Jakarta (Blog Action Day, October 15, 2008)

 

Along the Tracks by renegade 150

 

The extraordinary survival of over thousands of years of Buddhism, Christianity or Islam in dozens of different social formations attests to their imaginative response to the overwhelming burden of human suffering – disease, mutilation, grief, age, and death. Why was I born blind? Why is my best friend paralyzed? Whay is my daughter retarded? The religious attempt to explain. The great weakness of all evolutionary / progressive styles of thought, not excluding Marxism, is that such questions are answered with impatient silence.

    – Benedict Anderson (from: Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism)

The subject is poverty.

Poverty must be as old as humanity itself.

There have always been poor people and it is more than likely that there will always be poor people. The condition of the poor; their housing, health, education, and welfare have not been neglected in the sense that there have always been people and organizations which have brought attention to these problems and have tried to do something about it. There are countless charities and there have been countless do-gooders who have spent millions of dollars, devoted their careers, and even their lives to helping the poor. Great writers have written great tomes about the lives of the poor. Their words tug at out hearts.

In modern times there have been great schemes to alleviate poverty. The United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary fund have a long history of developmental aid (some of it good and a lot of it bad) designed to alleviate poverty. Millions, if not billions of dollars have been spent on projects to eradicate poverty.

Yet, after all the schemes that have even been proposed and all the money that has ever been spent, here we  sitting in our chairs in front of our computers blogging about poverty.

Poverty is real.

There are perhaps as many as billion people living in poverty on the planet. Many live on as little a two dollars a day, live in ramshackle housing, have limited access to health services, education, clean drinking water. You can see it in Jakarta. I saw it and walked among those people. They are simply trying to find a way of making in living in their various adverse circumstances. Circumstances which often serve to keep them in a cycle of poverty which they cannot break out of. In these conditions the people are often exploited. Exploited for their cheap labor, exploited into human trafficking, even exploited for their organs.

Tolstoy and Lenin and Jesus and Ghandi and Buddha asked, “What is to be done?” That was the refrain of the photo journalist Billy Kwan in the movie “The Year of Living Dangerously”.

There are uncountable answers to this question. There are hundreds if not thousands of books which propose workable schemes to alleviate poverty. All have at their core good intentions, are intelligently wirtten, have merit, and are worthy of consideration.  Where is the disconnect? Why is there left so much to do?

Not to address the condition of poverty has sometimes led to revolutions, political upheaval, civil war. There are historical consequences to poverty which have changed the fate of empires and nations.

The black limousines pull up to the meeting rooms of the world capitals. World Bank, IMF officials, Finance Ministers, Treasury Department officials. They are not meeting to discuss poverty. They are meeting to discuss how to salvage a global economy that is in the process of melting down. They are meeting to discuss how to salvage themselves from a problem which they themselves have created. And because they represent the power of their governments it is nothing to them to inject 250 billion dollars here, and 700 billion dollars there to prop up an economic system which benefits an elite few while a third of the planet lives on less than two dollars a day.

Here is an aphorism, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”. That well describes the modern global economy for the last quarter-of-a-century or more. It might even describe the economy of the last five hundred years beginning from the time when the Dutch parked their ships in Jakarta bay.

More and more I am convinced that the true poverty of this world is the poverty of will. And the will of greed.

It is not the lack of good ideas. It is not that we do not understand or cannot define what the problems are. We do understand. We do know what the problems are.  Still, nothing gets done. I am suspicious of this. I think this looks increasingly as if this were intentional.

It’s not that we can’t solve the problem of poverty we just don’t want to for some reason. And this has dragged on for a long, long, long time.

The answers we have at hand to address and remedy poverty require  new ways of thinking. These new ways of thinking will have to first address the paramount question of our time: how are we to live on this planet? What kind world do we wish to create?

The old ways have not worked. We are now entering a historical period where this failure will be brought to focus in ways we cannot imagine.

At the core we have an oil economy and a global agricultural system tied to that oil. We, as Michael Pollan has written, are “sipping oil”. That we have tied our ability to feed ourselves to oil production is a dangerous folly. We have altered our own climate as a result of this appetite and now are reaping the consequences. And for the sake of this status quo nations go to war. 

It is more than likely that the future ahead will not be pleasant but it will be full of opportunity.

I frankly do not care about the stock market or failing banks or securing the power of the elite rich through loans or printing more money or bailing out their banks or spending more and more and more on the police and the military and leaving the burden of that debt to future generations.

I say let it all crash just like the house of cards it is. The sooner the better.

It is time for a new paradigm. It is time for impatient action.

UPDATE: 11/15/2008

Members of the G-20 recently met in Washington D.C. to discuss the problems of the global economy. The White House dinner menu is posted here: …go to press release>

Menu for the Dinner in Honor of the Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy

Fruitwood-smoked Quail with Quince Gastrique
Quinoa Risotto

Landmark Chardonnay “Damaris Reserve” 2006

Thyme-roasted Rack of Lamb
Tomato, Fennel and Eggplant Fondue
Chanterelle Jus

Shafer Cabernet “Hillside Select” 2003

Lolla Rosa, Red Oak and Endive
Cider Vinaigrette
Baked Vermont Brie with Walnut Crostini

Pear Torte
Huckleberry Sauce

Chandon Étoile Rosé

###

In a statement, the White House said the leaders “had a good, productive meeting.”

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Jakarta (Blog Action Day – October 15, 2008)

Stare by zacharya

Artist’s Comments: Seorang anak sedang duduk di sebuah gerbong kereta di stasiun Beos kota, Jakarta.
Anak ini adalah salah satu dari sekian banyak anak yang hidup di pinggir jalur kereta yang berbahaya.

A child sitting in a train wagon at Beos Train Station, Jakarta.
This child is one of many children living dangerously near railway tracks.

I would like my readers to note the announcement in the upper left column of The Jakarta Indonesia Urban Blog and linked below. I hope that my fellow Indonesian and Jakartan bloggers will register and join in in this effort.

From The New York Times Editorial comes this:

Editorial

Failing the World’s Poor

Published: September 23, 2008

“Good intentions wither fast, especially when it comes to helping the world’s poor.

At the turn of the millennium, world leaders committed to cutting extreme global poverty in half and to achieving deep reductions in malnutrition and child mortality rates. They followed that up in 2005 with a pledge to increase development assistance to $130 billion a year by 2010 (about $151 billion in today’s money).

That was then. Today, even as soaring energy and food prices exacerbate the suffering of the world’s poor, the richest nations are falling far behind on their aid commitments – and behind their past giving.

The current financial turmoil could make it even less likely that the wealthy nations will fulfill their promises to the poorest of the poor. Without that money, many of the development goals announced with such fanfare will go unmet.

Aid from the world’s developed countries fell by almost 13 percent between 2005 and 2007 – to under $104 billion, after inflation. The aggregate aid budget of the most developed nations amounts to 0.28 percent of their gross national income, woefully below the target of 0.7 percent agreed to by world leaders in 2002 .

Only Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark meet the target. Canada’s overseas aid amounts to 0.28 percent of its income. Japan’s is 0.17 percent. The United States, shamefully, is at the bottom of the list, spending 0.16 percent of its income on development assistance.

Many countries tie too many strings to their largess – such as requirements to buy supplies from donor countries. (Aid flows are often swayed by domestic politics in the donor nations, making them unpredictable and difficult to manage by receiving nations.)

Aid isn’t the only area where the developed world is failing. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, wealthy countries acknowledged that poverty can be a fertile ground for terrorism and pledged to open their markets to exports from the world’s poorest nations. Those promises collapsed along with global trade talks this year.

The world’s poor still desperately needs the help. According to a new World Bank study, 1.4 billion people lived in extreme poverty in 2005. Twenty-seven percent of children under 5 in the developing world were underweight. Their mortality rate was 83 per 1,000 live births, about 14 times the rate in rich nations. And whatever gains have been made against the most abject poverty, they risk being undone by the rising price of food.

Speaking to the United Nations this week, the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, warned that the world is facing a “development crisis,” and he expressed his fear that wealthy nations would now fall even further behind in their commitments. We share that fear.” …>go to article

Yes, we share that fear.

