Selling oxygen

(Former) Forest Minister Muslimin Nasution says Indonesia can reduce its debt by selling the oxygen produced by its 148 million hectares of tropical forests to industrial countries that consume more oxygen than is good for the planet. He said Japan had already offered the Indonesian government $1000 per tree, which would place an obligation on the government to preserve that tree for several decades to produce oxygen. Mr Muslimin Nasution said the value of Indonesia's forests lay not merely in their timber but increasingly in their capacity as the lungs of the world � something that was only now being realised. (Under the Kyoto Protocol, coming out of a series of climate change conferences but still in the early stages of implementation, 'carbon credits' will become tradable commodities, designed to reduce CO2 emissions worldwide).

Mandiri 19 July 1999

Maid trade

In an attempt to prevent Indonesian maids running away, a Malaysian agency will introduce video-conferencing for employers to interview candidates. Employers will be charged US$7.90 for a five-minute interview. Over the past two years, 15,209 maids were reported to have run away from their employers. 'Some are dissatisfied with the long working hours, some are involved in fraud, or are not of the same religion as their employer while some run away after stealing from their employers,' immigration director-general Aseh Che Mat said. 'However, we managed to arrest most of the runaway maids during our operations.' About 140,000 of the 155,000 maids employed in the country are from Indonesia, Aseh said.

AFP 1 August 1999

Skull trade

A fragment of a prehistoric human skull that was smuggled to America has been returned to Indonesia thanks to the determination of medical professor T Jacob and archaeologist Hari Untoro. Villagers digging for sand in the Bengawan Solo River near Sragen in 1997 discovered the fragment of homo erectus skull. It fell into the hands of middlemen, who sold it to a Jakarta antique dealer. This man told archaeologists about it but in turn sold it to an antique dealer of Italian descent in New York named Henry Galiano. Galiano was trying to sell it for US$450,000. After ascertaining this was the same fragment, Professor Jacob lobbied the New York dealer to have it returned. Experts from around the world became involved and the fragment was handed back without cost in a ceremony on 30 August. The skull fragment resembles that of the famous Java Man discovered here in 1973 and is thought to be 100-200,000 years old.

Republika 23 September 1999

Bandit queen

Remember Pholan Devi, the Indian bandit queen? In a fishing village on the Java Sea near Indramayu, West Java, lives a woman named Hajjah Khasanah who does much the same thing - rob from the rich and give to the poor. She is only 168cm tall, but she is the wealthiest and most respected woman in the village of Eretan. She is the Godmother of the illegal diesel business. Her skills have lifted the impoverished economy of the whole village and surrounds. She used to just sell packed lunches from door to door, but by 1995 she had moved to diesel and cleaned out all the competition. Some say it has something to do with her relationship with Lt-Col Doddy Kusnadi, from the local military command, but Doddy won't talk. Every night, specially modified small fishing boats owned by other villagers bring in around 30 tons of diesel fuel 'leaked' by passing Pertamina coastal tankers. Trucks come in and buy it from her at low prices. On one occasion police seized a few drums from her, but the case was dropped after she showed a letter from the military.

Tajuk 28 August 1999

Sick bay

The Indonesian Hospital Association (Persi) warned of mass hospital closures across the country if the economy did not rebound. 'Most Indonesian hospitals are still suffering from the economic crisis which began in 1997', the Association's chairman Dr AW Boediarso told journalists. Hospitals cannot raise their prices. 'While people's purchasing power has declined, costs for medicines and equipment have soared,' he said. The depreciation of the rupiah caused the cost of imported medicines to surge by almost 300 percent. 'Most hospitals, especially those located out of town, have a bed occupancy rate below 50 percent,' he said, noting that hospitals need at least a 60 to 70 percent to survive. Moreover, according to a government regulation, state hospitals must allocate at least 25 percent of their beds to accommodate poor families for a low tariff, while for private hospitals the allocation is 10 percent.

Jakarta Post 12 October 12 1999

War film

Special Reserve (Kostrad) troops and Mobile Brigade (Brimob) elite police are supposed to keep the peace, but in Ambon they started shooting at one another. 'It was like a war film', said some Ambonese who watched the battle that went on for four days in the tense suburb of Batumerah. Green bereted Kostrad troops were in an exposed position, while the Brimob police platoon were ensconced in a safe building across the bridge on the Christian side. The incident started on 10 August after a fight broke out between Muslim and Christian masses, in which Brimob shot at Muslims as well as at the Kostrad post. In four days, 79 civilians died, while Kostrad had one soldier killed and 18 injured. Brimob had only four injured. Ambon police chief Lt-Col M Ghufron said he saw the battle himself, but Maluku military chief Brig-Gen Max Tamaela denied they were real Brimob personnel. He said the 'Brimob' were unidentified men wearing Brimob uniforms. Some say Brimob has been infiltrated by thugs from Jakarta, others say by independence fighters. But locals said they recognised the men as genuine police. Both the police and military chiefs said some of their men had been detained for disciplinary action.

Gamma 29 August 1999

Priceless art

Indonesian artist Raden Saleh's 19th-century painting Lying in wait pulled in US$1.3 million at a Sotheby's auction in Singapore Sunday. It was the second-highest price ever paid for a Southeast Asian painting at a Singapore auction, after another of Raden's works sold for US$1.8 million at the height of Asia's economic boom in 1996. 'In this last two months, basically everybody seems to feel that the economy is improving,' Sotheby's auction business manager Mok Kin Chuan said of the recent mood among art buyers. An Indonesian private collector bought the Raden work, Mok said.

Associated Press 6 October 1999