accordance with the appropriate norms in Islam because the good Muslims
know their rights and obligations.
At the end, all the edicts issued by clerics raise big questions for people in the world.
It looks like Islam is not applicable to modern life.
This is of course not true.
In my opinion, Islam is still applicable to my daily life in modern times.
As a follower, I hope that in the future clerics made edicts that are more
rational and understandable.

Rapalex,
Jakarta,
Indonesia

Philippine baby replacement rate Just enough The Philippine Inquirer, Monday 25 January 2010

Fr. Gregory Gaston's article in Talk of the Town “Population trends: lessons for RP,” Inquirer, 3 January 2010 comes like a breath of fresh air, that hopefully should clear the minds of “population bomb” adherents.
For some time now they and company, believing that cutting the population of the Philippines is the only solution to the poverty in the country, have been railing against what they call the Church’s interference in what they euphemistically call
“a matter of choice.”
This is not the place to re-discuss all the objectionable portions of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, which in fact denies women and families the freedom to choose how large or small a family they wish to have; and threatens doctors and other health workers in disagreement with the bill’s underlying dogma with the pain of
imprisonment, fine, loss of professional license or other sanctions.
Compulsion, the supporters of the bill cite, is the only way to ensure that no more poor people are born.
Father Gaston’s article in fact reiterates what many economists, statisticians and other academicians have stated all along.
The world is in danger of “wintering” and in fact many Western countries have already “wintered”; and China, Singapore and other countries in our part of the world have already realized their one-child or two-child policies are in fact fuses to a “depopulation bomb” that could spell the same trouble to them as those countries that have successfully implemented them.
Their aging populations are now in a social security bind.
The Philippines is not producing more babies than necessary.
The Philippine replacement rate, as of this moment, is probably just enough to replace a work force that is necessary if the country is to grow.
This work force will also be the consumer force that will drive industry and business.
But if those demagogues are to be believed, only the slashing of population growth will solve the poverty problem.
Talk about the blinkers that these people wear, in refusing to accept the many studies that have warned about the danger of an aging population.
I and, I am sure, so many others sincerely thank Father Gaston for his timely article.
We hope that it puts some sense into the one-track minds of “population bomb” adherents.

Rosie Brillantes-Lustro,
Manila,
Philippines

President Kennedy assasination Followed his 1963 Presidential decree The Southeast Asian Times, Sunday 24 January 2010

Following sustained private research my conclusions, as to the 'efficacious' functions of the US fiscal system, are now confirmed with the current reportage of the US Presidential intention to re-establish public authority over the 'slippery' US financial can-of-worms.
If, indeed, he should be sincere - and successful - in this endeavour, it establishes him as a man of rare courage.
Because, surely, the ghost of such confrontations hover above his vulnerable head?
Former US President, John F Kennedy, faced a similar supervisory decision when "On June 04 1963, a virtually unknown Presidential decree, Executive Order 11110, was signed with the authority to basically strip the privately owned, Zionist controlled, Federal Reserve Bank of its power to (indiscriminately) print and loan money to the US Federal Government - at interest.
Five months after this historic event, President Kennedy was assassinated!
It could also be argued that (for the gentile world) it was also the moment of the loss of innocence - and the protection of an unfettered democratic (judicial) system.

Harry A. Boniface
Queensland
Australia.

Philippine Sports Commission Dreams of Olympic gold The Philippine Inquirer, Saturday 23 January 2010

In response to former Rep. Victorico Chaves’ letter ''PSC should not meddle in sports,'' Inquirer, 18 January 2010, please allow me to correct his claim that Republic Act 6847 has created a “playground for appointees” like myself.
It was also unfair to accuse me of “prostituting” the law.
Since I took over as chairman of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), I have initiated serious reforms in the agency.
First, we dismissed “ghost” athletes and coaches and those who have not
produced anything in international competitions.
Secondly, we ran after and filed charges against sports officials who have huge
unliquidated advances from the PSC.
We have completed the construction and rehabilitation of sports venues and dormitories to provide better training facilities and accommodation for the
athletes.
Further, we were able to pay the cash advances, incurred by PSC’s past administrations from Pagcor, amounting to around P163 million and P39 million.
In the Laos SEA Games, the PSC stood firm on its policy that only gold and silver medalists of previous SEA Games and other major international sports competitions would be funded.
I never had a hand in the selection of athletes; it was Gen. Mario Tanchangco,
SEAG chief of missions, and PSC Commissioner Jose Mundo who came up with the list of 153 qualified athletes.
The government spent P56 million in support of the Laos campaign where our country produced 34 gold medals and placed fifth; the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) contingent came up with four gold medals.
It is another misconception that the PSC will take a lead role in the selection of athletes for the Asian Games.
The POC and the national sports associations (NSAs) have the prerogative to select the athletes.
But the PSC has the discretion to fund whomsoever among the NSAs’ recommendees have greater fighting chances.
Since the creation of the PSC, billions of pesos have been spent by the government on athletes’ development programs.
But up to now, we are still dreaming of a first Olympic gold medal.
I am etermined to clean up the system and ensure proper disbursement of funds.
If this is government intervention, then the PSC should be abolished and let the POC take over.
In closing, allow me to quote a POC chairman from a news item titled “Puentevella wants to amend PSC charter.” in Manila Bulletin, 13 November 2002 “Some sports leaders might mistake this (the proposed revision of RA 6847 as government intervention, but we don’t look at it that way.”
The PSC needs more teeth, particularly on policies concerning the use of government funds. Representative Puentevella was pushing for the amendment of RA 6847 into a “law that would require the concurrence of the PSC - the government’s sports agency - on the selection, training and sending of national teams to competitions overseas.”

