kutamaya

Prophet of Rasulullah Muhammad SAW

2008-11-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

Ka'bah key

Rasulullah foot-print

Rasulullah beard

Rasulullah iron armor

Rasulullah flag

Rasulullah bow

Rasulullah sword

Rasulullah tooth-box

Rasulullah cemetery

rasulullah cemetery gate

Siti Aminah Cemetery

Rasulullah letter for king heraclius

Rasulullah uniform

baduy, harmony in nature and community

2008-09-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

baduy, harmony in nature and community

mother and the child

baduy is the last original sundanese in west java indonesia

ebbie.mutiply.com

baduy can make the pure harmony between human being and the nature for the long time, they know how to respect and live in the wild nature of java forest

baduy, sundanese prehistory ecotourism

2008-09-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

welcome to baduy, the original sundanese in west java

baduy, sundanese prehistory ecotourism

The Baduy community in Banten is an utterly unique and closed society, which can be reached via a 10 km village road from either Cibolegar or Cibungur village in Leuwidamar district. The 50 km road from Rangkasbitung is steep. In April and May, the Baduy community is closed to outsiders, as during this time it commemorates certain ceremonies, called Seba, the offering of part of their agricultural products to the Head of the District, Sub-Regent and the Chief Resident. During this ceremony the "Puun of Baduy" sends out a group of representatives of Baduy Dalam people as well as Baduy Luar to act as the community's spokesmen. When conducting this Seba ceremony the Baduy Dalam members refuse to ride any vehicle, instead, the distance of150 km is traveled on foot as proof of their perseverance. To enter this very special Baduy area, one should obtain written permission from the Rangkasbitung District Office stating the purpose of the visit, which may take one whole week to process.

bamboo

hang out after farming

public shower for all baduy community

wild tree in the baduy forest

trekking to baduy village

baduy citizen activities

farming

baduy next generation

baduy village

The Badui

The Badui is a tribe of between 2,000 and 4,000 Sundanese speaking people living in 27 villages in the mountains south of Rangkasbitung. These people still have their own culture. They fight against attempts of the government to make them part of the modern world. Recently they won a struggle against western schools in their area. The culture is very impressive although it is not easy to learn something about this area and their people. There are three villages in the center of the area (Cibeo, Cikartawana and Cikeusik), which cannot be visited. Here live about 40 families of the purest Badui stock. The culture here is almost unharmed yet. The 24 villages in the outer circle are each connected to one of the inner three from which they are ruled. Three of these outer villages can be visited (Leuwidamar, Lebak and Kadukatug). Only visit this area if we are fit and used to adjust to local life forms. Bring food and gifts for the local people and enough money. It is advisable not to go with a group of more then eight people and to behave our self. Only then the people will accept us as a visitor. To enter the area we must first obtain a permit at the tourist office of Rangkasbitung at Pahlawan Street 13. From Rangkasbitung we have to find transport to the entry point of the Badui area at Cibolger. In Leuwidamar, we can stay the night at the police chief (kepala polisi). Give him a donation for the food and drinks. We can ask him also if he knows a guide who can bring us to some other villages.

resting after farming in the afternoon

foto from : ebbie.multiply.com

Affair With Married Men

2008-08-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

Affair With Married Men

Why would a single (or even attached) woman chase after a married man when she knows that he's attached to another woman? Easy, it starts off because, as is the human condition, the food on someone else's plate always looks (and sometimes tastes) better than what you're having.

It happens all the time. When I'm out with male friends, whether it be at a club or restaurant, the instant women think I'm with them, they begin flirting with said gentlemen like piranhas. Maybe it's because they assume that if a good-looking woman is with such a man, they need to prove that they're just as hot as her.

Maybe it's because these women love a challenge, drama, no strings, or even simply the thrill of sin. Whatever the case, many a woman has revealed that sex with attached men is usually incredible. Why? Because he's been eating chicken every day, and when these women give them a piece of their action, it's like feeding them duck a l'orange -- something exotic.

It's more "exciting" to be Sneaky
"The sex was awesome because we had to be careful all the time, so when I would end up holding onto a cabinet in the office supplies room while he penetrated me with quick thrusts during lunchtime, it would excite me like no other sex I've ever had."

It's all about "Competition"
"We did it anywhere, anytime... until one of his wife's friends saw us and told his wife. Unfortunately, this only made me want him more. I guess my competitive streak took over and I wanted to win -- not him necessarily, I just wanted to win. Haven't you ever watched elimiDATE ? Do you really think the women are vying for the man?"

That ring garners experience
"It started out by accident. The man I was dating forgot to mention that he was married. I found out four months later by accident because he forgot to remove his wedding band one day. I didn't leave him, and anyway, he treated me like a princess more so after I found out."

It's Carnal
"Sex with a married man has to remain that, just sex. Once we began a relationship, I became jealous -- after all, he cheated on his last woman. So I couldn't enjoy sleeping with him the way I used to. Needless to say, he ended up cheating on me with a woman at his office."

Why Women Love Have Sex With Married Men?
"As for the sex"

Play with a Virgin

2008-08-02T22:13:00.000-07:00

While virginity may seem a bit outdated and old-fashioned, a number of women in their 20s and 30s are exactly that -- virginal. If you’re dating a "future sex kitten" and she’s decided you’re the one, you’ll want to keep several things in mind as you rock her world. Unlike sexually experienced women, if she's a virgin, she doesn’t really know what to expect, apart from what her girlfriends have told her -- which means she’s either going to be anticipating lots of pain or lots of ecstasy, depending who she’s talked to.

Regardless, she’s definitely going to be nervous, and that’s where you come in. The following tips will help to ensure that if she's a virgin, her first time will be anything but awkward.

Avoid ultimatums

No one likes being under the gun. It’s absolutely OK to let her know you’re ready to take things to the next level, but you don’t want her thinking that’s all you’re after. Women who are still virgins at 25 and 30 are unlikely to cave to the pressure, anyway -- they’re obviously pretty skilled at saying no! If she's a virgin and hasn’t given the goods up yet, that’s an indication she’s waiting for someone special. Laying the pressure on will make her feel cornered, trapped and objectified -- not exactly the hallmark of Prince Charming!

Take control

oing to need your firm, but gentle, guidance. In fact, she’s going to expect it, so don’t be afraid to lead with confidence; women love men who take charge in the bedroom. Let her determine the pace, but never lose sight of who’s teaching whom. She may be screaming with delight, begging you to shag her silly -- but that doesn’t mean she’s ready.

You’re the expert; it’s your job to gauge her level of arousal. You want her incredibly horny (and as wet as you can get her) before you go the whole nine yards. She’s going to remember this for the rest of her life. You want her reflecting on this moment with a saucy grin, not crossing her legs in pain at the memory.

Relax her

You’re the experienced one here, and she’s g It’s natural for her to feel a bit jittery, but you can ease much of that anxiety with a few simple tricks. She’s likely to be feeling self-conscious, so start with a few confidence boosters. Tell her she’s sexy and let her know she looks fantastic in your bed. Even if she already knows this, hearing you say it will do wonders.

Spend extra time kissing, letting her know you're focused is on her, and not just her body. Talk to her as you touch her body, find out what she likes and what she doesn’t. It may sound one-sided, but this should be all about her and what she’s offering you -- as opposed to what you’re taking. Let her know this, and she’ll relax completely.

Turn her on

No doubt it sounds like an obvious tip, but this one is more overlooked than you might realize. You want her so hot she’s purring with lust and begging for it -- and you want to keep her that way until the moment of truth. Unfortunately, many men break the mojo just before penetration. It’s not intentional, they just get a bit tense knowing they’re about to cause their partner a minor amount of pain. Relax, she knows what's coming and she’s not going to hold it against you. Go slowly, but don’t forget to kiss and caress her as you do. This gives her something else to focus on and keeps her aroused, which will actually decrease her sensitivity to pain.

Be willing to slow down and stop

She may be ready and willing at the start of the evening, but be prepared for that to change before the deed is done. Rest assured, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t want you, it just means she’s not ready. Some women are more sexually liberated than others -- her virginity might be something she can’t cope with losing right now. On the other hand, she might just need a little reassurance. She may need evidence that you really care about her and are willing to wait. A willingness to stop and take a step back is often all the proof a woman needs. It may even be enough for her to decide to keep going. Either way, a little compassion in this area will earn you major points.

10 Amazing Lost Cities

2008-08-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

Istilah Kota hilang adalah nyata adanya, kebanyakan kota-kota hilang telah di temukan dan masih banyak di teliti oleh para ilmuwan, untuk mengetahui banyak hal tentang kota tersebut.

Here's our list of the 10 most amazing lost cities in the world.

1. ANGKOR (Cambodia): Contains the world's largest religious monument _{[More info at Wiki]}

Angkor served as the seat of the Khmer empire that flourished from approximately the 9th century to the 15th century A.D. More precisely, the Angkorian period may be defined as the period from 802 A.D., when the Khmer Hindu monarch Jayavarman II declared himself the "universal monarch" and "god-king" of Cambodia, until 1431 A.D., when Thai invaders sacked the Khmer capital, causing its population to migrate south to the area of Phnom Penh.

The ruins of Angkor are located amid forests and farmland to the north of the Great Lake (Tonle Sap) and south of the Kulen Hills, near modern day Siem Reap (13°24'N, 103°51'E), and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The temples of the Angkor area number over one thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered through rice fields to the magnificent Angkor Wat, said to be the world's largest single religious monument. Many of the temples at Angkor have been restored, and together they comprise the most significant site of Khmer architecture. Visitor numbers approach one million annually.

In 2007 an international team of researchers using satellite photographs and other modern techniques concluded that Angkor had been the largest preindustrial city in the world with an urban sprawl of 1,150 square miles. The closest rival to Angkor, the Mayan city of Tikal in Guatemala, was roughly 50 square miles in total size.

2. MACHU PICCHU (Peru): The Lost City of the Incas _{[More info at Wiki]}

Machu Picchu ("Old Peak") is a pre-Columbian Inca city located at 2,430 m (7,970 ft) altitude on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, near Cusco. Machu Picchu is probably the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire. It is often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas".

The site was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1983 when it was described as "an absolute masterpiece of architecture and a unique testimony to the Inca civilization".

Machu Picchu was constructed around 1450, at the height of the Inca empire, and was abandoned less than 100 years later, as the empire collapsed under Spanish conquest.

Although the citadel is located only about 50 miles from Cusco, the Inca capital, it was never found and destroyed by the Spanish, as were many other Inca sites.

Over the centuries, the surrounding jungle grew to enshroud the site, and few knew of its existence.

In 1911, Yale historian and explorer Hiram Bingham brought the "lost" city to the world's attention. Bingham and others hypothesized that the citadel was the traditional birthplace of the Inca people or the spiritual center of the "virgins of the sun," while curators of a recent exhibit have speculated that Machu Picchu was a royal retreat.

3. MEMPHIS (Egypt): ancient capital of Egypt_{[More info at Wiki]}

Memphis was the ancient capital of the first nome of Lower Egypt, and of the Old Kingdom of Egypt from its foundation until around 2200 BC and later for shorter periods during the New Kingdom, and an administrative centre throughout ancient history.

Its Ancient Egyptian name was Ineb Hedj ("The White Walls"). The name "Memphis" is the Greek deformation of the Egyptian name of Pepi I's (6th dynasty) pyramid, Men-nefer, which became Menfe in Coptic. According to Herodotus, the city was founded around 3100 BC by Menes, who united the two kingdoms of Egypt.

Estimates of population size differ widely. According to T. Chandlerm, Memphis had some 30,000 inhabitants and was by far the largest settlement worldwide from the time of its foundation until around 2250 BC and from 1557 to 1400 BC.

Memphis reached a peak of prestige under the 6th Dynasty as a centre of the cult of Ptah. It declined briefly after the 18th Dynasty with the rise of Thebes and was revived under the Persian satraps before falling firmly into second place following the foundation of Alexandria.

Under the Roman Empire, Alexandria remained the most important city and Memphis remained the second city of Egypt until the establishment of Fustat (or Fostat) in 641. It was then largely abandoned and became a source of stone for the surrounding settlements. It was still an imposing set of ruins in the 12th century but soon became little more than an expanse of low ruins and scattered stone.

The remains of the temple of Ptah and of Apis have been uncovered at the site as well as a few statues, including two four-metre ones in alabaster of Ramesses II. The Saqqara necropolis is close to Memphis.

4. PALMYRA (Syria): the Bride of the Desert _{[More info at Wiki]}

Palmyra was in the ancient times an important city of central Syria. It has long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert and was known as the Bride of the Desert.

The earliest documented mention of the city by its pre-Semitic name Tadmor, Tadmur or Tudmur, is recorded in Babylonian tablets found in Mari. Though the ancient site fell into disuse after the 16th century, it is still known as Tadmor and there is a small newer settlement next to the ruins of the same name.

n the mid-first century, Palmyra, a wealthy and elegant city located along the caravan routes linking Persia with the Mediterranean ports of Roman Syria and Phoenicia, came under Roman control.

During the following period of great prosperity, the Arab citizens of Palmyra adopted customs and modes of dress from both the Iranian Parthian world to the east and the Graeco-Roman west.

Tadmor is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Second Book of Chronicles 8:4) as a desert city built by the King Solomon of Judea, the son of David.

Palmyra was made part of the Roman province of Syria during the reign of Tiberius (14–37). It steadily grew in importance as a trade route linking Persia, India, China, and the Roman empire.

In 634 the first Muslims arrived in Palmyra. The city was taken by the Muslim Arabs under Khalid ibn Walid in 636. In the 6th century, Fakhreddine al Maany castle was built on top of a mountain overlooking the oasis.

The castle was surrounded by a moat, with access only available through a drawbridge. The city of Palmyra was kept intact. After year 800, people started abandoning the city.

5. PETRA: stone structures carved into rocks _{[More info at Wiki]}

Petra ("Rock") lies on the slope of Mount Hor (Jordan) in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba.

It is famous for having many stone structures carved into the rock. The long-hidden site was revealed to the Western world by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812

It was famously described as "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a Newdigate prize-winning sonnet by John William Burgon. Burgon had not actually visited Petra, which remained accessible only to Europeans accompanied by local guides with armed escorts until after World War I. The site was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 when it was described as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage."

Enclosed by towering rocks and watered by a perennial stream, Petra not only possessed the advantages of a fortress but controlled the main commercial routes which passed through it to Gaza in the west, to Bosra and Damascus in the north, to Aqaba and Leuce Come on the Red Sea, and across the desert to the Persian Gulf. Petra's decline came rapidly under Roman rule, in large part due to the revision of sea-based trade routes. In 363 an earthquake destroyed buildings and crippled the vital water management system.

The ruins of Petra were an object of curiosity in the Middle Ages and were visited by the Sultan Baibars of Egypt towards the close of the 13th century. The first European to describe them was Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812.

6. POMPEII (Italy): buried by the volcano_{[More info at Wiki]}

Along with Herculaneum, this Roman city near modern Naples was destroyed and completely buried during a catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days on 24 August year 79.

The volcano collapsed higher roof-lines and buried Pompeii under many meters of ash and pumice, and it was lost for nearly 1700 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1748.

Since then, its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire.

Today, it is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Italy and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

7. PALENQUE (Mexico): one of Mayan's most exquisite cities _{[More info at Wiki]}

Palenque is an ancient Maya city near the Usumacinta River in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

It contains some of the finest architecture, sculpture, roof comb and bas-relief carvings the Maya produced.

The ancient Mayan city of Palenque, with its superb jungle setting and exquisite architecture and decoration, is one of the marvels of Mexico.

First occupied around 100 BC, it flourished from about 600 to 700 AD, and what a glorious century that was. The city rose to prominence under Pakal, a club-footed king who reigned from 615 to 683 AD, represented by hieroglyphs of sun and shield, he is also referred to as Sun Shield or White Macaw.

During Pakal's reign, many plazas and buildings, including the superlative Templo de las Inscripciones (his Mausoleum), were constructed in Palenque, characterized by very fine stucco bas-reliefs.

Pakal's son Chan-Bahlum II continued Palenque's political and economic expansion and the development of its art and architecture and presided over the construction of the Grupo de la Cruz temples, placing sizable narrative stone stelae within each.

One can see the influence of Palenque's architecture in the Mayan city of Tikal. The rival Mayan city of Toniná's hostility was perhaps the major factor in Palenque's precipitous decline after Chan-Bahlum II's death in 702. Sources speak of a devastating Toniná attack on Palenque in 730

After the 10th century Palenque was largely abandoned. In an area that receives the heaviest rainfall in Mexico, the ruins lay undiscovered until the 18th century. Frans Blom, an early-to-mid-20th century investigator remarked: 'The first visit to Palenque is immensely impressive. When one has lived there for some time this ruined city becomes an obsession.'

8. VIJAYANAGAR (India): capital of one of the largest Hindu empires _{[More info at Wiki]}

Vijayanagar, the capital of one of the largest Hindu empires ever, was founded by Sangama dynasty princes Harihara and Bukka in 1336. Its power peaked under Krishnadevaraya (1509-29), when it controlled nearly the whole of the peninsula south of the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers.

Comparable to Delhi in the 14th century, the city, with an estimated population of half a million, covered 33 sq km and was surrounded by several concentric lines of fortification.

Its wealth derived from the control of spice trade and the cotton industry. Its busy bazaars, described by travelers such as Portuguese Nunez and Paes, were centers of international commerce.

The empire collapsed after the battle of Talikota in 1565 when the city was ransacked by the confederacy of Deccan sultans (Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmednagar and Berar), thus opening up southern India for Muslim conquest.

The ruins are set in a strange and beautiful boulder strewn landscape with an almost magical quality.

The undisputed highlight, the 16th century Vittala Temple, is a World Heritage Monument. Started by Krishnadevaraya, it was never finished or consecrated; its incredible sculptural work is the pinnacle of Vijayanagar art. The outer pillars are known as musical pillars as they reverberate when tapped.

An ornate stone chariot in the temple courtyard containing an image of Garuda.

9. EPHESUS (Turkey): one of the most important cities of early Christianity _{[More info at Wiki]}

Ephesus was an Ionian Greek city in ancient Anatolia, founded by colonists from Athens in the 10th century BC. The city was located in Ionia, where the Cayster River (Küçük Menderes) flows into the Aegean Sea, and was part of the Panionian League.

Ephesus hosted one of the seven churches of Asia, addressed in the Book of Revelation (2:1–7). It is also the site of a large Gladiator graveyard.

Ephesus was an important center for early Christianity. Paul used it as a base. He became embroiled in a dispute with artisans, whose livelihood depended on the Temple of Artemis there (Acts 19:23–41), and wrote 1 Corinthians from Ephesus.

Later Paul wrote to the Christian community at Ephesus.

10. SANCHI (India): the best-preserved group of Buddhist monuments _{[More info at Wiki]}

A UNESCO world heritage site in central India near the Betwa River, Sanchi is on a flat-topped sandstone hill, 90m above the countryside, and stands the best-preserved group of Buddhist monuments in India.

Most noteworthy is the Great Stupa, discovered in 1818. It was probably begun by the emperor Asoka in the mid-3rd century BCE and later enlarged. Solid throughout, it is enclosed by a massive stone railing pierced by four gateways on which are elaborate carvings depicting the life of the Buddha.

The stupa itself consists of a base bearing a hemispherical dome representing the dome of heaven enclosing the Earth; it is surmounted by a squared rail unit, the world mountain, from which rises a mast to symbolize the cosmic axis.

The mast bears umbrellas that represent the various heavens. Other remains include several smaller stupas, an assembly hall (caitya), an Asokan pillar with inscription, and several monasteries (4th–11th cent. CE). Several relic baskets and more than 400 epigraphical records have also been discovered.

Top 10 Gangsters Count Down part 2

2008-07-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

Number 5

Meyer Lansky (1902 - 1983)

Born Maier Suchowljansky in Russia to Jewish parents in 1902, Lansky moved to New York when he was 9. He met Charles Luciano when they were just schoolboys. Luciano demanded protection money from Lansky, and when he refused to pay, the two boys fought. Impressed by Lansky's toughness, Luciano befriended the younger boy and the two remained lifelong friends. Lansky also met Bugsy Siegel when he was a teenager, and the three formed a powerful partnership. Lansky and Siegel formed the Bug and Meyer Mob, which became Murder, Inc.

Lansky's primary order of business was money and gambling, and he had operations in Florida, Cuba and New Orleans. He was an investor in Siegel's Las Vegas casino, and he even bought an offshore bank in Switzerland that was used for money laundering. A financial genius, he codeveloped the National Crime Syndicate and the Commission. But business is never personal, and he approved the murder of his best friend Bugsy Siegel when Siegel was unable to produce profits for the Syndicate. Even with a gambling racket in operation across the planet, Lansky never spent a day in jail.

Number 4

Frank Costello (1891 - 1973)

Francesco Castiglia was born in 1891 in Italy and moved to the United States with his family when he was 4. He changed his name to Frank Costello when he joined a street gang at age 13. After numerous petty crimes landed him in prison, he became best friends with Charlie Luciano; together, they dealt in bootlegging and gambling. Costello's strength was his position as a link between the Mob and politicians, especially the Democratic Party's Tammany Hall in New York, which enabled him and his associates to pay off certain officials.

Following Luciano's arrest, Costello became the man in charge, and he solidified and expanded the operation during this time. A power struggle between him and Vito Genovese (who served as Underboss) erupted in the '50s, and Vincent Gigante tried to kill Costello. Eventually, Costello grew tired of the gangster life and retired, but not before framing Genovese and Gigante for a drug bust. He died peacefully in 1973

Number 3

Carlo Gambino (1902 - 1976)

Carlo Gambino came from a family that had been part of the Mafia for centuries in Italy. He started carrying out murders when he was a teenager and became a made guy in 1921 at the age of 19. With Mussolini gaining power, he immigrated to America, where his cousin Paul Castellano lived. He became a thug for different New York families until he joined Lucky Luciano's crew.

After Luciano was extradited in the '40s, Albert Anastasia took over. But Gambino thought it was his time to shine and had Anastasia killed in 1957. He appointed himself Boss of the family and reigned with an iron fist over New York until his natural death in 1976.

Number 2

Charlie "Lucky" Luciano (1897 - 1962)

Salvatore Lucania was born in Sicily in 1897, but his family moved to New York nine years later. At a young age, he became a member of the Five Points gang, in which Al Capone also received his education. Five years after establishing an empire based mostly on prostitution, Luciano controlled the racket all over Manhattan. After a failed but brutal attack on his life in 1929 , Luciano started planning the National Crime Syndicate, an extension of Salvatore Maranzano's Commission, with Meyer Lansky.

They eliminated the competition, and by 1935, Lucky Luciano was known as the Boss of Bosses -- not just of New York City, but of the whole country. He was arrested and sentenced to 30 to 50 years in 1936, but was let out on parole in 1946 on the condition that he be deported to Italy. He had so much power that U.S. Navy intelligence sought his help when the Allies were set to invade Italy during World War II. He died of a heart attack in 1962.

Number 1

Al Capone (1899 - 1947)

If there ever was a gangster who earned the No. 1 spot, it is Al Capone. Alphonse Capone was born in 1899 to Italian immigrants in Brooklyn, New York, where he got his start in street gangs. He then joined the Five Points gang and became a bouncer. It was during these days that a series of facial wounds earned him the "Scarface" nickname. Capone moved to Chicago in 1919 and quickly moved up the Mafia hierarchy while working for Johnny Torrio (Capone became Torrio's protege).

It was the time of the Prohibition, and Capone ran prostitution, gambling and bootlegging rings. In 1925, at the age of 26, Capone took over after Torrio was wounded in a gang war. Known for his intelligence, flamboyance and love of public attention, Capone was also known to be very violent; his role in the orchestration of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, in which key rival gangsters were murdered, proves this. In 1931, Federal Treasury agent Eliot Ness arrested him for tax evasion. [askmen]

Top 10 Gangsters Count Down part 1

2008-07-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

If you browse around your local video store, you'll notice dozens of films about the Mafia. Witness the popularity of Goodfellas, The Godfather, Casino, and Bugsy. Why have so many films been made about these tough-guy hooligans? Because men have a fascination with gangster culture and organized crime. But who are some of the most notorious gangsters of all time?

To make the list, gangsters must have had a significant impact on the Mob thanks to the way they did business. They must have done most of their business in America, their legacy must have stood the test of time, and they must have had a significant impact on pop culture. Unfortunately, our own Mr. Mafioso didn't make the cut.

Number 10

Vincent "The Chin" Gigante (1928 - 2005)

Born in New York in 1928, Vincent Gigante was quite a character. He dropped out

Gigante's first significant act as a gangster and member of the Genovese family was an attempt to kill the powerful Frank Costello, but Gigante's bullet missed the target. Nevertheless, he continued to climb the ranks within New York's Genovese organization, eventually becoming a capo and consigliere in the early '80s.

