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Nabari said a local survey showed the average person asking for handouts in Medan was bringing home the equivalent US $6, more than the average daily wage in the city. Many of the beggars worked for gang leaders, who deployed them to various points of Medan, he said. "We'd rather people give money to orphanages or nursing homes," he said, putting the number of panhandlers in Indonesia's third largest city at around 11,000, many of them under the age of 12. "We want to clean up the image of our city." Many in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelagic nation of 235 million people, are desperately poor, with half the population living on less than US $2 a day. Begging is common in Indonesia, though not as prevalent as in some other Asian countries. (AP)

Indonesia Prepared to Send Civilian Police to Darfur

Indonesia is prepared to contribute 100 to 150 civilian police to a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said Thursday. The UN Security Council on Tuesday unanimously approved the 26,000-strong force—which, if fully deployed, would be the world's largest peacekeeping operation—to help end four years of rape and slaughter of civilians in the vast Sudanese desert region. The peacekeepers are to be in Darfur by year's end. The force is expected to be made up mostly of peacekeepers from Africa with backup from Asian troops. Major Western powers are expected to provide limited manpower in the force, as many are already overstretched in other peacekeeping efforts and conflicts such as Iraq, observers say. Britain's military, for example, has 7,100 service members in Afghanistan and 5,500 in Iraq.

The conflict in Darfur began in February 2003 when ethnic African tribes rebelled against what they considered decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated government. Sudan's government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed—a charge it denies. More than 200,000 people have died, and 2.5 million have been uprooted. (AP)

Garuda Books US$15.8 Million Profit in First Half Year

National carrier Garuda Indonesia said Thursday it booked a half year net profit of US $15.898 million, swinging from a US$38.786 million loss a year earlier. Chief Executive Emirsyah Satar said Garuda's efforts to improve its performance, such as restructuring routes, contributed to its financial turnaround. Passenger numbers grew 8 percent to 4.3 million during the January-June period from a year earlier, Satar said. He said Garuda's load factor improved to 76 percent from 70 percent last year, while the number of revenue-generating domestic routes increased to 26 from only seven last year. Meanwhile, Satar said the airline was optimistic that it would not be banned from flying to Saudi Arabia. A team from the Saudi civil aviation authority is in Indonesia to verify Garuda's safety standards, following the European Commission's recent decision to ban all Indonesian commercial carriers from flying to the region on safety grounds. Saudi Arabia uses the EU's aviation policy as a reference but has not banned Indonesian airlines yet. The state-owned Garuda is the only local airliner that flies to Saudi Arabia, carrying about 200,000 Muslims every year to that country for the Haj pilgrimage. The company has appealed to the EU to lift the ban, claiming the airline complies with international aviation safety standards. (AP)

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Thursday, August 02, 2007

Asean Endorses Former Thai Minister as Next Chief

Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have endorsed Thailand's nomination of its ex-foreign minister, Surin Pitsuwan, to become the group's next secretary-general, officials said Wednesday. Asean's heads of state are expected to approve Surin's nomination at a summit in Singapore in November, Philippine diplomat Benito Valeriano said. Surin will assume the post in January if his nomination is approved. The post, which has a five-year term, is currently held by ong Keng Yong of Singapore. The job is rotated among the 10 Asean members in alphabetical order. (AP)

Cambodian Men Charged in Failed Bomb Plot

A Cambodian court charged two men with terrorism on Wednesday in connection with a recently failed plot to blow up a monument in the heart of the country's capital. Sok Roeun, a prosecutor at Phnom Penh Municipal Court, said he charged Kem Toeun, 53, and Son Than, 42, with terrorism, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Police arrested the two men on Monday, a day after explosives disposal experts defused bombs planted at the city's Cambodia-Vietnam friendship monument, said police Maj. Gen.