Ambassador Harry C. Angping,
Chairman,
Philippine Sports Commission,
Philippines

The Herald pushes for publication Of the word Allah The Star, Friday 22 January 2010

Islam does not belong to a country and as such one cannot compare it as we can
the two different countries that we are living in.
The teaching of Islam is complete.
Nevertheless, some people have taken advantage of it without having a basic understanding of the faith.
Prophet Muhammad once said there would be many groups of people trying to defend and spread Islam in their own ways and with their own interpretation, but only one is right and will get into heaven.
“Allah” had been used by many Christians in Malaysia since before the country
was formed.
In the Malay bible, which was largely imported from Indonesia in the early 1940s, the term “Allah” was used to describe the almighty God.
Today, Muslims feel insecure easily due to stigmatization by others.
Muslims in Malaysia will do what ever it takes to defend their faith.
Many Muslims were wondering, why only now has The Herald newspaper taken on the legality of the word “Allah” to be used in their publication.
Why not before?
Some of us were asking:
What is their motive?
Why only now, when Islam throughout the whole world has been labeled terrorist, has the publication taken legal action?
The Malaysian government should play very important role in explaining the court
decision to Muslims in Malaysia.
The government is responsible for explaining to Muslims why the verdict is valid under Malaysian law, rather than firing everyone up and bringing the matter to the sultans.
On the other hands, non-Muslims should also be aware on how “holy” the term is
to Muslims.
I believe some non-Muslims are not aware that a Muslims can’t even write the word “Allah” on a piece of paper and put it anywhere they want.
When the damage has already been done, only then do we realize how vital the
interfaith councils are.
By then, it is already too late.
As a Malaysian, I don’t like what is going on in my country.
I hate it when someone uses religion for their own sake.
Malaysians have a total lack of understanding among races and, because of that, we have lost something vital - respect!

Azlesham,
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia

Global warming hype Declines after Copenhagen The Southeast Asian Times, Thursday 21 January 2010

A search for the phrase "climate change" or the phrase "global warming" or both in newspapers served by pressdisplay.com identified on average 400 newspaper articles per day during the week ending October 1, 2009.
The attached chart shows that in the ensuing weeks, leading up to the climate meeting in Copenhagen, the number rose rapidly to 900 and hit a high of over 950 newspaper articles per day on the crowning moments of the climate summit.
Thereafter it declined precipitously.
By the end of the year it had fallen below the October figure of 400 articles per day.
In early 2010 a more gradual but steady decline had set in and by the third week in
January it was down to around 200 articles per day.
The data suggest that the global warming hype is a massive and effective propaganda machine that appears to have taken over a pliant print media.
Yet, in the heels of Copenhagen, the global warming propaganda juggernaut appears to be running out of steam.
Its sudden and unprecedented weakness likely derives from the failure of the
global warming movement to make its case at Copenhagen.
It appears that their failure exposed their shortcomings and soured their
honeymoon with the media.
If this trend persists, the global warming hype may soon be forgotten
and the war on carbon dioxide gone from politics and the media.
Once that happens, we will be freed from a mad fixation on a single overriding issue concerning an irrational and groundless fear of carbon dioxide.
We can then return to normal and rational management of real issues in social, political, economic, human, scientific, and environmental areas without compromising our effectiveness by having to frame each and every one of them in terms of carbon dioxide.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Up to Java to transform the Republic of Indonesia Into the United states of Indonesia The Jakarta Post, Wednesday, 20 January 2010

I would like to comment on the proposal to name Abdurrahman Wahid and Soeharto national heroes.
Indeed, one could argue that both earned the title of “national hero” of Indonesia.
There is only one big problem.
To be a national hero, one should be part of a nation and herein lies the undamental problem: Indonesia is de facto a state, but, historically and anthropologically, no nation.
It never was and it never will be a nation.
In Deutsch’s book about nation building we read that even some Latin American nations still were not nations after 100 years of independence.
And, mind you, they were less splintered geographically and anthropologically
than present Indonesia is.
Tristam Pascal Moeliono from Parahyangan University came to the same conclusion in his article in one of Holland’s biggest newspapers De Volkskrant inon 20 October 1999) titled: “Indonesia a state but no nation”.
He saw, among others, a Javanese-dominated Indonesia and the sense of being
discriminated against and neglected from the smaller nations outside Java.
So the forthcoming celebration of 65 years of Indonesian independence in August
visually, verbally and so on will seem OK, but deep down at its roots,
Indonesia is an artificial and forcefully constructed “nation-state”.
So was the Donau monarchy, so were the intentions of Napoleon and Adolf Hitler,
so is India, so is China.
The key word here is “being forced to unite”.
The United States and Europe are the best examples of how to create a true nation
state out of so many people: democratically, voluntarily and through negotiation.
Indonesians should really review their concept of musyawarah (a process of
deliberation and compromise, which will usually end up in a unanimous consensus
and become binding to the community).
A more appropriate title for Wahid and Soeharto would be Javanese national
heroes pahlawan bangsa jawa, for they helped in Javanizing the whole archipelago
from Sabang to Merauke.
A true, safe musyawarah and referendum on the voluntary and democratic
transformation of the Unitary Republic of Indonesia into the United States of
Indonesia is the challenge I would like to put to the Javanese political and
military elite in Jakarta.

Malesi Iralo Pata
Amsterdam
The Netherlands

West Papuans are among the poorest In minerals rich archipelago The Southeast Asian Times, Tuesday 19 January 2010

Does B.J.K. Cramer of Rotterdam really believe that the West Papuan people are still listening to (to use his words) "misinformation and false promises from vengeful Dutch colonial types"?
(See Kelly Kwalik should have listened to Nicholas Jouwe in Letters, The Southeast Asian Times Saturday 16 January 2010. )
Maybe the question he should be asking is, why is it that after 46 years of administration of West Papua by Indonesia, the West Papuan people are still struggling for justice?
Maybe its because the West Papuan people can see with their own eyes the human rights abuses they suffer, how they live in one of the most resource rich areas of the archipelago but are one of the poorest people in it, including having one of the poorest health standards.
Although the UN might have accepted the Act of free choice in 1969, to say the UN accepted it as an legitimate expression of the will of people of Irian is a bit of a stretch.
Only 1022 hand-picked voters, one representative for every 700 West Papuans, were allowed vote, and under coercion, voted to remain with Indonesia.
A UN official, a retired undersecretary-general , who handled the takeover said a few years ago, “Nobody gave a thought to the fact that there were a million people who had their fundamental human rights trampled,” and “It was just a whitewash. The mood at the United Nations was to get rid of this problem as quickly as possible”.
B.J.K. Cramer does not mention the exploitation of West Papua's resources.
The threat to one of the last great tracts of undisturbed rain forest in the Asia-Pacific region by illegal logging and palm oil plantations.
He does not mention the numerous reports that documents human rights abuses in West Papua including the one by the Special Representative of the Secretary General on the situation of human rights defenders, Ms Hina Jilani, who said in her report “A climate of fear undeniably prevails in West Papua”.
Ms Hina Jilani, conducted an official mission to Indonesia from 5-12 June 2007.
He does not mention the West Papuan political prisoners in jail because they simply raised their national flag or the fact that a number books on the issue of West Papua were recently banned.
Is Indonesia's democracy so fragile that it cannot allow the raising of the West Papuan Flag and books on the issue of West Papua?
The banning of freedom of expression is contrary to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Its time to listen to what the West Papuans are asking for, and that is simply for dialogue with Jakarta to try and solve the many issues of concern they have.
Not a big ask.

