Singapore Probes Possible Terror Attack Plot from Indonesia

Singapore said Wednesday it had sent a security team to Jakarta to discuss Indonesian police findings that the city-state could have been the target of a terror attack plot. The Ministry of Home Affairs said the team from the Internal Security Department was in talks with the Indonesian police about the findings, which included a map of Singapore’s train network discovered in the home of Ahmad Sayid Maulana, a terror suspect killed last week.

The Straits Times newspaper said the underground train station on Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping belt — frequented by foreign tourists, expatriate workers and locals — had been circled on the map. It also quoted an unnamed Indonesian police investigator as saying that Singapore “obviously” was a target of an attack and that the suspects had planned to enter the city-state through neighbouring Malaysia.

“We are aware of the items recovered and the speculations and possibilities that the terrorists could have been planning an attack against Singapore, and we are investigating,” a Ministry of Home Affairs spokeswoman told AFP.

“We should also keep in mind that Singapore has been and remains a target for terrorists and we must always maintain our vigilance.”
The Internal Security Department handles security threats from “international terrorism, foreign subversion and espionage”, according to its website. Maulana had been identified in an International Crisis Group report last month as a suspect who had planned attacks on police headquarters in Jakarta and surveyed sites for militant training camps in Indonesia.

The Straits Times said the 36-year-old was shot dead by Indonesia’s elite anti-terror squad Detachment 88 during a raid in East Jakarta on May 12. A map of an airport in the city of General Santos in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao was also among the items found in Maulana’s house, the report said.

John Harrison, a security analyst at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the city state was a prime target chiefly because it is an ally of Western countries.

“Certainly, Singapore remains a tier one target for the JI,” he told AFP, referring to the Southeast Asia-based terror network Jemaah Islamiyah.

“It’s because of Singapore’s position as an ally of the United States and other Western nations,” he said.

“You have a concentration of Western interests,” he said, pointing to the numerous multinational corporations based in the city-state as well as foreign embassies.

Australian Timber Co Overcome in Indonesia

Australia has ensured the commitment of aid to Indonesia worth 40 million Australian dollars through the International Forest Carbon Initiative or the International Forest Carbon Initiative. Such assistance is part of aid worth 200 million U.S. dollars and include Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership which aimed to cut greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation.
"This is a wise way in which each country must play a role in solving the climate problem. Australia and Indonesia is working hard to overcome this problem," said the Australian Climate Change Minister Penny in an interview with Kompas.com on during the Australia-Indonesia Conference in Sydney, Friday (20 / 2).
Penny Wong describes his country as developed countries need to establish a framework for cooperation and policy with developing countries like Indonesia for the successful international campaign to tackle climate change. Seriousness is demonstrated by the Australians to abandon its ally, the United States, which has so far not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
Through the International Forest Carbon Initiative, Australia to help Indonesia demonstrate how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation and logging. Grants worth 30 million Australian dollars has been allocated for Kalimantan Forest and Climate Partnership.
Projects in the forest area Kapuas, Central Kalimantan, was aimed at testing the market-based approach in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by protecting and restoring 100,000 hectares of peat forest. This project is expected by the Indonesian certainly can create new jobs directed to the preservation of peat forest.
Australia is also helping Indonesia set up the National Carbon Accounting System as well as national policy and strategy. Assistance worth 10 million Australian dollars is intended to reduce deforestation as well as forming satellite surveillance to reduce forest fires and systems to support participation in international carbon trading market.
"Australia and Indonesia also is reviewing other projects on demonstrating how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the territory has not been determined by the Government of Indonesia," said Penny Wong. "Australia is taking the role of incentives from the company collects domestic and funds to provide technical support for developing countries like Indonesia in this matter," he added.

Hotels in Bangkok Sending Tourists Packing

Thailand’s bloody political crisis has been scaring away tourists for weeks but took a new turn Tuesday when some of the capital’s finest hotels sent guests packing for fear of violence at their doorsteps.  The Grand Hyatt and InterContinental hotels in Bangkok told guests they would have to leave, while The Four Seasons remained open but closed all four of its restaurants and saw its cavernous lobby empty except for a few wilted orchids.

