Photo: Jakarta Globe Tailors working by candlelight in Central Jakarta on Thursday. The shop was plunged into darkness for three hours. (Photo: Yudhi Sukma Wijaya, JG)
I have often thought that one of the most interesting things about Jakarta is that it is a place where one can actually experience the future.
from Spero News 11.12.2009
Indonesia: Jakarta [...] Read Full Story
Photo: The Jakarta Globe (“Cities are [supposed to be] developed for people, not for cars. The city of Jakarta provides only for cars and motorcycles.” –Milatia Kusuma Mu’min, Indonesian country director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.)
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The Gray Wave of the Great Transformation could be used to describe Jakarta. However this is the [...] Read Full Story
Photo via Pat Dollard
On subject of ‘pirates’…
From MIT Press:
The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations
by Daniel Heller-Roazen
“The pirate is the original enemy of humankind. As Cicero famously remarked, there are certain enemies with whom one may negotiate and with whom, circumstances permitting, one may establish a truce. But there is also an [...] Read Full Story
This is Sumatra.
photo: DIMAS ARDIAN/GETTY from The Independent
Illegal logging responsible for loss of 10 million hectares in Indonesia
By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent
Monday, 26 October 2009 The Independent
“Lush tropical rainforest once covered almost all of Indonesia’s 17,000 islands between the Indian and Pacific oceans. And just half a century ago, 80 per cent remained. But [...] Read Full Story
Translation: This country needs many polygamy volunteers. Conflicts, natural disasters, poverty, and ‘old’ virgins are the serious problems afflicting our country’s women. Thus, this country needs volunteers for polygamous marriages to overcome this nationwide female problem.
photo: from Cycads
A bad idea which apparently is not a new bad idea at all.
‘Polygamy club’ draws criticism in [...] Read Full Story
Out in the provinces…
(just passing on the news for friends)
BERTANI ATAU MATI – TOLAK TAMBANG BESI
Saturday, October 24 2009 @ 12:50 AM CDT
Indonesia: Thousands of Kulon Progo Farmers Resist Corporate Evil, Fighting the Police
Friday, October 23 2009 @ 08:46 AM CDT
Contributed by: Anonymous
AsiaThis morning (Monday, 20th October 2009), around 2000 coastal farmers connected to PPLP [...] Read Full Story
photo: AFP
By way of introduction… a short book review.
from Amazon.com
“From the tragedy of 9/11 to the farce of the financial meltdown—but underlying both is the irrationality of global capitalism. In this bravura analysis of the current global crisis—following on from his bestselling Welcome to the Desert of the Real—Slavoj Zizek argues that the liberal idea [...] Read Full Story
photo: Subtopia
According to the wikipedia:
The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one [...] Read Full Story
Photo: Palm oil plantation. Stuart Franklin, National Geographic.
How the World Bank Let ‘Deal Making’ Torch the Rainforests
By LISA FRIEDMAN of ClimateWire
Published: August 19, 2009
The World Bank ignored its own environmental and social protection standards when it approved nearly $200 million in loan guarantees for palm oil production in Indonesia, a stinging internal audit has found.
The [...] Read Full Story