Joe Collins
Sydney
Australia

Papua New Guinea's Swamp Ghost Headed for the USA The National, Monday 18 January 2010

The illegal export of Papua New Guinea’s most famous war relic, the “Swamp Ghost” B-17 airplane wreck, could take place this month.
Papua New Guinea’s well-preserved war wrecks attract tourists from all over the world, injecting money into local economies.
The illegal removal of 89 aircraft wrecks during the past decade has yielded little benefit to the nation and its people.
Papua New Guinea’s best wreck, the Swamp Ghost, landed intact in the Agiambo swamp in Oro province on February 23, 1942.
The bomber is internationally recognised as a symbol of World War II in Papua New Guinea.
Controversy erupted in 2006 when American businessman Alfred “Fred” Hagen salvaged the wreck, chopped it into pieces and transported it to Bismarck Shipping at Lae to await export.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) investigation produced a report entitled, “Sale and Export of the Swamp Ghost Aircraft and War Surplus Materials.”
Witnesses provided incriminating evidence about Swamp Ghost and other illegal exports of aircraft and parts from Papua New Guinea to wealthy collectors.
The Office of the State Solicitor stated the museum “had no power to sell State property at all or only in accordance with the Public Finances (Management) Act.”
Eastern Highlands Governor Malcolm Kela-Smith commented, “Swamp Ghost is part of Papua New Guinea culture and should not have been sold.”
The PAC report determined Swamp Ghost’s salvage to be illegal.
Mr Hagen returns this month to Papua New Guinea to take Swamp Ghost to the United States in defiance of the PAC report.
It concludes “Under no circumstances should the State through any of its agencies, arms or Departments again deal with Robert Greinert, Fred Hagen, HARS, Aero Archaeology LLC...in the sale, removal, export or on-sale of War Surplus Materials.”
Hagen has offered K300,000 plus a museum facility in exchange for Swamp Ghost.
Other experts estimate the wreck’s value at several million kina.
The people of Papua New Guinea lose when war relics are removed in an undercompensated fashion, says Justin Taylan, director of Pacific Wrecks, a non-profit organisation dedicated to sharing information about WWII wrecks.
It is up to Papua New Guinea to enforce its own laws, protecting these artifacts or at least sell them at their market value.
 
Albert H. Cross,
Australia
 

Indonesia's national parks Logged out The Jakarta Post, Sunday 17 January 2010

I refer to an article titled “Review 2009: RI’s tourism potential remains
untapped,” in The Jakarta Post, January 4.
I think no amount of glitzy marketing of Indonesian attractions is going to build international tourism when the very attractions are being incrementally destroyed or, at the very least, mismanaged.
My experience throughout Indonesia is that, with a few notable exceptions, the
combination of corruption and inept government agencies at all levels results in
incremental destruction of the very attractions and experiences that could be
the making of a great tourism industry.
Like any major asset, unless it is effectively protected and managed, it will
degrade and disappear.
This is clearly evident in the national park system where illegal logging,
encroachment and all manner of inappropriate, low-standard development is
allowed and prevents the parks being the centerpieces of Indonesian tourism that
they should be.
Some of the keys are likely be minimal direct government role in protection and
management, involvement of independent (foreign) guidance, income generation
flowing directly back to protection and management (instead of being siphoned
off by all and sundry corrupt government officials), effective enforcement of
protection (NGOs have proven effective in some cases, private enterprise
always).
Better protection of Indonesia’s tourism assets is one of many good reasons to
move the national park system out of the forestry ministry and its conflicts of
interest into a separate semi-autonomous conservation agency with a board of
management which includes independent people with international standing.
Transparency and accountability would, of course, be essential.
With good protection and land management, law enforcement and a good measure of private and NGO partnership, they have the foundations of a great tourism
industry.
Add to that their great marketing campaigns and success is almost guaranteed. Indonesia could do the same or better, but the government has to learn its proper role - to support and facilitate, not try to run, control and parasitize its tourism assets and industry.
Government needs to learn from the successes in nature-based tourism, not just
from Malaysia but also from the relative successes in Indonesia (e.g. Bunaken in
Sulawesi; Rajah Empat in West Papua; Komodo).
Without fundamental changes in the protection and management of natural assets,
Indonesia’s nature-based tourism has little future; no amount of marketing will
change that.

Nairdah
Sydney
Australia

 

Port au Prince tragedy Related to newly-constructed road The Southeast Asian Times, Saturday 15 January 2010

During the past week two earthquakes have attracted media attention.
The first, on 10th January 2010 was off the coast of Northern California (m6.5), and the second was the devastating earthquake near Port au Prince in Haiti (m7-m7.3), which occurred on 12th January 2010.
Both events were at transform plate boundaries involving the North American tectonic plate.
In my opinion, movement of that plate was accelerated by a number of immediately previous events of modest magnitude in the Rat and Fox Islands in the Aleutians of western Alaska.
Viewed in that way, the Haiti event was within a time/location succession of: Aleutian Islands to North California to Haiti.
Expression at the south of the North American plate also involved the smaller Caribbean plate, as earthquakes of modest magnitude at its Western end provided an arc of seismic activity around the West and South of the perimeter of the parent North American Plate.
I have previously mentioned here that I consider that earthquakes may be triggered by de novo vehicular-traffic vibrations, which I envisage to loosen tectonic contacts, and at that time cited now-historical events to illustrate that likelihood;
viz. – (i) the past San Francisco event of 1906; (ii) the Kobe quake of 1995; (iii) the Padang quake on 30th September 2009; (iv) the surprisingly destructive seismic event on 28th April 2007 in Kent, England close to the Channel Tunnel. I now add the Haiti earthquake of 12th January 2010 to that list – because - a significant new road has recently been constructed near Port au Prince.
That development is briefly reviewed in the Caribbean Daily News at:
( http://www.caribbeandailynews.com/?p=2897 ), where it is written (quote):
“Port au Prince, Haiti, CMC – United Nations officials say the construction of a new highway on the outskirts of the capital is improving both the health, image and security of the area.”;
and from Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive: “It is part of a global vision of reconstruction for the area”
We need to regret that the United Nations and the Haitian government were not aware of possible effects of increasing traffic vibrations on seismic activity, although, of course, accepting such facts usually does involve additional costs.