The hotels took action on one of the more relaxed days in the deadlock created by anti-government demonstrators who began occupying city streets more than five weeks ago. They abandoned plans to march into the heart of the capital’s central business district Tuesday after soldiers in full combat gear were deployed to bar the way.

However, the failure to march did nothing to ease tensions. The so-called “Red Shirt” protesters reinforced defenses at their urban encampment and prepared homemade weapons, including hundreds of sharpened bamboo poles. The army in response said it would be prepared to use greater force in any confrontations because of the danger posed by the weapons.

“The situation is very tense. We are relocating guests to other hotels for their safety,” said Patty Lerdwittayaskul, a spokeswoman at the 380-room Grand Hyatt Erawan, which announced its closure until at least Saturday.

The nearby Holiday Inn and InterContinental also found safer accommodation for their guests and said new reservations would not be accepted until Monday.  The Red Shirts have occupied the capital’s luxury hotel and shopping district for 18 days in their six-week bid to overthrow the government.

Upscale malls closed almost immediately, as protesters transformed the area into a noisy and litter-strewn tent camp with outdoor showers and portable toilets for the thousands of supporters sleeping on the sidewalk.
     
The protesters, formally known as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, initially were camped in a historic district of Bangkok. But a failed April 10 attempt by security forces to flush protesters from that neighborhood erupted into the worst political violence Thailand has seen in 18 years, leaving 25 dead and more than 800 wounded. It also prompted the protesters to consolidate in the shopping zone, which has become their strategic stronghold.

Tensions mounted again this week when the government deployed soldiers in combat gear near the shopping area, known as Rajprasong, to block a planned march to the nearby Silom Road business district. The march has been called off but a standoff remains that threatens greater damage to Thailand’s vital tourism sector, which accounts for 6 percent of the economy.\

“No more ’Land of Smiles’ — the image has been destroyed,” said Apichart Sankary, from the Federation of Thai Tourism Associations, referring to Thailand’s tourist-friendly nickname. “Tourists are frightened to see military personnel carrying guns. They can’t believe this is Thailand.”

Hotel occupancy normally at 60 percent or 70 percent this time of year has slipped to an average of 30 percent, Apichart said. But hotels in the protest zone were far below the average. Retailers and hotels in the area say they have lost tens of millions of dollars.

“You cannot stay here,” a staffer in the InterContinental’s lobby told a lone group of Egyptian guests who were due to check-out the following morning but were being transferred to a Marriott away from the protest zone.  One of them, Walid Moustafa, a Cairo gem dealer, said he wasn’t bothered by the protesters but found the relocation an inconvenience.

“It’s been a little bit noisy. But the Red Shirts were very nice,” he said. “They allowed our taxis to come through. I think it’s safe — just don’t stay in this hotel.”
     
Down the street, men dressed in black who serve as guards for the Red Shirts manned razor-wired checkpoints — some in bulletproof vests. One section of pavement down the street from the Four Seasons was devoted to an arsenal of crude weaponry where Red Shirts sharpened hundreds of long bamboo rods and piled them into tall stacks. Broken up pavement stones were heaped in other piles.
     
“This could blow up any minute. Anybody that’s here is here at their own risk,” said 63-year-old American David M. McCollum, a Vietnam War veteran from Washington state who like many tourists brought his camera to the protest zone.

“Oh yeah, that’s a Kodak moment,” he said, snapping a picture as riot police gathered near Silom Road.   Four Seasons general manager Rainer Stampfer said occupancy was “absolutely minimal” and the hotel was not accepting any bookings until Monday. At lunchtime, the hotel’s normally bustling lobby was empty with no one at the front desk.

“We have prepared hotel limousines to escort existing guests who wish to stay at a different hotel. We recommend that they stay elsewhere.”