Then, when Mob boss Tony Salerno was convicted, Gigante became the main man. What makes Gigante so memorable is his 30-year ploy of acting insane. After he successfully averted prison in the late '60s by employing psychiatrists to testify to his insanity, he took it upon himself to continue the act; throughout his career, he was often seen walking around the streets of New York wearing a bathrobe. For this reason, he was nicknamed the "Oddfather" and the "Pajama King." Imprisoned for racketeering, he finally admitted in 2003 that he was not crazy.

Gigante died in prison on December 19, 2005 due to heart complications. The Gigante family and his lawyer, Flora Edwards, filed a federal lawsuit regarding the lack of health care that Vincent received while in prison. Vincent was scheduled for release in 2010.

Number 9

of high school in the ninth grade and started boxing, winning 21 of 25 light-heavyweight bouts. By the time he was 17, he had turned to crime to support himself, which resulted in seven arrests before he was 25.

Albert Anastasia (1903 - 1957)

Born in Tropea, Italy in 1903, Albert Anastasia was still a teenager when he came to America. Involved in the docks operations in Brooklyn, Anastasia was sent to Sing Sing Prison for 18 months for the murder of a longshoreman; the mysterious deaths of witnesses led to his early release. Albert Anastasia (aka "Lord High Executioner" and "Mad Hatter") was known as a killer, a reputation that led Joe Masseria's gang to recruit him. Anastasia was also extremely loyal to Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who had plans to rule America's crime world. Anastasia had no problem betraying Masseria -- by being one of four people sent to kill him in 1931 -- when approached by Lucky Luciano.

At this time, Anastasia started taking on hits for the Murder, Incorporated outfit in New York, and in 1944, he became the leader of the murder squad. Although Anastasia was never prosecuted for any killings, Murder, Inc. was responsible for between 400 and 700 murders. In the '50s, he became the leader of the Luciano family, but Carlo Gambino wanted the job. Though the murder is officially unsolved, many believe that Gambino had Anastasia killed in a barbershop in 1957.

Number 8

Joseph Bonanno (1905 - 2002)

Born in 1905, Joe Bonanno grew up in his native Sicily and became an orphan at the age of 15. He left Italy due to the fascist power of the Mussolini regime and made a brief stopover in Cuba before moving to the United States when he was 19. Joe joined the Mafia as a way to prevent Mussolini from taking over Sicily. Nicknamed "Joey Bananas," he joined forces with Salvatore Maranzano. Before Luciano killed him, Maranzano created The Commission, the ruling body over Mafia families in the entire country.

Bonanno stepped up and took over one of these families. He became powerful in New York with cheese factories, clothing businesses and funeral homes, which were a terrific way to dispose of bodies. But plans to eliminate all the rival families turned against him and Bonanno was kidnapped for 19 days until he agreed to retire. In 1965, he initiated the Banana War to settle scores, but he retired for good soon thereafter due to bad health. Never in his life was he convicted of a serious offense.

Number 7

Dutch Schultz (1902 - 1935)

Arthur Flegenheimer, later known as Dutch Schultz, was born in the Bronx in 1902. As a teenager, he held up crap games to impress his boss and mentor, Marcel Poffo. At the age of 17, he did some time at Blackwell's Island (now known as Roosevelt Island) for theft. With prohibition in full swing in the 1920s, he realized that money was in bootlegging. A ruthless man, he would kill whenever his temper flared, which helped keep his competition in line.

He had a part in the founding of the Syndicate, but soon Luciano and Capone became his enemies. In 1933, the law wanted to shut down Schultz, so he went into hiding in New Jersey, which left his New York territory free for a takeover; Luciano seized the opportunity. Schultz made a comeback in 1935, but members of Albert Anastasia's crew killed him in a restaurant men's room before he could do any damage.

Number 6

John Gotti (1940 - 2002)

In the wake of the great gangsters who ruled New York, John Gotti had his work cut out for him. Born in Brooklyn in 1940, he was always quick with his fists and it was his life's dream to become a wiseguy. By the age of 16, he had joined a local street gang known as the Fulton-Rockaway Boys. He quickly became their leader, stealing cars and fencing stolen goods. In the '60s, he began associating with Mafia hoods and hijacking trucks. In the early '70s, he became a capo for the Bergin crew, a part of the Gambino family. Extremely ambitious, Gotti started to deal drugs, which was forbidden by family rules.

As a result, Paul Castellano, the Boss, wished to expel Gotti from the organization. In 1985, Gotti and his guys killed Castellano outside a steakhouse and Gotti took over the Gambino family. No matter how many times the authorities tried to indict him for being the most powerful criminal in New York, the charges were always dropped. Because of this -- and the fact that he dressed well and loved media attention -- he was nicknamed "The Dapper Don" and "The Teflon Don." He was finally convicted for murder in 1992 and died of cancer in prison in 2002.

The Golden Ratio = Fibonacci

2008-07-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

The golden ratio, also known as the divine proportion, golden mean, or golden section, is a number often encountered when taking the ratios of distances in simple geometric figures such as the pentagon, pentagram, decagon and dodecahedron. It is denoted , or sometimes .

The designations “phi” (for the golden ratio conjugate ) and “Phi” (for the larger quantity ) are sometimes also used (Knott), although this usage is not necessarily recommended.

The term “golden section” (in German, goldener Schnitt or der goldene Schnitt) seems to first have been used by Martin Ohm in the 1835 2nd edition of his textbook Die Reine Elementar-Mathematik (Livio 2002, p. 6). The first known use of this term in English is in James Sulley’s 1875 article on aesthetics in the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. is an abbreviation of the Greek tome, meaning “to cut.” (”phi”) was apparently first used by Mark Barr at the beginning of the 20th century in commemoration of the Greek sculptor Phidias (ca. 490-430 BC), who a number of art historians claim made extensive use of the golden ratio in his works (Livio 2002, pp. 5-6). Similarly, the alternate notation The symbol

In the Season 1 episode “Sabotage” (2005) of the television crime drama NUMB3RS, math genius Charlie Eppes mentions that the golden ratio is found in the pyramids of Giza and the Parthenon at Athens. Similarly, the character Robert Langdon in the novel The Da Vinci Code makes similar such statements (Brown 2003, pp. 93-95). However, claims of the significance of the golden ratio appearing prominently in art, architecture, sculpture, anatomy, etc., tend to be greatly exaggerated.

has surprising connections with continued fractions and the Euclidean algorithm for computing the greatest common divisor of two integers.

Given a rectangle having sides in the ratio , is defined as the unique number (i.e., such that the yellow rectangles shown above are similar). Such a rectangle is called a golden rectangle, and successive points dividing a golden rectangle into squares lie on a logarithmic spiral, giving a figure known as a whirling square. such that partitioning the original rectangle into a square and new rectangle as illustrated above results in a new rectangle which also has sides in the ratio

Based on the above definition, it can immediately be seen that

(1)

giving

(2)

Euclid ca. 300 BC gave an equivalent definition of by defining it in terms of the so-called “extreme and mean ratios” on a line segment, i.e., such that

(3)

for the line segment illustrated above (Livio 2002, pp. 3-4). Plugging in,

(4)

and clearing denominators gives

(5)

which is exactly the same formula obtained above (and incidentally means that is a algebraic number of degree 2.) Using the quadratic equation and taking the positive sign (since the figure is defined so that 1" border="0" height="14" width="31">) gives the exact value of , namely

			(6)
			(7)
			(8)

(Sloane’s A001622).

In an apparent blatant misunderstanding of the difference between an exact quantity and an approximation, the character Robert Langdon in the novel The Da Vinci Code incorrectly defines the golden ratio to be exactly 1.618 (Brown 2003, pp. 93-95).

The legs of a golden triangle (an isosceles triangle with a vertex angle of ) are in a golden ratio to its base and, in fact, this was the method used by Pythagoras to construct . The ratio of the circumradius to the length of the side of a decagon is also ,

(9)

Bisecting a (schematic) Gaullist cross also gives a golden ratio (Gardner 1961, p. 102).

Exact trigonometric formulas for include

			(10)
			(11)
			(12)

The golden ratio is given by the infinite series

(13)

(B. Roselle). Another fascinating connection with the Fibonacci numbers is given by the infinite series

(14)

A representation in terms of a nested radical is

(15)

(Livio 2002, p. 83).

is the “most” irrational number because it has a continued fraction representation

(16)

(Sloane’s A000012; Williams 1979, p. 52; Steinhaus 1999, p. 45; Livio 2002, p. 84). This means that the convergents are given by the quadratic recurrence equation

(17)

with , which has solution

(18)

where is the th Fibonacci number. This gives the first few convergents as 1, 2, 3/2, 5/3, 8/5, 13/8, 21/13, 34/21, … (Sloane’s A000045 and A000045), which are good to 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, … (Sloane’s A114540) decimal digits, respectively.

As a result,

infty)x_n=lim_(n->infty)(F_n)/(F_(n-1)), " border="0" height="37" width="136">

(19)

as first proved by Scottish mathematician Robert Simson in 1753 (Wells 1986, p. 62; Livio 2002, p. 101).

The golden ratio also satisfies the recurrence relation

(20)

Taking gives the special case

(21)

Treating (20) as a linear recurrence equation

(22)

in , setting and , and solving gives

(23)

as expected. The powers of the golden ratio also satisfy

(24)

where is a Fibonacci number (Wells 1986, p. 39).

The sine of certain complex numbers involving gives particularly simple answers, for example

			(25)
			(26)

(D. Hoey, pers. comm.). A curious (although not particularly useful) approximation due to D. Barron is given by

(27)

where is Catalan’s constant and is the Euler-Mascheroni constant, which is good to two digits.

In the figure above, three triangles can be inscribed in the rectangle of arbitrary aspect ratio such that the three right triangles have equal areas by dividing and in the golden ratio. Then

			(28)
			(29)
			(30)

which are all equal.

The substitution map

	" border="0" height="14" width="12">		(31)
	" border="0" height="14" width="12">		(32)

gives

01->010->01001->..., " border="0" height="14" width="171">

(33)

giving rise to the sequence

(34)

(Sloane’s A003849). Here, the zeros occur at positions 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, … (Sloane’s A000201), and the ones occur at positions 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 18, … (Sloane’s A001950). These are complementary Beatty sequences generated by . This sequence also has many connections with the Fibonacci numbers. It is plotted above (mod 2) as a recurrence plot. and

Let the continued fraction of be denoted and let the denominators of the convergents be denoted , , …, . As can be seen from the plots above, the regularity in the continued fraction of means that is one of a set of numbers of measure 0 whose continued fraction sequences do not converge to the Khinchin constant or the Khinchin-Lévy constant.

The golden ratio has Engel expansion 1, 2, 5, 6, 13, 16, 16, 38, 48, 58, 104, … (Sloane’s A028259).

Steinhaus (1983, pp. 48-49) considers the distribution of the fractional parts of in the intervals bounded by 0, , , …, , 1, and notes that they are much more uniformly distributed than would be expected due to chance (i.e., is close to an equidistributed sequence). In particular, the number of empty intervals for , 2, …, are a mere 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 2, … (Sloane’s A036414). The values of for which no bins are left blank are then given by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13, 16, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, … (Sloane’s A036415). Steinhaus (1983) remarks that the highly uniform distribution has its roots in the continued fraction for .

The sequence , of power fractional parts, where is the fractional part, is equidistributed for almost all real numbers 1" border="0" height="14" width="30">, with the golden ratio being one exception.

Salem showed that the set of Pisot numbers is closed, with the smallest accumulation point of the set (Le Lionnais 1983). [ dagdigdug ]

7 Wonderful Cave in the World [ Indonesian version ]

2008-07-28T08:28:00.000-07:00

Goa Dongzhong (China): Sekolah di dalam Goa

Anda akan terkejut bila memasuki area dalam gua ini saat tau bahwa puluhan anak ternyata datang tiap hari ke sini untuk belajar. Sekolah goa ini berada di desa Miao, di wilayah Ziyun, Cina. Goa ini terbentuk secara alami selama beratus tahun yang lalu.

Terowongan terpanjang Amerika

Terowongan bernama Fantastic Pit memiliki kedalaman sekitar 586 meter, dan merupakan terowongan terpanjang di benua Amerika. This pit is big enough to hold the Saking dalamnya terowongan ini mampu menampung Washington Monument (555 meter). Diperlukan waktu 8 detik untuk sebuah batu mencapai dasar goa.

Goa Hantu (Venezuela): Saking luasnya 2 helikopter pun mampu memasuki goa ini

“Cueva del Fantasma” — nama Spanyol dari “Goa Hantu” ini — yang memang sangat luas sehingga 2 helikopter pun mampu memasuki goa ini dan mendarat di samping air terjunnya. Air terjun ini tertampung dalam sebuah kolam di dalam goa. Saat ditemukan, beberapa peneliti juga mendapati beberapa jenis katak langka dalam goa berspecies Colostethus.

Goa Es Eisriesenwelt (Austria): Goa Es terbesar di dunia

Banyak sekali goa es di dunia ini tapi Eisriesenwelt Ice Caves di Austria mungkin adalah yang terbesar. Terletak di Pegunungan Tennengebirge dekat Salzburg dan membentang sepanjang 40 kilometer. Di dlamnya terdapat langit-langit yang sangat mempesona dan dijuluki Mother Nature’s handicraft.

Goa Waitomo Glowworm (New Zealand): Surga bagi ulat kelap-kelip

Goa Waitomo Glowworm terletak di sebelah utara pulau New Zealand, dan terkenal dengan populasi glowworm (ulat kelap-kelip)-nya, Arachnocampa Luminosa. Ulat-ulat ini mampu menghasilkan salh satu komoditi dagang Selandia Baru yaitu sutra.

Goa Majlis al Jinn (Oman): Goa Terluas Kedua di Dunia

Majlis al Jinn merupakan goa terluas kedua di dunia. ITerletak di dataran tinggi Selma pada ketinggian 1600 meter dari Kesultanan Oman.Goa ini ditemukan pada tahun 1983 oleh Don Davidson, seorang geologis yang datnag ke Oman. Davidson dikabarkan meninggal 10 tahun kemudian saat melakukan pendakian di Pegunungan Andes.

Untuk memasuki goa ini kita harus menggunakan tali. Goa ini mempunyai kedalaman 120 hingga 150 meter.

Goa Kristal (Meksiko): Goa Kristal terbesar di Dunia

Dikenal dengan “the Sistine Chapel of crystals,” Mexico’s Cueva de los Cristales (Goa Kristal) ini mengandung kristal-kristal alami yang terkenal di dunia. kristal tersebut memiliki panjang rata-rata 11 meter . Goa ini sendiri berkedalaman hampir 290 meter. Wilayah ini dibangun sebuah komplek pertambangan bernama Naica. Goa ini tercipta oleh aktivitas gunung berapi berjuta tahun yang lalu.

10 World’s Most Scariest Place [ Indonesian version ]

2008-07-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

Inilah 10 tempat paling mengerikan, menyeramkan, dan menakutkan di dunia..
Kebanyakan diantaranya disebabkan oleh perang, pembunuhan, perampokan, penganiayaan, penculikan, pemerkosaan,dll.
Selain itu juga karena masalah suhu yang ekstrim yang tidak memungkinkan untuk bertahan hidup.

10. Rusia

Di Rusia, ada lebih banyak gangster daripada polisi. Orang Rusia dibunuh tiap 18 menitnya, dan rata-rata terjadi 84 kasus pembunuhan sehari dari toal jumlah penduduk sebanyak 143 juta jiwa.
Pusat kriminalitas Rusia berada di Republik Chechnya, daerah dalam Rusia tepatnya sebelah utara Georgia.
Pelacuran, perdagangan narkoba, dan rumah makan bawah tanah secara arbitrer dikuasai oleh orang Chechnya.
Orang asing diculik lebih sering karena tebusan yang lebih tinggi.
Tindakan kriminal lainnya: pencurian dompet, ponsel, kamera, uang, dan penyerangan fisik.
Dari negara Super-Power sampai negara dunia ketiga bertanya-tanya apakah komunisme benar-benar menjadi obat untuk Rusia.

9. Brazil

Apabila anda ingin berpergian ke Brasil, tidak menjadi soal apakah anda akan dirampok, tapi masalahnya hanya waktu!
Kesenjangan sosial masih terus meningkat di samping kekayaan luar biasa di negara yang sedang memiliki pertumbuhan ekonomi yang terus menanjak ini.
Tetapi dengan kemakmuran yang meningkat, laju kejahatan juga ikut-ikutan melonjak.
Tindak kejahatan di jalan-jalan terus merajalela di bagian-bagian Rio de Janeiro dan Sao Paolo, dan banyak korban dibiarkan tak terluka, mereka membawa pecahan botol untuk dipukul ke leher anda karena gelang yang anda pakai. Insiden “penculikan cepat” berkembang di kota-kota besar. Mereka memaksa korbannya untuk menambil uang di ATM untuk tebusan. Apabila korban tidak dapat membayar, mereka bisa menelpon orang tua atau keluarga mereka di rumah.
Selain kejahatan di jalan-jalan, kelompok-kelompok penjahat terorganisir memerangi polisi dan lembaga umum lainnya yang tak dapat disogok.
Kerusuhan di penjara secara brutal semakin menjadi-jadi, obat-obatan terlarang dan narco-terorisme menghantui penduduk sipil. Dan jika anda selamat dalam seluruh bencana itu - piranha sedang menunggu anda.

8. Afrika Selatan

Negara ini pernah disebut sebagai “Ibukota pemerkosaan di dunia”.
Walaupun kasus perkosaan sudah nampak cenderung menurun ke angka 113.700 pada 2004, tapi kembali naik pada 2005 sampai ke angka 118.300 kasus.
Statistik lain untuk Afrika Selatan menunjukkan secara mengerikan laju kasus pembunuhannya yang tinggi.
Tuan rumah World Cup 2010 ini berada terus-menerus di daftar 5 teratas negara2 yang tingkat pembunuhannya paling tinggi.
Kebanyakan tindak kejahatan terjadi daerah penduduk miskin.
Bertani di Afrika Selatan sudah menjadi salah satu profesi yang paling berbahaya di dunia.
Laju pembunuhan bagi para petani adalah 313.000 - sekitar 8 kali rata-rata laju pembunuhan nasional.
Dan di mana pun, seks bisa sangat berbahaya di Afrika Selatan, di mana lebih dari 10 juta orang mengidap virus HIV.

7. Burundi

Disini memang kecil, tapi negara miskin yang padat penduduknya ini mempunyai masalah yang sangat besar.
Perang saudara antara suku Hutus dan suku Tutsis mencerai-beraikan bangsa ini antara tahun 1993 sampai tahun 2006.
Gencatan senjatapun dilancarkan namun kebanyakan suplai makanan urung dilaksanakan.
Pembunuhan dan kekacauan masal bersaing dengan masalah lingkungan sebagai sakit kepala yang paling besar bagi orang Burundi.
Daftar pemimpin yang dibunuh ekstensif, dan kontrol bangsa sudah sering berpindah tangan sejak 50 tahun terakhir.
Kejahatan yang dilakukan dengan mengembara mengeroyok dan anak-anak bersenjata adalah ancaman bagi pengunjung.
Penjabalan, pembajakan mobil dan penculikan menngintai setiap saat, oleh sebab itu anda dinasehati tidak menghentikan mobil untuk membeli cendera-mata.
Apabila anda dilukai atau diciderai di Burundi, anda mungkin perlu menguasai teknik medis, karena kebanyakan klinik lokal disana tidak memiliki sumber daya yang cukup untuk membantu anda.

6. Antartika

Ketika pembunuhan, perkosaan dan perampokan mungkin tidak menjadi masalah besar di bagian dunia ini, lain halnya dengan kondisi alam disini yang sangat tidak bersahabat.
Antartika adalah rumah untuk beberapa kondisi cuaca ekstrim, dengan air raksa yang turun secara teratur di bawah -60 derajat Celsius (-100F) dan angin yang bertiup lebih dari 100km per jam.
Jika anda telanjang di cuaca ini selama lebih dari sejam, anda sudah pasti akan mati.
Antartika tidak mempunyai rumah sakit, tak ada makanan untuk dimakan dan jika anda hilang, tak ada banyak harapan.
Tetapi setidaknya ada satu kedai McDonalds di Scott Base jika anda berhasil menemukannya.

5. Afghanistan

Negara ini selama ratusan tahun, menjadi salah satu wilayah di dunia yang paling strategis dan diperebutkan oleh banyak pihak.
Padahal negara ini termasuk negara yang miskin, sulit berkembang, dan memiliki keadaan ekonomi dan politik yang tidak stabil.
Pada waktu Uni Soviet menginvasi daerah ini, Pasukan Merah Rusia menanam lebih dari 12 juta ranjau darat di Afghanistan. Ratusan orang tewas, tercabik-cabik, dan lumpuh akibat ledakan ranjau yang dipasang.
Setelah Uni Soviet mendatangi Taliban ,Taliban menyatakan kontrol wanita dilarang dari pekerjaan dan universitas.
Pada 2001, Amerika Serikat menggulingkan Taliban. Tetapi penggarongan, persaingan suku dan penggunaan obat-obatan terlarang yang marak menggambarkan kekerasan sudah menyebabkan negara ini menjadi tidak stabil.
Pemboman bunuh diri adalah ancaman terus-menerus, dan tak seorang pun di Afganistan aman.
Serangan bunuh diri yang paling maut terjadi di propinsi Baghlan pada November 2007, yang menewaskan lebih dari 70 orang.
Selain itu, Afganistan juga termasuk pemasok ganja dan candu terbesar di dunia.

4. Somalia

Somalia adalah negara yang pemerintahannya gagal akibat dari anarkinya, korupsi, kekurangan pemerintah, dan kelaparan.
Para turis diperingatkan agar tidak memasuki Somalia, yang menyatakan diri nya “Republik Merdeka Somaliland” atau berlayar dekat “Tanduk Afrika”.
Bajak laut mengawasi perairan ini yang diperlengkapi dengan AK-47 dan akan merampas barang2 dan menahan anda untuk dijadikan tebusan.
Perkelahian antar suku sudah meminta ribuan jiwa di sebelah utara Somalia. Sedangkan di ibu kota, Mogadishu diperebutkan oleh banyak suku dan pemimpin perang.
Etiopia pernah menyerang tentara Islamiah di Somalia pada akhir 2006, dan menyebabkan ratusan korban tewas dan ribuan korban penggusuran.
Jika anda benar-benar terpaksa ke daerah ini, pastikanlah asuransi anda masih berlaku.

3. Sudan

Keputus-asaan, kematian dan perusakan ialah “simbol” dari negara Sudan.
Terorisme adalah masalah utama bangsa ini, yang sudah dikuasai oleh rezim militer Islamiah sejak kemerdekaannya.
Beberapa pembunuh terkenal dunia telah menjejakkan kakinya di Sudan. Mereka melakukan aksinya dengan mengebom mobil, peluncuran roket dan pembantaian massal.
Kekerasan banyak terjadi di daerah Darfur di antara milisi pemback-up pemerintah, tentara pemerintah dan kelompok-kelompok pemberontak lokal.
Sudan juga telah menyebabkani perang terbuka dengan Cad yang berkaitan dengan konflik Darfur.
Sejak 2003, 230.000 orang pengungsi Sudan sudah melarikan diri ke Cad timur dari Darfur.
Lebih dari dua juta orang tewas dalam 2 perang saudara yang terjadi selama 50 tahun terakhir.
Dengan kondisi gurunnya yang suram, Sudan adalah salah satu tempat yang paling jelek di planet ini.

2. Kolombia

Penculikan adalah masalah utama di Kolombia. Sedikitnya telah terjadi 2338 kasus penculikan di Kolombia pada tahun 1998. Dan 138 orang di antaranya telah dibunuh oleh para penculiknya. Menempati peringkat 4 dunia sebagai “negara pembunuh” dengan total pembunuhan mencapai 696.800 kasus pada tahun 2006. Target utama para pembunuh adalah para walikota, lusinan dari mereka terbunuh setiap tahunnya.
Dan tentu saja, siapa yang dapat melupakan kokain?
Kolombia memasok 75% persediaan kokain dunia dan terima kasih untuk Pablo Escobar dan Cali Cartel, kelompok-kelompok paramiliter yang sudah memerangi pemerintah dalam konflik berdarah dengan tanpa akhir.
Di 2005, 5 orang misionaris Katolik dibunuh, turun dari 9 pada tahun 1999.
Pantai indah dan gunung terjal di Kolombia seharusnya menjadikannya firdaus bagi wisatawan, tetapi mungkin tempat ini bisa menjadi tempat yang paling berbahaya untuk dikunjungi.