Raymond Groves

 

Kelly Kwalik Should have listened to Nicholas Jouwe The Jakarta Post, Saturday 16 January 2010

The death of Kelly Kwalik on December 16 was tragic and unnecessary, as Kelly should have listened to veteran Papuan separatist leader Nicholas Jouwe who said on his first visit back to Indonesia after more than 40 years in exile in March 2009
that the war for an independent Papua was over.
The late Kwalik was the reputed leader of the armed wing of the Free Papua
Organization (OPM), co-founded by Jouwe.
While Jouwe lived for most of his live in self-imposed exile in the Netherlands, Kwalik lived by the gun on the run, suspected of shootings, killings and kidnappings in the name of the OPM.
But in March last year Jouwe called for dialogue between the Papuan separatist
(secessionist) movement and the Indonesian authorities, and sought compromise as
neighbors instead of continuing the fight for independence, which albeit no more
than a low-intensity insurgency has inflicted personal pain and hardship on
civilians as well as on the families of slain security personnel and of the so-called freedom fighters.
However, equally tragic is that the 85-year-old Jouwe, as a young man listened
to the misinformation and false promises from vengeful Dutch colonial types who
had never forgiven the great majority of the Indonesian people who chose to
follow the lead of nationalist leaders such as Sukarno, Hatta and Sjahrir,
declaring independence from the Netherlands on August 17, 1945, and the Republic of Indonesia as the successor state to all the territories of the former Dutch East Indies, which have always included the western part of the island of New Guinea.
All the provinces were ruled centrally from the then colonial capital Batavia
(Jakarta), and it was to “Dutch New Guinea” where the leaders of the Indonesian independence movement were exiled, imprisoned at Boven Digoel.
But reactionary Dutch colonial types responded to the declaration of independence by fomenting secessionist movements in the regions in a failed attempt to partition
Indonesia.
After the Dutch government finally recognized Indonesian independence in 1949
under pressure from the UN and the international community, and transferred the
authority formally to the new independent state, it also took the unilateral
step of not transferring the territory of Dutch New Guinea to the RI pending
further negotiations, just as the secessionist movement of the South Maluku
Republic (RMS) was in its last throes of resistance.
Ten years later the then Dutch government decided for reasons best known to
itself to make one last stand in the colonial fight and go to war with Indonesia
again over the ownership of the western part of New Guinea, as it refused to
accede to the legitimate demands from the Indonesian government to negotiate the
terms of transfer of the territory.
But again under the pressure of the UN and the international community the Dutch government had to accept that the RI was the legitimate successor authority according to the principles of uti posseditis juri.
But those same old vengeful Dutch colonials told Jouwe and other Papuan leaders
to fight on for secession instead, under false promises of help, and while the
execution of the Act of Free Will in 1969 was not perfect, the UN recognized it
as the legitimate expression of the will of people of Irian, as the western half
of New Guinea was called then, to continue as part of the RI.
However, the OPM continued with its low-intensity insurgency that attracted more
support from non-Indonesians abroad for a variety of reasons than at home, but
without getting one step closer to its aim of secession.
After the end of the New Order regime and with the democratization of the RI and the provinces of Papua and West Papua gaining special autonomy under the reform process, the raison d’être for the OPM was gone.
Now Jouwe in the Netherlands has taken the courageous step, following the
earlier lead of the RMS movement in exile that made a similar step, by declaring
that the war for secession was over and that instead any differences should be
settled by peaceful means.

B.J.K. Cramer
Rotterdam,
Netherlands

On a Storm in an Internet Tea-cup And a possible Storm from the Sun The Southeast Asian Times, Friday 15 January 2009

I find this letter more difficult than it should be.
That is not because evidence is not there, but because the Internet has recently been swamped with forged graphs and comments posted by those who are clearly hell-bent, willy-nilly, upon denying that Global-Warming is real.
That seems to be from a variety of motives – mainly iconoclasm or to protect their Gods of profit and production.
Fortunately I researched the accusation that ‘Global-Warmists’ at East Anglia University had forged data some time before this extra-ordinary over-reaction to it on the Internet, although I need to rely on my memory of then conclusions.
That is simply because I have no intention of quickly, even slowly, wading through the mountain of cyber-garbage and red-herring material now being banded about.
My firm conclusions when I looked into the accusation were as follows:
Hackers stole 28mb of E-Mails to and from East Anglia University, UK.
I believe they did this with the specific intention to find mud and make it stick.
They should be criminally convicted.
All they found in this 28mb-pile of stolen, then illegally-propagated, E-Mails were two unfortunate, informal comments.
They only became unfortunate when the comments were butchered out of context with unscientific attempts to make them stand on their own.
The fact, that the remaining 27.9mb of E-Mail provided no more ammunition than those two comments for the anti-Global-Warming thieves to distort, is overlooked by this current swarm of what I believe to be disreputable, corrupted, sensationalist, Internet locusts.
The immediately following investigation did reveal one poor piece of sampling in one research project (potentially out of many).
However results were ‘called into question’ (unproven); rather than found as false.
That work should be repeated properly with adequate funding, but perhaps the anti-global-warming mongers will do everything they can to stop that from happening.
That deviant piece of work involved bad sampling of a batch of Siberian trees (that included one outlier), so as to obtain proxy-data from boring trees for annual-ring assessment.
It was critical for predictions about future global temperatures, but does not appear to affect the bulk of the 1000yy of data presented in the ‘hockey stick graph’ – although perhaps the graph should ‘end-down’ a little; as more of a ‘hammock’ than a ‘hockey-stick’. The ‘hammock’ would still completely support the solar explanation for Global-Warming, but not necessarily the anthropomorphic Greenhouse effect.
The Solar-flare theory is also under scrutiny – but not too fundamentally.
That scrutiny arises from immediately-current solar-flares being less intense than anticipated.
NASA believes this is from some incompletely understood phenomenon – and, after all, this is the first 1000y solar-peak that Scientists have ever examined in detail.
This unexpected lull in solar activity may represent a ‘calm before a storm’.
To support that, but without revealing a detailed explanation, NASA are predicting a massive ‘solar storm’ at the next solar peak, which they anticipate will be in 2013.
NASA say that; at that peak and at great material cost; the earth's communication system will be severely damaged. Perhaps a ‘tsunami wave’ of solar-flares may impact the earth at a closely-following solar peak.
Whilst at present some parts of the world are experiencing a freeze-up, most of the globe is exposed to temperatures of 10 degrees C above normal - and that includes Alaska and Canada.
Contrary to hysterical un-evidenced contentions, the Arctic ice is still retreating at a rate greater than previously predicted by anyone.
This freeze-up in Europe is associated with an abnormality in jet stream flow; a large, unusual, long-lasting, high-pressure system over the North Pole; and, according to some reports, a slowing down of the Gulf-Stream.
The latter is a critical claim because, according to many models, ice-melt in the Arctic with increased precipitation at the watershed of the great Siberian rivers will destroy an oceanic salinity gradient to cause the gulf-Stream to stop and Europe to plunge into an ice-age – despite general Global-Warming.
Because of the current explosion of general lack of understanding of the circumstances, I now prefer the expression “Climate Change” to “Global Warming” even though both expressions are equally true.

