Ring of Fire

The screenshot shows a newly added feature to Google Earth whereby the location of major earthquakes around the world over the past 40 years can be visualised. I've zoomed in on my neck of the woods to show the western end of Java and the southern tip of Sumatra. The reddish circles represent earthquakes and the orange triangle are active volcanoes. If you click on a circle, a pop-up window displays details of the quake including magnitude, location, date, depth and severity. As you can see, I'm living in a virtual mine field and where the next temblor will be is anyone's guess. It could be right under my feet.

The new feature can be accessed by going to Layers in the Sidebar and selecting Places of Interest >>> Geographic Features >>> Earthquakes.

Suharto

Well, Suharto is gone and this quote caught my fancy (source):

Weep not for Indonesia's former president Suharto who died today at the age of 86. Suharto's iron-fisted rule bought economic growth but also ushered in nepotism and corruption. And Suharto's legacy of corruption and shady business dealings go back a long way. In the 1950s, he was allegedly involved in sugar smuggling which some said cost him command of an army division during a 1959 anticorruption drive. Suharto claims that he bartered sugar for rice to ease a local food shortage and did not benefit personally. Still, he was transferred to a less influential position at the army staff college. It is said Suharto through his rule cultivated a network of wealthy allies, many in the ethnic Chinese business community. He did this through a system of rewards and punishments administered by the state. Suharto's nepotism and corruption was well known. reached epic proportions, culminating in a national car project awarded to Suharto's youngest and most beloved son, Tommy. According to anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, Suharto and his family may have amassed as much as $35 billion during his reign and the independent organization today still ranks Indonesia as one of Asia's most corrupt countries.

However, it's good to know that the brotherhood of old bastards is still strong because Dr Mahathir Mohamad defended the legacy of one-time Indonesian strongman Suharto and described him as a "great leader and an international statesman" (source). Never mind that Suharto and the CIA played the leading role in the death of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians back in 1965. Maybe he's already met some of them on the other side. I'm sure they'll be pleased to see him.

For the Love of Microsoft

On the front page of today's The Jakarta Post, there is the headline Ministry's Microsoft love slows down open-source which connects with the mention of IGOS (Indonesia Go Open Source) in my previous post. As part of the IGOS initiative in 2004, five Government ministries signed a declaration to use open-source software. However, only the State Ministry of Research and Technology, has acted on the declaration, with 92 percent of its computers running open-source programs. Other ministries ... remain reluctant to use the software.

There is a clear lack of political will on the part of these other four ministries. One can only speculate as to why the Government is not serious about promoting free software, prefering instead to spend its very limited resources on paying licensing fees to Microsoft. A search on Google failed to find the IGOS's Internet Address on the first few pages and instead I tracked it down using Wikipedia. The site itself at http://www.igos.web.id is a sparce and clearly neglected site. On the opening page, the menu link item program is misspelled as pogram.

Of course, most home users are using pirated versions of Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw and so on, which is understandable as they are readily available and cost practically nothing. If you buy a new computer here, the vendor will happily offer to install as much pirated software as you'd like but you will not be asked first whether you'd like open-source software installed. It's may be an image thing as well. Microsoft, and especially Apple, are seen as "cool" but open-source products such as Linux and Open Office are are not. Technology in Indonesia is associated with status first and utility second.

A good summary of what's available by way of open-source software can be found at Open Source Living.

Soy Joy

Why didn't I think of that title for my last post, instead of the very pedestrian "tempe and tofu return". This clever little rhyme was the caption to a photo contained in another article in The Jakarta Post reporting on the hardships caused to tempeh and tofu business owners by high soy bean prices. The article concludes with this quote from one owner: we cannot use locally produced soybeans to produce tofu and tempe. It damages too easily.

Interesting. The plot thickens when we consider the content of the following article, also in today's newspaper, which I'll quote in its entirety.

Simple soybean solution form scientists

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Tempeh and tofu would not have disappeared from the family dining room, as it did this week, if the country's government had listened to Indonesia's scientists.

The archipelago would have been able to stop importing soybeans from the U.S. and would probably even be exporting a high-yield protein-rich bean to other countries.