It is now, right now, that we must confront the great issues of our time before the financial elites and our own governments sell us out.

There is only us.

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Jakarta (children’s day, financial reform, sex work, and malnutrition)

Blowing away Ambition by renegade 150

Note: Italics added for emphasis.

Children’s Day turns sour in Jakarta
Fri, Jul 25, 2008
Jakarta Post /ANN

ACOMMEMORATION of Indonesia’s National Children’s Day turned sour on Wednesday, when the government refused to allow children to publicly read out their demand for a special ministry of their own.

The request was the last point of a six-point declaration drafted during the recent 7th Indonesian Children’s Congress in Bogor, West Java.

Children aged between 12 and 18 had taken part in the event organised by the Social Services Ministry.

The restriction, which the children took to be a denial of freedom of expression, took place right under the nose of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was at the park in East Jakarta, along with dignitaries and 15,000 children.

It is unclear if the President knew about the censorship.

The children’s representatives said the event organisers had forbidden them from making the demand for “political reasons”.

“We feel hurt by the restriction. The declaration is just an expression of our ideas, so we should have been allowed to speak out,” said Ajat Sudrajat, who had signed the declaration.

“We don’t care if the ministry can be established only in the next 10 years or so. We just want to be heard.”

Other points in the declaration, “Voice of Indonesian Children”, included the aspiration to be creative and intelligent children, protected from violence or exploitation, and a desire to be protected from “the dangers of tobacco in order to grow and develop as naturally as possible”.

Social Services Minister Bachtiar Chamsyah defended the restriction.

“I explained to (the children) the condition of our country. It is impossible for the government to set up the ministry because it would increase the burden on the state budget.

“Maybe we can make it come true only within the next 20 years, when our country’s economy has improved.”

It is unclear why this meant the children could not declare their wish.

Mr Bachtiar also asked the children to stop demanding their own rights.

National Commission for Child Protection secretary-general Arist Merdeka Sirait said the restriction showed the government’s lack of commitment to addressing the problems Indonesian children face.

“We urgently need a ministry that deals with children’s affairs, as the government has failed to address their problems, such as violence and child labour,” he said.

The commission estimated that 6.5 million children in the country were forced to quit school last year in order to work. …> go to article

OECD urges anti-poverty reform on Jakarta
By Lisa Murray in Jakarta Published: July 24 2008

Indonesia needs to overhaul its labour laws and remove foreign ownership restrictions to help raise economic growth to levels that would have an impact on poverty, Angel Gurría, head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, said on Thursday.

Mr Gurría was in Jakarta to release the OECD’s first comprehensive study of the Indonesian economy. Its report recommended Indonesia introduce a mechanism linking increases in local fuel prices to world energy markets, with a view to obviating politically motivated adjustments and eventually wiping out all subsidies.

In spite of a 30 per cent rise in fuel prices in May, Indonesia’s government is still expected to spend a quarter of its budget, about $30bn, on fuel and electricity subsidies this year.

“It’s just a huge amount,” Mr Gurría said in an interview with the Financial Times. “We think we’re making a contribution by coming and saying: ‘For heaven’s sake, do you realise what you could do with this money?’ ”

The OECD expects Indonesia’s economy to grow by more than 6 per cent this year but says it needs to boost that rate to about 8 per cent to reduce poverty and unemployment. The organisation advised the central bank to act “resolutely” and “pre-emptively” to stave off inflation, which hit a 21-month high of more than 11 per cent in June.

Boediono, the central bank governor appointed in May, said this week he believed inflation had peaked but the bank would use gradual rate increases to keep it under control.

The OECD said Indonesia should review its labour laws because complicated dismissal procedures and hefty severance and long-service leave payments discouraged companies from investing and hiring. It also recommended reducing the minimum wage, which, at about 65 per cent of median pay, was “too high” and “out of step with productivity gains”. Rather than protecting workers, the high minimum wage forced people into the informal sector, where there was little regulation and poor pay, it said.

Asked whether the government would follow up the recommendations, Mahendra Siregar from the Co-ordinating Ministry for the Economy said only that it would “study them further”. “Whether our particular policy formation requires further engagement or discussion with the OECD, we will inform them later,” he said.

Mr Gurría conceded that labour reform and changes to fuel price subsidies were difficult to introduce nine months from an election.

The OECD is looking to develop what it terms an “enhanced engagement” with Indonesia as a first step towards full membership. The same approach is being taken with Brazil, China, India and South Africa. …> go to article

INDONESIA: Poverty at root of commercial sex work

 

 Photo: A. Mirza/ILO

JAKARTA, 24 July 2008 (IRIN) – In a district of the northeastern part of West Java, commercial sex workers are touting for business right outside the mosque. Bandungwangi, a local NGO working against trafficking, says half the women and children it rescues from prostitution in Jakarta come from this district.

“The root of the problem is poverty, but in some areas – like that district [child protection agencies have asked that its name not be revealed] in West Java – prostitution is accepted. It’s the culture,” explains Arum Ratnawati of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, with people so poor they are forced to sell or send their children into commercial sex work to earn income for the family.”  …>go to article

 

INDONESIA: Child malnutrition aggravated by food, oil price rises

JAKARTA, 21 July 2008 (IRIN) – Thirteen toddlers are fighting for their lives in Ba’a hospital in a remote village in Nusa Tenggara Province, eastern Indonesia. All of them are suffering from malnutrition. “They are very weak – only skin and bones and swollen stomachs,” Dr Rina Sudjiawati told IRIN. “Because of their condition they are very vulnerable to other serious illnesses.”Dozens of Indonesian children under five died of malnutrition in the first six months of 2008, according to the health authorities, although no accurate figure can be determined.

The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates 13 million children in Indonesia suffer from malnutrition. In some Indonesian districts about 50 percent of infants and young children are underweight.

“Some parts of this country have even worse data than sub-Saharan Africa,” said Anne Vincent, head of the UN Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) health and nutrition section in Indonesia. Vincent is “appalled” by eating habits in Indonesia. “Sometimes they give their children only rice with water. Kids don’t grow on that.” …> go to article

 

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Jakarta (global climate change and the wealth of nations)

East Jakarta, 2008

“It is the business of the future to be dangerous”

-A.N. Whitehead

This morning I decided to turn on the TV and check the news. The first thing I saw along the bottom of the screen in the CNN news ticker was “4,118 US forces dead in Iraq.” 

The war in Iraq is not only a war for oil, as all the Bush adminstration rationales for the war have now been exposed as blatant lies and intentional fraud, it is a war for oil profits led by war criminals.

From N.Y. Times, 7/11/2008

Book Cites Secret Red Cross Report of C.I.A. Torture of Qaeda Captives

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: July 11, 2008
Correction Appended

WASHINGTON – Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001. …> go to article

From AFP

Antarctic Ice Shelf ‘Hanging by Thread’: European Scientists

PARIS – New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday.

Images taken by its Envisat remote-sensing satellite show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is “hanging by its last thread” to Charcot Island, one of the plate’s key anchors to the Antarctic peninsula, ESA said in a press release.

“Since the connection to the island… helps stabilise the ice shelf, it is likely the breakup of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk,” it said. …> go to article

Brilliant Plans to Destroy the Planet: The World Bank Tackles Climate Change

By Janet Redman, Institute for Policy Studies. Posted July 11, 2008.

President Bush and other leaders of the industrialized world managed to produce a masterfully vague, loophole-ridden statement on climate change at a Group of 8 summit held at a secluded resort on the banks of Lake Toyako in Japan this week.

Meanwhile, thousands of delegates from grassroots movements transformed tranquil Odori Park in downtown Sapporo into the central nervous system of a bottom-up response to ecologically destructive development policies. On the opening day of the G8 summit, activists from every continent joined Japanese environmental and global justice groups in the streets brandishing banners, flags and megaphones. Their message was unambiguous: “Climate Justice, Yes! World Bank, No!” …

…Also offensive to developing countries is that the World Bank is asking the countries least responsible for causing climate change to take out loans to help pay for adapting to the inevitable impacts. According to the G8 statement, rich country “donations” to the Strategic Climate Fund will count toward those nations’ obligations for development aid, stretching an already pitiful sum impossibly thin.