Raymond Groves

Save Australia From foreign ownership The Southeast Asian Times, Thursday 14 January 2009

Great news, Peter Spencer the brave Australian farmer who has been staging a hunger strike to get heard by our politicians is ending his ordeal.
Not that he has won his cause far from it.
When listening to Peter interviewed he made the statement that Australians had become complacent.
How true that statement is, this great country has become ninety five percent foreign owned with the permission of the two major political parties.
To name a few, I was a shareholder in the following as all Australians were, Telstra, the Commonwealth Bank, The Commonwealth serum laboratories and all their valuable patents, our major Airports.
I was never asked by the politicians did I approve the sales as were no other Australians.
Our minerals have been allowed to fall into foreign hands without a murmur from those in charge of running our affairs.
Legislation passed by them that allows foreign companies in Australia to pay no tax if they pay tax in their own country.
These in most cases overcome by them by forming tax free companies in off shore tax havens.
I think it may be too late Peter to save us; I like to buy food and other items made by Australian owned companies.
Any person that does the same needs a magnifying glass to find such goods in our supermarkets.
If there is a chance it will not come from the two major political parties so that would mean a new party and I would like to offer a name, 'The save and buy back Australia Party'

Frank Crichlow,
Cronulla,
Queensland,
Australia

Global warmists Accused of selective data selection The Southeast Asian Times, Thursday 14 January 2009

It is strange irony to see the warmists acknowledge the natural variability of climate in their January 6 press release stating that the coldest northern winter in 40 years
" does not disprove global warming" because the bitter winter weather is simply a short term "blip" and a manifestation of "the natural variability of climate".
Had it been the warmest winter in 40 years they would surely be singing a different tune.
That tune is the one they sang for the 2003 heat wave in Europe and the 2007 summer melt of sea ice in the Arctic Basin; as well as for Hurricane Katrina, Cyclones Sidr and Aila, recent floods and droughts in China, and droughts in southern Africa, and Australia.
In all of these cases, short term weather events and the effects of known
regional weather patterns were presented not as "blips" nor as "the natural variability of climate" but as effects of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.
In the very same press release they slip back to this old tune and present the deceptive statistic that "2009 will rank among the 10 warmest years since 1880" implying that these data indicate a warming trend even though the cited statistic could be produced by the natural variability of climate without a warming trend.
In any case, the issue is not the warming trend itself but whether it represents a natural variation or whether it is caused by fossil fuels.
It appears that the science of global warming depends on the very unscientific notion that data that support the hypothesis are good data and should be retained while those that do not are blips and outliers than must be discarded.
This method of data selection leads to a sense of "overwhelming evidence" to support their cause and the attitude that they already know the answer and that research methods are a mere formality; and a tendency to overlook statistical
principles and to use statistics only as a marketing tool.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

The 'breaker' generation Ready for Indonesia's 2014 election The Jakarta Post, Wednesday 13 January 2010

Image, which we know as a visual description of people or an object, is today
created by a group of people and known as marketing.
Democracy, however, is defined as a system that makes the civilian’s role the most important one.
In fact, democracy supports government and vice versa, even Abraham Lincoln said, “Democracy is from the citizen, by the citizen and for the citizen.”
We saw lots of New Year’s parties around the world, even today the media is
still talking about New Year’s resolution for this year.
If we look to the new year, then we’ll see that last year’s one was a step back.
In 2009, we saw President Susilo Bambang Yudho-yono elected again for the second time.
But was it the real result?
Yudhoyono is supported by good and professional people in their own professions. However, there is political marketing now, which is known as having the new
agenda of making his image the symbol of democracy.
He’s the king, honestly.
Citizens were taken in by the political advertisements.
He was supported by political consultants who were included in his campaign team. Well, it worked, right?
They had plenty of time to make preparations, from 2004 to 2009.
What TV station did not back him up?
That’s OK, since it is allowed in law.
All we are saying is how long will it take to change, will it take a long time?
The answer is no, maybe only as long as this term.
Why?
Indonesia today has a lot of young, passionate, smart and talented cadres.
Parties such as the PKS, Gerindra, the PDI-P, Golkar and the NU will get involved in new, attractive issues for 2014.
They are preparing the new generation today, the “breaker” generation which is
independent, stronger and smarter.
They will take steps now, get supporters and prepare new cadres so that citizens
can elect them.
There won’t be any “image democracy” any more.
Politic can be run by long-oriented and professional people.
So, catch up, any new leaders in 2014.
There’ll be a lot of fresh candidates showing more ability to be elected, to organize and to manage this country.
Just wait and see, when the exact time comes it will be a new era for young
candidates to battle and break down this “democracy image”.

