Tag Archives | Indonesia

Dozens Of 20-Inch-Tall, Dreadlocked People Spotted In Indonesian Forest

By on April 7, 2013 in News 0

Perhaps heightening the mystery is the mind-bending possibility that Indonesia many thousands of years ago may have been home to a species of little people distinct from humans. Have they been hiding? Via the Jakarta Post:

Rangers patrolling the Way Kambas National Park (TNWK) in Lampung claim to have sighted dozens of pygmies in a number of areas across the park. Allegedly the pygmies sport dreadlocks, measure no more than 50 centimeters tall and do not wear clothing.

“The first sighting was on March 17…When the rangers were about to approach them, they immediately hid behind trees and vanished. They ran very fast” said TNWK spokesman Sukatmoko.

He added that several rangers patrolling the park claimed the pygmies were seen moving to the PT Nusantara Tropical Fruit (NTF) plantation. “Apparently, many fruit trees are grown in the NTF plantation area. The pygmies might have entered the plantation for food,” said Sukatmoko.

… Read the rest

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Buried Indonesian Structure Older Than the Pyramids

By on November 19, 2012 in News 8

Picture: Mohammad Fadil (CC)

Gunung Padang style…

Via Jakarta Times:

A recent analysis of carbon-dating by the Miami-based Beta Analytic Lab has apparently validated findings by a government-sanctioned team that a man-made structure, buried under Mount Padang in Cianjur, West Java, is older than the Giza pyramid.

Carbon-dating test results from the Miami lab show that the structure could date back to 14,000 BC or beyond.

The lab used samples of sand, soil and charcoal found at a depth of between three and 12 meters beneath the mountain’s surface.

The Giza pyramids were constructed around 2,500 BC.

“The analysis of the Miami lab dismisses doubts over an earlier test conducted by the National Nuclear Agency [Batan]. There is no more doubt that the structure beneath Mount Padang is older than the Giza pyramid,” geologist and member of the Mount Padang research team Budianto Ontowirjo said on Sunday.

Keep reading.… Read the rest

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Workers Discover Ruins of Bali’s Largest Hindu Temple

By on October 26, 2012 in News 1

Picture: PHGCOM (CC)

Via Raw Story:

Balinese laborers digging a drain in the city of Denpasar have uncovered the remains of an enormous Hindu temple:

They reported the discovery to the Bali archaeology office, which then unearthed substantial foundations of a structure that the excavation team believes dates from around the 13th to 15th centuries.

“We think this is the biggest ancient Hindu temple ever discovered in Bali,” Wayan Suantika, the head of the team, said late Wednesday.

He said the excavation was still in progress and the team did not yet know whether enough stones would be unearthed to allow them to reconstruct the temple.

Hinduism has a very long history in Bali, having first arrived sometime around one AD. The population of Bali is almost 94 percent Hindu, whereas the majority (88 percent) of Indonesia is Muslim. It is estimated that twelve percent of the world’s overall Muslim population resides in the island nation.… Read the rest

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Two Million Indonesian Factory Workers Go On Strike

By on October 4, 2012 in News 9

Indonesia’s factories ground to a halt on as millions of workers walked out of their jobs, calling for an increased minimum wage and more workers’ rights and protections, Al Jazeera reported early yesterday:

It is estimated that some two million factory workers will go on strike nationwide on Wednesday. Al Jazeera’s Stepp Vaessen reported from the scene of a strike. “I’m at the biggest industrial zone outside of Jakarta where 800 factories are basically closed down right now because all the workers are standing outside on the streets with banners and motorbikes going around,” she said on Wednesday.

They are protesting against their working conditions and over the work contacts that they have. They say they don’t have any job security and no stability,” she said. The workers [are also] protesting against the practice of outsourcing manpower.

The Jakarta Globe newspaper reported on its website that the unions were expecting some 2.8 million people to go on strike in 21 districts and municipalities and 80 industrial zones across the country.

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Obama Was Raised By Transgender Nanny In Indonesia

By on March 5, 2012 in News 24

Indonesia Obama NannyA sad and interesting story for a number of reasons — chiefly, how can the U.S. president allow one of his childhood caretakers to live in such terrible circumstances? Fox News will no doubt cover this in a sensitive and enlightened manner. The Associated Press reports:

Once, long ago, Evie looked after “Barry” Obama, the kid who would grow up to become the world’s most powerful man. Now, his transgender former nanny has given up her tight, flowery dresses and is living in fear on Indonesia’s streets.

Evie, who was born a man but believes she is really a woman, has endured a lifetime of taunts and beatings because of her identity. But the turning point came when she found a transgender friend’s bloated body floating in a backed-up sewage canal two decades ago.

Evie, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, now lives in a closet-sized hovel in a tightly packed slum in an eastern corner of Jakarta, collecting and scrubbing dirty laundry to pay for food.