Piling more debt onto many already heavily indebted nations will mean less money for climate-related disaster preparedness, emergency services and food shortages in the future.

World Bank Climate Hypocrisy

The World Bank’s effort to reinvent itself as the global climate crusader is a dangerous charade. With $2 billion already spent on coal, oil and gas projects this year, the World Bank continues to be among the world’s largest multilateral financiers of greenhouse-gas-emitting projects in the developing world.

The new Climate Investment Funds proposed by the United States and others will house the Clean Technology Fund. Donations from rich countries will ostensibly be used to bring low-carbon technologies to developing countries, and clean energy access to their poorest citizens. But environmental groups have taken to calling the Clean Technology Fund the Slightly Less Dirty Technology Fund because of the bank’s outright support for slightly more efficient coal power…

U.S. Role

Fiery protest in Japan was matched by a chilly reception among some members of the U.S. Congress to the Bush administration’s request for a $2 billion donation to the World Bank’s new funds. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, pointed out at a recent committee hearing on a U.S. contribution that the “World Bank is not seen as an institution friendly to the environment” and that it seems to “spend one day a month protecting the environment and the other 29 days destroying it.” Still, it’s likely that Congress will authorize the money…” …> go to article

Janet Redman is a researcher for the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., where she provides analysis of the international financial institutions’ energy investment and carbon finance activities. She is the author of the recent report “World Bank: Climate Profiteer.”

Cheney’s staff censored EPA, ex-official alleges
Warming’s effects on health at issue

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post / July 9, 2008

WASHINGTON – Members of Vice President Dick Cheney’s staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed by global warming, a former official of the Environmental Protection Agency said yesterday.

In a letter to Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, Jason Burnett, former EPA deputy associate administrator, said an official from Cheney’s office ordered that six pages be edited out of the testimony last October of Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Several media outlets, including The Washington Post, reported at the time that Gerberding had planned to say that the “CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern,” among other passages. White House officials said then that they questioned the scientific basis of aspects of Gerberding’s draft testimony.

Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the administration feared that Gerberding’s testimony would force the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. The White House has opposed mandatory limits and insisted that voluntary measures and increased research are the best way to address the issue. …> go to article

Is this picture becoming clear?

Follow the Money (an example)

Thomson Financial News
Indonesia’s Adaro sets IPO this week after securing approval
07.06.08, 10:22 PM ET

JAKARTA (Thomson Financial) – Indonesian integrated coal company PT Adaro Energy Tbk said on Monday it has scheduled its $1.3 billion initial public offering for Tuesday through Friday after obtaining approval from the capital market regulator Bapepam-LK.

Adaro is planning to sell 11.3 billion shares or 34 percent of its enlarged capital at 1,100 rupiah a share, making the IPO the biggest ever on the Indonesian stock market.

Adaro Indonesia is the country’s second-biggest coal company after PT Bumi Resources Tbk.

In 2007 Adaro produced 40 million tonnes of coal and sold 36.6 million tonnes, while Bumi sold 55.4 million tonnes of coal.

The shares will be listed on the Indonesian stock exchange on July 16.

The IPO was originally set for June 24 to 26 but was delayed due to issues relating to a share ownership dispute as well as tax and royalty payments.

Adaro Energy currently owns 61.23 percent of Adaro Indonesia, and has a 61.8 percent stake in Indonesia Bulk Terminal and 58.89 percent of Coaltrade Services International Pte. Ltd. …> go to article

 RPT-Indonesian “rent-a-mob” queue for $1.3 bln coal IPO
Thu Jul 10, 2008 3:39am

By Andreas Ismar

JAKARTA, July 10 (Reuters) – They didn’t look like your typical investors, as they queued under the scorching sun in Jakarta’s posh business district for shares in Indonesia’s biggest, hottest, initial public offering PT Adaro Energy.

There were women carrying babies, and men in flip-flops, shorts and faded T-shirts — the poor and unemployed, bussed in from Jakarta’s suburbs or slums and paid to stand in line for others.

Adaro Energy, Indonesia’s second-biggest coal miner by output, offered $1.3 billion of shares for sale this week, but most of those are earmarked for connected parties and many other investors are scrambling to get hold of the stock.

That’s where hundreds of people like Hilmawati and Arif come in, earning 25,000-35,000 rupiah ($2.70-$3.80) to queue up for shares on behalf of a man they called “the boss” .

“I’ve been waiting here since 7 o’clock, waiting for them to open at 10,” said Hilmawati, a 30-year-old housewife, as she waited in front of the exhibition hall in Jakarta’s Sudirman Central Business District.

“I’ve been going back and forth three times already. The officials were cruel, they asked so many questions, I just say I came from here,” she said, brandishing an order form from state-owned Danareksa Sekuritas.

“We came in one bus, 50 of us. For one form we got 25,000 rupiah, excluding lunch money, they take care of the transport. Later they will take us back home at four o’clock. If we got the form we give it to the leader, if not we won’t get paid,” said Hilmawati, adding that she knew nothing about Adaro or shares.

The boss uses their names and IDs to apply for multiple share allocations, betting that some, if not all, will be successful.

Brokers in Jakarta admit privately that this is a common practice to get shares in “hot” issues. In a country with millions of poor and unemployed, it is easy to rent a crowd, whether to buy shares or to gather in protest.

Several big foreign investors active in Asia have grumbled that they were shut out of the Adaro offering despite heavy overseas interest in what is seen as an attractively priced offering.

The deal underscores the opacity that sometimes plagues Southeast Asia’s biggest country and gives international investors pause. Red tape and rampant corruption are also frequent complaints.

On Thursday, a few applicants were turned away because of their scruffy attire, but entrepreneurs were at hand, renting out business shirts and ties, so that would-be investors could look the part.

“I cannot get in because of my shoes, they said we must wear leather shoes. They screen us by our looks,” said Arif, an unemployed man in his twenties who said he had at least tried to do some homework on the share offering.

“This is a kind of mining company, you know, coal. Many people know nothing about Adaro, I just tried to find out about it, asking around, hearing what people said.

“We were never informed about this by the boss. What the boss did was just tell us that there’s a share offering, then he gave the print out which contains our name and the company that we should buy.”

Adaro said in a document that 69.15 percent of the 11.14 billion shares offered will be allocated to five investors who already had stakes in PT Adaro Indonesia, a coal miner that Adaro Energy plans to acquire with the proceeds from the IPO. They are Farallon Capital, Kerry Coal, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC), Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), and Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Just 22.82 percent of the IPO shares are being allocated to domestic institutions, asset managers, insurers, pension funds, and individuals. (Additional reporting by Harry Suhartono; Editing by Sara Webb) …>go to article

Partners get huge chunk of Indonesia’s Adaro IPO
Wed Jul 9, 2008 11:52am 

By Harry Suhartono and Tony Munroe

JAKARTA/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Shares in PT Adaro Energy’s $1.3 billion IPO, Indonesia’s largest offering, were mostly distributed to connected parties, disappointing some domestic investors and global funds.

Several big foreign investors active in Asia have grumbled that they were shut out of the country’s biggest-ever initial public offering despite heavy overseas interest in what is seen as an attractively priced deal.

The deal underscores the opacity that sometimes plagues Southeast Asia’s biggest country.

No international prospectus was issued, which was surprising to some observers given the size of the IPO, but not unheard of, people familiar with the matter said.

Adaro said in a document that 69.15 percent of the 11.14 billion shares offered will be allocated to five investors who already had stakes in PT Adaro Indonesia, a coal miner that Adaro Energy plans to acquire with the proceeds from the IPO. They are Farallon Capital, Kerry Coal, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC), Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research), and Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

Just 22.82 percent of the IPO shares are being allocated to domestic institutions, asset managers, insurers, pension funds, and individuals. Schroders Investment Management Indonesia will become the biggest unconnected institutional buyer of the IPO with $12 million worth of shares.

Remaining shares went to foreign investors including Dubai Investment Group, a company document said. …> go to article

Commentary

From my ”comment” on Jakartass post “Blinkers“, July 8, 2008

…I am convinced that the current energy market is being manipulated (in the mix of supply and demand issues and rank speculation) to enrich elites, both in Indonesia and in the United States.