Mira Sukmawati
Student of SMAN 6,
Yogyakarta,
Indonesia

Don't blame career wives For obsession with the spa The Star, Tuesday 12 January 2010

I refer to a recent article in a local newspaper which blamed career-obsessed
wives for men turning to call girls.
In the article it was mentioned that “middle and upper-income earners go to spas and health clubs where women of different nationalities are available.”
I take exception to this unfair and derogatory reference to spas as it is
tantamount to calling a spa a brothel.
It also shows a lack of understanding and knowledge of an important multi-billion-dollar industry that has become an integral part of the hospitality industry globally. Spas are now considered an important component of travel and leisure.
The spa industry is also part and parcel of the Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) movement that is spreading the world over.
Malaysia aspires to be the health and wellness tourism destination in Asia and
rightly so, given the many natural resources and the quality healthcare we are
able to offer.
But the negative references to spas are damaging to our efforts.
Such generalisation is unfair to the many professionals who remain dedicated to
an industry that promotes wellness and healthy living.
Besides, the industry is offering tremendous job prospects all over the world,
as well as career options for Malaysians.
This is a sunrise industry and it is not unusual for spa directors in world-class spas to earn five-figure salaries when they work abroad.
Ivy league universities are offering degrees in spa management while professionals in other fields are switching careers to go into the spa industry.
Even premier hospitals and medical centres are adding spas to their facilities
and yet we read negative remarks on spas so often here in Malaysia.
No wonder parents are sceptical about allowing their children to go into this perfectly legitimate industry.
Is it any wonder that our spa industry continues to depend on foreign therapists and staff?
Malaysia has what it takes to become a world class spa and health destination.
Association of Malaysian Spas (AMSPA) member spas are some of the finest in the region.
We do not deserve this kind of negative reporting and we are not doing ourselves any favour in doing so.

Datin Ramona Suleiman,
President,
Association of Malaysian Spas
Malaysia

 

The Rajah Brooke butterfly The most beautiful of all butterflies The Star, Monday 11 January 2009

The shocking destruction of the Rajah Brooke butterfly site in Ulu Geroh near
Gopeng as reported in the article 'Popular butterfly habitat destroyed' in The
Star, January 6 reminded me of an incident involving this most beautiful of all
butterflies.
Some years ago, I was in Genting Highlands helping out at an international
conference.
The Japanese president of the organisation had an unusual request for the committee.
He had heard so much about the rare Rajah Brooke butterfly and earnestly wanted
to know where he could see them even if it was just to have a glimpse of the
exquisite beauty of one butterfly.
So with only hours to spare before his opening speech I rushed him from
Genting Highlands to Ulu Geroh where he was ecstatic to see scores of these
living jewels at the very spot which is now being destroyed!
Ironically everywhere around us the very attractions promoted by our tourism
organisations are being destroyed.
We are losing our natural wonders such as the Ulu Geroh butterflies and Rafflesia through greed and apathy.
It seems Malaysians are like in this line from a song: we don’t know what we’ve
got till they’re gone.

Rajah Brooke Fan,
Taiping,
Malaysia

Recipient of Nobel Peace Prize Unworthy of noble concept The Southeast Asian Times, Sunday 10 January 2010

The famous - or perhaps more appropriately 'infamous' - Nobel Peace Prize
(originally conceived as recognition of individuals considered worthy, by their actions, as contributors to the betterment of mankind) has fatuously and finally established itself as a leader in a crowded field of moral double standards.
With its' explosive origins rooted in a commercial history of death and destruction, does this current selection of 'worthy' recipients actually represent the sincere spirit of its' noble' concept?
To respond to that pertinent question, may we now look at the character of contemporary nominees - and - winners of this much coveted 'peace' award?
Research reveals that the former category includes such luminaries as Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, the bellicose Tony Blair and the born-again Christian - and Butcher of Baghdad - George W Bush.
While the latter 'rogues gallery' embraces those of rabid Zionist Dr. Henry Kissinger (former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in the subsequently proven corrupt Nixon administration) whose contemptible curriculum vitae includes the deaths of 3-4 million in South East Asia plus tens of thousands more worldwide.
In Palestine, Israel's leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin almost matched his 'ethnocide of innocents' - which continues to this day under the US/Israel hybridized foreign policy.
Former collusive CEO of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, supported the attempted genocide of the Iraqi nation.
Al Gore, arguably, another political 'prostitute' is in familiar company - and the lamentable list goes on.
The common denominator in assessing the 'worthiness' of these winners is, surely, their success in promoting their sponsor's product to create indiscriminate murder and mayhem?
And so we come to the 'final selection' for 2009 of US President Barack Obama who, (after much promise), has religiously followed the obscene, acquisitive, protocols of the (also) Zionist dominated Bush administration under the 'advisory eye' of his former Columbia university professor and 'coach', political Zionist Zbigniew Brzezinski.
People looking forward to a New Year of hope and good fortune - with world -peace- and -the -feeling -of -security-in-our-time - face a forlorn future unless they rise, in significant numbers, and root out this cankerous, Canaanitic, coalition once and for all.
I support Jews against Zionism <jewsagainstzionism.org>

Harry A. Boniface,
Queensland,
Australia

Call for Thailand to respect Cambodia's National integrity and sovereignty The Nation, Saturday 9 January 2010

I wish to reply to the editorial published in The Nation newspaper, on December 29, 2009, "Hun Sen's vanity is a danger to the region's unity".
While this editorial is completely absurd and vulgar, it has shown how your newspaper has become a political propaganda tool of a government in power, with a complete lack of decent politeness, professional journalism, and truth. Undoubtedly, this editorial has greatly contributed to the deterioration of relations and exacerbating the tensions between the two countries.
First, I think if you call a foreign leader highly respected in his country "a halfwit", then you are more than a halfwit yourself, and imbecile.
This is a finger-pointing rule, which fully applies in this case.
Second, to say that "Hun Sen may be riding on Thailand's back to boost his
popularity…" means that you are completely ignorant.
Samdech Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia, does not need any popularity at all, based either on Thailand's or The Nation's popularity, because he is vice-chairman of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) which has won a landslide victory in the elections and now has more than two-thirds of the seats in the parliament.
He also had been elevated to the dignity of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo, highly bestowed upon him by His Majesty the King of Cambodia.
Third, Cambodia did not extradite Thaksin Shinawatra, former prime minister of
Thailand, because he was overthrown by a coup d'etat.
Cambodia does not expect or want anything in return.
It is just a question of justice for a leader who was overwhelmingly elected by the Thai people.
Fourth, with regard to the spirit of good neighbourliness, it is important for
neighbouring states to respect each other, especially national integrity and
sovereignty.
Today, there is no good neighbourliness with Thailand because the Thai Government opposed Cambodia's inscription of the Preah Vihear Temple on the
World Heritage List, despite the fact that the Temple belongs to Cambodia and
its location is on Cambodian soil; refused to recognise the name of the Preah
Vihear Temple, although the whole world, including the International Court of
Justice, had recognised and used it; invaded Cambodia by sending its troops
inside Cambodian territory first on July 15, 2008 and subsequently thereafter.