Like all hotels in the area, the Four Seasons has put up metal barricades to block protesters from spilling in. But it has not been able to escape the stench of about 30 portable toilets trucked in for the protesters.

“The mobile toilets next to our hotel send out a really bad smell,” said one of the hotel’s reservations agents, Pratchaya Kanphairee, who said they have asked protesters not to hang their drying laundry on the hotel’s gates to no avail.  The Red Shirt protesters are demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva call early elections.

The protesters consist mainly of poor rural supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and pro-democracy activists who opposed the military coup that ousted him in 2006.  They believe Abhisit’s government is illegitimate because it came to power through a parliamentary vote after disputed court rulings ousted two elected, pro-Thaksin administrations.

The conflict has been characterized by some as class warfare, pitting the country’s vast rural poor against an elite that has traditionally held power. They have hung a giant banner between two shuttered shopping malls that apologizes in English to Bangkok’s foreign visitors:

“Welcome to Thailand. We Just Want Democracy.”

What Bali Nine Lawyers and Family Expect from SBY's Visit

THE father of the Bali death row inmate Scott Rush has expressed cautious optimism that his son's case will be raised by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, in discussions with the man who may ultimately decide his fate.

Lawyers for Scott Rush will lodge a final appeal in the Indonesian Supreme Court this month, and an appeal for clemency to the President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, remains the last resort under the country's system.

''I think it is a worthwhile thing that the Prime Minister speaks to [Dr Yudhoyono] in regards to Australian citizens,'' Lee Rush said yesterday.

Lawyers and family of the three Bali nine convicts who face the death penalty were careful not to be seen to be seeking Australian political interference in the Indonesian legal process during Dr Yudhoyono's visit, fearing a backlash.

But should the appeals fail, they would be relying on the personal relationship between the two leaders, said Julian McMahon, the Melbourne barrister representing Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Dr Yudhoyono has previously said he would not grant clemency for drug trafficking death sentences, despite the many requests submitted to him. Mr McMahon said the federal government had been very clear about its total opposition to the death penalty.

''Indonesia currently has a different view, but it is a matter often debated in Indonesia. I am hopeful that Indonesia may take a leadership role in the region in this debate in eventually bringing an end to the death penalty.''

Mr McMahon said Indonesia was going through a period of rapid improvement, legal and social reform, and the importance of prisoner rehabilitation was being taken seriously.

The legal team for Chan and Sukumaran has highlighted their ''striking personal reformations'' and positive influence while in Kerobakan prison in Bali, including running classes to teach other prisoners word processing.

Mr McMahon said they would soon lodge their final appeal and could not ask anything of the visiting president while the matter was before the courts.

''We can't expect the Prime Minister and President to be discussing the legal arguments at a time when the arguments are not yet finalised in the courts.''

However, should they lose all legal options, the lawyers and the Australian government would be asking Dr Yudhoyono ''after considering all the circumstances to extend some clemency to our clients''.

''At such a time, personal respect and friendship between leaders can be very important'', Mr McMahon said.

Mr Rush said it was still premature to be talking about the final step of clemency for his son and he was waiting for the appeal to be heard. He would not offer his opinion on the Indonesian legal process.

''Judging the leader of the country or its culture or their system is not a healthy thing for Australians to be doing that.''

A supporter of the Rush family, Father Frank Brennan, also cautioned against the death row appeal becoming a domestic political issue during Dr Yudhoyono's visit and called for ''respect for the Indonesian legal process''.

A lawyer who has previously acted for Scott Rush, Colin McDonald, said the relationship between the Australian and Indonesian governments was ''long past the stage where issues can't be discussed''.Kompas.com

Obama Shouldn't be Welcomed Excessively in Indonesia

ndonesia should not excessively welcome US President Barrack Obama when he visits in mid-March, a senior Indonesian diplomat said. "We should do our welcoming realistically and do not need to be overwhelmed by this relationship," former Indonesian representative at the United Nations Makarim Wibisono said here Monday.