I would argue that the natural resources of Indonesia belong to the Indonesians and not to political cliques or Chinese investors.

… the wealth of the nation (Indonesia) is on a vertical elevator ride to the small percentage of those who sit at the top while it should be spread horizontally to the benefit of society as a whole.

Scarcity of food, fuel and high rates of inflation hurt those at the bottom the most.

Push it to the limits of poverty and indeed as in some places in Indonesia the results are malnutrition and death.

From my ”comment” on Indonesia Matters post “Power Blackouts“, July 12, 2008

“Indonesia is a rich country but we are poor people, why is that?”

I have heard that on more than one occasion from my brother-in-law.

It is part question, part statement, and part indictment.

How can there be an energy crisis in Indonesia when the country is so energy rich?

Globalization, multi-national corporations, and the corrupt political elite have conspired to steal the wealth of Indonesia for the benefit of themselves and at the expense of the national welfare.

This is not inherently an Indonesian problem as we see here in the US record profits being posted by the oil companies the likes which have never been seen in the history of capitalism.

Given the dire warnings we have been given regarding global climate change it seems folly to continue to pursue our fossil fuel way of life but that way of life cannot be changed over night, in a snap.

Oil profits need to be used to stabilize energy needs and invested in alternative sources of energy through developing those technologies through research and development.

More to the point the wealth of the nation needs to be spread horizontally and not vertically.

Right now those profits sit in the bank accounts of the rich and the rest of us can clearly all go to hell.

Indonesia to shift factory hours amid blackouts: vice president
Fri, Jul 11, 2008 AFP

JAKARTA – INDONESIA will move manufacturers’ working hours to weekends in a bid to avoid prolonged rolling blackouts across the country, the vice president said on Friday.

The move, which will also see working hours shifted to off-peak times, has been brought in to avoid burdening the overstrained grid during peak hours.

‘A joint ministerial decree will be signed this afternoon, and will become effective in August,’ Mr Jusuf Kalla told Dow Jones Newsires, without giving further details.

State power monopoly PLN started two weeks of rolling blackouts in Jakarta on Friday after six months of frequent outages on the dense Java-Bali grid cost businesses millions of dollars in losses.

The rolling blackouts in Jakarta are officially due to maintenance work that will interrupt gas supplies to two state-owned generating stations in North Jakarta, but analysts have blamed the country’s crumbling infrastructure.

Analysts have warned electricity shortages could limit economic growth and discourage local and foreign investment in South-east Asia’s largest economy.

‘The economy will not be able to grow above six per cent if (PLN) can’t increase supply by nine per cent annually,’ said Mr Purbaya Sadewa, chief economist at the state-owned investment bank PT Danareksa.

Rising demand for electricity has led to increasing numbers of blackouts across the country in the past few years despite its vast resources of oil, natural gas, coal and geothermal energy.

The power crisis appears to be deteriorating even though only 53 per cent of the archipelago’s 234 million people has access to electricity.

The government is planning to boost capacity by some 30 per cent to about 40,000 megawatts by 2011, but the first new power station is not expected to be operational until mid-2009.” …> go to article

 

My favorite quote of late is from A. N. Whitehead, “It is the business of the future to be dangerous“.

We will soon see just how dangerous it will be.

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News

How the wheels of justice turn so very slowly… still, better late than never (with some qualifications)…

From Reuters 6/16/2008

Top court won’t review Exxon Indonesia lawsuit

Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by David Alexander and Sandra Maler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear an appeal by Exxon Mobil Corp. seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by 11 Indonesian villagers who claim the company’s security forces committed human rights abuses at a natural gas processing plant in the Aceh province.

The high court followed the recommendation of the U.S. government and it turned down the company’s appeal without any comment. The Supreme Court’s action does not set any precedent and does not represent a ruling on the merits of the dispute.

The lawsuit, filed in 2001 in federal court in Washington claimed the security forces at the facility were comprised exclusively of members of the Indonesian military and that Exxon retained them even though it had been aware the Indonesian army had committed human rights abuses in the past. … go to article

 Books

I recently received, showing up in my mail box, Celebrating 60 Years – 1948 – 2008 TUTTLE, A Memeber of the Periplus Publishing Group, New Titles and Complete Backlist, Fall 2008.

Periplus, of course, has bookshops throughout Jakarta. Their site is found here.  Over the years I have purchased many of their publications which include Tuttle’s Concise Indonesian Dictionary and the Periplus wall map of Indonesia(71 cm X 118 cm), a beautiful full color map of the archipelago which is a work of art in itself.  I have on order the Jakarta Street Atlas 2nd. Ed.(don’t leave home without it). Tuttle is famous for its Asian language dictionaries, Periplus for its maps and travel books. And much, much more.

From Tuttle

“2008 marks a milestone for Tuttle Publishing. Originally established in 1948 in Rutland, Vermont, and Tokyo, Japan, this year we are fortunate and honored to be celebrating our 60th anniversary. Since its inception, Tuttle Publishing has been a leading publisher of books on Asia. We are extremely pleased to be able to continue this tradition, and invite you to explore the rich cultural heritage of Asia through this website”.

The catalog is full of beautiful books, of that there is no doubt, and if I had deeper bank account than I currently have there certainly would be several new titles appearing on my bookshelves. Here are five below which caught my eye (not including Straits and Narrow by Grace McClurg, The Rain Tree by Sylvie Phillips, and Unhooking a DD-cup Bra without Fumbling by Adam Adams (a book which claims to be written without the use of the letter “E”, now that is something!). 

Well, it is summer in Hawaii, so it is not just a question of my bank account but also the time, the hammock strung between two shade trees, and the large glasses of iced tea necessary to address this stack of books.

     

    

 

 

Sex

Two things come to mind here.  You can’t judge a book by its cover. Sex sells.  Unfortunately, I have not read the books which I have mentioned here. Not yet anyway. So I cannot make a fair comment. 

The Asian Review of Books panned Jakarta Undercover writing that, “The blurb on the back of JAKARTA UNDERCOVER claims it as Indonesia’s answer to America’s ‘Sex and the City’. It has sold over 200,000 copies in Indonesia, and proved something of a sensation, lifting the lid on the sexual adventures to be had in the world’s fourth largest capital, and giving the lie to the image of a puritanical Muslim nation.

But MOAMMAR EMKA’s book probably proves the truth of a different adage: that one country’s erotica is another’s turn-off. The exploits chronicled here are described in a spare, bland style, both slightly cold and offputting. Emka talks about the services available for the rich and favoured in the new Jakarta — expats, the wealthy business people, some politicians, the elite — and only once or twice does he does mention that Indonesia is still one of the poorest countries in the world, where the sort of prices he mentions here for nights of wild excess would add up to earnings for a year or more”.

Monsoon Books wrote of Jakarta Undercover II, “After the enormous success of Jakarta Undercover, Moammar Emka is back with more on the seedy nightlife and underground sex servics of modern, hip Jakarta. Delving deep into the city’s karaoke clubs, massage parlours and transit hotels, the author takes it upon himself to experience first-hand the tasty delights on offer and what exactly they involve.

What is a cat-bath massage? Who are the Mickey Mouse girls? How much does an all-night gigolo really cost? How popular is the after-lunch hand-roll service?

From swingers parties to midnight lesbian packages, Jakarta seems to have it all when it comes to sexual services. And if you thought the first book was explosive, Jakarta Undercover II will leave your imagination running wild. 

Indonesia’s bestselling series—over half a million copies sold!”

Not much of a real review.  But something to think over at any rate.

Gerrie Lim’s The Invisible Trade is altogether something different as reviewed by the Asian Sex Gazette

“Welcome to the very real, largely hidden, and often surreal world of high-class sex for sale in Singapore, where the sexual desires of this tiny island run the gamut from simple missionary zeal to the cracking of the whip. Never before have outsiders been offered such a fascinating look into the weird and wonderful, delightful and sometimes depraved world of five-star, high-class prostitutes that operate in Singapores flourishing sex trade.

For those writing about the sex industry, there is always the danger that the story will become as exploitative as its subject matter. In this survey of high-end sex workers in Singapore, Lim (Inside the Outsider) manages to avoid this trap by giving the workers space to speak for themselves.