1. Irak

 Tidak masalah entah anda adalah George Bush, Pele atau Chuck Norris - anda tidak akan pernah aman di Irak.
Meskipun negara ini kaya akan cadangan minyaknya, tetapi Irak adalah negara yang hancur dimana identik dengan kekerasan, keputus-asaan dan kebingungan.
Sejak 2003, Amerika Serikat sudah menduduki Irak dan menyebabkan perang saudara yang meminta korban lebih dari 650.000 penduduk sipil.
Al-Qaeda, pemberontak Sunni, angkatan perang keamanan Shiite, pemberontak Kurdish, tentara Amerika, tentara Turki dan penjahat kriminal dilibatkan di siklus kekerasan yang sayangnya, tidak akan mereda dengan cepat tiap saat.
Ranjau yang diimprovisasi/ Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) dan ladang ranjau adalah ancaman terus-menerus, seperti pesawat pembom bunuh diri yang juga sudah membunuh ratusan orang.
Penculikan dan pembunuhan acak dilaporkan dengan hampir membuat pikiran mati rasa frekuensi.
Sejak 2003, 2 juta orang Irak sudah melarikan diri ke negara tetangga dan 1,9 juta lainnya tetap tinggal di Irak dengan tergusur dari rumah mereka.
Uranium yang dihabiskan yang dipakai sebagai putaran untuk menembus baju baja akan meracuni penduduk sipil Irak dan montir AS selama beberapa dasawarsa. [ kutamaya ]

Contemporary Papuan culture

2008-07-28T05:01:00.000-07:00

While domestic and foreign tourism in Papua flourishes on the perception of “primitive people” living in “remote” places, rapid urbanisation is creating new social, economic and political communities and activities in many towns across the province. Though some of these trends have been distinctly Papuan, others are formed by pan-Indonesian or even global influences. One of the earliest examples of this new fusion emerged in the early 1970s with the creation of Papuan String Band music by groups like Black List, Black Papas and the Black Brothers, who were hugely popular throughout Indonesia and the region (see www.chmsupersound.com/cds/cd_006.htm). The success of Papuan musicians and cultural groups continued in the 1980s with the regular performances of groups like Mambesak at the Museum Loka Budaya at the campus of Universitas Cenderawasih in Abepura until the group was forced to disband in 1984 following the murder of Arnold Ap and Edie Mofu, two of Mambesak's founding members . Although there are a range of contemporary cultural forms in Papua they still have a limited presence on the World Wide Web. The 2003 Free West Papua Concert in Melbourne (see below) included the first international appearance of West Papuan group "Spirit of Mambesak" and gave the group an opportunity to record a CD of their music (see www.mana.com.au/blackparadise/the_group.htm). The regular appearance of cyber "mops" (a specific form of joke popular in Papua) reproduced from Papuan newspapers is another example of how residents of Papua are bringing their culture to the Web (see www.infopapua.com). These also increasingly circulate among communities in Papua and abroad via other internet technologies (such as emails, newsgroups and weblogs).

Sport and youth groups. The importance of sport to many young people in Papua is reflected in the success of Papuan soccer teams in the Indonesian national league. Divisi Mandiri (www.sepak-bola.tv/teams/e_standing.sps), Divisi 1 (http://home.hetnet.nl/~persipura/persipura/pers_div1.htm) and Bola (www.bolanews.com) give information about the game in Indonesia and rankings across the archipelago. More information about the premier local soccer league Persatuan Sepakbola Indonesia Jayapura or Persipura can be found online (www.go.to/persipura). In other sports, Papuans have also achieved remarkable successes, despite often limited training facilities. Representatives from Papua have consistently performed well in competitions of the Southeast Asian regional martial art Pencak Silat (for more information about this sport see http://talio.homestead.com/History.html) and in the 2000 Olympic games Raema Lisa Rumbewas was awarded a silver medal in the 48kg class of women’s weightlifting (check her current ranking according to the "International Weightlifting Database" at www.iat.uni-leipzig.de/scripts/dbweight.exe?site=5&SpID=21000043). Such achievements strengthen local pride and team sports like soccer can provide important activities for Papuan youth groups (such as Yapikbi, or the Foundation for Biak Youth at http://rumsom.tripod.com) and local chapters of pramuka (scouting movement) while helping to bridge ethnic difference in many of Papua's cosmopolitan towns (for example www.wpu-fc.faithweb.com/main.html). Sport also features along with cultural activities in the lives of Papuans living abroad (see Olah Raga Papua (http://httpd.chello.nl/~r.kirihio for news on sport among the Papuan community in Holland).

Contemporary Papuan culture abroad. Papuan culture is also represented overseas through small and dispersed communities in exile in the Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Australia and elsewhere. The Netherlands has the largest Papuan community abroad and some Dutch (for a variety of reasons) maintain relationships or sentimental attachment towards Papua communities and cultures. This is reflected in the range of Papuan cultural groups in Holland as well as the many Dutch civil society groups that support Papuan communities in Papua. Arnold Ap Stichting, or the Arnold Ap Foundation (www.geocities.com/arnoldapfoundation) is an example of a Papuan cultural organisation based in the Netherlands and is hosted on the Sandiki Papuan performing group homepage (www.geocities.com/sandiki_groep). Other Dutch-based Papuan cultural performance groups include Sampari Dansgroep (http://home.planet.nl/~papu/Sampari.htm and http://home.wanadoo.nl/sorong), Korwari Dansgroep (http://home.planet.nl/~papu/Korwari.htm) and the music of singer Edo Kondologit (www.home.zonnet.nl/pauldin/music/edo.htm) who also hosts the Pop Papua homepage for Papuan music (http://home.planet.nl/%7Elokho029/Pop_Papua.htm). More traditional music from Papua, such as "Wor" from Biak Island, has been released on the Smithsonian Institute "folkways" recording label (www.folkways.si.edu/40426.htm).

Contemporary Papuan fusions. Today Papuan cultures are influenced by and influence forms of cultural expression beyond the localised boundaries of Papuan towns and villages, or the activities of Papuans outside Papua. This effect is suggested by the relationship between Papuan culture and global tourism evident in some of the websites listed earlier (in the section on tourism). More conspicuous and deliberate cultural fusions are apparent in the works of various non-Papuan writers, visual artists and musicians. Fons Bloemen (http://home.hccnet.nl/f.bloemen/book/in.htm) has a webpage about "first contact" which features illustrations from the artist's book that incorporate text and images from three centuries of exploration along the SW coast of Papua. Roy Villevoye has been working with some intriguing themes among Papuans from the Asmat region (see www.fassbendergallery.com/pvisions/pvisions98d.html, visit the "art project" at the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde www.rmv.nl or read a summary of some of his work at www.jong-holland.nl/1-2001/summary1-2001.htm). Boris and Conny (www.typ.nl/B&C) is a "lifestyle journal" with poetic and philosophical reflections on Papua and Papuans written by Jan Dietvorst, another Dutch artist/ filmmaker who has spent significant time in the Asmat. Another artwork inspired by Papua and its people is Marjolein Kruijt's painting for a West Papua festival held in the Hague in 1999 (www.geocities.com/Marjolein_Kruijt/wallpaintings_project.htm). Ursula and Gunter Konrad, long-time Asmat Art collectors (see earlier section) are collaborating with German sculptor Vaago Weiland and other artists Christiane Behr, Detlev Ilgner and Ingo Wegerl in a "Trans Art Culture" project (www.asmat-art.com/tcp/austellung-04.htm) which juxtaposes traditional Asmat art and imagery with modern themes and materials. Other direct references to Papuan elements (particularly from Asmat) can be found in the work of Frank Herrmann (www.art.uc.edu/FUZZY/fac_herrmann.html) and Suzanne Tornquist (http://tornquist-art.com see the Indonesia page) and in the works of famous Indonesian artists such as Sunaryo (from the strongly nationalistic DECENTA group of the 1970s) to the mixed media work of younger Indonesian artists like H. Hardi. The power of Papuan artistic traditions is also acknowledged by other artists like Ade Agus Tirtayasa even though this influence is not always apparent in such works (www.palette.co.nz/images/gallery/adea/main.html.

More peripheral examples of cultural fusions with Papua include the "Koteka saxaphone" music of Richard Johnson in THE TANK (gourdophone - 1 - 2 - 3) and in the recent "Make it Now" and "NowNow" performances of experimental and spontaneous music (see www.thenownow.net), the use of Asmat motifs for exported commercial batik (www.bigonbatik.com/plus/housewares/tablecloths/oblong.html), jilbabs (http://adeela.industradegroup.com/jilbab_asmat.htm and the pseudo "primitive" style carvings from Bali that are often exported as authentic carvings from Papua (www.magiscraft.8m.com/prod03.htm. Other examples include the playful cartoon for the Dik Voor Mekaar Show record single (www.dedikvoormekaarshow.nl/pa-papoea.htm - visit here if you want to close your browser!), Toshi Kenzo Maidepa's "Papua Midi files" (simple electronic music at www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/bay/3507), and are suggested (but apparently not realised) in the appropriation of the name Irian Jaya by a couple of musicians based out of Glasgow (http://hspun.com/ij.asp). Clear examples of Papuan cultural influence fused with internet technologies can be found at the Papua Nieuwegein homepage (ID: http://home.planet.nl/~papu) with elaborate webpages that include images, video, and even games like "bunu yamuk" (kill the mosquito).

[ www.papuaweb.org ]

Tourism, tours, transportation and travelogues in Papua

2008-07-28T04:59:00.000-07:00

Papua's traditional arts are not the only attraction for tourists visiting to region. The diverse cultures and landscapes of Papua offer visitors a wide variety of experiences and there are many webpages related to tourism in the province. Here these web resources are simplified into three broad categories: general tourist information; commercial tours, travel agents, accommodation and travel practicalities; personal travelogues and photo essays. PATA or the Pacific Asian Travel Association (www.pata.org) and some other webpages work to promote tourism Papua and the region (www.travelgare.com/explore/IrianJaya). Other sites have pages which promote tourism in Papua, including: the Biak Tourism Office's website (www.infobiaknumfor.com), Petra Christian University in Surabaya (www.petra.ac.id/english/kti/irian/intro/index.htm or www.petra.ac.id/english/kti/tourism/index_irja.htm), the Indonesian Culture and Tourism Centre in Japan (www.indonesia-ctc.co.jp/Indonesia/FrameIrianJaya.htm), Archipela GoPapua (http://goarchi.com/archo/provinces/i-jaya/i-jayahome.html) and the Tourism Indonesia website (www.tourismindonesia.com).

Tour operators and travel agents have conducted group tours in Papua since it was opened to international tourism in the late 1980s. Commercial tourism operators host a range of sites with information about their various package tours to Papua. Examples of these businesses include: Papua Adventures (www.papua-adventures.com), Sawadee (NL: www.sawadee.nl), Hidden Cultures (www.hiddencultures.com), Arcadia Tours (www.arcadia.nl), Immersia Travel (www.immersiatravel.com/ng2.html), Hey Papua (www.hey-papua.de) and Indonesian tour companies like Limbunan (see www.eastindonesia.com/tour/irian www.baliem.com). Some foreign tour operators with a history of travel in Papua also have detailed websites about Papua with details of tours and Papuan artefacts online (for example see www.irianjaya.de which is the same site as www.harald-melcher.de). You may find more tour operators and travel agents (even ones based in Papua) with a general web search. While tour operators and travel agencies can arrange all travel and accommodation arrangements for a trip to Papua, tourist who desire greater independence will find it useful to visit other sites on the web. or

Transportation services are essential to the lives of most people living in the urban centres of Papua and every year better information about these services can be found online. This includes the websites provided by two major Indonesian passenger airlines Garuda (www.garuda-indonesia.com) and Merpati Airlines (www.merpati.co.id) as well as pages on the Departmen Perhubungan or Department of Transportation website with general schedules (www.dephub.go.id/irja/data/frek_pnrb.htm). PELNI (Pelayaran Nasional Indonesia), the National Passenger Ferry Service also has general information (www.pelni.com) and its schedules are online (see www.onklik.com/ontrip/index_kapal.php3). The only airport in Papua capable of landing a Boeing 747 (Jumbo Jet) is the Bandar Udara Frans Kaisiepo in Biak (E: www.angkasapura1.co.id/eng/location/biak.htm) although many of its coastal towns are well equipped for large passenger ferries and cargo ships, including the ports of: Jayapura, Biak, Manokwari, Fak-Fak, Sorong and Merauke (www.portina4.go.id/ports.htm shows a map of these towns linked to pages with data on these docks). Information about some local ferry services in Papua is available online through PT ASDP (Angkutan Sungai Danau dan Penyemberangan or the Inland Waterways and Ferry Transportation Corporation website (www.ferry-asdp.co.id).

Foreign visitors not arriving from other parts of Indonesia may be able to travel on the weekly charter flight operating between Timika and Darwin (Australia) as an alternative route to Papua (www.timikacharters.com.au). There is also a regular bus service (and irregular light aircraft flights) between Jayapura and Vanimo in neighbouring Papua New Guinea. For these international connections travellers must obtain appropriate visas (which can prove difficult). More detailed information for such travel is available from the Papua New Guinea Consul in Jayapura (refer to www.pngembassy.org/mission.htm), the Australian Embassy in Indonesia (www.austembjak.or.id), the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra (www.kbri-canberra.org.au) as well as the Indonesian travel agents listed above, Darwin-based travel agencies like Northern Gateway (www.northerngateway.com.au) or PNG-based tour companies like MTS (www.meltours.com/index.html).

Accommodation in Papua can range widely according to price and exclusivity. Some of the most expensive accommodation in Papua includes the Sheraton Hotel in the mining boom town of Timika (http://www.greathotels.co.id/contents/sheratontmk.html), the Honai Resort (www.baliem.com/html/honai.html) and Baliem Valley Resort (G/E: www.baliem-valley-resort.de) both near the central highlands town of Wamena and a number of high end hotels in bigger towns like Jayapura and Sorong (see sites like www.regit.com/regitel/indonesi/business/rianjaya/jayapura.htm). The more modest hotels and losmen in the coastal towns of Papua do not have much of a web presence. Information about these places and the opportunities to stay in traditional houses with local Papuans can be found in some of the travelogues listed below. Basic medical supplies may be purchased through local chemists in Jayapura which are listed in the Apotheek Jayapura webpage (ID: www.satumed.com/index.html/lain/37).

Travelogues are personal or group accounts of tourist's experiences in their travels which often contain interesting insights and practical advice on places, conditions, cultural difference (and "culture shock"). They may take the form of brief or lengthy trip narratives, photo-essays or even become the inspiration for entire websites or film projects. Travelogues have been written about Papua for more than a century, but there are still few substantial texts (or essays) in this "adventure" or "explorer" genre available online.

Short travelogues about Papua available on the web may be general reviews of visits to Papua, like: Henry Richardson's trip report (www.geocities.com/hr1975/ij-report.htm); Liono Irian Jaya pages (www.emp.pdx.edu/htliono/irja.html), Susan's Trip (www.websurf.net.au/~susan/Irian.htm), Jean-Philippe Soules's story (www.caske2000.org/stories/irianjaya.htm), one of Martijn Maandag's many trips (NL: www.reisverslagen.net) or Herman Vellinga's recent visit and reminiscences (NL: http://home.planet.nl/~velli026). Others tend to focus on specific areas, including perhaps the only commentaries available online about the villages of Tobati and Engros (www.cs.washington.edu/homes/weld/engros.html). The more familiar tourist destinations like the Baliem Valley, the Asmat and Korowai regions of the southern swamps and the Carstensz glaciers and Puncak Jaya have more webpages.

The Baliem Valley was first discovered in 1938 by Richard Archbold and his team during an expedition for the American Museum of Natural History in New York (www.amnh.org or see http://research.amnh.org/mammalogy/dla/index.htmlIt returned to prominence during World War II with the crash of a US army C47 aircraft in the valley and the subsequent rescue of some of its passengers (www.thedropzone.org/pacific/walters.htm).www.cs.washington.edu/homes/weld/stone-age.html), Dave Hunter's Trek (www.ana.ed.ac.uk/anatomy/staff/HunterD/treks/iriantab.html) how Allan Miller spent his summer vacation (www.pedropoint.com/dani.htm) and other short travelogues about the Central Highlands of Papua (such as http://www-ah.wbmt.tudelft.nl/~jerry/jw2/IrianJaya/Baliem.html). For those tourists with a specific interest in climbing, or a desire for serious trekking, Papua has some of the most spectacular mountain ranges in the world. for information about visiting the Archbold Collection of photographs and documents related to this expedition). Since then, the Baliem Valley has held a special attraction for "adventure" tourists and trekkers. See some of the online writings of recent visitors to this unique place in Daniel Weld's "Glimpse into the Stone Age" (

Carstensz is home to the tropical glaciers which rest on Puncak Jaya, at an elevation of almost 5000 meters above sea level. Although known to local Papuans for millenia, this rare tropical glacier first became known to European geographers when it was seen from the Arafura sea by the Dutch explorer Jan Carstensz in the 17th Century. In the early 20th Century, several European expeditions vied to be the first to reach the summit of this remarkable peak (see www.xtreme.nl/land/beleving/index_lab210600.shtml). In October 2001, the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, or Tropen Instituut (Royal Tropical Institute at www.kit.nl) presented “Race to the Snow,” an exhibition of photographs from these earliest European expeditions to the summit of Carstensz (www.kit.nl/fotobureau/html/publicaties.asp). The Carstensz massif was studied extensively during the early 1970s by a group of researchers from Australia and their results are now available on PapuaWeb (see www.papuaweb.org/dlib/bk/hope1976/_sampul.html). A few of these researchers also have an article about the glaciers available online through the United States Geological Survey website (http://pubs.usgs.gov/prof/p1386h/indonesia/intoc.html).

Puncak Jaya (the current name for the Carstensz Massif) and its glaciers remains one of the primary tourist attractions in Papua. Puncak is the highest mountain on the island of New Guinea, the highest peak between between the Himalayas and the Andes and one of the "7 summits" of the world (see http://7summits.com). Climbing here requires a special permit from the Departmen Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata or the Department of Culture and Tourism in Jakarta (www.budpar.go.id). In recent years this trip has been offered as a commercial package tour for climbers lasting anything from 6-20 days (see www.alpineascents.com/carstensz.asp), and growing numbers of foreign climbers have used it to complete their "7 summits" (www.adventurestats.com/tables/7sum.htm). Other webpages about climbers' experiences on Puncak Jaya include: a flash animated website which features Carstensz (www.econ.nl), an article in Everestnews (www.everestnews.com/carstensz.htm), a photo essay at the Mountain Madness website (www.mountainmadness.com/gallery/carstenz/carstenz01.htm), a helicopter- assisted ascent (NL: www.demis.nl/poul/x11.htm). Other regions in the highlands are also spectacular and physically demanding to traverse. An extremely challenging expedition (unlikely to ever become a group tour) was proposed for the year 2000 by a team which planned to walk the entire length of the islands of New Guinea - 2400km over the central cordillera (mountain range) of New Guinea from Milne Bay, in the far east of Papua New Guinea, to the west coast of the Bird's Head of Papua (http://members.aol.com/prwiles).

Scuba diving tours and other coastal attractions remain a small but significant part of the Papuan tourism industry. Max Ammer runs a commercial scuba diving business in Sorong (www.iriandiving.com) which features the natural marine life of Papua and underwater exploration of old World War II wrecks (see www.iriandiving.com/Wreck-Diving.html and www.pacificwrecks.com/provinces/irian_biak.html). Many of these wrecks can be found in and around the island of Biak where tourism was being heavily promoted during the 1990s and featured the brand new Marauw (Biak Beach) Hotel (for example see www.jipi.com/inatourism/irian_jaya/index.php3?topik=resort). This hotel is featured in Kal Muller's article on diving in Biak (Muller has written one of the most popular foreign guidebooks to Papua) although it is no longer operational (see www.asiandiver.com/themagazine/indonesia/biak.html). Some other pages provide limited information about Biak and its adjacent islands (http://members.tripod.com/biak-island/welcome.htm). The attractions of Papua's natural environment are also featured in other accounts of diving (www.photocean.com/irianjaya.html) or you can explore the coastal areas of Papua and other parts of Indonesia aboard a chartered tour boat operated by companies like Divex Indonesia (www.divex-indonesia.de/start.htm).

Bird watching should be an extremely popular tourist activity in Papua given the wealth of its endemic species. While groups of ornithologists occasionally visit Papua, only a few operators such as Papua Expeditions (www.papuaexpeditions.com and ID: www.ekonexion.com) and Kris Tindige (www.earthfoot.org/places/id002.htm) run tours specifically for bird watching. If you are fortunate enough to visit Papua, there is a bird sanctuary on Biak Island close to Biak Town (on the main road to Bosnik) and also the new Biak Falcon and Raptors Conservation Center (http://users.belgacom.net/gc559907/intro.htm). The BFRCC is dedicated to the conservation of Papuan and Indonesian birdlife, including the rare Javan Hawk Eagle (which is the bird on the national emblem of the Republic of Indonesia).

Photographic essays are travelogues (like www.whereisevan.com/indonesia00-3.html) but they generally rely more on images than text in their representations. Online photo essays which feature Papua include Chris Ranier's "Where Masks Still Dance" (from his book www.time.com/time/reports/newguinea/home.html), Rob Huibers website (www.photo.nl), Kaj Maurins Papua slideshow (www.indonesiapromo.com/slidesho/irian/ss01.html), Ken Ratihn's photo gallery (www.pcweb.net/kss/irianjaya/index.htm), Jez O'Hare's site (www.jezohare.com), the Eric de Noorman website (http://users.pandora.be/e.rasker/Irian.html). Extensive photoessays can be found at Abentuer Indonesien (www.abenteuer-indonesien.de/iriangal1.html) and at www.photocean.com/irianjaya.html and the "crazy-man" plans to make a documentary film in Papua (www.crazy-man.org). Harald Melcher has already made a film in Papua which is available for purchase online (www.harald-melcher.de/index_dt.htm).

TRADITIONS, TOURISM AND CONTEMPORARY CULTURE IN PAPUA - INDONESIA

2008-07-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

Traditional arts and material culture
While Papua is home to a wide variety of art traditions, only several iconic forms are well known outside their local regions. European explorers, administrators and collectors often returned from Papua with extensive collections of material culture. These early visitors, together with more recent arrivals, have profoundly affected the production of art and its place in the lives of many Papuans. While there is a significant collection of Papuan artefacts in the Museum Nasional in Jakarta (www.museumnasional.org), and very modest collections at the Museum Provinsi (Provincial Museum) in Waena/Jayapura (www.kebudayaan.depdiknas.go.id/BudayaOnline/SitusBcb/Museum/n_papua.htm www.wereldmuseum.rotterdam.nl) in Rotterdam and the Tropenmuseum of the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (the Museum of the Royal Institute for the Tropics, or KIT) in Amsterdam, hold the most significant institutional collections in Papuan art and material culture anywhere in the world. Unfortunately most of these objects are not on permanent exhibition, although many items in the National Museum of Ethnology collection may now be viewed online (www.rmv.nl). In 2003, the RMV opened an exhibition featuring recent and past material culture collections from the Kamoro region of southern Papua. Although "Papua Leeft" had a web presence in 2003, the only information that remains online about this exhibition appears to be references to the printed catalogue Kamoro Art: Tradition and Innovation in a New Guinea culture and news/reviews of the exhibition (such as www.westpapua.nl/2003_02/kamoro.html). Similarly, although the KIT hosted a small exhibition of photographs from the early Twentieth Century related to the Anglo-Dutch race to the tropical glaciers of Carstensz (Puncak Jaya), the exhibition catalogue Race to the Snow remains the only enduring web presence of this exhibition (purchase from KIT at www.kit.nl). *1 In 2007, the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam will host a major pan-New Guinea exhibition, titled "The Power of Papua". and at the Museum Lokabudaya (the Anthropology Museum at Cenderawasih University in Abepura), the most comprehensive collections of Papuan art and material culture are held by several large museums in the Netherlands and a dispersed group of private collectors. The Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (RMV, or National Museum of Ethnology) in Leiden, the Wereldmuseum (World Museum at The Barbier-Muller Museum, Geneva also holds a significant collection of Papuan art, but the items in its collection are not accessible via the web (www.barbier-mueller.ch/genevefr.html). More modest collections are held in numerous other European museums, including the Castello D'Albertis in Genoa, Italy (IT: www.castellodalbertis.comune.genova.it) and the Museo delle Culture, in Lugano, Switzerland (www.mcl.lugano.ch). In North America, one of the most significant collections of Papuan art was collected for the Museum of Primitive Art in New York, which was consolidated into the holdings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection in the Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas (www.metmuseum.org). Australian collections of Papuan artefacts can be found through Australian Museums and Galleries On-Line (http://amol.org.au). A significant (if uncertain) number of private collections of Papuan art exists outside Papua in Indonesia and abroad but few of these are well documented or widely publicised. The best known Papuan art is the woodcarving of the Asmat people and in the past few decades most art development projects, art enthusiasts and dealers collecting in Papua have been drawn to this art form. While the Asmat region may have gained international notoriety in 1962 with the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller, it is the sustained support of the Crosier Catholic Missionaries (www.crosier.org) and the patronage of their former Bishop Alphonse Sowada which has been central to revival of Asmat art. In 1973 the Crosiers established the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress at Agats and later the American Museum of Asmat Art (www.asmat.org). Asmat art is featured in several private collections which have a web presence, including that of long-term Asmat art collectors Ursula and Gunter Konrad (www.asmat.de) and the Equatorial Art Gallery website (www.asmatart.net or http://home.earthlink.net/~alkeeney). You can read about an art collector’s experience in Asmat (http://home.earthlink.net/~fchiaramonte/travel.htm). Papua is rich in many artistic traditions other than those of the Asmat. There are many contemporary artists across the province producing fine works in a variety of media. Several of these artists have been featured in exhibitions by Seichi Okawa and their work can be found at the Graha Budaya Indonesia or Indonesian Cultural Plaza in Tokyo (www.harapan.co.jp/Indonesia/GBI/GBI_index.htm - you need an extended Japanese character set to see all of this site). The arts of Lake Sentani, which have been overlooked by so many visitors to nearby Jayapura, have also been gaining recent popularity among domestic and foreign visitors to Papua. Read about the painted barkcloth of the Sentani region in an article by anthropologist Michael Howard (www.artasiapacific.com/articles/maro/maro1.html with hotlinked footnotes). The internet has many other webpages about New Guinea tribal arts and art dealers (such as www.art-pacific.com/artifacts/nuguinea/asmat/asmatmap.htm). Sarinah, the exclusive Indonesian department store on Jalan Thamrin, was one of the first places to commercialise Asmat art in Jakarta (http://bubu.com/sarinah/asmat.htm) as part of their arts and crafts collection from across the archipelago.