He made the statement after attending the fourth Annual Seminar of the 2009-2010 Political Studies and Prediction of Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy at Paramadina University. According Makarim, Obama’s visit to Indonesia was of particular importance to Indonesia but it also must be handled in a realistic manner.

By bringing his wife Michelle and two daughters, Sasha and Malia, Obama would attract hundreds of journalists from around the world to Indonesia, he added. "It's Obama's will to visit Indonesia 14 months after his inauguration, so he is considered to have already set his country’s foreign policy bases. When he now plans to visit Indonesia, it means that Indonesia has a special meaning in the US scale of priorities," he added.

The International Relations lecturer at Paramadina University who attended Monday’s seminar as a speaker said there were three realistic things in response to Obama’s arrival to Indonesia. Makarim mentioned that the realistic measures such as the US still has a high level of knowledge and technologies, then it is correct that if we want to have a technology transfer, because the US is still a large political and military force until now.

The second measure is to create a policy maneuvering efforts in Southeast Asia because if the region is not stable, then the effort to build Indonesia is no longer possible. Then he said that Indonesia has the things that make Americans also interested, because Indonesia is the third largest democratic country in the world and a Muslim country that has a moderate nature.

Besides that, Indonesia also has the right rated in welcoming President Obama’s visit to Indonesia, as an effort to seek the cooperation based on equality and benefit. "So this is a mutual benefit, not just for Indonesia, but the US also hopes that," added Makarim.

Regarding the Comprehensive Partnership Agreement (CPA) between the two countries, from Obama’s visit is expected to create a real product, and the CPA signing is aimed to be completed during the visit, so there’s a deep milestone in Indonesia-US bilateral relation. The CPA Partnership does not get any resistance from the RI -USA military cooperation, because it is only a technical cooperation, and it does not matter anymore.

The military training cessation between the two countries which had stopped due to a few incidents committed by the Indonesian military who violated human rights, has now been re-established during Obama’s administration. "With the military training, people who previously did not understand human rights became more aware and appreciated because they must stay there (U.S.) for several years and can appreciate the civil domination," Makarim said.Kompas.com

What Australia Says about Indonesia's Surprise Success Stories

Many countries are going badly. Indonesia was always going to be one. Or so we thought. It's turned out to be one of the surprise success stories.

For Australia, Indonesia was always the dark zone of dread, where bad things happened with worse to come. This wasn't entirely baseless. Sukarno's communist demagoguery was real. The brutal repressiveness of Suharto's military dictatorship was no figment of the imagination. But when Suharto's regime fell and the Indonesian economy collapsed simultaneously in 1998, it seemed to be the worst-case scenario.

A new Indonesia, the child of chaos and violence, was supposed to arise. These were the dominant scenarios that Australian Indonesia-watchers sketched out, usually in private, sometimes in public.

The first fear was that without a strong man to hold it together, Indonesia would break up. It would Balkanise, creating a group of fractious, needy, or hostile new countries to our north.

Some Indonesians, watching Australia's sponsorship of East Timor's move to independence, suspected it was unstated policy to encourage a fragmentation. On the contrary. It was never Canberra's policy, but it was one of Canberra's paranoias.

That was the fear. The fact: under the President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, universally known as SBY, the most virulent separatist movement, in Aceh, has been reconciled. The West Papuan independence movement is moribund. The country is unified and stable. East Timor was the only breakaway, and its sad stagnation has not inspired imitators.

The second big fear was that without a military dictator to repress fundamentalist Islam, Indonesia would turn radical.

Perhaps the Islamists would take control through the ballot box. Perhaps the Islamic extremists would revive the Darul Islam project to overthrow the government violently and impose fundamentalist sharia law. Either way, Indonesia would become a brooding presence, increasingly hostile to Western values and inimical to Australian interests.

The fact: as the Australian National University's Greg Fealy wrote after last year's legislative elections: "Despite the fact that almost 90 per cent of the electorate is Muslim, Islamic parties gained less than 30 per cent of the vote - their lowest figure over the three democratic elections held after the downfall of President Suharto in 1998."

