Two tonnes of durian:
At the start of last week, September 5th, more than 100 people died [1] after an Indonesian Boeing own by a small airlines, Mandala Airlines [2] failed to take off and crashed into residential area in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province and the third biggest city in Indonesia. The victims in this accidents included the current governor to the province Tengku Rizal Nurdin and the former governor Raja Inal Siregar.
This week Indonesia blogger, JalanSutera.com [3] wrote that the media reported the cause of accident was over weighted cargo of 2 tonnes of durians [4], a smelly tropical fruit but a popular and expensive refreshment to many Indonesians.
Pujiono, the owner of the blog, adds that he didn't know whether the report it's true or not, almost to the point of amazement, hoping that the origin of the tragedy was not some simple foolishness like that.
Indonesian President visits US:
Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or SBY for short, is on his presidential visit to United States and has visited Columbia [5] on 13 September where he spoke at length about Aceh, detailing the roots of the secessionist movement there. Roby Muhammad, a PhD candidate at Columbia noted this event on his calendar blog [6], Beruang Halus [7].
On his blog this week he also wrote about the dilemma of many Indonesian living overseas [8] to go back to Indonesia. Based on his three criteria (Spiritual, Material and Intellectual) he decided to go back after he finish his study citing that in term of spiritual and material, living in Indonesia is better for him even if intellectually, US is a far better place.
Australian Embassy bomber death sentence:
Nick at Bali Blog [9] wrote that Iwan Darmawan, also known as Rois, the planner of the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta was sentenced to death for playing a major part in the bombing. The Australian embassy bombing killed 11 people including the suicide bomber.
For some reason active Jemaah Islamiyah or JI in Indonesia is more keen to target Australian than American in their terror acts.
Nick noted:
The reason for this is Australia's involvement in the Middle East. When you deal with ideological crazies, all kinds of weird connections can be made. The JI leaders want a Pan-Islamic state and hate Israel. The US supports Israel and attacked Iraq. Australia supports the US, so in some kind of twisted way that makes Australians and British people legitimate targets in some people's minds. Who would of thought in 2002 that Aussies on holiday could get blown up in Bali because the US supports Israel? Well it happened.
Rois appeal of the conviction to President SBY will unlikely to get any result.
He praised President SBY, that while the president is a social conservative, is not in any way a religious fundamentalist.