… Read the rest

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Indonesia Rounds Up Punks For ‘Re-Education’

By on December 21, 2011 in News 22

punksIn the country’s most conservative region, authorities are rounding up young punks, removing their mohawks and piercings, and and shipping them off for military drills and manners lessons to ween them from their deviant ways. Suppose your punk rocker boyfriend/girlfriend got scooped up, sent off, and came back a square? The Guardian reports:

Police in Indonesia’s most conservative province have stripped away body piercings and shaved off mohicans from 65 youths detained at a punk-rock concert because of their perceived threat to Islamic values. After replacing their “disgusting” clothes, [a local police chief] handed each a toothbrush and barked: “Use it.”

Punk rockers have complained for months about harassment, but Saturday’s roundup at a concert attended by more than 100 people was by far the most dramatic. Dozens were loaded into vans and brought to a police detention centre in the hills, 30 miles from the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, for rehabilitation, training in military-style discipline and religious classes, including Qur’an recitation.

… Read the rest

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Video: Disturbing Abuse Of Australian Cattle At Slaughterhouses

By on June 1, 2011 in News 22

Animals Australia and RSPCA Australia have launched a public campaign against the torture cattle endure during live export. The campaign asks the Live Export organization to reconsider the trade of living animals because of the cruel way they are treated before being slaughtered.

Note, they are not necessarily advocating vegetarianism or the elimination of slaughterhouses (although there are many benefits to reducing industrialized slaughterhouses including cutting down on pollution, increase agricultural land and reduction of animal cruelty), but they argue the unfair treatment of live animals being exported to other countries.

Warning: The video below include graphic material that may be difficult to watch.

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Tobacco Smoke Promoted As Cancer Cure In Indonesia

By on April 13, 2011 in News 18
Photo: Andrew Magill (CC)

Photo: Andrew Magill (CC)

Agence France-Presse via the Raw Story reports:

An Indonesian woman exhales cigarette smoke into the mouth of a gaunt, naked patient at a Jakarta clinic, where tobacco is openly touted as a cancer cure.

The Western patient is suffering from emphysema, a condition she developed from decades of smoking. Along with cancer and autism, it’s just one of the ailments the Griya Balur clinic claims it can cure with cigarettes.

“I missed this,” says the woman, a regular customer, with an American accent, as Phil Collins?s “I Can Feel It” blares in the background.

Griya Balur would be shut down in many parts of the world, but not in Indonesia, one of the developing-country new frontiers for big tobacco as it seeks to replace its dwindling profits in the health-conscious West.

Long traditions of tobacco use combined with poor regulation and the billions of dollars that flow into government coffers from the tobacco industry mean places like Griya Balur go unchallenged.

… Read the rest

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Indonesia’s Plant-Based Birth Control Pill for Men

By on April 9, 2011 in News 9

GandarusaWhile the U.S. progress lags, Indonesia readies a male contraception pill. Patrick Winn writes on Global Post:

On the remote Indonesian island of Papua, tribesmen have long noticed the curious effect of a shrub called “gandarusa.”

If you chew its leaves often enough, men say, your wife won’t get pregnant. Indonesian scientists, who have transferred this folk method from the jungle to the lab, claim they can extract the shrub’s active ingredient and mass produce it as an over-the-counter pill.

If they’re right, they will accomplish what Western pharmaceutical giants have researched but failed to deliver for decades: a birth control pill for men.

“With luck, it could be released late this year, but it will probably be sold in stores early next year,” said Sugiri Syarief, the head of Indonesia’s state-run National Family Planning Coordination Board. Researchers began analyzing gandarusa in 1988, Sugiri said. Animal and human trials began in the 1990s and the plant’s effective compound was patented in 2007.

… Read the rest

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WikiLeaks Release Details Indonesian Military Abuses

By on December 24, 2010 in News 0
Author: Addicted04 (CC)

Author: Addicted04 (CC)

The Age reports:

The United States fears that Indonesian government neglect, rampant corruption and human rights abuses are stoking unrest in its troubled province of West Papua.

Leaked embassy cables reveal that US diplomats privately blame Jakarta for instability and “chronic underdevelopment” in West Papua, where military commanders have been accused of drug smuggling and illegal logging rackets across the border with Papua New Guinea.

A September 2009 cable from the US embassy in Jakarta says “the region is politically marginalized and many Papuans harbor separatist aspirations”. An earlier cable, from October 2007, details claims by an Indonesian foreign affairs official about military influence in West Papua.

“The Indonesian official] claims that the Indonesian Military (TNI) has far more troops in Papua than it is willing to admit to, chiefly to protect and facilitate TNI’s interests in illegal logging operations,” says the cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available exclusively to The Age.”The governor … had to move cautiously so as not to upset the TNI, which he said operates as a virtually autonomous governmental entity within the province,” the cable says.

… Read the rest

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