Emily, one of Lim’s subjects, describes her first time with a client: “On my first job I was very frightened and didn’t know what to do… I didn’t know how to do a massage or how to talk to a strange guy.” But now, she says, “If you think about the money you can do anything.” …> go to review

“If you think about the money you can do anything.”

I can’t see how Lim’s Part II can beat that quote.

Erotica Revealed has a good review of The Best of Singapore Erotica.

“What I discovered was a collection of stories, essays and poems that help clarify why Singapore has a sex-hostile reputation. Legal restrictions on homosexuality and other “deviant” sexual acts are only the beginning. The obstacles to satisfying sex in the city-state appear to be many and formidable: ferocious upward mobility and a punishing work ethic; shortage of affordable housing, which leads to young adults living with their parents in situations with little privacy; traditional values that favor security over romance; and finally, a complex, multi-racial class hierarchy with social distances that are near-impossible to bridge.

In spite of, perhaps even because of, all these barriers, some of the authors represented in this volume do succeed in creating arousing and emotionally involving tales that I would classify as erotica. One of my favorites is Ricky Low’s “Clean Sex,” in which a successful young Chinese businessman falls in love with an Indonesian housemaid, only to lose her when she’s accused of stealing the expensive presents he has bought for her. Another highlight is “Naked Screw” by Alison Lester, which portrays an initially confrontational but ultimately sensual encounter between a free-spirited ex-pat who likes to walk around her apartment without clothing, and a traditional South Asian laborer who claims that her nakedness offends him. Meihan Boey’s “A Dummy’s Guide to Losing Your Virginity,” in which she chronicles her methodical approach to finding and bedding her first lover, is a clever comic gem:

“Feel free to fit us both into any convenient category of human behavior. Rest assured, I will not complain. Complaining, I find, is the refuge of the weak and unimaginative who have neither the courage to put up with shit nor the wherewithal to get out of it.”

“And Then She Came,” by Jonathan Lim, is a creepy yet unquestionably sexy story of a helpless student “not sober enough to be superstitious,” who attracts the attention of a voracious female ghost. Aaron Ang’s “A Perfect Exit” is a sweet, sentimental and finally surprising story of geriatric lust. I also enjoyed “Self-Portrait with Three Monkeys,” by Chris Mooney-Singh, although it is more a character study than a story, the heroine a middle-aged career woman who consoles herself for her loveless couplings with an orgy of art. Another notable contribution is Weston Sun Wensheng’s “An MRT Chronicle,” a wry commentary on the trials of being young and horny in a society that offers no privacy at all”.

 Jakarta Urban Blog has previously posted on human trafficking in Asia and Indonesia.  

March 7, 2008 Jakarta (informal) part 2

 

And so here is the flip side to all of this…

 News

From The National (United Arab Emirates)

 Illegal logging trade forces jungle brothel in Indonesia

Marianne Kearney, foreign correspondent
Last Updated: May 24. 2008 5:39PM UAE / May 24. 2008 1:39PM GMT

JAKARTA // The illegal logging destroying Indonesia’s tropical forests is fuelling another illicit trade: the trafficking of girls as sex slaves.

Girls as young as 13 are being lured from their homes with promises of employment as waitresses or maids, and then pressed into servicing loggers, their bosses and forestry officials deep within the jungles of West Kalimantan, on Indonesia’s side of Borneo island.

Maria, a child’s rights activist, stumbled upon the jungle brothel during a trip to West Kalimantan to rescue teenagers in illegal gold mines.

The girls, many of them between 13 and 17, had been trafficked from within West Kalimantan, or Indonesia’s main island of Java, 920km away, she said.

“If they want to run, they’re in the middle of the forest, living beside a river, which is too deep and dangerous to swim,” said Maria, who asked that her real name not be used for fear of being tracked down by the traffickers.

The girls were paid as little as 300,000 rupiah per month (Dh118), and forced to live in appalling conditions, she said.

“They didn’t even have simple houses; they were living in huts or just tents made of plastic, with thatch roofs. There were no facilities for them,” Maria said. …> go to article

 Destroy a forest. Destroy a people. 

 “If you think about the money you can do anything”.

 

 

 

 

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Jakarta (Jakarta is coming)

Detail, from monument at Lubang Buaya

Why is this?

Malnutrition kills 21 Indonesia toddlers

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – At least 21 toddlers have died of malnutrition in eastern Indonesia in recent months due to a food shortage that threatens the lives of thousands more children, a local health official said Thursday.

An additional 116 youngsters have been admitted to clinics and hospitals in critical condition, said Stephanus Bria Seran, who heads the health department in East Nusa Tenggara province.

“We urgently need medicine and nutritional foods to save the children,” he said. “We are racing against time because they need nutritious food within 30 days if we want to save their lives.”

The food shortages have been caused by flooding and drought. Farmers fear the next harvest may also fail due to excessive rainfall and landslides.

Children’s diets began lacking sufficient nutrients, causing diseases, hospitalizations and deaths over the past six months, he said.

In the same period, nearly 85,000 children have been registered as malnourished in the province, one of the country’s least developed.

The figures show a sharp jump from the whole of 2007, when 10 toddlers died out of 68,000 registered as malnourished in the province. …> go to article

Or this?

Hungry monkeys raid farmland around Indonesia’s Borobudur temple

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP): Bands of starving monkeys have destroyed crops around Indonesia’s famous Borobudur Buddhist temple in search of food their habitat can no longer supply, an official said Wednesday.

Thousands of long-tailed macaques went searching for sustenance in several villages of Central Java province, said Dedi Rinyadi, who works for the Natural Resources Conservation Agency.

The population of monkeys has exploded due to dwindling predators, but drought has led to food shortages, Rinyadi said.

The monkeys have stolen crops and destroyed about 990 acres of farmland – including around the 7th-century Buddhist temple complex of Borobudur outside the sultanate of Yogyakarta.

Some have invaded villagers’ yards in search of fruit, vegetables and rice. Distressed farmers have used firecrackers and air rifles to chase them away.

Farmers are worried they are so occupied fighting off the monkeys they will not be able to tend their land, Rinyadi said.

“Monkeys are another threat to food production during this dry season,” Rinyadi said. …> go to article

There certainly appears to be something amiss in Central and East Java.  What does this have to do with Jakarta? Jakarta is the capitol of Indonesia. It is the center of national government, it is the center of the banking and communication sectors. Jakarta also produces and consumes a large percentage of the GDP.

Can you blame Jakarta for malnourished children, rampaging monkeys, the weather?

Jakarta Urban Blog’s focus is, of course, Jakarta but it would be amiss to think that Jakarta sits in isolation from distant events elsewhere in Indonesia and amiss to think that Jakarta sits in isolation of larger global events outside of Indonesia.

“Jakarta is coming”

The date is September 11, but not September, 11, 2001, it is September, 11, 1973. This is the date of the coup led by Augusto Pinochet and the CIA against the freely elected government of Salvador Allende. This was the date of the beginning of a dark night of torture and draconian economic policies which would last in Chile for the next seventeen years. The night spread its dark wings to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay and later to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Vibrant emerging economies and political systems would be overthrown in the name of “free markets” while tens of thousands of people were “disappeared” and hundrends of thousands tortured in the jails of CIA backed juntas.

This is the story of a new book which has come across my desk recently. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein, Metropolitan Book, 2007, 558 pages.

From The Shock Doctrine:

“Suharto…had shown that if massive repression was used preemptively, the country would go into shock and resistance could be wiped out before it even took place. His use of terror was so merciless, so far beyond even the worst expectations, that a people who only weeks earlier had been collectively striving to assert their country’s independence were now sufficiently terrified that they ceded total control to Suharto and his henchmen. Ralph McGhee, a senior CIA operations manager during the years of the coup, said Indonesia was a “model operation…You can trace back all major, bloody events run from Washington to the way Suharto came to power. The success of that meant that it would be repeated, again, and again”.

