Archive for
September 17th, 2005

   

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Images from Indonesia: Finding the FishPhotos post

A small portrait of the translator Paul Frankenstein · 15:53 · East Asia

“Finding the Fish” by Budi Sukmana

Fishermen (and fisherwomen) sort through the catch on the beach in west Java.

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From the Indonesian Blogosphere

Enda Nasution · 09:07 · East Asia , Oceania
lingua → zht · zhs

Two tonnes of durian:

At the start of last week, September 5th, more than 100 people died after an Indonesian Boeing own by a small airlines, Mandala Airlines failed to take off and crashed into residential area in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province and the third biggest city in Indonesia. The victims in this accidents included the current governor to the province Tengku Rizal Nurdin and the former governor Raja Inal Siregar.

This week Indonesia blogger, JalanSutera.com wrote that the media reported the cause of accident was over weighted cargo of 2 tonnes of durians, a smelly tropical fruit but a popular and expensive refreshment to many Indonesians.

Pujiono, the owner of the blog, adds that he didn't know whether the report it's true or not, almost to the point of amazement, hoping that the origin of the tragedy was not some simple foolishness like that.

Indonesian President visits US:

Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or SBY for short, is on his presidential visit to United States and has visited Columbia on 13 September where he spoke at length about Aceh, detailing the roots of the secessionist movement there. Roby Muhammad, a PhD candidate at Columbia noted this event on his calendar blog, Beruang Halus.

On his blog this week he also wrote about the dilemma of many Indonesian living overseas to go back to Indonesia. Based on his three criteria (Spiritual, Material and Intellectual) he decided to go back after he finish his study citing that in term of spiritual and material, living in Indonesia is better for him even if intellectually, US is a far better place.

Australian Embassy bomber death sentence:

Nick at Bali Blog wrote that Iwan Darmawan, also known as Rois, the planner of the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta was sentenced to death for playing a major part in the bombing. The Australian embassy bombing killed 11 people including the suicide bomber.

For some reason active Jemaah Islamiyah or JI in Indonesia is more keen to target Australian than American in their terror acts.

Nick noted:

The reason for this is Australia's involvement in the Middle East. When you deal with ideological crazies, all kinds of weird connections can be made. The JI leaders want a Pan-Islamic state and hate Israel. The US supports Israel and attacked Iraq. Australia supports the US, so in some kind of twisted way that makes Australians and British people legitimate targets in some people's minds. Who would of thought in 2002 that Aussies on holiday could get blown up in Bali because the US supports Israel? Well it happened.

Rois appeal of the conviction to President SBY will unlikely to get any result.

He praised President SBY, that while the president is a social conservative, is not in any way a religious fundamentalist.

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From the Jordanian Blogosphere

Roba Al Assi · 04:01 · Middle East & North Africa

On International Affairs:
With the Israeli withdrawal, there is a lot to say in the Jordanian blogosphere about Palestine, both in relation to the withdrawal and otherwise. Biesan describes the withdrawal as “a historic day for the Palestinian people and for Gaza in particular”. Meanwile, Sugar Cubes reports that Israeli exports to the Arab world rose 48% in 2004, saying, “I don’t understand why we need to import such products at all!”

Biesan also says that she was so excited to see “the donation made by Al Amaari Refugee Camp in the West Bank city of Ramallah to Hurricane Katrina survivors”, then she notes the lack of importance given to such a significant incident saying, “If one Palestinian made a politically incorrect statement concerning the Katarina tragedy, the news would have been all over the media… this was a positive move from the Palestinian refugees it hardly made its way through the international media.”

Echoing Biesan's thoughts on the one-sidedness of American media, Deeb Dweik says that he was “a little pissed off” when he heard about an American article that claims that the killing of Mohammed Durra, which helped spark then intifada, was “an almost perfect media crime”.

Lulu of CafeLulu writes a thought-provoking post in remembrance of the 1982 massacre in the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps by Israel, saying, “For how long will Palestinian deaths be ignored and swept under the rug, only rarely making it to the sidelines of reported news?” Sabbah of Sabbah's Blog has a post on the failure of the UN to set a global definition of “terrorism“.

This month also marks the launch of PalestineBlogs.net by Sabbah, a blog that is dedicated to pro-Palestine advocacy through the presentation of news and views of the blogosphere.

On local events:

Wednesday the 14th marked the 6th Jordanian Bloggers meet-up. The 7th Jordanian Bloggers meet-up will take place on the 2nd of October.

Roba of And Far Away reports about the Royal Film Commission's screening of 13 short movies directed by young Jordanians, ” I was deeply impressed by the fact that some of the shorts were pivoting around significant social criticism that I have never seen portrayed in such a medium before.” Wael Attili talks about the exhibition by architect Sahel Hiyari at Darat al Funun saying, “I was quite impressed with the daring ideas and design experience in his work.”

Eman of AquaCool brings forward two new local projects, one being the construction of a a path for bikes in King Abullah 2nd Street  and the inauguration of three-star hotel located in the heart of Madaba.  She also mentions “Follow the Women” ride for peace which will be passing by Jordan.
Ahmad Humeid has taken the initiative to “GPS Amman” as as a wikipedia-like effort, so it would be great if people with the following expertise can help:

  1. Someone out there with wiki experience could set up a wiki for this.
  2. If someone knows of similar GPS wikis to learn from.
  3. Someone tell us how GPS users can then ‘use’ the data collected.

Jordanian Thoughts:
Lina Ejeilat has a thought provoking post wondering where students are when it comes to activism- “apathy and indifference are a plague among young people in our society.” Linda Haddad, meanwhile, wonders if Jordanian courts are too lenient.  On a lighter note, Natasha Tynes writes about her baseball experience.

Ahmad Humeid's Mix Up Arabia is also back with another episode.

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