This doesn't mean Indonesians are abandoning Islam. There is a trend to increasing religious observance. A growing percentage are attending prayers, fasting during Ramadan, and using Islamic banks. Muslims pursue their religious beliefs as a personal, social and religious matter, not a political one. Voters demand better services from their government, not religious exhortation.

Other religions, including its Christian churches, are flourishing too. In the immediate post-Suharto years, churches were firebombed in an effort to foment sectarian upheaval. In an interesting role reversal, it's in next-door Malaysia that churches are under attack. In Indonesia, religious tolerance is practised and the secular state is increasingly entrenched.

A relapse into military dictatorship was the third scenario. A new-generation general would assert control. Perhaps he'd be provoked by an Islamist uprising, by the break-up of the nation, or by political disarray.

The fact: Indonesia today is led by a former general, but was chosen by the people in a free election, not just once, but now for a second term. SBY is a model democrat.

The only generals that vie for power do so at the ballot box. They campaign for votes like other candidates do, often singing ballads at rallies to woo voters rather than ordering the troops to intimidate them.

Democracy is entrenched as the sole source of legitimacy. The media is one of the world's most thrusting and free, and strong democratic institutions are increasingly solid. Corruption remains a serious problem, but the polity is struggling mightily to break its grip.

Neighbouring Thailand has relapsed into military coups. In Indonesia, the generals are in the barracks and no one in Jakarta speaks of coups any more.

Fourth was the fear that massive economic dislocation and political unrest would precipitate a torrent of Indonesian boat people. In a country of 230 million, it was often pointed out, you'd only need 1 per cent to head for the boats and Australia's systems would be overwhelmed.

The fact: the economic and political upheaval came and went. And the boat people? None came. Refugees from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and other countries have, via Indonesia, but the Indonesians stayed home. They are pretty happy where they are.

And, since the trauma of the Asian economic crisis in 1998, Indonesia's economy has developed better than almost anyone could have imagined. In the crisis, one-seventh of the Indonesian economy evaporated, while interest rates shot up to 75 per cent. But its average for the last five years is 5 per cent a year, behind only China and India among the region's economies.

The World Bank recently said Indonesia has a ''unique opportunity to rise as a dynamic, inclusive, middle-income country which can be both a leading sophisticated commodity economy like Australia [and] a hub of labour-intensive industry in Asia like China".

The final fear was Indonesia would be an impenetrable safe haven for terrorists, who would launch operations against Australia at will. Indonesia was so riddled with Islamist extremists, and the Indonesian state so weak and incompetent, Australia would have to live in a permanent state of terrorist siege.

The fact: there have been terrorist attacks against Australian citizens and interests, including the Bali bombing. The threat remains real. But the Indonesian authorities, in co-operation with Australian counterparts, have proved to be vigorous and highly effective counter-terrorists.

For all of these reasons, the Australian Parliament tomorrow recognises Indonesia's emergence as a moderate, stable, peaceful, secular democracy, and it honours Yudhoyono as the pivot on which it has turned, when he addresses a joint sitting.

ASEAN will sign two Agreements

Two important agreements are expected to be signed in the high-level meeting of the 14th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Deputy Secretary General of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) Pushpanathan said the agreement - Agreement on Trade in Goods of Asean and Asean Comprehensive Investment Agreement - not only would encourage trade liberalization among the 10 members of the group but also facilitate the process. "ASEAN Goods Trade Agreement is a comprehensive agreement to not only trade liberalization but also will facilitate customs and standards," he said in a special session of the AEC after the opening of the Business and Investment Summit of ASEAN in Bangkok on Wednesday (26 / 2).

Previous agreements will go through the ratification process will have clear guidelines. Among other things, about the rate reduction.

He said the business community will know when a particular product tariffs will be reduced. "There is an attachment of the schedule. So, they can make better preparation," he said.

Pushpanathan said the Asean Comprehensive Investment Agreement will provide a clear timing for the liberalization of investment in accordance with the AEC. "The benefits will increase for foreign investors in ASEAN," he said.