The other crucial lesson from Indonesia had to do with the pre-coup partnership between Suharto and the Berkeley Mafia. Because they were ready to take up top “technocratic” positions in the new government and had already converted Suharto to their worldview, the coup did more than just get rid of a nationalist threat; it transformed Indonesia into one of the most welcoming environments for foreign multinationals in the world.

As momentum began to build toward Allende’s ouster, a chilling warning began appearing in red paint on the walls of Santiago. It said,  ‘Jakarta is coming’.”

The shock in Indonesia left perhaps one million dead. It was hailed by the CIA as the “perfect model” to be repeated “again and again”. The Berkeley Mafia, as Klein points out, were those Indonesian economists which were educated at the University of California at Berkeley since 1956 and funded by the Ford Foundation where they returned home to the University of Indonesia to “build a faithful copy of a Western-style” economics department.  After Suharto consolidated power key financial posts were filled by these Berkeley educated economists where they “passed laws allowing foreign companies to own 100 percent of these resources, handed out “tax holidays”, and within two years, Indonesia’s natural wealth – copper, nickle, hardwood, rubber, and oil – was being divided among the largest mining and energy companies in the world”.

But the Berkeley Mafia were small players compared to those which came out of the Chicago School of Economics under Milton Friedman. These were the people who carried the banner of the true economic orthodoxy, the so-called neoliberals, who advocated a “pure” laissez-faire economics, whose economic philosophy was the antithesis of that of John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith.

Friedman’s book Capitalism and Freedom “laid out what would become the global free-market rulebook and in the U.S., would form the economic agenda of the neoconservative movement.

First, governments must remove all rules and regulations standing in the way of the accumulation of profits. Second, they should sell off any assets they own that corporations could be running at a profit. And third, they should dramatically cut back funding of social programs… …Friedman’s vision coincided with precisely with with the interests of large multinationals, which by nature hunger for for vast new unregulated markets. In the first stage of capitalist expansion, that kind of ravenous growth was provided by colonialism- by “discovering” new territories and grabbing land without paying for it, then extracting riches without compensating local populations. Friedman’s war on the “welfare state” and “big government” held out the promise of a new font of riches- only this time, rather than conquering new territory, the state itself would be the new frontier, its public services and assets auctioned off for far less than they were worth”.

As Klein states in her introduction:

“Some of the most infamous human rights violations of this era, which have tended to be viewed as sadistic acts carried out by antidemocratic regimes, were in fact either committed with the deliberate intent of terrorizing the public or actively harnessed to prepare the ground for the introduction of radical free-market “reforms“.

Reforms which were neither liberal, free, or democratic.

It was not just a matter of “regime change” that the CIA and the U.S. government was concerned with but also to apply, after appropriate shocks to the population, literal in terms of the torture employed and the economic hardships endured, a “pure” and “orthodox” economic theory.

These shocks, as Klein so well documents, were carried through into events as seemingly divergent as the Solidarity movement in Poland, Thatcher’s war in the Falklands, Tiananmen Sqaure, the fall of apartheid in South Africa, the fall of the Soviet Union, the Asian economic crisis of 1997-1998, the Septemebr 11 attacks in the United States, and the war in Iraq. The shocks are not just limited to political or economic crisis but now are also those natural disasters such as the tsunami of 2004 or Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  These tragic events are now seen as opportunities to deregulate, privatize, cut back social services, and to turn a profit for the elite.  In the case of Iraq, the war has been privatized, the population “shocked and awed” and for those who oppose there awaits Abu Ghraib, the jails of Baghram, the torture of Guantanamo, or rendition into the void. This, in the name of profit and the free market.

Is this why children die from malnourishment in East Java, why monkeys run amok in Central Java, why the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund manufacture a world food crisis and speculate on the price of a barrel of oil?

Klein has written a remarkable book.  It is a book which exposes over thirty years of crimes perpetrated on the people of the world in the name of corporate profit. To expose this is not only courageous but gives us the tools to fight back. This is always the case when one is armed with the truth.

Naomi Klein

Democracy Now!

Focus on the Global South

UPDATE 6/15/2008

From: Bloomberg.com: Asia

Indonesia’s Mulyani to Head Economic Affairs, Jakarta Post Says

By Nesa Subrahmaniyan

June 15 (Bloomberg) — Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has been appointed acting coordinating minister for economic affairs, the Jakarta Post reported, citing Sudi Silalahi, the cabinet secretary.

Mulyani, who will retain her post as finance minister, take over from Boediono, who has become head of the central bank, the newspaper said.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed a decree for the appointment on June 19, the report said.

From: Perspective on World History and Current Events

Sri Mulyani Indrawati
Minister of National Development Planning
Chairperson of the National Planning Agency (Bappenas)

Name: Dr Sri Mulyani Indrawati

Profile: Born in Tanjungkarang, Lampung, on 26th August 1962, Mulyani received her doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois. She is an executive director of the International Monetary Fund, representing 12 economies in Southeast Asia. In 2001 Mulyani left for Atlanta, United States, to serve as a consultant with the U.S. Aid Agency USAID for programs to strengthen Indonesia’s autonomy. She lectured on the Indonesian economy at Georgia University. A prominent economist, Mulyani was appointed a member of the National Economic Council during Abdurrahman Wahid’s administration.

Source The Jakarta Post

In light of what has been said above I will leave this without comment.

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Jakarta (Bill Gates, food, OPEC, the tallest building in SE Asia)

Jakarta

From CNET Asia

Bill Gates scheduled to visit Jakarta on May 8 …> go to article

Budi Putra

May 7, 2008 16:59

“Microsoft Corporation founder and chairman Bill Gates is scheduled to visit Indonesia on May 8 to 9, 2008. According to Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Aburizal Barkrie, Gates will be visiting Indonesia to reciprocate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s tour of the Microsoft headquarters in Seattle last year.

Gates will address a plenum of the GLF (Government Leaders Forum) along with Yudhoyono on Friday, May 9. Besides attending the GLF, Gates is also expected to become a speaker at the Presidential Lecture program at the Jakarta Convention Center on Friday. GLF Asia 2008 will discuss about the “Serving the Citizen: The Transformative Power of Information Technology in Delivering Government Services”.

As reported by Antara News Agency, Gates will also talk to the Indonesian Government about the development of bird flu vaccines in Indonesia. He will also endorse the Visit Indonesia Year 2008 campaign, according to news portal Detik. This plan was revealed by Minister Aburizal during a press conference with Trade Minister Marie E. Pangestu and Microsoft Indonesia president director Tony Chen.

“We hope Gates’s presence here will give a positive image for the country’s tourism,” Aburizal said.

But the bird flu vaccines and tourism issue are not top priorities that I want to hear from Gates during his visit here. I want to know his answers to:

1. How much he (or his company) will invest here in supporting Indonesia’s next digital decade.
2. What the future projects are which fit in with his ideas on creating the Asian Miracle.
3. Whether he thinks Indonesia can be the next Asian miracle in terms of a digital world.
4. What Microsoft’s solutions and approaches are in combatting software piracy in Indonesia. (Indonesia has long been fighting software piracy problems. As written by The Jakarta Post, IDC reported that Indonesia had reduced its software piracy rate by 2 percent from 87 percent in 2003 to 85 percent in 2006).
5. Can his foundation support, well, the country’s open source movement?

I am not sure I can attend all his lectures and sessions because until today, my name was still on the waiting list to get an official badge to enter the forum.

But no problem. At least, I hope other participants will ask (if possible) the above questions I have.

Welcome to Indonesia, Mr Gates! Selamat datang”.

Yes, welcome to Indonesia Mr. Gates.  I hope you take the time to at least get out of the air conditioning for an hour or two and REALLY see Jakarta.  Why not cut away from hanging out with government elites and head down one Jalan Tikus to a kampung in West Jakarta, one by the canal? Try to find some clean drinking water. Or why not visit a school? Try to find one that is not in disrepair, has books, has chalk for the blackboards, or has a computer, even just an old one, that is connected to the internet with more than the ability to download 1MB in an hour. Of course there is plenty of MS sofware at hand. It’s cheap and generally unlicensed in Indonesia. And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE keep a safe distance from that Bakrie fellow.