Ouk Sophoin,
Charge D'Affaires,
Royal Embassy of Cambodia

The Indonesian government should run the country According to the constitution The Jakarta Post, Friday 8 January 2010

I refer to a statement made by Djoko Suyanto, a patron of a foundation
established by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono supporters, who said that he
would have no problem if the foundation received a donation from businessman
Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra, a fugitive in the Bank Bali corruption case.
Dear Djoko Suyanto, you may have forgotten?
Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra, is a fugitive in the Bank Bali corruption case, and was convicted in the Rp 546-billion Bank Bali scandal.
He was sentenced to two years in jail for misappropriation of funds paid to Bank
Bali by Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency.
Because he received inside information on the impending court ruling he was able to flee the country by private plane to Papua New Guinea on June 10 before the two year sentence was officially handed down.
The same court sentenced former Indonesian Central Bank governor Syahril Sabirin also to two years in jail in the same case, which he now serves in the Cipinang prison in East Jakarta.
Djoko’s Bank Bali was paid US$120 million by then Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) to pay the Bank’s debts and to restructure it.
Djoko fled with all or part of those funds.
If Djoko, a sentenced fugitive from the State of Indonesia, contributed to a
foundation established by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s supporters and
managed by a number of state officials, there is a conflict of interest.
I also wonder why state officials manage a private fund?
The argument is that the contribution would not make the foundation “bad” is totally irrelevant.
Djoko obviously would not spend money on a foundation linked to the President if
he would not expect a favor in return.
Such contribution should have been declined and immediately reported to the AGO.
However, the sad point is: the executive, legislative and judicial branches of
government should provide the necessary checks and balances in running the
country according to the Constitution.
However, these branches are no longer independent but subject to strong and
corrupt influences from each other as well as private third parties with money.
In our country that is the bases that laws are developed and passed or not,
enforced or not and sentences meted out or not; allowing the likes of Djoko
to escape justice.
Some would argue and call such a rent-seeking system
“lobbying”, others would call it corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN).

Henry Manoe,
Kupang,
East Nusa Tenggara,
Indonesia

Martial law in Maguindanao Wipes out evidence of electoral fraud The Philippine Inquirer, Thursday 7 January 2010

“ Commission on Elections (Comelec) wants Maguindanao ballot boxes” confiscated by the martial law enforcers turned over to it in Philippine Inquirer 7 December 2009.
That gave away Proclamation 1959.
The martial law declaration was quite evidently a red herring.
A fake.
No less than Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera admitted that the feared rebellion, the basis for the imposition of martial law in Maguindanao, was merely looming in the horizon and therefore not yet an actuality.
One of the whereas clauses of that declaration also noted it was merely imminent. The Constitution explicitly requires that rebellion must already be in existence, a foregone conclusion, and the Arroyo stooges knew this.
They were obviously playing it out anyway for a more sinister motive: wipe out any and all evidence of electoral fraud that took place in Maguindanao during the 2004 and 2007 elections.
Dropped like hot potatoes, the Ampatuans can shout all they want about any dark secrets they might have kept all these years against President Macapagal-Arroyo. While that might have afforded them hubris, immunity and a stranglehold on her in the past, now without “evidence admissible in the proper forum” they’re dead meat!

Stephen L. Monsanto
Manila,
Philippines

Wisma Putra recalls United Nations representative The Star, Tuesday 5 January 2010

The recall by Wisma Putra or Malaysia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs of our permanent representative to the United Nations in Vienna, Datuk Mohd Arshad Hussain, for casting a vote not sanctioned by the Government is a matter of grave concern to the country.
Since the damage to Malaysia’s reputation has already been done, the Government must endeavour to contain this impairment by assuring the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) that this incident was not in accordance with the
Government’s stand.
The issue here is not that Malaysia’s vote has offended the United States or
other Western countries to rebuke Iran on its nuclear ambitions, but more
importantly how did such a gaffe happen in the first place.
For a layman not familiar with the diplomatic world, I would like to know
whether Wisma Putra or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a modus operandi in place for its diplomats when crucial votes are taken at the UN or any international organisation.
I recall an article written by former ambassador Datuk Deva Mohd Ridzam “No
longer the envy of the diplomatic world” in which the writer highlighted his
concerns on the quality of our current corp of diplomats.
In the article, the writer stated that “our diplomat’s capacity to make sound
policy has suffered irreparable decline, both intellectually and
professionally”.
It should be taken into consideration by the Government.
Perhaps, it is time for the Government to open up the diplomatic service,
particularly for ambassadors and high commissioners, to include direct
recruitment from the private sector.
We have many seasoned Malaysians who can effectively represent and articulate
Malaysia’s views at the international fora in the best interests of the country.

James Gonzales,
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia

Peace treaties are successful When arms are laid down The Philippine Inquirer, Tuesday 5 January 2010

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the government peace panel negotiators must go beyond their original issues of concern and consider seriously the issue of disarmament in the resumption of their talks in Kuala Lumpur.
The gruesome massacre in Maguindanao is not only about warlordism, political rivalry and the insane exercise of power; it reveals the stark reality that the finger on the trigger of resolute brute and radical secessionists will always remain a threat to peace and reconciliation.
Successful peace accords have proven that only when arms are laid down that treaties of peace becomes successful.
This was achieved either by force or negotiation.
Having gone through the tedious process of resolving contentions in their search for peace, and after absorbing lessons from the discordant items from the talks which had led to the suspension of negotiations and then from the gruesome Maguindanao massacre of innocent Christians and Muslim civilians, it now behooves the
negotiators to stare closely at the issue of disarmament.
This challenge, so to speak, is in the court of the MILF, as a secessionist front.
This is not to say that the government should merely watch with arms akimbo, for the responsibility of security falls squarely on the government.
What compels individuals and groups to arm themselves is instinctive self-protection.
If the authority fails to enforce the laws and thereby allows criminal elements to abuse and threaten them, the next option for survival is to arm themselves.
The proliferation of firearms in Mindanao is due mainly to threats from warlords exemplified by the Ampatuans.
Remove the arms from the warlords and they are effectively defanged.
Look at how many of Ampatuans’ gunmen have turned their firearms to the government and offered to turn witness against them.
It is because the threat is gone and they can now talk freely without fear of being decapitated with chain saws or simply gunned down.
As in Maguindanao after the warlords are effectively accounted for, the government ought to assert its authority in other areas and ensure that peace and
security are properly safeguarded.
The problem of the MILF is that not a few of its followers cannot live in peace. This is so because by their guns they can intimidate communities and demand support.
If peace is reached, what will happen to them?
Secessionism has become fashionable and for as long as extremist Islamic groups have not run out of funds to fund their existence, they will always be there to oppose peace efforts.
There ought to be an assurance from the government that their future in a
condition of peace will be safeguarded and that they will be provided with decent jobs.
Those who want to invest in peace are willing to help for as long as there is a guarantee that a truce will be reached and normalcy will return.
With the start of the New Year and the commencement of the peace talks and peace process, we look forward to the resolution of the problems that have long bedeviled Mindanao.