Cremation: A passage to heaven

2008-07-24T07:53:00.000-07:00

A funeral event in Bali is as festive and conspicuous as a wedding. Long funeral processions crawling through Denpasar's narrow streets often clog traffic arteries and halt people's activities.

But no true Balinese would ever grumble about this inconvenience. Instead, every road user quite willingly shows deep respect for the occasion and makes way for the procession to proceed to the nearest cremation grounds.

The long procession of relatives and sympathizers, all dressed in festive traditional attire and accompanied by a lively band of musicians, enters the grounds.

Not less impressive is the funeral pyre; mounted on a bamboo platform and carried by more than a dozen strong men. On top of the pyre, adorned with ornate decorations in resplendent gold and silver, is the coffin of the deceased. As proscribed by tradition, a close relative rides next to the coffin to hold it in place during the journey.

The funeral of Ni Luh Wati, who died of heart disease at the age of 70, took place 10 days after the deceased passed away, allowing relatives to gather at her home and pay their last respects.

After the grieving period, relatives began working on preparations for the festive procession in order to free the deceased's soul from the body.

In Balinese-Hindu cremations, grief is turned into a colorful event, with gongs, cymbals and flute musicians paving the way to the cremation grounds.

Contrary to modern beliefs, which see death as the end of one's life, traditional Balinese-Hindu beliefs deem death as just a transition from one phase of a person's life to the next.

As the procession of Ni Luh Wati's funeral arrived at the cremation grounds, the coffin was brought down from the pyre. The deceased, wrapped in white cloth, was taken out and placed in a banana trunk-walled enclosure.

Offerings and burial paraphernalia are also placed in the enclosure.

A piece of white cloth was spanned over the enclosed area to signify respect. The organizer of the cremation event had prepared four powerful gas burners, which were placed at the corners of the enclosure and directed towards the corpse.

After last respects were paid, along with the incantation of mantras and prayers, the burners were lit. Huge tongues of flames and black smoke, signifying the demolishing process of the corpse had begun, filled the air above the body.

While members of the procession relaxed under the shade of a big tree to relief themselves of Bali's midday sun, the organizer remained constantly busy.

The organizer was there to ensure that the burst of fire was constantly directed to the remains of the deceased. After four or five hours of burning, the gas burners were removed and the organizer informed relatives that the cremation process was over.

He pulled out a large sheet of zinc, on which the deceased's body had been laid, to show what was left -- only a handful of ash and some bone fragments.

Relatives were invited to sprinkle water over the ashes as mantras and prayers were once again performed.

In Bali-Hindu tradition, the ashes are taken to the beach and released into the sea.

The funeral of Ni Luh Wati was regarded a simple cremation, however, it costs several million rupiah to carry out.

The cremation of a member of an aristocratic family -- such as that of Tjokorda Gede Agung Suyasa, the Prince of Ubud, which was held last week -- are generally more elaborate and require a bigger budget.

The pyre that holds the deceased's body in such elaborate cremations is always decorated lavishly and usually takes the shape of a mythical Garuda bird or a buffalo. Grand cremation ceremonies take weeks, sometimes months, of preparation.

Such cremations often provide an opportunity for the less affluent to join in the festive atmosphere to give their deceased family member a befitting start on their way to heaven. This was also the case in last week's elaborate Ubud cremation, in which the remains of 68 others were included in the grand ceremony.

[thejakartapost]

10 ways to keep Thai bar girls happy

2008-07-20T02:35:00.000-07:00

1. Alcohol

Your demur Thai bar girl sweetheart will drink you under the table. However, she won't be satisfied with cheap local brands. Only costly imported beverages hit the spot. A huge duty-free bottle of Bailey's is the one thing that might stop her slaughtering your mini-bar.

2. Sweet shit

Thai bar girls love sugary snacks because prancing around that chromium pole and shagging all your mates requires a lot of energy. Let her shovel it in but remember to dump her before the dental bills arrive.

3. Seafood

Thai food is cheap and delicious but don't expect to taste any. Your Thai bar girl will go seafood-crazy when you foot the bill. Even when already gorged with sweet shit, she can still take on a blue whale. Try to keep smiling when she tells her friends to order whatever they want.

4. Som Tam

Part papaya salad and part incendiary device, a plate of som tam is next on her agenda. You could try some too - to burn the taste of that ghastly blubber out of your mouth.

5. Transport

Even if your room is just across the street, your Thai bar girl isn't going to walk there. The genes that enabled her parents' generation to toil in the rice fields are rarely inherited. To avoid tantrums, call a taxi. Stairs will provoke yet more whining. Make a mental note to buy a magic fucking carpet.

6. Dreadful Thai TV

Once in the room, your Thai bar girl will be straight over to the TV. She can't resist the awful Thai game shows and soap operas. To everyone else they are sheer torture and make the Shopping Channel look like quality entertainment. If you don't have UBC, you are doomed.

7. Games console

There are two activities you can enjoy with your Thai bar girl and this is the other one.

8. Cartoons

Sometimes a man needs his princess to amuse herself quietly. A pile of Thai cartoon magazines will shut her up for hours. Never discard them - they will do for the next girl.

9. Ganja

If you're daft enough to have any weed, your Thai bar girl will save you a long stretch in Thai jail (See Smile, you're in Thai jail) by smoking your entire stash. Afterwards, she will fall into the sleep of the righteous without so much as a thank you blow-job.

10. Gold

Inevitably, the relationship must end when your Thai bar girl asks for gold. She will be walking on air when you take her to the jewellers. Wait until she is thoroughly weighed down with trinkets before you walk out and leave her there. Turn back and enjoy the look of despair on her face. If she gives chase, laugh as the greedy tart is rugby-tackled by the shop's burly guards.

www.mangosauce.com

10 thing's Free in Paris

2008-07-20T02:29:00.000-07:00

10 thing's Free in Paris [ Indonesian version ]

 
Museum Louevre di malam hari
        

Sabtu, 19 Juli 2008 | 16:57 WIB

Sesungguhnya hal-hal terbaik dalam hidup tersedia gratis di sekitar kita, bahkan di Paris yang mahal. Jika Anda berencana ke Paris atau suatu saat berada di kota itu, berikut adalah beberapa kegiatan atau hal yang Anda bisa nikmati secara gratis.

Keindahan dalam rumput yang bergoyang: Paris merupakan sebuah kota yang dipadati penghuni apartemen. Banyak taman di Paris berfungsi sebagai halaman belakang bagi keluarga-keluarga yang tak terhitung jumlahnya. Tempat ini tentunya menjadi surga pula bagi para turis. Beberapa taman favorit di antaranya Jardin des Tuileries dan, diseberang sungai Seine, Jardin du Luxembourg, Jardin du Carrousel (di samping Tuileries), Place des Vosges, Jardin du Palais Royal, dan Parc du Champ de Mars.

Bergabung dengan angkatan kerja: Ada sesuatu yang amat menarik ketika kita memperhatikan orang-orang melakukan pekerjaannya sementara kita berlibur. Program lama berupa open houses digabung dengan metode inovative menghasilkan Meet the Parisians at Work (Melihat Orang-orang Paris Saat Mereka Bekerja). Nah, di situ Anda bisa melihat aksi langsung para tukang jagal, pembuat roti, pembuat tempat lilin, bahkan pemotong berlian.

Menikmati pemujaan para pahlawan: Anda tertarik mencari petualangan baru? Para pecinta buku dapat melakukan tour ke rumah memorabilia Honoré de Balzac (di 47 Rue Raynouard) dan Victor Hugo (di Place des Vosges yang begitu elegan). Sementara mereka yang lebih ke tipe peneliti bisa mengunjungi Left Bank Laboratory dimana Marie Curie bekerja sejak 1914 hingga kematiannya tahun 1934. Musée Curie's yang telah direstorasi dengan sangat teliti memiliki perabot asli, instrumen-instrumen, dan tiga hadiah nobel yang dimenangkan oleh klan Curie.

Melihat cahaya: Untuk tahu mengapa Paris dijuluki "Kota Cahaya", Anda cukup berjalan-jalan ketika hari mulai gelap saat atraksi bintang menerangi langit bagaikan pohon natal. Satu hal yang tak bisa dilewatkan adalah Menara Eiffel, yang diselimuti oleh 800 senar cahaya putih yang menakjubkan. Untuk efek yang lebih menakjubkan, datanglah disaat Anda bisa menyaksikan 20,000 bola lampu berkelip-kelip selama 10 menit waktu pertunjukan. Ingin tahu lebih banyak mengenai menara ini? Klik en.parisinfo.com untuk download panduan audionya, gratis, dan enam situs lainnya.

Penghormatan terakhir: Pemakaman Pére-Lachaise merupakan tempat yang nyaman untuk menghabiskan waktu sepanjang sore. Sejak 1804 pemakaman ini yang terletak di 20th arrondissement telah menjadi tempat peristirahatan terakhir bagi orang-orang terkenal yang menjadi ikon budaya. Chopin, Colette, Molière, Modigliani: mereka semua terbaring disini. Demikian juga Oscar Wilde, Isadora Duncan, Georges Seurat, Sarah Bernhardt, Gertrude Stein, dan Jim Morrison.

Dapatkan semangatnya: Walau Anda harus membayar untuk menapaki menara-menara atau menuruni ruang bawah tanah beberapa katedral Paris yang luar biasa, Anda tidak akan dipungut bayaran ketika memasuki tempat-tempat keagamaan. Beberapa nama besar menawarkan yang ekstra. Notre Dame, contohnya, secara khusus mengadakan resital organ gratis di minggu sore dan tur dalam bahasa inggris tiga kali seminggu. Tidak mau kalah, Sacré-Coeur mengundang pengunjung menghadiri gladi resik koor selama satu jam di minggu pagi jam 9:45.

Bersepatu roda dan bergembira: Bersepatu roda setiap minggu menjadi acara yang fenomenal dan populer di Paris. Bersepatu roda di hari Minggu dengan pembawa acara dari Rollers & Coquillages memadati daerah bebas kendaraan seluas 12 mil, dan mulai beraksi pada pukul 2:30 sore di dekat Place de la Bastille. Acara serupa yang lebih ekstrem versi 18-mile dilakukan setiap Jumat malam. Jika sepatu bot Anda dirancang untuk berjalan, akan lebih bijaksana untuk bergabung dalam rando-panameurs dalam acara hiking gratis bulanan.

Menjilati jendela: Lèche-vitrines (atau "menjilati jendela") sama dengan istilah window shopping, dan orang-orang Paris telah mengangkatnya menjadi suatu seni tersendiri. Untuk mencicipinya pertama kali tempat terbaik adalah di sekitar Avenue Montaigne dan Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré, di saana pedagang ritel yang amat chic menggelar toko-toko mereka. Dari toko yang dimulai dengan huruf "C" saja, Anda akan menemukan Cartier, Chanel, Chloe, Christian Dior dan Christian Lacroix. Bisakah Anda katakan "Ooh la la?"

Berdansa sepanjang malam: Akan mengeluarkan dana yang lumayan untuk menyaksikan para can-can girls menendang—nendangkan tumit mereka di Moulin Rouge. Namun ada banyak tempat dimana Anda bisa mempraktekkan gerakan-gerakan Anda sendiri -dan mungkin mendapat sedikit pelajaran- tanpa mengluarkan uang sepeser pun. Bagi para pemula, pergilah menuju ke tempat dansa plein air (buka setiap malam, jika cuaca memungkinkan, pada bulan Mei hingga September) di Quai Saint-Bernard. Apakah Anda siap melakukan tango terakhir Anda di Paris atau gavotte Anda yang pertama? Tourism Board dapat memandu Anda menuju tempat yang tepat.

Pergi ke Museum: Jangan bosan dulu. Paris memiliki beberapa dari museum paling menarik di dunia dan beberapa di antaranya bisa dimasuki gratis. Itu berarti Anda dapat menelusuri sejarah kota di Musée Carnavalet (sebuah mansion abad ke-16 yang menjadi rumah bagi kano-kano dari zaman Neolithikum hingga buaian Napoleon), atau menikmati seni dan artifak di Musée Cognacq-Jay, dan mengetahui cerita-cerita tentang parfum Perancis di Musée Fragonard, semua tanpa mengeluarkan uang sepeser pun. Louvre yang terkenal gratis bagi pengunjung di bawah umur 18 tahun, dan gratis sepenuhnya bagi semua orang pada 1 hari minggu dalam sebulan. [kompas]

Starbucks Secrets, The Secret Menu

2008-07-15T21:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a little secret that Starbucks doesn't want you to know: They will serve you a better, stronger cappuccino if you want one, and they will charge you less for it.

Ask for it in any Starbucks and the barista will comply without batting an eye. The puzzle is to work out why. The drink in question is the elusive "short cappuccino"—at 8 ounces, a third smaller than the smallest size on the official menu, the "tall," and dwarfed by what Starbucks calls the "customer-preferred" size, the "Venti," which weighs in at 20 ounces and more than 200 calories before you add the sugar.

The short cappuccino has the same amount of espresso as the 12-ounce tall, meaning a bolder coffee taste, and also a better one. The World Barista Championship rules, for example, define a traditional cappuccino as a "five- to six-ounce beverage." This is also the size of cappuccino served by many continental cafés.

Within reason, the shorter the cappuccino, the better. The problem with large cappuccinos is that it's impossible to make the fine-bubbled milk froth ("microfoam," in the lingo) in large quantities, no matter how skilled the barista. A 20-ounce cappuccino is an oxymoron. Having sampled the short cappuccino in a number of Starbucks across the world, I can confirm that it is a better drink than the buckets of warm milk—topped with a veneer of froth—that the coffee chain advertises on its menus.

This secret cappuccino is cheaper, too—at my local Starbucks, $2.35 instead of $2.65. But why does this cheaper, better drink—along with its sisters, the short latte and the short coffee—languish unadvertised? The official line from Starbucks is that there is no room on the menu board, although this doesn't explain why the short cappuccino is also unmentioned on the comprehensive Starbucks Web site, nor why the baristas will serve you in a whisper rather than the usual practice of singing your order to the heavens.

Economics has the answer: This is the Starbucks way of sidestepping a painful dilemma over how high to set prices. Price too low and the margins disappear; too high and the customers do. Any business that is able to charge one price to price-sensitive customers and a higher price to the rest will avoid some of that awkward trade-off. It's not hard to identify the price-blind customers in Starbucks. They're the ones buying enough latte to bathe Cleopatra.

The major costs of staff time, space in the queue, and packaging are similar for any size of drink. So, larger drinks carry a substantially higher markup, according to Brian McManus, an assistant professor at the Olin School of Business who has studied the coffee market. The difficulty is that if some of your products are cheap, you may lose money from customers who would willingly have paid more.

So, businesses try to discourage their more lavish customers from trading down by making their cheap products look or sound unattractive, or, in the case of Starbucks, making the cheap product invisible. The British supermarket Tesco has a "value" line of products with infamously ugly packaging, not because good designers are unavailable but because the supermarket wants to scare away customers who would willingly spend more. "The bottom end of any market tends to get distorted," says McManus. "The more market power firms have, the less attractive they make the cheaper products." That observation is important.

A firm in a perfectly competitive market would suffer if it sabotaged its cheapest products because rivals would jump at the opportunity to steal alienated customers. Starbucks, with its coffee supremacy, can afford this kind of price discrimination, thanks to loyal, or just plain lazy, customers.

The practice is hundreds of years old. The French economist Emile Dupuit wrote about the early days of the railways, when third-class carriages were built without roofs, even though roofs were cheap: "What the company is trying to do is prevent the passengers who can pay the second-class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich." The modern equivalent is the airport departure lounge.

Airports could create nicer spaces, but that would frustrate the ability of airlines to charge substantial premiums for club-class departure lounges. Starbucks' gambit is much simpler and more audacious: Offer the cheaper product but make sure that it is available only to those customers who face the uncertainty and embarrassment of having to request it specifically. Fortunately, the tactic is easily circumvented: If you'd like a better coffee for less, just ask.

related post

The Starbucks' Secret and the Coffee War

2008-07-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

I adore coffee. It is one of those splurges in life I hope never to give up. In fact, I love coffee so much I invested in a coffee bean roaster so I can have fresh roasted coffee at home. However, just like eating out, sometimes it is nice to let someone else do the "brewing" and when those times hit, I head to one of our local coffee shops.

Mainly because of proximity and product consistency, I go to Starbucks and kiss my ten-dollar bill goodbye on two Venti cappuccinos and then sit, pretending to savor miles of froth with a few sips of coffee. That was until I read an article about the secret cup size Starbucks does not advertise and a Consumer Report comparing Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger King and Dunkin' Donuts.

The Secret Size Starbucks Left Off the Menu

Tim Harford, of Slate.com, enlightened me in his article "Solving the mystery of the elusive "short" cappuccino," by disclosing that Starbucks has an eight ounce "short cappuccino" available, but it is not advertised on the menu.

According to Hartford, the short size contains the same amount of espresso as the "Tall" 12-ounce size and it is less expensive. Not only does it cost a bit less, but for anyone tired of downing multi-levels of froth before getting to the coffee, the taste is supposed to be bolder and better and the calorie intake is a lot less.

Consumer Reports Coffee Taste Test

Consumer Reports did a recent comparison of coffee served at Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger King and Dunkin' Donuts. The coffee ordered at each restaurant was black, without any additives. Surprisingly, the testers voted McDonald's the winner saying, "Its premium coffee was strong, like Starbucks, but tasted better," and the price was the cheapest.

Burger King's coffee was said to look like coffee, but taste more like hot water. Dunkin' Donuts was described as weak and watery and tasters found Starbucks, "was strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open."

My Taste Test

After reading the test by Consumer Reports, I headed out to do my own research and found McDonald's to be a disappointment. It may be a better cup of coffee at times, but to me it tasted like it was poured from the bottom of the pot - bitter and old. When served fresh I can see how it could compete for the morning drive to work, but if it is a typical non-coffee time of the day, ask if it is freshly brewed and don't settle for anything less.

Getting a cup of old coffee at Starbucks has never happened to me and the short unadvertised Starbucks cappuccino really solved the froth problem. I actually tasted coffee with my first sip! It was a delight to no longer swallow air with a hint of coffee. The smaller cup had a much better balance of flavors and seemed more authentic-like and less Starbucks-like, plus cost less. Why the size isn't on the menu is a pure case of economics, says Harford, and in my opinion, a mistake on Starbucks part.

The Bottom Line

Starbucks won my unofficial test because of taste, selection and employee knowledge. After I made it known that when I order coffee, I expect coffee and not froth, the Manager suggested I try the Latte or order a "wet" cappuccino. Those are options McDonald's can't offer to me, so for my test, Starbucks is the winner. However, the next early morning when I am in a hurry and just want a plain cup of black coffee, I'll most likely head to McDonald's.

Global Warming, Our Future Terror or Terrorist

2008-07-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

In the simplest terms, global warming is just what it sounds like: the worldwide rise in surface temperatures. The National Academy of Science has put the rise at 1 degree F over the course of the 20th century, but measurements from satellites of both land and sea surfaces are showing that the rate of warming is increasing sharply.
It's more than just surface temperatures that are going up, however. A lot of research into temperature changes in the upper layers of the atmosphere, as well as the deep oceans, is showing warming. Then, there are the more obvious signs: the rapid retreat of glaciers in Greenland, Alaska, the Himalaya, the Antarctic Peninsula and on high tropical mountains; the thinning and disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during summer; the melting of permafrost in Canada, Alaska and Siberia; and the rise of sea level and an increase in extreme weather.
The cause of global warming is what's called the "greenhouse effect." That's shorthand for the ability of gases in the atmosphere to slow down the release of heat into space at night. Some gases are better at this than others. Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are the top three "greenhouse gases." They are very good at absorbing sunlight and converting that energy into heat – rather like a rock does just sitting in the sun.
Surprisingly, the greenhouse effect isn't a bad thing. It's essential for life on Earth – when it's not too vigorous. If not for the greenhouse effect, the temperature on the surface of Earth would be like that of the airless moon – swinging wildly from 225 degrees F (107 C) during the day to -243 degrees F (-153 C) at night. Not a good place for life.
The greenhouse effect is only troublesome when it gets too strong and warms things too much. And that's just what scientists say has happened over the last 150 years or so as the people of industrialized nations have extracted Earth's vast buried stores of fossil fuels and burned them. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased nearly 30 percent, methane has more than doubled, and the nitrous oxide concentration is up about 15 percent. All those extra greenhouse gases mean more and more solar energy is being trapped in the atmosphere, exacerbating the greenhouse effect and making things warmer.
The result: 2005 was Earth's warmest year in a century, according to NASA climatologists. The years 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004 were the next four runners-up. The year 2005 was also a record-breaking year for Atlantic hurricanes in which the coastal city of New Orleans – made all the more vulnerable because of sea level rise – was almost wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina.
Of course, because the effects of global warming on local climates are very complicated, it remains to be seen exactly how different regions will feel the heat.
"Global warming is a term that's extremely useful when you're running a planet," says John Cox, author of the book Climate Crash. "But it's regional change that affects people. It's the wet and cold and hot and dry."
That's why climate modelers are constantly refining their simulations, and climate scientists continue to refine our view of past climate changes to create a better idea of what to expect.
by Larry O'Hanlon from discovery

Bali Named World’s Top Island Again, Six Years Running

2008-07-14T01:38:00.000-07:00

The choice of islands was based on natural attractions, activities/sights, restaurants/food, people and value, according to the magazine, whose readers this year ranked the Italian cultural city of Florence the world’s best city.

The top-voted hotel for the first time is an Indian property, The Oberoi Udaivilas in Rajasthan, noted Travel + Leisure editor-in-chief Nancy Novogrod.

“This year's results underline T+L readers' ever-increasing embrace of global travel in their search for distinctive and authentic experiences.

“The extraordinary rise of India among the top hotels and resorts in the world is one sure reflection of this tendency, with the Oberoi Udaivilas ranking number-one hotel in the world.”

Second- and third-ranking hotels were the Singita Sabi Sands in the Kruger National Park in South Africa and The Oriental, Bangkok, respectively.

Readers voted Singapore Airlines as their favorite international carrier, followed by American all-business-class MAXjet Airways and Emirates Airline of Dubai.

Travel + Leisure is published by the American Express Publishing Corporation and has a circulation of almost one million, according to corporate data. Apart from the US, it is published around the world, in such countries as Spain, Turkey, China, Australia and in South Asia.

Given that Bali continues to be voted as the world’s top island, local tourism industry analysts said, is a reflection of its enduring global appeal, despite setbacks in recent years that the predominately Hindu island has robustly bounced back from.

Cok Oka Arta Ardana Sukawati, deputy head of the privately run Bali Tourism Board, told The Bali Times on Wednesday that Bali is a perennial favorite with tourists because of its unique culture.

“What most distinguishes Bali is its culture, which is why Bali keeps being named the world’s best island.

Bali’s eight regencies – Badung, in the south, where most of the island’s tourism is located; Jembrana in the west; Tabanan in the southwest; Buleleng in the north; Bangli in the northeast; Karangasem in the east; Gianyar in Central Bali; and Klungkung in the southeast – each had their own tourism potential, he said.

“Unfortunately, not enough is being done to identify that potential and to improve it for tourism purposes,” he said.

“Some regencies are remote and hard to reach, so it’s good that we have events like the Bali Arts Festival where everything can be displayed together.”

Increases in tourist figures, however, would lead to bigger environmental problems, he warned, adding that his office had received complaints from visitors.

Gede Nurjaya, head of government’s Bali Tourism Office, told The Times separately that the naming of Bali again this year as the world’s best island by Travel + Leisure readers meant the authorities had to work hard to meet visitors’ expectations.