Or why not take the time to listen to Rebcca Henschke’s excellent report  on Public Radio International on how the food crisis is effecting the urban poor in Jakarta.  You can listen to this broadcast here …>go to boradcast   This report will freeze you in your tracks and make you wonder where your moral compass went astray.  Or here is an article from the AFP which might be of interest.

Rising food, fuel prices drive Indonesian May Day rallies
May 1, 2008

JAKARTA (AFP) – Thousands of Indonesians took to the streets of the capital Jakarta for Labour Day rallies on Thursday, with rising food prices and an expected cut in fuel subsidies weighing heavily on workers’ minds.

Police said about 10,000 people gathered in the city centre and at the presidential palace.

Carrying banners reading “Lower Food Prices Now” and “More Pay for Workers and Farmers,” many of the demonstrators said they were alarmed at soaring inflation and the prospect of sharply higher fuel bills.

“If they keep increasing the price of food, maybe we’ll have to eat less,” factory worker Lia said.

“The price of formula milk for the baby has gone up. It’s now 36,000 rupiah (nearly four dollars) for a can of 600 grams and the baby drinks it up in two days,” she said”. …> go to article

But don’t worry, on the upside Indonesia has plenty of oil… or…

From The Times of India …> go to article

JAKARTA (INDONESIA): “President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Tuesday that Indonesia was considering of quitting the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) because it was no longer a net oil exporter.

“Our wells are drying,” he said, adding that the country needs to concentrate on increasing domestic production, which has dropped to less than a million barrels a day even as consumption is rising.

The government opened talks on Monday on whether it “should continue to stay with OPEC or withdraw its membership until it reaches a point where it deserves to rejoin that organization again,” Yudhoyono told agencies around Indonesia.

The country of 235 million people is Southeast Asia’s only OPEC member. But it has to import oil because of decades of declining investment in exploration and extraction due to corruption and a weak legal system that makes oil companies wary of doing business here. Indonesia’s oil output has declined steadily from oil production of 1.5 million to 1.6 million barrels a day in the mid-1990s. It produced around 860,000 barrels a day of crude oil last month and recorded a deficit of $794 million in its oil trade accounts.

It is not the first time the country has re-evaluated its OPEC membership, but in past years teams commissioned by the government have recommended staying in the grouping to maintain good relations with other oil producers”.

 But with Lion Air purchasing 56 new Boeing 737s, a growth rate running at 7% in 2007, Jakarta accounting for half of Indonesia’s GNP,  building construction booming in the city, and global oil demand skyrocketing,  is it no wonder the wells are drying up?

And so this just what  Jakarta REALLY needs…

From Asia Propety Report

Jakarta to get SE Asia’s tallest tower …> go to article
by Asia Pulse

“Dubai-based real estate giant Emaar Properties plans to build a landmark tower in Jakarta, to be the tallest skyscraper in Southeast Asia, a presidential envoy said. Special envoy for Middle East Alwi Shihab said on Monday Emaar Chairman Mohamed Ali Alabbar had proposed the project to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during an informal meeting Saturday. At the moment, we are still looking for the right location in Jakarta for the project, Alwi told the newspaper The Jakarta Post.

Emaar, the largest land and real estate developer in the Gulf is famed for its on going construction in Dubai of the 718-meter tall Burj Dubai, which would be the tallest skyscraper in the world. In March, Emaar signed a joint venture agreement with state-owned Bali Tourism Development Corp. to build an integrated tourism project in southern Lombok, Bali´s neighboring island”.

 

 

Jakarta (internet censorship)

The news that a number of web sites are going down due to RI government decree is all over the Indonesian blogs this morning.  I am busy processing photos and video so my posting is quite limited but I highly recommend taking a look at Avianto’s journal. Great piece of writing there.  Jakartass also has some choice words.

In a related article in Japan Focus this article by Andre Vitchek is also well worth your time. The New Face of Indonesia’s Islamic Fundamentalism: Pornography Ban Ignores the Starving

Then there is this from Aliran

Tuesday, 08 April 2008

Fifteen people from six countries were arrested today in Jakarta (Indonesia) by Polda Jaya (the Police Corps of Jakarta Raya Territory) for participating in a peaceful people’s gathering to voice their protest against GM rice and call for saving the diversity of local rice to ensure people’s food security.  As you see Jakarta is a rather busy kind of place…

 

As for me I am out in the streets of Jakarta.  Though I have been here many times I am being reminded (once again) how much this city can kick your ass.

 

Jakarta (informal) part 2

Photo by Quiseng 

Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Greek for oikos (house) and nomos (custom or law), hence “rules of the house(hold).” …> go to site

Economics at its most basic might be thought of as the ways in which we make a living. The economy can also be described in terms  of the relationships between supply and demand.

 The rules of the household (a few examples)

Begging

One evening while taking the new communter train from Jakarta to Depok with my friend Budi I noticed a man several cars down crawling along the floor of the train carriage. He would stop occasionally and collect a few coins or rupiah form the commuters. Others ignorded him.  As he approached where we were sitting I reached into my pocket for the stack of coins which I had been accumulating through the day.  He held out his hand and I gave him the coins.  Budi did nothing. The man moved on.  Budi then told me, “Maybe if you follow him home you will see what a nice house he lives in“.  I took this to mean that the man was either faking his disability or he was some sort of professional beggar working his audience.  Shortly after that the train made a stop and a young blind man with his mother walked on board.  He had strapped on his back a small portable karioki machine and proceeded to sing into his microphone with a very good voice.  At this Budi reached into his pocket and handed over his coins.  Budi could tell the difference.  I could not. It is still hard to this day.

There are an estimated 200,000 street vendors in Jakarta each month they pay out about $1.5 billion rupiah for protection, in extortion, or for illegal fees. There are perhaps 80,000 street kids who make their living by begging.

In Spetmeber 2007, the Jakarta City Council approved a bylaw that bans busking, begging and street hawking as well as banning people from giving money to beggars, vendors and hawkers.

Initiated by the city’s departing governor, Sutioyoso, the bylaw says that anyone who is caught giving money to beggars, and others of their ilk, will be fined of 50 million rupiah.From World Street Children News …>go to site 

Mohammad Yazid, Jakarta

“A beggar recently scolded my wife for refusing to give him some money at a busy intersection in Cempaka Putih (famously known as Coca-Cola intersection), Central Jakarta.

“How stingy, so what’s the headscarf for?” he said to my wife. I told my wife not to roll down the car window because I was afraid he was a crook.

Bluffing and smirking have become forms of pressure exerted by beggars operating at nearly every crossroad in Jakarta.

They employ various other methods at other places such as public transportation and residential areas. Some use the conventional style of pretending to be starving or seriously ill, while others apply the criminal way of extorting money from passengers by appearing as alcoholics or newly released convicts.

Women have an effective trick of approaching benevolent people and exploiting the innocent looks of children under the age of five and carrying “hired infants” at Jakarta intersections.

There is no official data on the total number of beggars in Jakarta, but according to Suciardi, head of the commercial sex rehabilitation service at the Jakarta Social Welfare Office, their numbers increase by 40 percent during Ramadhan through Idul Fitri, from the 2,295 normally found in the city.

Chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection, Seto Mulyadi, said the number of street children in Greater Jakarta reached 80,000.

Amid the prevailing economic difficulties and different mishaps affecting Indonesia, many people choose begging as their profession, because they often make more than those who work at government offices or private businesses. Earning about Rp 50,000 to Rp 75,000 daily on average, in a month a beggar can make Rp 1.5 million, far more than Jakarta’s minimum wage of Rp 900,000″.

 Black Markets

Begging, of course, is small change compared to Jakarta’s black markets. Havoscope Global Black Market Indexes lists  the market value of Indonesia’s black market at $3.32 billion (US). The counterfeit goods market value (books, cable, music, movies, and computer software) is listed at $458 million (US).  Black market handphone sales may be as high as $370 million (US). The value of the illegal drug trade is not listed but may also be in the millions of dollars as is indicated by the  recent incident of 600,000 ecstasy pills seized from a shop-house in Cengkareng, Tangerang district, Banten province, last February 26.