Miriam Dahunog,
Manila,
Philippines

Australian tribute to Gus Dur should include His acknowledgement of the Morning Star flag The Australian, Monday 4 January 2010

The editorial tribute to former Indonesian president Gus Dur January 1, could also have mentioned that he acknowledged the right of West Papuans to use their traditional symbols including the Morning Star flag.
Unfortunately this right was not upheld by subsequent presidents with the result that many West Papuans are now serving long jail terms merely for displaying their flag.
Gus Dur also often spoke up in favour of dialogue between the Papuan people and the Indonesian government.
Again, unfortunately, subsequent presidents have allowed military/police intimidation to maintain rule in West Papua rather than dialogue.

Esther Anderson,
Surrey Hills,
Victoria,
Australia

Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA) Funded and equiped by Arroyo The Philippine Inquirer, Sunday 3 January 2010

The most recent in the long-running series of splits in the Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA) has produced a purported new and reformed group, but it is composed of the same old opportunist elements.
The reported ouster of Mailed Molina and the rise of a new group led by Arsenio Humiding are nothing more than a quarrel over the division of spoils.
This same thing has repeatedly happened to the CPLA in the past, as various factions squabbled over the funds, weapons and jobs dangled before them by the reactionary government.
As an armed group devoid of any ideological mooring, the CPLA serves as a special paramilitary force for Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) counter-insurgency operations in the region.
Its members have been involved in horrible human rights violations such as the abduction, torture and the murder of Cordillera Bodong Association chairman and Cordillera People’s Alliance vice chairman Ama Daniel Ngayaan, and the killings
of scores of Cordillera activists and civilians.
Various factions of the CPLA serve in the private armies of warlord-politicians in Abra and other Cordillera provinces.
In Isabela, CPLA members serve in the private army used by a warlord clan in land-grabbing activities.
In recent years, even the Philippine National Police has complained about the armed robberies, extortion, land-grabbing, illegal logging, drug dealing, gambling protection rackets and other crimes perpetrated by the CPLA.
The current CPLA interim leadership keeps on harping on the same tired issues of the integration of more of their members into the AFP and the continuation of their supposed peace talks with the government.
This underscores their confused and laughable position.
Peace talks are held between adversaries.
The CPLA is not an adversary of the government.
In fact, the CPLA is pleading for more of their members to be integrated into the reactionary armed forces.
The CPLA raises the issue of their imaginary peace talks and their empty threats of “going back to the hills” whenever they demand more financial assistance and projects from the government.
The CPLA is simply a criminal armed group used by the military in counter-insurgency operations against the revolutionary movement and the people.
The CPLA is in the same sinking boat as the infamous Ampatuan private army and other armed groups funded, equipped and coddled by the military and the Arroyo regime.
The Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF) calls upon the public not to be deceived and to vigorously reject the purported new and reformed CPLA.
It is nothing more than an armed gang of lapdogs begging for crumbs from an increasingly isolated regime.
The CPLA must be immediately disarmed, disbanded and punished for the various
abuses and human rights violations it committed against the Cordillera people.

Simon "Ka Filiw" Naogsan,
Spokesperson,
Cordillera People’s Democratic Front,
Philippines

Heavies discharge tourist From Indonesia's corporatised hospital The Jakarta Post, Saturday 2 January 2009

Five-star, hotel-like hospitals, which can now be found in most of the larger Indonesian cities, exploit a need for better medical care without always fulfilling
that need.
Their elaborately decorated public spaces provide an illusion of medical
competence not necessarily reflected in what happens to the patient.
From my own direct observation, what these five-star hospitals are most adept at is using powerful legal teams to ruthlessly extract payment for medical services
rendered.
It would be interesting to know how many families have lost their homes
following the legal actions of these hospital’s accounts departments.
Here in Batam, I once saw a foreign tourist who suffered a heart attack after being
attacked and robbed of all his belongings.
Some public-minded citizens bought him to one of Batam’s “better” hospitals. When, the next morning, that hospital found out that the tourist had lost all means to pay, he was immediately removed from life support and unceremoniously dumped back at his hotel; not alone, but in the company of two thug-like men from the hospital’s accounts department who spend the next 48 hours badgering and bullying the sick tourist to find the means to pay the hospital’s bill.
The hotel, ironically, was far more tolerant and humane towards the sick tourist’s predicament than the hospital.
One reason why Prita Mulyasari’s case has such an outpouring of public support
is that too many of us have suffered at the hands of Indonesia’s corporatized
profit-oriented medical services industry.
The professional standards and moral aims of health care in this country need more, not less, open debate and public scrutiny.

Evan Jones,
Batam,
Riau Island,
Indonesia

Proper research in water management Missing The Jakarta Post, Friday 1 January 2010

This is a response to the article titled “NTB imposes environmental service
fees”, in The Jakarta Post, December 28.
As a trained environmental engineer I see a big logical flaw.
When rain falls on a watershed upstream of a reservoir, it can go to one of three places: into the ground as groundwater, evapotranspire the process of vegetation evaporating water into the atmosphere or flow off the watershed as surface drainage.
When a watershed is deforested, the trees will no longer evapotranspire water
into the atmosphere.
Instead, the amount of surface drainage water is increased.
The environmental damage which typically happens is erosion and downstream siltation of earth into the reservoir.
Rainwater is not retained by vegetation and the net result is increased flows of
water into the reservoir.
The only thing that can decrease the flow of water in a river is decrease in the rainfall.
Whoever is analyzing the problem of decreased flow of water into the reservoir
has not conducted the proper research to find the cause of the problem and
obviously is not properly educated and trained in the field of hydrology and
watershed management.
Why do I get the feeling this extra tax money will be going to some bureaucrats pocket and not producing more water?

Ben Johnson,
Lombok,
West Nusa Tenggara,
Indonesia