“We are grateful of the appreciation of the international community in choosing Bali as the best island. This also challenges us to prove that Bali indeed deserves such an honor. With this award, we hope it will send a message that Bali is safe and has more to offer, despite the travel warnings.

Ngaben (Cremation Ceremony) in Bali

The Barong Dance of Bali Indonesia

A Bali beach you'll never want to leave

2008-07-14T01:36:00.000-07:00

A Bali beach you'll never want to leave
Wayne Arnold NYT
Friday, February 27, 2004

BALI, Indonesia Everyone who is anyone in Bali's expatriate community shows up for sunset and cocktails at Ku De Ta.

As the shadows lengthen, the island's cognoscenti drift onto the bar's breezy beachfront deck, their linen shirts billowing open to expose native jewelry, their Thai fisherman's pants revealing calves tanned and toned by long walks on Kuta Beach. A deejay spins his latest chill mix, the international assemblage settles into chaise longues and the sun plunges into the Bali Strait.

It's the typical end to a typical day in Seminyak, Kuta's trendy northern neighbor. A few kilometers from the center of Kuta, away from the packs of Australian and Japanese surfers that rule the tourist strip, Europe's well heeled revel in their own barefoot Balinese playground.

Once a quiet village, Seminyak is now one of a handful of settlements that have been engulfed by Kuta's vacatino megalopolis, with its T-shirt shops, tawdry bars and touts. But Seminyak has remained distinct in style and clientele, playing shiraz to Kuta's ice beer.

"It's chalk and cheese," said Arthur Chondros, an Australian who helped start Ku De Ta three years ago and now manages the restaurant and bar. "Seminyak is a bit more outgoing and a bit more risky. It's got an opinion."

People who stay in Seminyak are for the most part long-term visitors, guidebook émigrés whose weeklong visits turned into monthlong sabbaticals. Some have taken up residence, setting up businesses.

They are backpackers all grown up and wielding credit cards. They don't write postcards; they send text messages on their mobile phones.

I discovered Seminyak only recently, in October, despite at least a dozen visits to Bali over the last decade. Allergic to Kuta's carnival atmosphere, I typically leave Ngurah Rai International Airport south of Kuta and head literally for the hills - to Ubud and the highland rice paddies beyond it.

But if Kuta is boisterous in the extreme, Ubud and its environs offer what verges on an excess of serenity. A few days of quiet contemplation amid its dragonflies and amphibian nocturnes is enough to make anyone pine for a beery Australian singalong. So when some friends decided to rent one of Seminyak's many luxury villas, I eagerly signed on.

Seminyak provided the perfect balance of seclusion and exhibition, a polished port of call for those staying in the villas moored in the nearby rice paddies. And unlike Ubud, Seminyak has a beach, the quiet end of the beach that makes Kuta one of the world's famous surfing spots.

Kuta was also the target of terrorists in October 2002, when more than 200 people were killed by a bomb at a nightclub; the area now has an ephemeral air. Fewer people have visited Bali since then: Tourism dropped by about half, chilled by the Kuta bomb, severe acute respiratory syndrome and a bomb in Jakarta. The Balinese economy was hard hit, and local people suffered.

In its consular information sheet, the U.S. State Department continues to warn that "Indonesia is experiencing an ongoing terrorist threat," particularly from the Jemaah Islamiyah organization. It says that the terrorist attacks in Jakarta and Bali took place in areas with large numbers of foreign tourists and expatriates, and clearly indicate that a security threat extends to private citizens. The travel warnings are on the Web at travel.state.gov/travel.

Lately, though, visitors are returning in bigger numbers, as monthly arrivals of foreigners to Bali's airport have recovered to roughly two-thirds their level before the bombing.

For the traditional visitor, Seminyak has a selection of fine hotels, including the beachfront Oberoi, which resembles a traditional Balinese village. One of Bali's first luxury hotels, it was designed in the early 1970s by the Australian architect Peter Muller, who also designed the Amandari Resort near Ubud. The Oberoi is such a landmark that the entire area around it at the northern end of Seminyak is often referred to simply as Oberoi.

Most of the people who stay in that area, however, wouldn't be caught dead in a hotel, no matter how luxurious. Renting villas is the thing there, which affords distance from crowds but proximity to the scene. Many villas are a short drive away.

"People want to go to restaurants and bars and be where the action is," said Dan Brooks, a documentary photographer from London who came to Indonesia to film Komodo dragons and ended up staying to manage and rent villas for a company called Elite Havens. The first villas in Bali, according to Brooks, were built in the 1970s by disenchanted trust-fund kids who got tired of roughing it in Bali's simple local huts. For a few thousand dollars, they built respectable Balinese-style villas, open-plan affairs with several bedrooms under traditional, thatched roofs. When they went home for the holidays, they rented out their villas to their friends. An industry was born.

By the 1990s, foreign visitors to Bali discovered that building a villa could be a lucrative investment: The rental income more than recouped the cost of construction and maintenance. The Asian financial crisis fueled the boom in villa-building; when financing for new hotels dried up, Western-trained contractors turned to villa projects.

Now companies like Brooks's match villa owners with tenants. They are gaining such popularity that many businesses around Asia have begun renting villas for exclusive retreats rather than hotels. Not surprisingly, some rival the fanciest luxury resorts. The five-bedroom Istana, for example, sits on a cliff with a sunset view and starts at $1,000 a night.

My friends and I opted for a more bohemian feel, splitting a three-bedroom villa festooned with purple lanterns and throw pillows embroidered with tiny pieces of mirrored glass.

There are choices to fit almost every budget or preference. The three-bedroom Villa Liamika in Seminyak sits about 200 yards from the beach and rents for as little as $400 a night. Farther inland is the four-bedroom Istana Semer, which goes for $375 a night or about $94 a room. The Maharaj, on the other hand, has five bedrooms and rents for around $300 a night, or $60 a room.

If you have enough friends or family members in your group, a villa offers a wonderfully intimate - and economical - alternative to a hotel. Like self-enclosed resorts, they come complete with cooks, maids, security guards and, in our case, a couple of mangy watchdogs. The villa staff can arrange house calls by masseuses or yoga instructors.

If you want to dine in, all you have to do is give the staff a few hours warning. You pay only for the food; the services of the cook are included in the price of the room. At the end of a stay, a generous tip acknowledges their attention to your whims. Most villas are equipped with a stereo, TV and DVD player. Some even have Internet access. With two iPods among our group to pump tunes through the stereo, our villa quickly became a home away from home.

The New York Times

Atheism, a challenge to the faithful

2008-07-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

Atheism is perhaps a new global trend, but it is nearly as old as the idea of God itself.

Due to the increase in religiously motivated violence in many parts of the world and the widening gap between science and religion, the idea is now becoming more inviting, more challenging and, thanks to the Internet, more militant than ever before.

Here the word "atheist" is usually linked to the demonized Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), whose aborted "coup" left a traumatic wound deep inside the consciousness of most Indonesians. That is why, according to Martin Sinaga, a Christian theologian at the Jakarta School of Theology, atheism is more often prejudiced against here than discussed.

In 1949, Achdiat Karta Mihardja published Atheist, a novel about a young Muslim named Hasan in his quest for God in the newly born country charmed by atheistic socialism. The book stirred controversy and Achdiat was intimidated -- even though he never proclaimed himself to be an atheist -- after people misunderstood his novel.

In 2004, he wrote Manifesto Khalifatullah (The Manifesto of God's Successor), which he considered as a sequel to Atheist because in it the quest of God is over, concluding that human beings are the successors of God on Earth.

Books on God, including those that discuss atheism, have never reached Aksara's "top 10" best-selling list, according to the book-stores's marketing manager, Penny Purnawati. (JP/Ary Hermawan)

Responding to the planned publication of books on atheism in Indonesian language, Sinaga said there was nothing to worry about.

"We can't deny their existence. Such books as The God Delusion and God is Not Great are asking the questions that are also asked by the believers.

"Where is God when people are suffering? Where is God when disasters strike? Where is God when there is evil? The main issue is not atheism here but the internal struggle in the quest for God," Sinaga said.

Ihsan Ali Fauzi, a Muslim scholar at the Paramadina Foundation, concurred with Sinaga, saying there was no use in pretending the books never existed or deliberately trying to keep them away from the younger generation.

"The youth, who are mostly Internet literate, would easily find out about it one way or another." he said.

Fauzi argued that religions, if they are true, should be able to survive any attack, and books on atheism should be seen as a test for the faithful.

"Instead of damning these books as poisonous, it would be a lot more productive if we proved that what they claimed was false," Fauzi said.

"This is actually something that we should appreciate as it will sharpen our thoughts," he added.

Nevertheless, both Fauzi and Sinaga both doubted these kinds of books would be widely accepted by the Indonesian public. If they did not resist, they said, the public would simply ignore the books, especially when the big players in the industry, which have bigger promotional budgets, refused to publish them.

Candra Gautama, the editor in chief of Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia (KPG), said it would not be easy to translate a book like The God Delusion.

"The main problem our publishing industry faces is the quality of translation," he said.

Pustaka Alvabet said it would press ahead with its plans to publish "enlightening" books on atheism, despite apprehension they would not sell well or, worse, incite religious violence, confirming what the anti-religion books are saying.

Serambi is also prepared to launch Julian Baggini's A Very Short Introduction to Atheism, which the company's editor in chief Qomaruddin SF said was more "informative" than "provocative".

Time will tell whether books on atheism -- whether or not they have sufficient promotion and high quality translation -- really have a place in Indonesia.

-- Ary Hermawan

Yahoo rejects new offer

2008-07-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

Yahoo has angrily rejected a joint takeover offer from Microsoft and the investor Carl Icahn.

Microsoft would have bought Yahoo's search engine while Mr Icahn would have ended up with the rest of the business.

Yahoo objected to being given only 24 hours to consider the offer and there being no opportunity to negotiate the terms of the deal.

"It is ludicrous to think that our board would accept such a proposal,"

Yahoo said in a statement.

"This odd and opportunistic alliance of Microsoft and Carl Icahn has anything but the interests of Yahoo!'s stockholders in mind," Roy Bostock, chairman of Yahoo, said.

Still for sale

The proposal involved the immediate removal of the Yahoo board as well as its top management.

The statement from Yahoo repeated the offer to sell the entire company to Microsoft for at least $33 (£16.5) a share and suggested that a takeover of the entire company would be much simpler than the proposed restructuring.

Microsoft offered $31 a share for Yahoo in February. On Friday the shares closed at $23.16.

The latest offer comes weeks before Yahoo's 1 August annual meeting, when Mr Icahn will be trying to replace its board with his own slate of directors.

Mr Icahn owns about 5% of Yahoo.

Microsoft has said it is no longer interested in negotiating with the current directors, but will enter talks if a new board is in place in August. [kutamaya]

Hunting Deadly Nazi Medic [ Indonesian version ]

2008-07-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

Perburuan terhadap para bekas petinggi Nazi Jerman tampaknya masih belum berakhir, meski perang telah usai lebih dari 60 tahun silam.

Dalam perkembangan terbaru, para pemburu Nazi menyatakan, mereka memiliki bukti kuat bahwa seorang pelarian rezim Hitler, yang dikenal sebagai si Dokter Maut, bersembunyi di belahan selatan Cile.

Simon Wiesenthal Centre yakin Aribert Heim berada di Patagonia, tempat putrinya diketahui bermukim.

Pusat itu mengirimkan wakil ke kawasan tersebut untuk melanjutkan pencarian.

Pada akhir Perang Dunia kedua, banyak pemimpin Nazi yang ditangkap dan diajukan ke pengadilan kejahatan perang Nuremberg.

Namun beberapa bunuh diri, seperti Adolf Hitler, dan ada juga yang menghilang antara lain dengan bantuan organisasi pro-Nazi, seperti Odessa.

Para pemburu Nazi --khususnya mendiang Simon Wiesenthal-- membantu penemuan Adolf Eichmann di Argentina, yang kemudian diculik Israel tahun 1960, diadili dan dieksekusi.

Kamp maut

Setahun kemudian Franz Stangl, yang dulu menjabat komandan di kamp maut Treblinka, ditangkap di Brasil.

Beberapa tokoh Nazi lain baru berhasil diungkap identifikasinya setelah bertahun-tahun, seperti Klaus Barbie yang disebut Tukang Jagal Lyon, yang diadili Perancis pada tahun 1987, dan Walter Rauff yang ditangkap di Cili namun dibebaskan oleh Jenderal Pinochet.

Penyembunyian Josef Mengele --yang dikenal sebagai Malaikat Kematian Auschwitz-- baru diketahui setelah dia meninggal tahun 1979.

Masih ada sejumlah pejabat tinggi Nazi yang belum diketahui, yang kalaupun masih hidup kemungkinan berusia 90 tahunan.

Mereka adalah Alois Brunner, asisten Adolf Eichman yang diperkirakan tinggal di Suriah. Juga tidak diketahui tentang Heinrich Muller, bos Gestapo, yang tidak pernah terlihat lagi sejak Tahun 1945.

Dan, Aribert Heim, yang menjadi dokter di kamp Mathausen, sebelumnya diperkirakan sudah meninggal, namun ditemukan petunjuk tentang sebuah rekening bank yang dicurigai.

Maka dimulailah perburuan atasnya di Cile, tempat putrinya tinggal sejak tahun 1970-an.

'Tanpa pembiusan'

Heim konon menyusun catatan korban yang dia siksa dan bunuh di kamp konsentrasi Mauthausen di Austria.

Dia dituduh membunuh orang-orang Yahudi dengan cara yang luar biasa kejam.

Menurut orang-orang yang selamat dari Holokos, dia melakukan operasi dan amputasi tanpa pembiusan untuk melihat ketahanan korban terhadap rasa sakit.

Menyuntikkan bahan bakar, air atau racun ke dalam jantung korban dilaporkan menjadi cara yang paling dia suka di Mauthausen.

Pasca perang, Heim ditahan pasukan pendudukan AS, tapi tidak didakwa.

Dia kemudian membuka praktik di Baden-Baden, Jerman sampai tahun 1962, ketika dia melarikan diri setelah mendapat informasi bahwa pihak berwajib akan menuntut dia.

Kelompok pemburu mantan pejabat Nazi menawarkan imbalan 315,000 ero (Rp4,5 miliar) untuk informasi yang bisa mengarah ke penangkapan Heim.

Jika dia memang masih hidup, Aribert pasti sudah berumur 94 tahun. [kutamaya]

tips for simple virus problems

2008-07-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

a virus called W95/MTX@M in outgoing e-mail.

The question is, of course, how effective is it?

When I checked the ISP's website, I learned that they would only scan all e-mail messages and their attachments. They would discard a message or an attached file if they find a virus in it. The problem is, what if the message or the file is important? The intended recipient will never receive it. Obviously, what we would prefer the ISP to do is to sterilize the message and then deliver it to the addressees.

If you have a Yahoo e-mail account and you use it to send files, the attached files will also be scanned by Norton Antivirus.

Better still, the service is free. However, I have found out that it does not work with files created with Lotus WordPro.

Real Time Protection

The best protection against viruses should be a continually updated antivirus program installed in our computers plus a proper system for handling e-mail messages and attachments. We can still receive important messages and files sent to us, but the antivirus program will clean them for us automatically.

Nowadays there are several ways in which we can subscribe to services that protect our computers from these unwelcome intruders.

One of them, which I have mentioned a couple of times in this column in the past, is to subscribe to online virus protection offered by companies such as McAfee (www.mcafee.com).

At the moment, McAfee is offering a two-year subscription to Online VirusScan for US$39.90. You will need a 24-hour access to the Internet to really benefit from the service, though. There are also free services available from other companies. Trend Micro's PC Cilin House Call (www.trendmicro.com), for example, will also check your system remotely. However, as expected from a free service, it does not provide a real-time protection against viruses. What the visiting doctor does is just to detect a virus if it exists on your computer. You will have to kill it yourself. PC Cilin does offer information on the steps that you can try.

AVG Antivirus (www.grisoft.com/html/us_index.cfm) has gone a lot further by offering a free antivirus program. Called AVG 6.0, it offers nice features such as Resident Protection, E-mail Scanner, Scheduled Tests and Free Updates on a monthly basis, Automatic Update and a Virus Vault for keeping infected files contained. AVG also offers commercial services that include unlimited support for this free program.

Besides AVG Antivirus, McAfee and Trend Micro, there are other companies that also make very powerful commercial antivirus programs.

Symantec's Norton Antivirus is usually considered the best (www.symantec.com), but Panda Software (www.pandasoftware.com) also provides an award-winning antivirus program for home and business users.

If you have a virus problem, you can also take advantage of the evaluation version of antivirus products that you may download from the Web. Trend Micro and AVG Antivirus currently offer PC Cilin 2000 for a free trial period of 30 days.

One thing to keep in mind is that once you have chosen a particular antivirus program, you had better stick to it. The PC's performance usually degrades significantly if more than one antivirus program is running at the same time. These antivirus programs consume a lot of memory, too. If you want to switch programs, make sure that the old antivirus program is completely uninstalled before you install the new one.

Another thing about viruses is that a lot of information about them is also available at our disposal. To learn more about this particular virus, for example, we can go to McAfee Virus Information library (http://vil.mcafee.com/default.asp?). Here we can search for information on W95/MTX@M. The comprehensive information even includes the manual steps that you can take to get rid of it -- including deleting the infected files.

Antivirus Best Practices

Some types of computer viruses come into our mailbox and infect our system the moment it appears in the Preview window. This is very sneaky, because we do not have the chance to protect ourselves. What I have done to protect myself is to close the Preview window in my Outlook Express.

The downside is that I cannot immediately see the content of an e-mail message when Outlook Express is running. On the other hand, I now have the chance to check the credibility of each incoming message before double-clicking on it to see what it contains.

To close the Preview window in Outlook Express, click on the View menu item, and then on Layout. In the dialog box, uncheck Show preview pane, and then click OK.

What about dubious attachments? You must always check the names of the attached files. Be extremely careful if the names end with .com, .exe, .txt, .pif, .vbs and .bat. Some virus makers have tricked a lot of victims into believing that they are receiving benign picture files by inserting .jpg or .pic into the filenames, but they still end with .vbs or .exe.

As viruses can also come in document files in the form of macros, how can you protect against them? The best practice is never to open a file unless you are expecting it from the sender. If you receive an attached file that you do not expect, it is a good practice to ask the sender whether he has really sent the file to you. A lot of viruses and worms use our e-mail client program's Address Book to send out e-mail messages completely without our knowledge.

So, a practice that we all should probably adopt is to first inform the recipients that we are about to send them a file before we do it. Better still, we can include the names of the files that we are going to send them.[kutamaya]

Tips of Choosing a school for your children

2008-07-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

The question faced by parents every year is how to choose a new school or consider a school change for their children, a crucial decision that could determine the future of the kids.

But the answer to this question is not easy to come by, putting parents, mainly mothers burdened with the task of finding schools for the children, under stress. Some have been influenced by the trap of schools that aggressively promote their institutions.

Indeed, the ads and leaflets produced by the schools are important to read as a starting point to learn about the schools. But parents should not rely solely on ads when making a choice, as they need more detailed information before making a decision.

In some countries social organizations and governments have made concerted efforts to help parents deciding where to send their children to school. Indeed, today parents, especially those who have access to the Internet, can get information from the Internet for free, in addition to information they pick up from neighbors, friends or groups of students' parents.

Most information available in books or on the Internet is general in nature, but is very useful in making an informed choice. What parents should do is:

Know the options available -- public or private schools. Public schools are by nature secular, while some private schools are run by religious organizations.

In principle, education at public schools, up to junior high school, in line with the government's nine-year compulsory education program, is free. But supplies and uniforms must be purchased, and there may also be special activity fees. Yet with the schools funded by the government, public education is the least expensive option.

But if your choice is a private school, which is the preferred choice for many wealthy parents today, you have to choose from an array of different options -- secular or religious-run schools, boarding or non-boarding schools, subdistrict, district or provincial school, or one outside these areas.

Each choice has its own advantages and disadvantages.

But whatever your pick, the following information is useful for making a choice:

First, consider your child and your family. Does your child need a more challenging environment or more individual attention? Does he need extra help or not? Do you want your child to study at a school within walking distance of your home or outside your neighborhood? Will you have your child bused or will you drive him or her to school?

Second, gather as much information as possible about schools, like their curricula, approach to learning, academic performance.

Third, visit and observe the schools you are interested in, talk to students' parents, teachers and administrators.

Fourth, apply to the school(s) you select. Consider applying to more than one school in case your child is not admitted to your first choice, as competition for places at both public and private schools can be very tough.

Fifth, consider your financial situation, even if your choice is a public school. Today's favorite state schools are not much different from private schools, charging various fees that only students from financially-able families can afford.

Last but not least, do not be afraid of being called picky by others. Choosing a school for your child is an important decision, and you have to do everything you can to give your child every advantage possible. [kutamaya]

Tips to survive the first day of school

2008-07-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

It's time to go back to school after a long break. If your child is like just about every other kid, they're probably a little nervous and excited about the first day.

To help battle the anxiety, the most important tip is to get your children to pack their school bags the night before to prevent a last-minute morning panic. Tell them to make sure they pack everything they'll need for the day, especially gym clothes.

It might help for them to bring a favorite pencil or wear a special outfit on the first day. Help your little one pick a new outfit for the start of the school year -- but the real trick is just to be comfortable and relaxed.

If school requires wearing a uniform, choose the favorite bracelet or watch or something else your youngster really likes.

Once they know the way around the building and are used to the school-day routine, they will probably feel better. If your child still has anxiety after a couple weeks be sure to start a discussion. It might also help to talk to the guidance counselor at school to discuss you child's feelings.

For the student, try to follow these tips to prepare the way for a successful first day -- and every school day: * Get enough sleep * Eat a balanced breakfast to give the energy needed * Go to school with a positive attitude every day * Give school your best * Develop good work habits -- that means writing down assignments and turning in homework on time * Take time with assignments in and out of the classroom -- if you don't understand something, ask the teacher

Once school starts, homework is an important area where parents and children can help each other. For a first-grader, learning to read is as difficult as writing a long essay is for a high school student or as hard as finishing long division. If homework were always easy, there would be no point doing it.

Children may act like their life is on hold until that homework is completed and it's common to hear parents say: ""You can do that after you finish your homework.""

Well, there's a good reason why adults make a big deal out of homework. Homework is a great tool to teach responsibility and accountability. That's why it's so important.

Children should do homework in a quiet place without clutter and confusion. The child should have a clean, quiet study area that's free of distractions.

Parents might help by setting up a special quiet place in the house especially for study and stocking it with pencils, erasers, a ruler, a snack and anything else they might need. Teachers can help, they can check their pupils' notes to make sure they have written down all of the assignments and check their backpack to make sure nothing is forgotten.

Helping children learn is the teacher's job. Parents must ask the teacher for this extra attention if they want it.

Sometimes children struggle with homework. Don't be embarrassed if this happens to your child. Everyone learns at a different pace.

Some children might have to study for two hours instead of one, or might have to practice multiplication tables nine times instead of five to really remember them. The important thing is to put in as much time as your child needs to understand the lessons.

You may need to cut back on your children's playtime, soccer practice, or piano lessons until they are back up to speed.

If your children have fallen behind in schoolwork because of an illness or family emergency, ask the teacher for an extension on the assignments and maybe some extra help after school. Most teachers are happy to help a student who is trying to learn.

Once you know what works for you, you'll be on your way to success!

Good luck for the next school year.

Dr. Donya

[kutamaya]

Some truly basic tips for hunting up information

2008-07-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

Last week, a friend asked me to translate a short excerpt containing the principles of the Indonesian banking system from Bahasa Indonesia into English. She e-mailed me the text and then she called me and told me that she needed it in one hour. I took a look at it and said: ""No problem. You'll get it in 15 minutes.""

After we hung up, it occurred to me that there might be an English version of this excerpt and I might not need to translate it for her. So I went to Google, typed in the English title for the excerpt and voila! I immediately called her. I couldn't help laughing as I told her how easy it was for me to translate the stuff. Then I told her to check it out on Google so that she would not have to wait for my e-mail to get to her inbox.

The search engine is a very powerful tool when it comes to getting information quickly. However, there are basic and advanced techniques that you need to master if you want to get to the right website as fast as possible.

The techniques, of course, depend on the type of information that you want to find. I will use personal experiences to show you the techniques that I usually use. Keep in mind that my techniques are still far from perfect. I just know that not everyone is familiar with even the most basic techniques of using a search engine.

Begin with a strategy

As every information-hunting trainer will tell you, you have to start by thinking of a strategy. Using just any keyword that comes to mind will not always take you to the information that you are after. You will usually have to narrow your search by adding more words to your keyword.

Here is a real-life example. Another good friend of mine was contacted by a headhunter. After some discussion, he was asked to let them know how much he was earning at his current job. He asked me whether he should reveal the true figure or mark it up slightly so that he could get a better salary should he decide to jump ship.

I did not have an answer for his question, as no one has ever hunted my head so far. However, I knew he could find a lot of good advice on the Internet. I thought of a phrase that would call up all the documents on the Web that would let him know what to do. I said to him, ""Why not use Google and search for 'how to deal with headhunters?'""