Human Trafficking

 from Human Trafficking.org

“Indonesia is primarily a source, but also a transit and destination country for human trafficking. UNICEF estimates that 100,000 women and children are trafficked annually for commercial sexual exploitation in Indonesia and abroad, 30 percent of the female prostitutes in Indonesia are below 18, and 40,000-70,000 Indonesian children are victims of sexual exploitation. The East Java Children’s Protection Agency estimates that at least 100,000 women and children are trafficked annually from, through, and to East Java.

Indonesian women and children are trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and the Middle East.  A significant number of Indonesian women voluntarily migrate to work as domestic servants but are later coerced into abusive conditions. Some Indonesian women are recruited by false promises of employment and are later coerced into prostitution or forced labor. Ethnic Chinese women and teenage girls in the West Kalimantan district are recruited as mail-order brides for men in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Indonesian women from the Riau Islands, Bali, and Lombok are used for sex tourists from Malaysia and Singapore”.

 from Fact book on Global Sexual Exploitation – Indonesia

“A 1992 survey showed that one out of 10 prostituted persons was under age 17, and that one out of five of those older than that age said they took up prostitution before they reached 17. Dario Agnote, “Sex trade key part of S.E. Asian economies, study says,” Kyodo News, 18 August 1998

The sex industry accounts for an estimated 1.2 billion dollars to 3.3 billion dollars in annual earnings, or between 0.8 and 2.4% of the country’s GDP, the study said. In Jakarta alone, prostitution-related activities are estimated to be worth 91 million dollars annually. Dario Agnote, “Sex trade key part of S.E. Asian economies, study says,” Kyodo News, 18 August 1998

There are between 140,000 and 230,000 prostituted persons in Indonesia (1993-1994 estimates). Prostituted persons are mainly adult women, but there are also male, transvestite and child prostitutes, both girls and boys. International Labor Organization. Dario Agnote, “Sex trade key part of S.E. Asian economies, study says,” Kyodo News, 18 August 1998

There are at least 650,000 prostitutes in Indonesia. In 1998 there were 150,000 registered prostitutes compared to 72,000 in 1995. 30 percent are children. (Yogyakarta Free Children Society, Mohammad Farid, “Indonesian economic crisis boosts prostitution,” Reuters, 26 July 1998

There were 65,582 registered prostitutes in 1994. The highest estimate is 500,000 women in prostitution. CATW – Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific

About 200 prostituted women in Jakarta, Indonesia, protesting plans by the mayor to close down their complex carried signs stating “I did not want to become a prostitute. The economic difficulties have made me a prostitute.” “Indonesian prostitutes join wave of protests,” Reuters, 2 July 1998

Earnings from prostitution average $600 a month in Indonesia and are higher than in other unskilled jobs. International Labor Organization, Elif Kaban, “UN labour body urges recognition of sex industry,” Reuters, 18 August 1998

Particularly because of the economic crises in Asia, women in Thailand and Indonesia are increasingly forced into prostitution as the only means of survival. “Women Workers Are Last in, First Out,” Associated Press, 30 April 1998

In Indonesia the economic crisis has driven thousands of women into prostitution for economic survival. Although “streetwalkers” are prohibited in Jakarta, there is no law prohibiting the sale of sexual services. Yogyakarta Free Children Society, Mohammad Farid, “Indonesian economic crisis boosts prostitution,” Reuters, 26 July 1998

The sex industry takes in US$ 1.2 – US$ 3.6 billion. CATW – Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific

The city of Surbaya, with tens of thousands of prostitutes, is the largest sex industry center in South East Asia, which consists of hectares and hectares of modest houses with large, plate-glass windows where bored girls sit waiting: “streets full of human aquariums”. It is also a magnet for the divorced and dispossessed women of the strict Islamic villages. The sex industry serves as a source of women for prostitution in provincial towns, through a black market network of pimps. Louise Williams, “Sex in the Cemetary,” Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January 1997

30% of the girls in Semarang, Indonesia who are homeless are forced into prostitution for survival. University Diponegoro study, Nicholas D. Kristof “Asian Crisis Deals Setbacks to Women”.

Other sites (grim and enlightening) addressing this issue are at:

 Child Prostituion - Indonesia

Intersections: Traditional and Emergent Sex Work in Urban Indonesia

Then there are these sites. 

Best Ladies Escort Agency in Jakarta

Travel Sex Guide Indonesia

Jakarta After Dark

And…finally

from AFP Penises and Prayer Mats: Its Sexual Healing Indonesian Style

“A consultation with Haji Baban is an encounter with the arcane. Sitting cross-legged in semi-darkness, the patient is asked to detail his wishes with the visual aid of a selection of carved wooden phalluses.

Then comes the diagnosis, delivered after a contemplative silence.

Solemnly, Haji Baban intones that the client’s appendage is “fairly average,” and offers to conjour up a six-centimetre (2.3-inch) extension.

The prescription for such whopping growth is a 10-day course of eating and drinking mystery concoctions and secret potions, with the first dose of bitter berries to be taken immediately, washed down with dark brown liquid.

An assistant then brings a phallus-shaped bamboo tube containing a roll of sticky coconut rice that has to be swallowed whole to avoid what Haji Baban describes ominously as “terrible genital consequences”.

Haji Baban ends the consultation with a vegetable oil that the client must promise to apply daily with a specific hand action from base to tip. And no eating green bananas or citronella, he orders.

The daily cost for treatment is between 700,000 and one million rupees (70-100 dollars), depending on the options selected.

This is a hefty sum for many in Indonesia but the imposing mansions being built around Caringin seem to indicate that plenty of men are willing to pay.

A local motorcycle taxi driver gestures to the newly-built homes and says: “They belong to Mak Erot.”

A Last Note

From begging to the black market to human trafficking to penis enlargement. Such are the rules of the Indonesian household. 

I suppose I should be editorializing or moralizing at this point.  In this post I have moved from  the lighter side (is there one?) to the darker side (most certainly there is one) of the informal economies of Jakarta.   I now see that this was sort of an inevitable progression. As it is with all households everything is connected to everything else. It is there in the tension between the rich and poor, the politics and economics of gender, the educated and the uneducated, those with power and those who are disenfranchised. 

As Mary S. Zurbuchen writes in Images of Culture and National Development in Indonesia: The Cockroach Opera, “if the poor of Jakarta are like cockroaches, then these purportedly disgusting insects, instead of signifying filth and being driven from sight, must be welcomed. Victorious and pervasive, they persist everywhere, from the sprawling marbel villas of luxury housing estates like Pondok Indah to the immense slums of Tanjung Priok. The roach should not be counted a symbol of the lowlife here but rather a ubiquitous survivor of thousands of fantasies of ultimate extermination”.   

And still, time after time Susan Abeyasekere’s words from Jakarta: A History just won’t go away, “the central fallacy [of Jakarta] which has persisted from 1619 to the present is that it is possible to create a city for the privileged few, cut off from the countryside and the majority of the poor”.  

This goes to the who, what, why, and where of Jakarta’s informal economies. And it is clear, as the reality of the city declares,  that it is not possible to create a city for “the privileged few”.

It is true for Jakarta as it is for any place else you can point to on the planet.

Jakarta (money, money, money)

Photo: The Jakarta Post

Welfare minister tops Indonesian rich list: Forbes

12 hours ago

JAKARTA (AFP) — Indonesia’s welfare minister and his family, under fire for their company’s role in an oozing mud volcano that has displaced thousands, has topped Forbes Asia’s 2007 Indonesia rich list, the magazine said Thursday.

Aburizal Bakrie and his family saw their net worth blow out to 5.4 billion dollars this year, up from 1.2 billion dollars in 2006 when they were sixth on the list, according to the title’s December 24 edition.

The largest contributor to their wealth gain came from surging stock prices in Bakrie Group’s largest holding, coal producer Bumi Resources, it reported.

Bakrie has faced sustained criticism over the role his part-owned company Lapindo Brantas played in triggering the mud volcano in Sidoarjo, East Java, which began spurting in May 2006 during exploratory gas drilling by Lapindo.

While many experts say the company’s negligence led to the flow, Lapindo maintains that it was caused by a nearby earthquake.

Some 10,000 victims have been told to accept compensation from Lapindo for their land, with no payout for other losses such as houses and material goods. …> read full article here