To check whether or not I had given him a bad suggestion, I tried it myself at home. To my surprise, the first item on the list matched the keywords I gave him, word for word. There were many other sites that my friend could also browse for suggestions.

Then, I thought, ""Why not add 'salary issues' to further narrow the search?"" The resulting list contained a ""dos and don'ts"" item that would give him exactly the advice that he needed. And it was there for free!

Use quotation marks

I am not a native speaker of English and I am very bad at memorizing new phrases and words. I rely on the search engine a lot when I write. Here is an example: Earlier in this article there is the phrase ""jump ship"". Now let me tell you how I came to use that phrase.

I wanted to say ""change job"" in a more elegant way and I vaguely remembered that there was a phrase ""jump boat"". I was not sure whether it was the right idiomatic expression so I used Google to find out. I typed in ""jump boat"" in the keyword box.

Note that this time I put the two words inside quotation marks. What these marks did was tell the search engine that I wanted documents that contained these two words in precisely the same order and without being separated by another word. Without the quotation marks, I would have gotten numerous documents that contained the two words in random order. In addition, the two words might also have appeared in different parts of the same document. So using quotation marks is the first technique that you should remember.

This time, the search confirmed that ""jump boat"" was not the right expression for ""change job"". I then looked for another word that was somehow related to the word ""boat"". I thought of ""ship"", so I tried ""jump ship"", again using the quotation marks. This time it was clear that I had found the right expression.

Use wild cards

Remember the days when we still worked in DOS, the computer operating system that existed long before the Windows era? We used the wild cards almost all the time. It turns out that we can also use them in Google.

I use wild cards especially when I am not sure which preposition to use. English is a terrible language when it comes to prepositions, and that is because it is a living language with a lot of sloppy speakers and writers responsible for the chaos. So, to ensure that ""conform"" should go with ""to"" and not with ""with"", I would use the following keywords ""to conform *"" to confirm this. For a non-native speaker, this can be a bit difficult as English also has ""to comply with"".

Finally, do you say ""on daily basis"" or ""on a daily basis""? Try ""on daily basis"" as the keywords in Google and you will find a long list of documents that contain these three words. However, if you enter ""on * daily basis"" as the keywords, you will know that the latter is the more common usage.

Now, if you happen to have any tricks or strategies for getting at the information that you need as quickly as possible, please, share them with us. [kutamaya]

Teflon: The trick behind the enduring nonstick coating

2008-07-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

Everyone is familiar with Teflon, that non-stick surface noself-respecting housewife can do without. It was discovered by accident by Dr. Roy J. Plunkett in 1938 at DuPont's Jackson Laboratory in New Jersey. Even though it was discovered in 1938, it wasn't used commercially until 1946, and even then, it was only used in industrial applications.

It turned out that Teflon was extremely difficult to work with. Known to science as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), Teflon is inert to virtually allchemicals and is considered the most slippery material in existence. These properties have made it one of the most valuable and versatile materials ever invented. Teflon is slippery and impervious to most corrosive chemicals.

In 1941, when the United States was building the atomic bomb, scientists developed a method to separate two isotopes of uranium. This was accomplished with uranium hexaflouride, a highly reactive chemical. The U.S. government needed something that could coat the insides of tubes and gaskets that would not be eaten away by the uranium hexaflouride. Teflon's properties seemed perfect.

With the funding of the U.S. government, the difficulties of working withTeflon were overcome. That's the history, as DuPont registered the trademark, it has become a familiar household name, recognized worldwide for the superior non-stick properties associated with its use as a coating on cookware and as a soil and stain repellent for fabrics and textile products.

It's so inert that nothing sticks to it; to stick, it would have to reactin some way. So how does it stick onto the surface of a frying pan? Teflon is made up of only carbon and fluorine atoms, it is called a fluorocarbon. This is what gives it its amazing non-stick properties.

Fluorine, due to certain electrochemical properties (you'll thank me for not explaining now), bonds so tightly with the carbon in Teflon that it's virtually impossible for other substances, e.g., scrambled egg, to get a chemical-type grip or a mechanical-type grip.

Chemical attraction

You see, oils and fats have no chemical attraction to fluorocarbons. Thisis why most foods don't stick to Teflon pans. In early days, the Teflon waspressed onto the metal surface after the metal had been ""roughed up"" by abrasion and coated with a primer chemical with lots of microscopic cavities.

The Teflon squeezed into the cavities and stuck to the pan by sheer mechanical strength. But those early frying pans didn't keep their coating very long, because Teflon is so inert that its long molecules slither like wet spaghetti, and it often came loose from the mechanical primer.

In the end, these methods didn't hold up very well in everyday use. If you used a metal utensil on the non-stick surface you would carve off a strip of Teflon with ease. In order to save some cooking pans and a few marriages, the scientist went back to the drawing board to design a better method. So how do they get Teflon to stick to the pan now?

First, they sandblast the pan to create a lot of microscratches on its surface. Then they spray on a coat of Teflon primer. This primer, like mostprimers, is thin, enabling it to flow into the microscratches. The primer surface is then baked at high heat to get a reasonably secure mechanical grip. It is a sticky additive that grabs both metal pan and non-stick molecules. Then there's a second layer of PTFE non-stick that clings to thesticky first layer, and finally the topcoat is a clear PTFE that sticks to the PTFE particles of the midcoat layer. Got all of that?

Non-stick performance and durability are determined by the pan's thickness and the quality of non-stick coating. Overheating and utensil abrasion are the two factors that most affect non-stick durability. A superior thick coating on a thin pan makes no sense, as the pan will overheat easily. The resulting ""hot spots"" will damage even the best non-stick coating. Therefore, pan thickness is essential to non-stick longevity.

Teflon coatings still aren't perfect. Even though it's designed for high heat, it still gets soft when heated to extremely high temperature.

Additionally, if you leave an empty non-stick pan on a hot burner too long, you can roast the surface. This causes the bonds between some of the carbon atoms to break, giving other undesirable stuff a chance to bond. Teflon coatings that wear off cannot be repaired at home. They would have to be re-coated at very high temperatures in factory processes, which is not economical to do on a single pan.

Tip: Cleaning non-stick cookware

Mix one tablespoon of baking soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) and an adequate liquid dish soap with water (enough solution in these proportions to about half fill the pan). Simmer this solution for five minutes in the stained pan.

Be careful, the solution will foam and if it boils over, it may stain theoutside of the pan. Remove from heat and check the pan surface. If the stain still remains, repeat the treatment.

This solution is a strong oxidizing agent and will cause some change in the color of Teflon becoming lighter (No wonder, it is used as whitener in toothpaste).

This bleaching effect does not reduce the non-stick performance of the pan. After the cleaning/stain removing treatment, thoroughly wash and dry the pan; then wipe it with cooking oil to condition before using it again. [kutamaya]

Edelweiss: Eternal flower of the highlands

2008-07-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

Most flower lovers are familiar with edelweiss -- a protected white flower that can be found only in mountainous areas 2,000 meters above sea level.

A tourist purchases a pot of edelweiss from a flower vendor at the Sinila Crater tourist site in Banjarnegara, Central Java. (JP/Agus Maryono)

If you want to see this flower but find the thought of scaling a mountain daunting, you can easily find it in Sikidang and Sinila Crater tourist sites in the area of Mount Perahu, Banjarnegara, Central Java.

Edelweiss is usually associated with mountaineering. It is also known as a flower that symbolizes a boy's love for his girlfriend, or vice versa.

For a mountaineer, edelweiss is proof that he or she has tackled a high mountain. Meanwhile, for a person in love, edelweiss is symbolic of the heights one would climb and the distances one would travel to prove their love for another.

"Edelweiss can remain on the stem for 25 years. The color changes but the flower remains beautiful," said Karso, 30, a mountaineer from Baturaden, Banyumas, Central Java.

In several locations, he added, edelweiss is a protected species, and freely picking the flower is prohibited.

"However, in certain places, it is not forbidden to pick edelweiss. In fact, this flower is freely sold (in those places)," said Karso, who claimed to have picked the flower from the top of Mount Slamet.

Edelweiss is quite expensive if you buy it far from where it is usually found.

However, in the Sikidang and Sinila Crater tourist sites of Banjarnegara, for example, edelweiss is sold at a very low price. A pot of edelweiss in these locations can be purchased for around Rp 2,000. If you buy three pots, a discount applies and the total amount payable is only Rp 5,000.

In locations further away, however, a pot of edelweiss can cost anywhere from Rp 50,000 up.

Other flowers that grow on Mount Perahu, which is close to the Sikidang and Sinila Crater sites, are also available at a low price. These include the flowers locally called bunga cemara lumut (mossy fern flower) and bunga palem gunung (mountain palm flower)

"Yes, we have a large supply of edelweiss here and can always meet an order no matter how big it is," Siti, one of the vendors selling flowers at the tourist site, told The Jakarta Post recently.

There are about 10 other flower vendors selling rare flowers in the area.

Siti said she can sell between 20 and 30 pots of edelweiss plus 10 pots of other flowers per day during the holiday season.

"Indeed, most people seek edelweiss. I don't know why. Perhaps edelweiss is considered the most beautiful.

"For me, however, it is just the same as other flowers," she said.

Those who wish to prove their love for another no longer need to take a strenuous mountain hike to pick their own edelweiss -- they can simply purchase it from vendors like Siti. [kutamaya]

Tips and tricks to salvage flooded items

2008-07-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

Furniture, housewares, even beloved pianos and valuable computers were in harm's way when flooding swept homes in the capital last week.

As the floodwaters receded, mud, stains, mold and possibly rust were left behind.

""Rita"", who returned to her home in Pulomas, East Jakarta, on Wednesday after a week camped out at a relative's home, was greeted by a depressing mess.

Valuable imported speakers were irreparably damaged, rotten food in the refrigerator gave off a terrible stench and her clothing was soiled.

""It's going to cost me Rp 1 million to have the clothes and bedding cleaned at the laundry, but it's got to be done,"" she said. ""I'm cleaning up and throwing away a lot of stuff. I'm going to pare back to what I really need.""

For advice on salvaging furniture and household goods, we called on some experts in the capital. Hopefully, their tips will save you a trip to the dump.

Wood

Aris, a designer from Mahoni Furniture in South Jakarta recommended that, as soon as the floodwaters had receded and the sun had begun to shine, wooden furniture be taken outside and allowed to dry in the open air.

There are several kinds of wood, such as plywood, which should never be allowed to get wet, as it leads to swelling, causing irreparable damage. However, for furniture made from teak, for instance, a week or two in floodwaters should not cause lasting damage.

""Teak can endure a lot of water and heat. If the top coat or finish on the furniture is up to scratch, it only needs to be dried and then wiped with a soft cloth,"" Aris said.

Carpenters usually use varnish to coat teak furniture. Varnish could be bought at the market, and a higher price was indicative of quality, Aris added.

Rattan

Rattan furniture is more vulnerable to damage than other types of wood, but a lot depends on the quality of the rattan. Aris said that if the flooding was not too severe, rattan furniture should be checked after it had dried out to see whether it was still strong or had worn out, as water can easily damage the rattan fibers.

If the rattan was still strong, it was advisable to treat the furniture with varnish or paint.

""Besides appearance, the chemical in the paint is important in protecting the rattan from sunlight and also water. So if they are affected by flooding, the damage will only affect its coat of paint.""

Brass

If inundated for a week or more, brass-coated goods will usually start to peel and require professional restoration.

Tari from Krisna Kerajinan Kuningan said, however, that if the items were under water for only two or three days they could usually be salvaged by allowing them to dry (although not under direct sunlight) and then wiping them carefully with a dry cloth.

Tari said if there were stains or mud on the items, they should be rubbed with a soft cloth and lukewarm water. They could then be polished with Brasso, a popular product for treating brass-coated items.

Iron

For furniture made of iron, the worst-case scenario is corrosion.

Ling Ling from Subur furniture in Central Jakarta recommended that the goods be allowed to dry and then cleaned up using sandpaper to get rid of rust.

""After being dried and cleaned, it is also important to paint the iron because it will prevent corrosive damage, as there is no way of ensuring the weather will be dry all the time. Who knows if the rain will continue and the surroundings are damp,"" Ling Ling said.

Spring Beds

Most spring beds affected by flood waters are destined for the dump because the cost of restoring them is about the same as purchasing a new one.

Still, it's worth checking the condition of the springs (the most vulnerable part of the bed).

If the springs are not damaged, but only wet, dry them immediately and clean them using a dry cloth. Other parts of the bed such as the cover and the foam stuffing can be changed at a service center.

Dealers or producers of well-known brands usually have their own service centers.

Sofas

If a leather sofa gets wet (assuming it was not submerged for too long), wipe immediately using a sponge or chamois soaked in lukewarm water and a small amount of mild soap. Then gently wipe dry with a cloth. Never use saddle soap, shoe polish, oil, vinegar or any chemical substance to clean the leather.

Wawa from Maxi Leather Son in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, warned that leather goods were sensitive and needed special treatment.

In cases of severe damage, Wawa advised checking the condition of the sofa to determine whether it needed reupholstering or could be coated with a special leather ointment (which she described as a homemade ""family secret"").

The ointment allowed the leather to ""rejuvenate"" by itself.

""Such a treatment could also be applied to leather jackets or pants. One thing to remember is that leather garments cannot be washed.""

Carpet

Different types of carpet need different treatments. According to Wahyu, coordinator of operations at the Kuwera Jaya cleaning service company in East Jakarta, the thinner the carpet, the more difficult it is to clean.

""If it's really wet and isn't glued to the floor, just take it outside and dry it in the sun,"" Wahyu said, adding that, after it had dried, a vacuum cleaner should be used to get rid of any dirt still attached in the carpet.

For fixed carpets, the process is more complicated and involves special devices such as wet and dry vacuum cleaners, polishers and blowers -- so you probably need to call the experts.

Piano

If the damage is not too severe, pianos can be disassembled once dry, but be careful, because they contain lots of small screws.

Wipe each part using a clean cloth, and be careful you don't miss anything -- if even one small part is still wet or humid, it will affect the sound produced by the piano.

A mechanic at Sigma Piano House in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, Tamsil, said, ""Hopefully it is not the mechanical part of the piano (located inside the instrument) that is damaged because it is very expensive. Even a small spare part of that kind costs Rp 3 million.""

Tamsil also said the piano wires needed meticulous treatment. Use a dry cloth then wipe them one by one; for the cords connected to them, rub each one using sandpaper.

""Finally, for the piano parts that are made of steel, rub them with any type of car wax,"" Tamsil said.

If your piano still sounds off-key, call a professional tuner.

Computers

Once the hard disk becomes wet, it's basically a goner, because the disk is not water resistant. However, the monitor and the keyboard can still be salvaged if they are not too badly affected by water.

But make sure that the monitor and the keyboard are dry. It is also advisable to open the covers on the monitor and the keyboard so that the inner workings can be dried. [kutamaya]

Indonesian ISPs ban video-sharing Web sites

2008-07-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

At least three Internet companies say they have blocked access to YouTube and MySpace because of an anti-Islam film by a Dutch lawmaker.

The move Tuesday was in response to a decree issued on April 2 by the Communication and Information Ministry.

IndosatM2, a popular Internet Service Provider, and two others, namely Telkomnet Speedy and IndoNet, said they had temporarily blocked YouTube, Multiply and other video-sharing Web sites.

According to IndosatM2 customer service officer, Deddy, in addition to YouTube, popular social networking website, MySpace and video sharing site Liveleak, were also blocked since Monday.

"The ban is based on a ministerial decree from the Information and Communication Ministry related to a recent criminal act,” Deddy told The Jakarta Post, referring to the hosting of an anti-Islam film by Dutch right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders, 'Fitna'.

"We cannot say when the ban will be lifted, but until we receive a follow-up instruction from the DepKomInfo, the blockade will remain,” he added. [kutamaya]

Hotspot & How To Setting [ Indonesian version ]

2008-07-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

Hotspot (Wi-Fi) adalah salah satu bentuk pemanfaatan teknologi Wireless LAN pada lokasi-lokasi publik seperti taman, perpustakaan, restoran ataupun bandara. Pertama kali digagas tahun 1993 Brett Steward. Dengan pemanfaatan teknologi ini, individu dapat mengakses jaringan seperti internet melalui komputer atau laptop yang mereka miliki di lokasi-lokasi dimana hotspot disediakan. oleh

Pada umumnya, hotspot menggunakan standarisasi WLAN IEEE 802.11b atau IEEE 802.11g. Teknologi WLAN ini mampu memberikan kecepatan akses yang tinggi hingga 11 Mbps (IEEE 802.11 b) dan 54 Mbps (IEEE 802.11 g) dalam jarak hingga 100 meter. [wikipedia]

Setting Hotspot:

Pastikan wifi komputer anda telah siap untuk digunakan.
Klik Start-Control Panel-Network Connections, klik kanan pada Wireless Connections pilih View Available Wireless Network
Pilih salah satu jaringan yang akan kita gunakan.
Klik Connect pada tembol di bawahnya.

Untuk terhubung ke internet:

Pada browser yang digunakan inputkan proxy dengan cara:

Klik Tools, Internet options, pilih Tab Connections, LAN Settings
Klik Use a proxy, pada Address masukkan "proxy.xxx.xxx.id Port 8080"
Klik OK

Authentikasi menggunakan alamat email lengkap beserta password

Semoga bermanfaat

[ Cyber War ] Perang Asimetris, Bentuk Perang Baru

2008-07-12T03:11:00.001-07:00

Dewan Riset Nasional (DRN) Komisi Teknis Pertahanan dan Keamanan mengadakan loka karya berjudul, Suatu Pemikiran tentang Perang Asimetris (Asymetric Warfare), di Jakarta, Kamis (10/7). Loka karya ini bertujuan untuk menyosialisasikan pemahaman mengenai perang saimetris kepada masyarakat.

Loka Karya ini menghadirkan tiga pembicara, yaitu, pengajar dari FISIP UI Tamrin A Tamagola, alumni Lembaga Ketahanan Nasional (Lemhanas) Fayakun Andriadi, dan Kepala Pusat Teknologi Elektronika Dirgantara Lembaga Penerbangan dan Antariksa Nasional (LAPAN), Toto Mamanto Kadri.

Dalam paparannya, DRN menjelaskan, perang asimetris adalah suatu model peperangan yang dikembangkan dari cara berpikir yang tidak lazim, dan di luar aturan peperangan yang berlaku, dengan spektrum perang yang sangat luas dan mencakup aspek-aspek astagatra (perpaduan antara trigatra -geografi, demografi, dan sumber daya alam, dan pancagatra -ideologi, politik, ekonomi, sosial, dan budaya. Perang asimetri selalu melibatkan peperangan antara dua aktor atau lebih, dengan ciri menonjol dari kekuatan yang tidak seimbang.

Indonesia sendiri sebenarnya memiliki daftar panjang dijadikan sasaran perang asimetri. Sejak proklamasi kemerdekaan Indonesia pada 17 Agustus 1945, Indonesia terus melakukan perang asimetri terhadap pendudukan Belanda hingga 1950, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM), krisis Timor-Timur, Gerakan Pengacau Keamanan di Papua, dan lainnya.

Tamrin, dalam presentasinya berjudul "Perang Asimetris, Tanggapan dan Penajaman", membahas mengenai ancaman asimetris di bidang sosial-budaya dan agama.

Yang pertama adalah tidak meratanya persebaran suku-suku di Indonesia. Seperti diketahui, di Indonesia terdapat 653 suku bangsa. Akan tetapi dari Sumatra hingga Jawa (kecuali Sumatra Selatan) hanya terdapat beberapa suku mayoritas. Sebaliknya di Kalimantan, Su lawesi, dan Papua, banyak sekali suku bangsa yang menghuni satu kota. Bahkan setengan dari jumlah suku bangsa berada di Papua. Ini dapat menjadi ancaman disintegrasi.

Ancaman lainnya, bangunan keras: demokratisasi, desentralisasi, dan pemekaran wilayah. Desentralisasi pada saat ini, kata Tamrin, sudah kebablasan. Pemekaran juga luar biasa. Di Lombok misalnya, dari sembilan menjadi 18 kelurahan. Banyak sekali gubernur-gubernur yang tidak berkinerja.

Yang terakhir adalah bangunan lunak: kebangsaan, konstitusi, negara dan agama. Menurut Manuel Castells di dalam bukunya, The Power of Identity: The Information Age Economy, Society and Culture, kata Tamrin, dahulu negara adalah pihak satu-satunya yan g memiliki kekuasaan untuk mengatur dan memaksa. Namun sekarang, negara mendapat saingan kelompok yang bahkan membuat negara tidak berkutik, yaitu terorisme lokal, fundamentalis agama dan suku.

Fayakhun Andriadi, yang membawakan presentasi "Asymetric Warfare Strategy", memaparkan mengenai pengaruh teknologi informasi dan komunikasi terhadap perang asimetris. Menurut dia, teknologi informasi dan komunikasi semakin meningkat, dan menduduki peranan utama dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Karenanya, teknologi informasi telah menjadi sesuatu yang bernilai sekaligus dapat menjadi senjata perusak.

"Sekarang ini, lini pertempuan akan bergeser ke lini informasi. Bombardir informasi akan membentuk citra yang tertanam di kawasan lawan dan akan melemahkan posisi lawan," katanya.

Ia mencontohkan ketika Amerika Serikat (AS) dan Uni Soviet terlibat perang dingin yang memuncak di tahun 1980-an. Sungguh naif jika dikatakan Soviet hancur secara alamiah. Justru, AS melancarkan asymetric warfare terhadap Soviet. Amerika dan negara-negara barat pandai memainkan strateginya dalam perang informasi yang lebih bersifat psychological warfare. Secara ideologi, kemunculan glasnost dan perestroika sudah berhasil menyerang ideologis komunis yang telah lama menjadi perekat kesatuan Soviet.

Pembicara terakhir, Toto Marnanto Kadri, memaparkan pengaruh satelit terhadap perang asimetris. Menurut dia, satelit dapat digunakan untuk kepentingan pertahanan dan keamanan, dan memiliki fungsi untuk mengambil potret sinoptik pada daerah konflik, jaringan informasi, pusat komando, pendeteksi serangan misil balistik asing. [ kompas ]

Climate change could be increasing Australian tuna size

2008-07-12T03:09:00.000-07:00

Australia's tuna industry says climate change could be increasing the size of the fish.

The chief executive of the Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Association, Brian Jeffriess, says this year has been excellent for quality and fish size.

Mr Jeffries says this can be partly attributed to climate change and its effect on feed species, such as sardines, in the Great Australian Bight.

For example, this year some of the oceanographers are saying they've never seen south easterly winds in a sustained strong way now that creates a lot of upwellings in the water, that brings nutrients to the surface," he said.

"There's a feed chain which feeds on those - the tuna is virtually the last part of that food chain and benefits from improvements in the other parts of the food chain." ABC

South Korean firm plans electric car plant in Fiji

2008-07-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

Fiji's Attorney General says a South Korean company's plan to manufacture electric cars in Fiji could reduce the country's reliance on fuel.

The company, C and T, makes electric cars and golf carts, and recently won a contract to supply cars for next month's Beijing Olympics.

It's looking for investors for a new assembly plant for electric cars, in Fiji.

Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says the investment could bring in export dollars to Fiji.

"It also has the potential of an export market, because we have very competitive labour rates particularly in comparison to Australia and New Zealand and we are only about three or four hours away from Australia and New Zealand.

"So it has the potential to also earn us some foreign dollars too," he said. ABC

Fiji prepares to name NZ envoy

2008-07-12T03:05:00.000-07:00

Fiji is preparing to name its envoy to New Zealand.

The Fijilive website reports the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Public Utilities, Cama Tuiloma, will take up the post of acting High Commissioner in Wellington.

The Prime Minister's Office is yet to confirm its appointee.

However, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters has welcomed the appointment "given the importance of maintaining diplomatic engagement" with Fiji.

Australia has also invited Fiji to appoint an Acting High Commissioner in Canberra. ABC

Australian students fail numeracy standards

2008-07-12T03:03:00.000-07:00

A review of national numeracy standards has found that too many Australian students are failing to acheive acceptable levels of proficiency.

The Council of Australian Governments commissioned the National Numeracy Review report in July 2006.

The report released today found that by international standards, overall maths achievements by Australian students are good.

But the report says too many students, particular from indigenous backgrounds, aren't meeting acceptable standards.

It cites as a major problem the belief that minimum standards are good enough.

Among its 15 recommendation, is that all states and territories work towards 5 hours per week of maths for primary school students.

It also recommends teachers who are teaching maths out of their area of specialty be given greater support. [ ABC ]

Liburan Usai, Pegadaian Ramai

2008-07-12T03:02:00.000-07:00

MEMASUKI tahun ajaran baru, setiap orangtua sibuk mempersiapkan keperluan anak untuk sekolah. Tak sedikit yang pontang-panting menguras tabungan dan menggadaikan peralatan rumah tangga ke Pegadaian demi biaya sekolah anak.

Ruang tunggu Pegadaian Cabang Cawang yang terletak di Jl Dewi Sartika, Jumat (11/7) siang, itu penuh. Antrean panjang para peminjam yang ingin "menyekolahkan" barang masih tampak hingga waktu tutup kantor berlogo rumah hijau itu. Selama beberapa hari terakhir, antrean panjang di gedung itu menjadi pemandangan biasa. Inilah antrean musiman menjelang tahun ajaran baru, pegadaian menjadi solusi bagi masyarakat yang membutuhkan dana cepat.

Seperti dikatakan petugas Pegadaian Cabang Cawang yang enggan disebut identitasnya, pinjaman yang keluar dalam seminggu ini rata-rata mencapai Rp 400 juta. "Kalau hari biasa uang yang dipinjamkan hanya sekitar Rp 200 juta, sekarang itu naiknya sekitar 100 persen, " tuturnya.

Petugas yang telah bekerja lebih dari 10 tahun itu mengatakan, kebanyakan orangtua yang sulit menutup biaya sekolah anaknya menggunakan jasa mereka akhir-akhir ini. "Jaminan yang diberikan sebagian besar biasanya berupa emas karena ada patokan harga yang jelas dan nilai ekonominya tinggi. Tapi ada beberapa orang yang juga menjaminkan peralatan rumah tangga seperti tape compo, televisi, dan dispenser," ujar bapak dua anak tersebut.

Jaminan yang diserahkan ke Pegadaian juga dicek oleh petugas untuk memastikan apakah masih layak pakai dan bisa digunakan. "Biasanya kalau barang elektronik seperti tape, VCD, televisi, pasti kami cek dulu untuk menentukan nilai barangnya juga. Besaran nilai barang yang dijaminkan itulah yang menentukan besaran pinjaman," jelasnya.

Menurut salah satu peminjam, Agung, kemudahan syarat dan jaminan menjadikan Pegadaian paling diminati sebagai lembaga pemberi kredit dengan jaminan termudah. "Saya terpaksa gadaikan kalung dan gelang istri untuk bayar uang gedung anak saya yang masuk SMP. Kalau mau pinjam bank, syaratnya terlalu rumit, di Pegadaian bisa cair secepatnya," tutur bapak berputra tiga tersebut.

Ia mengaku sudah beberapa kali menggadaikan barang untuk kebutuhan yang perlu dana besar. "Tahun ini masih mending cuma menggadaikan perhiasan istri, dua tahun lalu saya perlu uang untuk sekolahkan dua anak saya yang bersamaan masuk SMP dan SMA, beberapa barang seperti televisi terpaksa 'sekolah' juga disini," ungkapnya saat menunggu antrean.

Tetapi, barang yang di-'sekolah'-kan, kata pria yang berprofesi sebagai pedagang tersebut, selalu bisa ditebus meski waktunya agak lama. "Kalau di sini enaknya bunga itu rendah, saya pinjam Rp 2 juta bunganya cuma 1,3 persen, rata-rata tidak sampai 2 persen per 15 hari," jelasnya.

Bunga yang rendah juga menjadi alasan Minah menggunakan jasa Pegadaian untuk mengatasi masalah uang sekolah anaknya. "Sudah cari pinjaman ke sana-sini, tetap kurang. Ya, mau gimana lagi. Dari pada utang dengan bunga tinggi, saya gadaikan perhiasan yang dulu dikasih ibu mertua ke sini," tuturnya sembari menunggu antrean.

Ibu dua anak tersebut terpaksa "menyekolahkan" perhiasan emas demi membayar uang masuk sekolah SMA anaknya. Sehari-hari ia hanya berdagang kue kecil-kecilan di rumah untuk membantu suaminya yang tukang ojek. "Untuk masuk sekolah putri saya masih kurang sekitar Rp 1 juta, uang dari mana untuk nutup kekurangan itu. Sebelum gadaikan emas ini, saya juga sudah pinjam ke tetangga tapi tak nutup juga," tutur wanita paruh baya itu.

Minah pontang-panting untuk mencari biaya sekolah anaknya kali ini. "Kalau saya, makan seadanya gak papa asal anak bisa sekolah. Liburan kemarin mereka juga bantu saya bikin kue, tapi uangnya juga gak seberapa," katanya.

Ironis, saat anak lain menikmati liburan, ternyata ada yang mengisi liburan untuk bayar uang masuk sekolah. Kini liburan hampir usai, orangtua yang kekurangan dana untuk bayar sekolah anak beramai-ramai ke Pegadaian.[ kompas ]

Software Ajaib dari Fujitsu-Siemens

2008-07-12T02:56:00.000-07:00

Ini terdengar seperti mimpi indah. Bayangkan, sebuah PC yang bisa memperbaiki sendiri software-nya. Namun itulah yang ditawarkan Fujitsu-Siemens, yakni software yang secara proaktif mengenali dan memperbaiki masalah-masalah komputer yang muncul saat itu.

Software ajaib ini akan tersedia pada bulan September mendatang. Software ini menggunakan suite aplikasi yang disebut Questra, yang melakukan monitoring remote secara online dan otomatis memperbaiki masalah-masalah yang ditemukannya. Serupa dengan layanan service desk TI, begitu klaim Fujitsu-Siemens.

Menurut Fujitsu Siemens, software ini akan menyebabkan lebih sedikitnya telepon ke support desk serta menurunnya waktu tunggu sebelum kerusakan diperbaiki. Dengan kata lain, uptime dan produktivitas PC yang lebih baik.

“Melaporkan masalah via telepon atau e-mail ke petugas helpdesk sudah kuno,” kata Richard Schlauri (Executive Vice President of Infrastructure Services, Fujitsu Siemens). “Komunikasi mesin-ke-mesin lebih efisien dan bahkan dapat mencegah munculnya masalah di masa datang,” ambahnya. Ia yakin teknologi ini akan dengan cepat menjadi standar di bisnis layanan TI. kompas

Brunei berminat pimpin tim pemantau internasional di Filipina

2008-07-12T02:55:00.000-07:00

Brunei telah menyatakan minat untuk memimpin Tim Pemantauan Internasional yang mengawasi gencatan senjata antara militer Filipina dan pemberontak Front Pembebasan Islam Moro, MILF.

Menurut Sekretariat MILF, Ketua Partai Pembangunan Nasional Brunei telah meyakinkan kelompok pemberontak tersebut bahwa pihaknya bersedia mengambil alih dari Malaysia begitu Malaysia selesai menarik tentaranya bulan depan.

Malaysia telah memulai penarikan bertahap pasukan perdamaiannya dari Filipina selatan karena lambannya kemajuan dalam perundingan damai antara pemerintah Filipina dan MILF.

Tim pemantau internasional itu terdiri dari tentara Malaysia, Brunei dan Libia serta seorang pakar pembangunan dari Jepang. [ ABC ]

Mahkamah internasional akan usahakan penahanan Presiden Sudan

2008-07-12T02:53:00.000-07:00

Mahkamah Pidana Internasional akan mengusahakan penahanan Presiden Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, atas kejahatan perang di Darfur, menyebabkan Sudan marah dan mengancam upaya perdamaian di kawasan itu.

Jurubicara Deplu Amerika mengatakan kepada wartawan di Washington, tim jaksa berniat mengajukan informasi kepada majelis hakim dan meminta surat perintah penahanan.

Ini adalah upaya pertama di mahkamah independen tersebut, yang berkedudukan di Den Haag, untuk mengenakan dakwaan kejahatan perang atas seorang kepala negara yang masih memegang jabatan.

Pemerintah Sudan merespon dengan marah berita tersebut.

Menteri Luar Negeri Sudan, Al-Samani al-Wasila, mengatakan, Sudan tidak akan pernah tunduk pada Mahkamah Pidana Internasional dalam hal ini. [ ABC ]

Petrol tipped to hit $8 a litre by 2018

2008-07-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

A new report by the CSIRO has warned the cost of petrol could rise to as high as $8 a litre in the next 10 years.

The Fuel for Thought study by the Future Fuels Forum says that would be the worst-case scenario if oil production does not keep up with increasing demand.

Petroleum engineer Phil Hart from the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas believes it will not be long before the demand for oil will outstrip supply.

"Oil production has been essentially flat since 2005, and we have only another couple of years at this same sort of level of production before we start seeing oil production going into decline," he said.

Doctor John Wright from the CSIRO has told ABC's AM program the study also suggests that such an oil shock would have a greater impact than a carbon emissions trading scheme.

"If we, for example, end up, as a result of an emissions trading scheme, [with the] price of carbon dioxide credit at something like $40 per tonne, which is probably reasonably likely, that would increase the price per litre of fuel by about 10 cents," he said.

Monica Richter from the Australian Conservation Foundation has told AM the report should serve as a wake up call to the Federal Government.

"So we need to do two things," she said.

"We need to urgently get [the] Government to help manufacturers re-tool, for building cleaner cars here in Australia.

"And of course the other thing we need to do to help vulnerable families and low income families is for the Government to invest in public transport." [ ABC news ]

High oil prices may be good for film industry

2008-07-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

As energy prices hit historic highs, film studios have been forced to shoulder higher production costs.

But the fuel spike does not spell bad news for everyone in the industry; for some, it is actually a boon.

And for the global industry, economists say that, despite some mixed signals, there is some evidence to support the truism that higher fuel prices boost box office sales by prompting consumers to opt for the local multiplex over longer trips.

A certain kind of film financier has been the most obvious beneficiary of the recent spikes. For instance, Leomax Entertainment, a Los Angeles- and Berlin-based financing and production banner, has found that the jump in oil prices has opened up its financing options.

The company has created a five-year slate using money from an oil-based hedge fund - one of its current projects is a thriller called Short Cut from Adam Sandler's production company - and found financing relatively easier to come by.

"If you need to shelter windfall profits, there's really no better place than the movie business," Leomax boss Ingo Volkammer said.

Basically, that's because tax laws in some countries require that windfall profits are taxed heavily unless the money is quickly invested in an intangible asset like film.

That has prompted oil investors to look more favourably on the film biz - any film, really - because it means that even if a movie loses 30 per cent of its money, investors still come out on top because those losses pale compared with what a government might have taken.

Box office

But the greatest potential upside to oil and fuel price increases lies with ticket sales at the box office.

Economists have long debated how much of a factor petrol prices are on movie attendance.

While there are data showing both sides - and experts say any connection is at best correlated, not causal - several pivotal years of box office growth during the past several decades did come at times of high oil prices.

In 1981 and 1982, for example, oil prices rose roughly 30 per cent and then 10 per cent year-over-year; in that same period, the global box office saw sizeable increases of 8 per cent, then 16 per cent.

In years when oil prices were roughly flat, like 1992, box office rose only 1 per cent.

Other years, however, show little correlation: 2005's notorious 6 per cent drop in box office came when oil prices actually had risen more than 25 per cent.

Economists say oil prices may not so much cause a box office spike as provide a cushion; where other industries see dips in times of recession and high gas prices, the movie industry can stay closer to flat, as the number of people switching to low-cost options like moviegoing offsets the consumers who choose not to spend at all.

University of Michigan economist Paul Edelstein, who co-authored a paper last year titled Retail Energy Prices and Consumer Expenditures, said that even though in his study consumption of events such as live theatre and spectator sports went down during a period of high fuel prices, there was "a positive response" - albeit a small one - for movie tickets.

"It's a low-cost option, so it's conceivable that in the aggregate, the movies don't feel as much pain," he said.

- Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Oil hits record high as supply fears intensify

2008-07-11T10:10:00.000-07:00

Posted 2 hours 26 minutes ago

The price of oil has hit new highs in London and New York.

In London, Brent crude rose to $US147.25 during trade - 56 cents above the record set last week.

Traders say the main reason for the rise is simmering tension over key producer Iran.

Light sweet crude reached $US146.90 in New York, which is 92 cents higher than the previous peak.

- Reuters

Japan charges Greenpeace members over whale theft

2008-07-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

Greenpeace says two of its activists have been charged with stealing a box of whale meat while conducting a covert operation into suspected cases of embezzlement.

The public prosecutors office in Aomori, northern Japan, charged Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki with theft and trespass, the group said in a statement.

A spokesman for the Aomori Public Prosecutors Office declined to comment.

Greenpeace had used the meat as evidence when complaining to prosecutors that members of Japan's whaling fleet crew shipped large quantities of the meat home, which they said amounted to embezzlement.

Japan has come under fire from environmentalists and foreign countries for its whaling programme.

The Government says its whaling is for scientific research purposes.

Commercial whaling was banned under a 1986 international moratorium, but Tokyo has campaigned for a lifting of the ban, saying whaling is part of the country's cultural tradition.

A recent poll showed that a majority of Japanese support whaling, although whale meat is now less popular among the public than in the past.

The country's fleet caught only 551 minke whales compared with a planned 850 in its latest Antarctic hunt, after obstruction by anti-whalers.

- Reuters

Tensions escalate between Russia and Georgia

2008-07-11T10:06:00.001-07:00

Georgia's Ambassador to Russia has been recalled as tensions between the neighbouring countries escalate.

The move comes after Russia admitted to flying fighter jets in Georgian airspace earlier this week.

Georgia says it is recalling its Ambassador from Russia for consultations.

The Ambassador, Erosi Kitsmarishvili, has accused Russia of engaging in an open act of aggression against Georgia.

Russia's Foreign Ministry has admitted that earlier this week, Moscow sent warplanes over the disputed Georgian region of South Ossetia.

The Ministry says the aircraft were sent to cool down hotheads in Georgia and ward off a possible invasion of the breakaway region by Georgian forces.

Both countries have been accusing each other of stoking tensions in South Ossetia and another Georgian region pushing for independence, Abkhazia.

Georgia has threatened to shoot down any Russian military aircraft that violates its airspace.

A senior member of the Georgian Parliament's Defence and National Security Committee has told local media that if Russian military aircraft violate the country's airspace again, then Moscow will collect the wreckage. [ ABC ]

Antarctic ice shelf 'hanging on by a thread'

2008-07-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

It might be the depths of winter in Antarctica but scientists say they're seeing more signs of global warming on the frozen continent.

New satellite photos show the Wilkins Ice Shelf is even closer to breaking from the peninsula. Experts say the effects of warming there now look irreversible.

That may eventually lead to rising sea levels in more populated parts of the world.

Neal Young is a glaciologist with the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in Hobart, and is scrutinising pictures from the European Space Agency.

"What we can see is a sequence of images so you can from late May through to early July, showing this ice shelf, Wilkins Ice Shelf, gradually breaking up," he said.

"We can see large icebergs forming.

"We can see fractures forming in the shelf itself such that it is now reducing down to a slender strip of ice connecting to one island called Charcot Island, and back to another island behind it, Alexander Island."

Inevitable

Dr Young says he expects this ice shelf will break free soon.

"This ice shelf is in the region called the Antarctic Peninsula. This one is on the west side of the peninsula," he said.

"Two sections of another ice shelf called Larsen Ice Shelf on the eastern side of the peninsula broke up over the last decade or so - one section back in 1995 and another one, Larsen B in 2002."

He says it's a progression that calls attention to what's happening in Antarctica - and an irreversible one at that.

"There are indicators of change going on and the message that is coming through now is this change is continuing," he said.

"The way things are trending and what we can see right now, it certainly looks [irreversible]."

World is watching

On the other side of the world, developments are also being watched at the United States National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

Walt Meier is a research scientist there.

"Summertime is becoming warmer in the Antarctic Peninsula area where the Wilkins is and so we have had more melt than in the past, and that's obviously going to make things more susceptible to breaking up," he said.

"We also have had a strong decrease in sea ice in that area particularly in the summertime and that allows warmer ocean currents and oceans waves to kind of buffet that ice shelf, and that also probably contributes to the break up.

"So it's really a fundamentally, at the most basic level, a response to warmer temperatures."

Dr Meier contributed to last October's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He says it's no exaggeration to say the Wilkins Ice Shelf is hanging by the thinnest of threads.

"There is still a fair amount of ice there but one of the things that has been stabilising it is this rather thin kind of narrow slab of ice that is connecting the main part of the ice shelf to an island to the north," he said.

"You can see in the image - the most recent imagery - that that thin kind of connection, that thread so to speak, is getting thinner and thinner.

"And once that breaks away, it is going to destabilise the ice shelf. It is kind of like an arch in a cathedral or something.

"It can be quite a delicate structure but it can be reasonably strong because it is all connected but when you take away that keystone, you suddenly weaken the structure and it could collapse quite quickly."

Adapted from a story by Simon Santow for The World Today, July 11.

Warnings on Australian Medicare changes

2008-07-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

The Australian Government is facing fresh warnings that planned changes to the Medicare surcharge threshold will increase public hospital waiting lists by 200,000.

Catholic Health Australia says it's reached the figure by analysing private health insurance data, and the Government's Treasury estimate that the changes will lead 485,000 people to drop private cover.

The legislation to raise the threshold is currently before a Senate committee.

But the group's Chief Executive, Martin Laverty says an increase in public waiting lists will affect low income earners the most, and the government should reconsider the changes.

"We don't think the proposal to lift the threshold from $AU50,000 to $100,000 for individuals or to $150,000 for couples is appropriate," Mr Laverty said.

"We've asked the Government to give reconsideration to the needs of low-income earners around Australia because after all, it was low-income earners that this change in threshold was actually meant to help." [ radio australia ]

Philippines to probe Australian mine firm over rights abuses

2008-07-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

The Philippines Commission on Human Rights says an Australian mine operator will be investigated for alleged human rights abuses.

Oceana Gold (Philippines) Inc. would be investigated for rights violations at its gold and copper mine site in Didipio in the country's north.

Commission chairwoman Leila de Lima says the company has been accused of forcibly demolishing more than 180 houses owned by a local tribal community.

Other alleged abuses include a connection to "killings, forced negotiations and harassments" .

In a statement Oceana Gold says it continues to abide by laws governing its mine site

The firm is a unit of Australia's Oceana Gold Corporation and the 320-million-dollar project is due to start production in 2010. ( radio australia )

"Samba Dance" Mr. Botelho Embraer - Brazil [ Indonesian version ]

2008-07-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

Dari keadaan porak-poranda, Botelho sanggup membalik nasib Embraer. Apa kunci suksesnya?

Sungguh, proses turnaround memang bisa berawal dari hal yang dipandang sederhana. Simaklah pengalaman seorang lelaki bernama Mauricio Botelho. April 2001, dia mengirim kotak kecil dengan tujuan "Robert Milton, CEO Air Canada di Montreal". Paket itu dikirimnya dari Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, tempat Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica (Embraer) bermarkas. Botelho adalah CEO pabrikan pesawat jet mini ini. Brazil, negara dunia ketiga itu punya pabrikan pesawat?

Ya, dan jangan keliru hanya mengidentikkan Brazil dengan sepak bola. Jauh sebelum Indonesia punya PT Dirgantara Indonesia (dahulu IPTN) yang nasibnya tak keruan itu (selain menghabiskan uang negara), Kementerian Aeronautika Brazil telah mendirikan Embraer sebagai pabrikan pesawat komersial dan militer pada 1969. Di awal 1980-an, Embraer bahkan mengalami masa jaya yang tak pernah dikecap IPTN. Tahun-tahun itu, seperti diungkap Sean Silcoff (Financial Post, 26 Maret 2005), Embraer menjadi bagian dari kemajuan industri militer Brazil. Penjualannya per tahun mencapai US$ 2 miliar, dan berencana melebarkan sayap dengan terjun ke industri pembuatan tank tempur serta kapal selam nuklir standar NATO.

Lantas, apa yang dikirimkan Botelho? "Halo, Robert," ujar Botelho ketika Milton mulai memutar keping DVD yang dikirim dari Sao Jose itu. Selanjutnya, laiknya sales, dia mempromosikan pesawat jet mini buatan Embraer sekaligus menyatakan kegembiraannya bila Air Canada juga berkenan menggunakan pesawat made in Brazil itu. Saat itu, Milton juga diinformasikan bahwa sebuah truk yang mengangkut interior pesawat Embraer yang sanggup menampung 70-118 penumpang tengah berkeliling Amerika Utara. "Tuan Milton, kami amat senang bila Anda sudi melihatnya," ujar Botelho merayu.

Botelho memang harus bekerja keras menjual pesawat jet mini yang diproduksinya. Semuanya bermula ketika di tahun 1982, krisis utang Meksiko meledak. Seperti penyakit menular, krisis utang pun menyebar hingga ke Brazil yang menggoyangkan perekonomian Negeri Samba itu. Dan Embraer, sebagai BUMN Brazil termasuk yang terkena getahnya: proyek-proyek bisnis berkurang, termasuk dari militer.

Seperti kemesraan yang terlampau cepat menyingkir, nasib Embraer tak ubahnya roller coaster. Penjualan terus menyusut, sehingga laba entah menguap ke mana. Puncaknya terjadi tahun 1994. Tahun itu, rapor kinerja keuangan benar-benar merah menyala: pendapatan hanya US$ 177 juta (tahun 1989 masih US$ 700 juta), dan kerugian mencapai US$ 190 juta, sehingga lebih dari 6 ribu karyawan (setengah dari total karyawan) dirumahkan demi mengurangi beban.

Menghadapi hal itu, Pemerintah Brazil sebagai pemilik tak punya jalan lain untuk menyelamatkannya kecuali memprivatisasi. Namun, laiknya negara berkembang, Embraer telah menjadi simbol kebanggaan. Banyak pihak menentang penjualan itu. Hanya karena perekonomian Brazil memburuk (krisis minyak akibat Perang Teluk II) dan kebutuhan untuk menyelamatkan BUMN-lah yang membuat privatisasi jalan terus. Pemerintah Brazil juga tak mau bertambah pusing, karena sebelumnya utang Embraer sebanyak US$ 700 juta telah dihapusbukukan, sementara uang sejumlah US$ 350 juta telah diinjeksikan agar tetap bisa beroperasi.

Akhir 1994, di tengah protes publik yang masih berhamburan, Embraer yang napasnya terus megap-megap resmi dilepas ke swasta. Sejumlah 45% saham pemerintah dijual kepada orang kaya Brazil, Julio Bozano. Dan September 2005, mendaratlah Botelho sebagai CEO baru Embraer.

Botelho ditarik Bozano karena reputasinya. Sebenarnya, Botelho adalah orang yang tak punya latar belakang dunia aerodinamika sama sekali. Namun, dia punya prestasi segudang. Di antaranya, sukses menangani sejumlah proyek konstruksi seperti generator pembangkit listrik tenaga nuklir, pabrik baja, petrokimia, dan memimpin sebuah perusahaan rekayasa papan atas di Brazil. Bozano berharap Botelho bisa mengeluarkan tuah tangan dinginnya untuk memperbaiki nasib Embraer.

Harapan itu, kini (2005) bolehlah dikatakan telah benar-benar dipenuhi. Seperti dikutip Fortune (11 Juli 2005), Embraer sekarang disebut-sebut sebagai salah satu privatisasi tersukses di dunia, dan termasuk pelaku bisnis di industri penerbangan dengan kinerja yang mengagumkan. Tahun lalu, penjualannya meningkat 61% dibanding tahun 2004, mencapai US$ 3,4 miliar. Sementara itu, laba meningkat dua kali lipat menjadi US$ 380 juta. Embraer bukan lagi perusahaan yang amburadul. Dan itu jelas buah dari tangan dingin Botelho, yang kini berusia 63 tahun.

Sejatinya, tantangan Botelho tidaklah mudah. Ketika dia tiba di Embraer, perusahaan ini benar-benar hancur lebur. Proyek bisnis yang didapatkannya hanya US$ 200 juta, sementara utang yang membelit mencapai US$ 400 juta. Namun, Botelho memang eksekutif jempolan sehingga di Brazil, bahkan di Amerika Latin, kelak dia disebut the living business legend. Semua situasi yang buruk itu diusirnya jauh-jauh.

Yang membedakan Botelho dari para eksekutif biasa adalah insting bisnisnya. Pada pertemuan sebelum mengambil kendali Embraer, dia bertanya pada CEO ad interim, untuk menanyakan bisnis Embraer. "Dia mengatakan, 'Bisnis kita adalah membuat pesawat'," ujar Botelho. "Saya katakan, 'Salah. Bisnis Anda bukan sekadar membuat pesawat, tapi melayani pelanggan'," tandasnya untuk menunjukkan betapa paradigma bisa membuat orang keliru dalam melakukan bisnis.

Berangkat dari paradigma tersebut, Botelho melakukan serangkaian perubahan. Untuk urusan SDM, faktor kepuasan pelanggan terus digenjot. Bahkan para teknisi tak luput dari penekanan arti penting kepuasan pelanggan. DVD yang dikirimnya pada Milton merupakan salah satu wujud konkret tentang arti penting kepuasan pelanggan dalam pemahaman Botelho -- atau tepatnya bagaimana membuat pelanggan tertarik untuk kemudian dipuaskan dengan layanan yang paripurna.

Sewaktu menerima DVD player seukuran tangan dari Brazil, Milton mengaku sama sekali tak mengenal CEO yang satu ini. Terlebih, Kanada juga punya pabrikan jet mini untuk penerbangan regional yang jauh lebih terkenal, Bombardier Inc. Bahkan markas besar Air Canada dengan pabrikan ini bersebelahan di Montreal, hanya sepelemparan batu. Bagaimana bisa Air Canada mempertimbangkan untuk membeli pesawat buatan Brazil? Begitu pikirnya.

Toh, iklan dan rayuan Botelho begitu menggoda dan sayang untuk dilewatkan begitu saja. Milton memenuhi ajakan Botelho, melihat truk yang mengangkut interior pesawat, untuk kemudian jatuh cinta pada pesawat made in Brazil itu. "Desain dan kenyamanannya benar-benar menggoda untuk orang-orang penerbangan," ujar pria yang kini menjabat CEO Ace Aviation Holdings, induk Air Canada.

Kemampuan menjual dan menarik pelanggan memang menjadi kelebihan Botelho. Akan tetapi, seperti disebut di atas, insting bisnislah yang menonjol dari lelaki ini, yang kelak menyelamatkan Embraer. Dan ide jet mini untuk penerbangan regional adalah bukti naluri bisnis itu, yang kelak menjadi kunci sukses turnaround Embraer.

Tahun 1990-an, tak satu pun pabrikan pesawat yang terbilang sukses di pasar jet mini berkapasitas 70-110 penumpang. Pasar masih dikuasai pesawat berbadan lebar karena penerbangan regional (point to point) belum marak. Ide jet regional kala itu tidaklah menarik. Namun, Botelho berani menggebrak pasar ini, bahkan dengan pesawat berkapasitas 50 seat.

Sebenarnya, Bombardierlah pelopor pasar jet regional, bahkan telah menjadi pemimpin pasarnya. Hanya, ketika Botelho melakukannya dari Brazil, maka perlahan-lahan, kian terbukalah pasar yang menghubungkan antara satu kota kecil dengan kota kecil lainnya. Dan Botelho beruntung karena idenya mendapat dukungan dari para pemegang saham. Bahkan, Pemerintah Brazil turut mengucurkan bantuan sebesar US$ 98 juta.

Yang lebih membuat Botelho beruntung adalah kenyataan bahwa sambutan pasar cukup baik. Maskapai banyak yang tertarik mengembangkan penerbangan point to point dan tertarik membeli jet regional. Embraer 145 pertama dijual ke Continental Express pada 1996. Kemudian menyusul The American Eagle. Dan nasib semakin baik ketika Bombardier ternyata tak memiliki keunggulan komparatif seperti yang dimiliki Embraer: buruh Brazil yang murah. Biaya tenaga kerja yang rendah ini memungkinkan Embraer menghajar Bombardier lewat harga yang lebih bersaing.

"Ini adalah sebuah contoh tentang bagaimana strategi dapat membuat perusahaan sukses, atau sebaliknya, membunuh manakala strategi itu keliru," ujar Botelho bangga. Dan dia memang patut bangga karena hanya dalam waktu tiga tahun kepemimpinannya (1998), Embraer yang merugi mulai meraup laba. Bahkan, perlahan tapi pasti, dengan pengembangan tipe pesawat jenis terbaru yang kapasitasnya variatif (di antaranya 110 seat dan 145 seat), pangsa pasar Embraer terus meningkat, terakhir mencapai 35%, sementara Bombardier 65%. Para pelanggannya juga meluas. Maskapai ternama JetBlue pun menjadi pelanggannya. Selain JetBlue, sejumlah maskapai low cost juga memesan pesawat Embraer. Di antaranya Paramount Airways dari India, dan FlyBE dari Inggris. "Mereka mengecoh semua ekspektasi orang," kata Ricardo Fernandez, analis ING Financial Market di Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Benar. Dan bukan cuma mengecoh. Keberanian Botelho menantang CEO Air Canada di tahun 2001 patut diacungi jempol karena langkah itu ibarat masuk ke kandang macan, mengingat Kanada adalah markas besar Bombardier. Di sini, Botelho beruntung lantaran Milton adalah sosok CEO yang cukup fair dalam berbisnis.

Setelah melihat truk yang mengangkut interior Embraer, Milton -- yang merasa tertarik -- sepenuhnya sadar bahwa tidaklah mudah begitu saja memesan dengan mengabaikan Bombardier yang notabene produk sesama anak negeri Kanada. Maka untuk membuat sistem yang fairness dengan tanpa melukai siapa pun, dia mengundang para pabrikan -- Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, dan Embraer tentunya -- untuk datang sekaligus mendemokan produk masing-masing. Milton juga mengundang media, analis, politisi, sejumlah pejabat Pemerintah Kanada, serta frequent flyer. "Kami tanya mereka, â€˜Apakah penting Air Canada membeli pesawat buatan Kanada?â€™," kenang Milton. "Mereka menjawab, kita harus membeli pesawat terbaik." Jawaban itulah yang membuka jalan Embraer melaju lebih kencang, karena Air Canada menjatuhkan pilihannya pada pesawat made in Brazil.

Kini, dari keterpurukan Embraer telah melangkah dengan mantap. Memiliki 16.878 karyawan (per Juni 2005), Embraer menatap masa depan dengan cerah. Botelho pun senang dengan kondisi yang ada mengingat pasar penerbangan regional terus bertambah secara drastis. Sejak 1995, tercatat rute jet regional telah meningkat 1.000% di Eropa, dan 1.400% di Amerika Serikat. Kebanyakan peningkatan ini datang dari penerbangan komuter yang punya rute sendiri, atau rute kontrak untuk menghubungkan kota-kota kecil dengan hub miliknya. Maskapai yang aktif mengembangkan pasar ini, di antaranya Continental Express, American Eagle, Mesa, dan Horizon.

Namun, seperti halnya persaingan Airbus dan Boeing di pesawat berbadan lebar, langkah Embraer untuk menapak jenjang yang lebih tinggi, terus diintai Bombardier. Perseteruan mereka malah tak kalah panas dari rivalitas Airbus-Boeing. Di satu kesempatan, Embraer sukses menghantam Bombardier di pasar pesawat 80-118 seat dengan pesanan dari 170 perusahaan, termasuk GE Commercial Aviation Services. Kali lain, Bombardier mengalahkan Embraer lewat pesawat berkapasitas 70-86 seat.

Tentang siapa yang unggul di pasar ini, CEO Bombardier, Pierre Beaudoin hanya berkomentar singkat, "Aturan main di sini adalah menyeimbangkan antara kenyamanan dan biaya operasional." Maksudnya, siapa yang akan menang adalah mereka yang yang bisa mendesain pesawat yang nyaman, dengan biaya murah. Beaudoin sendiri kini tengah menekan Embraer lewat pesawat yang lebih segar, C-series dengan kapasitas 100-135 seat.

Siapa kelak yang akan unggul, memang tidak mudah diprediksi, sekalipun Embraer punya momentum untuk terus mengiris kue Bombardier mengingat jumlah pesanan pesawat yang terus berdatangan. Termasuk dari maskapai ternama, Southwest Airlines. Namun, menurut Ricardo Fernandez, tanpa pesanan Southwest sekalipun, Embraer setidaknya akan menjual 130 pesawat per tahun, selama 6 tahun ke depan.

Terlepas dari siapa yang menang, turnaround yang diraih Embraer, membuat Botelho senang bukan kepalang. Setidaknya, menunjukkan pada dunia betapa bisa kompetitifnya perusahaan Brazil (seandainya Dirgantara juga bisa seperti ini!). "Pers internasional kerap kali menghubungkan perusahaan Brazil dengan persepsi bahwa kami membakar hutan, membunuh anak-anak, tak bayar utang, dan mencuri paten," ujarnya. "Saya tak menolak kenyataan bahwa hal-hal itu memang terjadi, tapi itu bukan gambaran mendasar Brazil. Kami menampilkan sisi lain dari Brazil yang belum dipersepsikan dengan baik," sambungnya.

Ya, lewat "tarian Samba"-nya dalam upaya menyehatkan perusahaan, Embraer kini memang menampilkan sisi lain dari Brazil: kemampuan bersaing di pasar yang amat padat modal dan teknologi. Namun, seperti gading yang tak retak, langit pun tampaknya tak selalu cerah bagi Embraer. Begitu harga minyak meningkat, begitu kekacauan finansial terjadi di bisnis penerbangan, seluruh pabrikan pesawat akan menderita. Inilah tantangan yang mesti dihadapi Tuan Botelho. ( swa )

Europe Energy [r]Evolution v1.0

2008-07-10T08:45:00.001-07:00

Concentrated Solar Power

Concentrated Solar Power Technology (CSP) provides clean and reliable power from 10 kW to 200 MW. First commercial solar thermal power plants were built in the 80s and currently around 400 MW are commercially operated.

In Europe around 300 MW of solar thermal power plants are either operating or under construction. The installed capacity in Europe is expected to be of 500-1,000 MW by 2010 and an amount of more than 20,000 MW by 2020 is reasonable. The technical potential in Europe in the long run can be estimated at least at twenty times that figure within reasonable generation costs.

At different stages of technical development, there are four main CSPs technologies to produce thermoelectricity from the sun: parabolic troughs, tower technologies, dish stirling and fresnel. Each technology will progress according to favorable policy framework and to its capacity to reduce generation costs and satisfy the specific needs of the power market.

Parabolic troughs

In Europe 250 MW parabolic trough plants are under construction in Spain and several thousand more MW are being developed. Parabolic troughs are the most mature technology available on the market. With a track record since the 80s, the technology is being successfully implemented in new plants in Europe and the USA. The typical size for a trough plant is 50-200 MW and specific land requirements - flat, sunny areas - are necessary.

Tower Technology

In Europe a 10 MW tower plant - the first commercial tower plant in the world - is in operation since June 2007 near Seville, Spain. 16.5 MW are under construction and 17 MW under development. The typical size for a tower plant is up to 50 MW and specific land requirements are less restrictive than for troughs. This technology can also play an enormous role together with troughs.

Dish Stirling

In Europe only pilot dish Stirling plants are in operation. The typical size for a dish Stirling module is 10 kW. There is no typical size for a plant - it can meet any individual demand- and specific land requirements are negligible. This technology is suitable for stand-alone installations, off-grid and small grids, and can play its role in inland isolated areas and islands.

Fresnel

In Europe no commercial plants based on the Fresnel principle are being developed so far. The operating principle is the same as for the trough technology. First components have been built, however, the technology needs further development and demonstration.

Chinese New Energy [r] Evolution

2008-07-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

The biofuels plantations will allegedly be built on marginal lands, including degraded forestlands and croplands, of which Yunnan province alone has more than 4 million, according to a local official. Yet it is not rare in China for local governments to sell off lush hills to logging companies as "waste forestlands."

Chinese Biofuels Expansion Threatens Ecological Balance

by Yingling Liu, Worldwatch Institute

The recent agreement between China's top forestry authority and one of the nation's biggest energy giants to develop biofuels plantations in the southwest reflects rising Chinese attention to non-fossil energy sources. But the excitement may come at great environmental loss to the region's forests and biological diversity, suggesting significant trade offs associated with the renewable fuels.

According to the agreement, signed by China's State Forestry Administration (SFA) and the oil company PetroChina in January, the parties will join efforts in developing two Jatropha curcas plantation bases in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, with biofuel production capacities of 10,000-30,000 tons each and a combined area of more than 40,000 hectares, according to China Green Times. Jatropha, a hardy oilseed bush with seeds containing over 30 percent oil, is regarded as an ideal raw material for biodiesel production. The Chinese government has since embraced additional biofuels expansion. On February 7, an SFA spokesman told the press that the country was ready to devote more than 13 million hectares of forestlands to biofuels production, Xinhua News Agency reported. And several local governments have embarked on or are planning ambitious long-term oilseed plantation projects.

According to blueprints from the Yunnan Provincial Forestry Department, the province will construct 1.27 million hectares of biofuels plantations and aims to become China's biggest biofuels base by 2015, achieving an annual production capacity of 4 million tons of ethanol and 600,000 tons of biodiesel. Forty counties in the province have begun to develop biofuels plantations. Ever-rising demand to fuel the country's motor vehicle fleet is driving these developments. A recent study by the National Bureau of Statistics reports that private vehicle ownership in China reached 29.25 million by the end of 2006, a 23.7 percent increase over 2005. While it took nearly two decades for Chinese car ownership to exceed 10 million (in 2003), an additional 10 million cars were added in only three years. China currently shows a ratio of 60 people per motor vehicle, compared with a world average of 11.5, indicating huge growth potential for the Chinese market.

Development of the new biofuels plantations will be funded by PetroChina and carried out by forestry authorities at various levels. Both parties have stated that the efforts will be undertaken in the interest of national sustainability, though there is strong suspicion that these actors are placing greater priority on fast and lucrative returns. An all-out development in ecologically sensitive southwestern China will almost certainly wreak havoc on the environment. The region is home to the country's largest remaining intact natural forests, which are vital for maintaining the local and regional climatic balance. These areas have already shrunk rapidly due to rampant logging in recent years, while the new biofuels craze will likely pull the last string of ecological collapse in the region. The biofuels plantations will allegedly be built on marginal lands, including degraded forestlands and croplands, of which Yunnan province alone has more than 4 million, according to a local official. Yet it is not rare in China for local governments to sell off lush hills to logging companies as "waste forestlands." With the new incentives created by biofuels, such "black-box" deeds will likely continue and possibly worsen.

Equally daunting is the looming damage to the region's biodiversity from massive monoculture plantations of biofuels crops. Blessed with a favorable geographic location and unique landscapes, natural forests in southwestern China have long been a paradise for flora and fauna, home to more than 6,000 plant species and over 1,000 animal species. Nibbled away by plantations of jatropha and other biofuels plantations, the future of those species appears startling bleak.

Yingling Liu is the China Program Manger at the Worldwatch Institute. This article was reprinted with permission from the Worldwatch Institute.

Indonesia Energy [r]Evolution v 1.1

2008-07-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

Jatropha curcas seed

Cultivation is uncomplicated. Jatropha curcas can grow in wastelands and grows almost anywhere, even on gravelly, sandy and saline soils. It can thrive on the poorest stony soil and grow in the crevices of rocks. Complete germination is achieved within 9 days. Adding manure during the germination has negative effects during that phase, but is favourable if applied after germination is achieved. However, it is usually multiplied by cuttings, because this gives faster results than multiplication by seeds. The flowers only develop terminally, so a good ramification (plants presenting many branches) produces the greatest amount of fruits. Another productivity factor is the ratio between female and male flowers within an inflorescence (usually about 1 female to 10 male flowers - more female flowers mean more fruits)[2]. Jatropha curcas thrives on a mere 250 mm (10 in) of rain a year, and only during its first two years does it need to be watered in the closing days of the dry season. Ploughing and planting are not needed regularly, as this shrub has a life expectancy of approximately forty years. The use of pesticides and other polluting substances are not necessary, due to the pesticidal and fungicidal properties of the plant.

In the early 1990s, a growth trial in Nicaragua covering 2000 hectares (4940 acres) did not live up to expectations, yielding only a disappointing 200 litres of Jatropha oil per hectare (21 US gallons/acre).[citation needed] However, Jatropha is well able to yield as much as 1900 litres of diester per hectare (200 US gallons/acre), largely exceeding the capacity of rapeseed.[3]

Processing

Seed extraction is made simple with the use of the Universal Nut Sheller, an appropriate technology designed by the Full Belly Project.[4] The oily seeds are processed into oil, which may be directly used to fuel combustion engines or may be subjected to transesterification to produce biodiesel. Jatropha oil is not suitable for human consumption. A colourant can also be derived from the seed.

Biodiesel potential
Main article: Jatropha biodiesel

Other uses

(The information in this section is largely inspired from the Purdue University - Center for New Crops and Plants Products website [5].)
Leaves
The young leaves may be safely eaten, steamed or stewed. Cooked with goat meat, they are said to advantageously counteract its smell.
Pounded leaves are applied near horses' eyes to repel flies in India.
Flowers
The species is listed as a honey plant[6].
Nuts
Sometimes roasted and eaten, although they are purgative.
They can be burned like candlenuts when strung on grass[7].
Used as a contraceptive in South Sudan[8].
Seeds
Also used as a contraceptive in South Sudan[9].
The oil has been used for illumination, soap, candles, the adulteration of olive oil, and making Turkey red oil. Turkey red oil, also called sulphonated (or sulfated) castor oil, is the only oil that completely disperses in water. It is made by adding sulfuric acid to pure Jatropha oil[10]. It was the first synthetic detergent after ordinary Soap, as this allows easy use for making bath oil products. It is used in formulating lubricants, softeners, and dyeing assistants[11].
The seeds in the zone around Misantla, Veracruz are very appreciated by the population as food once they have been boiled and roasted. It is unclear if this is due to the existence of a non-toxic variety of Jatropha in Mexico and Central America, or if the seeds become eatable once processed by cooking[12].
It is also similarly reported that Jatropha seeds are edible once the embryo has been removed[13]. Again it may be so because of these seeds coming from a local non-toxic variety.
Roots
Their ashes are used as a salt substitute[14]. It can be used to kill molluscs[15], and has been listed for homicide, piscicide, and raticide as well[16].
Bark
Used as a fish poison[17].
Latex
Strongly inhibits the watermelon mosaic virus[18].
Sap
It stains linen. Sometimes used for marking[19].
Shrub
Mexicans grow the shrub as a host for the lac insect, which is used in medicine as hepatoprotective and antiobesity drug. (Picture of lac insect here [7]; drawing of insect, its larva and a colony here[8])
Used for erosion control[1], [20]

Other names

Pinhão manso in Brazil
Tempate in Nicaragua
kasla in Philippines
Purging nut

See also
Jatropha
Energy crop
Non food crop

References
^ a b “Jaropha curcas l. in Africa - Assessment of the impact of the dissemination of “the Jatropha System” on the ecology of the rural area and the social and economic situation of the rural population (target group) in selected countries in Africa”[1].
^ "Generative propagation of Jatropha curcas L. on Kalahari Sand." in The Jatropha Journal.
^ Steven Hobbs Bio-diesel, farming for the future
^ - The Full Belly Project
^ Purdue University-Center for New Crops and Plants Products
^ Little, Woodbury, and Wadsworth, 1974. In The Jatropha Website
^ Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk, 1962. In The Jatropha Website
^ List and Horhammer, 1969–1979. InThe Jatropha Website
^ List and Horhammer, 1969–1979. In The Jatropha Website
^ [2]
^ CastorOil.in – Home of Castor Oil Online [3]
^ Birgit Schmook (cited by Henning), in “Assessment of the potential of Jatropha curcas, (biodiesel tree) for energy production and other uses in developing countries.” Mike Benge (bengemike at aol dot com), Senior Agroforestry Officer, USAID (Ret.) July 2006 and updated August 2006[4]
^ Levingston and Zamora (cited by IPGRI), in “Assessment of the potential of Jatropha curcas, (biodiesel tree) for energy production and other uses in developing countries.” Mike Benge (bengemike at aol dot com), Senior Agroforestry Officer, USAID (Ret.), July 2006 and updated August 2006. [5]
^ Morton, 1981. In The Jatropha Website
^ Agaceta et al., 1981. In The Jatropha Website
^ Duke and Wain (1981). In The Jatropha Website
^ Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk, 1962. In The Jatropha Website
^ Tewari and Shukla, 1982. In The Jatropha Website
^ Mitchell and Rook, 1979. In The Jatropha Website
^ “Jaropha curcas l. in Africa - Assessment of the impact of the dissemination of “the Jatropha System” on the ecology of the rural area and the social and economic situation of the rural population (target group) in selected countries in Africa”[6].

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Jatropha curcas
Suppliers of Jatropha Seeds with International Delivery:
Jatrophaseeds
Jatrophaplantsource
Jatropha Curcas Seed.
Jatropha Curcas Plantation Consulting
Jatropha plantation from 'Soil to Oil'
A Self-help Assistance Program's Jatropha Tree Planting Project
Jatropha Facts and Figures
Jatropha Plant power can solve fuel problem
An Integrated Approach of Rural Development in Tropical & Subtropical Countries.
The worldwide online Jatropha Portal
Forum Jatropha - http://www.jatropha.forumactif.com
Size does matter - The possibilities of cultivating Jatropha curcas for biofuel production in developing countries. Case study report on the relationship with food security. Contains lots of references and background information.
"Mali’s Farmers Discover a Weed’s Potential Power", New York Times, September 9, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-09-09.
Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) Jatropha Curcas
Center of Excellence for Jatropha Biodiesel Promotion
Forum : "Jatropha curcas : l'or vert du désert" - (French)
Bio Fuel production and reduction of deforestation in Nepal by R. Pahari.
Geo magazine, May 2007 edition (in German).
“Jaropha curcas l. in Africa - Assessment of the impact of the dissemination of “the Jatropha System” on the ecology of the rural area and the social and economic situation of the rural population (target group) in selected countries in Africa”. Annexe 7 of this paper presents an “Economic analysis of JCL utilization in Tanzania - Economy of Jatropha Utilization in Tanzania. Data from Kakute, 2003”, covering small-scale economic data on the collection of seeds, oil making and soap making.

Small HydroPower

2008-07-09T19:13:00.000-07:00

Hydropower throughout the world provides 17% of our electricity from an installed capacity of some 730GW, making hydropower by far the most important renewable energy for electrical power production. The contribution of Small Hydropower (SHP) to the worldwide electrical capacity is of a similar scale to the other renewable energy sources (1-2% of total capacity), amounting to about 47GW. Europe, with about 12 GW installed capacity, has the second biggest contribution to the World’s installed capacity, just behind Asia.

There is no international consensus on the definition of SHP. In China, it can refer to capacities of up to 25 MW, in India up to 15 MW. However, a capacity of up to 10 MW total is generally becoming accepted in Europe and supported by ESHA and the European Commission.

Small Hydropower plants generate electricity or mechanical power by converting the power available in flowing water of rivers, canals and streams. The objective of a hydropower scheme is to convert the potential energy of a mass of water, flowing in a stream with a certain fall (termed the "head") into electric energy at the lower end of the scheme, where the powerhouse is located. The power of the scheme is proportional to the flow and to the head. A well-designed small hydropower system can blend in with its surroundings and have minimal negative environmental impacts. Small Hydropower schemes are mainly run-of-river with little or no reservoir impoundment. Small hydropower is not simply a reduced version of a large hydro plant. Specific equipment is necessary to meet fundamental requirements with regard to simplicity, high-energy output, and maximum reliability.

Key advantages of SHP

Environmental protection through CO2 emission reduction
Proven and reliable technology
Reduces the dependency on imported fuels
Improves the diversity of energy supply
Grid Stability
Reduced land requirements
Local and regional development
Good opportunities for technology export
Assists in the maintenance of river basins
Technology suitable for rural electrification in developing countries
High Energy payback ratio

A p

roven technology but...

Research&Development activities for Small Hydropower aim at developing technology innovations to increase the market penetration of the technology by:

Further cost reductions, especially in low-head schemes
Minimising local environmental impacts
Increasing efficiency and reliability

Market Development

In EU-25 about 17.200 Small Hydropower plants are in operation with a total installed capacity of 11 GW. Italy accounts for about 21% of the total Small Hydropower installed capacity in the EU-25, followed by France (17%) and Spain (16%). Poland and the Czech Republic both with 2% of the total EU-25 capacity are the lions of the new EU Member States.

Potential

Small Hydropower has a huge, as yet untapped potential, which could allow it to make a significant contribution to future energy needs. More than 65 % of all economically feasible potential has been exploited in EU-15 so far. The remaining economically feasible potential amounts to:

Some 20 TWh/year in EU-15
Some 27 TWh/year in the New Member States and Candidate Countries

A large proportion of the potential in Europe involves low-head plants and the refurbishing of existing sites. Outside of Europe there are new opportunities for export and technology transfer that offer good prospects for EU manufacturers; economic growth and an increase in energy needs will govern small hydropower progression. Asia (especially China and India) is set to become a hydro leader. In Africa, where only 5% of hydropower potential has been tapped to date, there are also good prospects.www.erec.org

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1. ANGKOR (Cambodia): Contains the world's largest religious monument _{[More info at Wiki]}

2. MACHU PICCHU (Peru): The Lost City of the Incas _{[More info at Wiki]}

3. MEMPHIS (Egypt): ancient capital of Egypt_{[More info at Wiki]}

4. PALMYRA (Syria): the Bride of the Desert _{[More info at Wiki]}

5. PETRA: stone structures carved into rocks _{[More info at Wiki]}

6. POMPEII (Italy): buried by the volcano_{[More info at Wiki]}

7. PALENQUE (Mexico): one of Mayan's most exquisite cities _{[More info at Wiki]}

8. VIJAYANAGAR (India): capital of one of the largest Hindu empires _{[More info at Wiki]}

9. EPHESUS (Turkey): one of the most important cities of early Christianity _{[More info at Wiki]}

10. SANCHI (India): the best-preserved group of Buddhist monuments _{[More info at Wiki]}