"Perhaps we didn't have the time to pay attention to soybeans then," said Endang Sukara, deputy chairman of the natural sciences department of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

But in 2004 and after successfully breeding "newly improved" soybeans, LIPI scientists invited then-President Megawati and her agriculture officials to see their high-yield harvest in South Sumatra. Endang wasn't joking when he said the soybeans had added value. Kedelai Plus, the new improved variety, was able to produce up to three times the yield compared to regular soybeans and required less than half the amount of fertilizer.

"We told the government all about it, and they were there during the harvesting at Musi Rawas in South Sumatra," Endang said at LIPI's Center for Biotechnology Research in Cibinong, West Java. "But they never followed it up."

To create Kedelai Plus, a team of scientists, led by Harmastini Sukiman, isolated hundreds of Rhizobiums, a microbe that binds Nitrogen from the ground for soybean roots to absorb. They then discovered one special string called Rhizobium B64.

"The strain worked really well for soybeans by boosting productivity and improving the plants' resistance to diseases," Harmastini said. "Soybean plants produce more beans using B64."

The scientists grew Kedelai Plus in many areas across Indonesia, including South Sumatra, North Sumatra, West Java and East Java, with outstanding results. Farmers in Indonesia can produce on average up to 1.2 tons of soybeans per hectare, but in every harvest Kedelai Plus was yielding 2.4 to 4.5 tons per hectare. The team discovered a way to inject the microbe into the soybean, which meant farmers no longer had to glue the microbe onto the bean skin, or sprinkle it across the soil.

"Rhizobiums grow abundantly in the soil, so for Rhizobium B64 to survive the competition, we must make sure there are enough B64 cells for the soybean roots to absorb," Harmastini said.

With the help of a special vacuuming machine, LIPI was able to turn any type of soybean variety into Kedelai Plus with similar results. Endang said he was confident the new technology would see Indonesia end its dependency on expensive, imported American soybeans.

"All the government needs to do now is up-scale the machine and produce Kedelai Plus in various seed centers so that farmers can purchase them at affordable prices," he said.

Endang said he has been dreaming of a day when he could drink soybean milk, snack on soybean yogurt and have a tempeh burger for lunch, all made from domestic soybeans. But for the time being, farmers wishing to plant "newly improved" soybeans can bring their own seeds to LIPI in Cibinong to be injected with Rhizobium B64 at a cost of Rp 50,000 (US$ 5.30) for 20 kilograms of soybean seed.

It wouldn't be surprising if the cartel controlling imports of soy beans had something to do with this lack of enthusiasm of the part of the Government. Even though such a product would be great for Indonesians, it wouldn't be well-received by the importers of soy beans and so a strange inertia settles over the politicians. It's like the Government's IGOS (Indonesia Go Open Source) initiative. Open source software is great for the country but not well-received by Microsoft and Apple. Once again, a strange inertia settles over the politicians.

Tempeh and Tofu Return

Massive protests in Jakarta have seen the Government belatedly remove the tariff on imported soybeans but there is continued demand to abolish the existing system whereby there are only four designated importers of the 1.3 million tonnes of soybeans imported. These four companies effectively form a highly lucrative cartel that is profiting at the expense of the local producers of tofu and tempeh. If the market were more open, the suspicion is that prices would decline as the competition increased. That may not happen.

The good news is that tofu and tempeh are now back on the supermarket shelves. There was an interesting article in The Jakarta Post today about tempeh, written by Jonathan Agranoff, a U.K. doctor and nutritionist, currently working for the United Nations in Indonesia. He has written a book called A Concise Handbook of Indonesian Tempe that I'll try to get a hold of it. In his newspaper article, he mentions that tempeh is the only non-animal source of vitamin B12, which I wasn't aware of. There is a very informative website at www.tempeh.info that I've been reading through.

I just hadn't realised just how healthy tempeh is for me but my recent avoidance of eggs and cheese (I never used milk directly anyway) has made me more interested in my sources of protein. Meanwhile, I'll start collecting more of Dilbert's comics about Mike the Vegan, in case I start to take myself too seriously.

Shocking Soybean Story

Here's a change from my recent religious posts. This news is important to me because as a near-vegan*, I rely largely on tofu and tempe for my protein requirements. My wife, Desy, went to the supermarket today and sure enough there was no tofu or tempe on the shelves. I didn't realise that Indonesia imports 70% of its soybeans from overseas (mainly the USA).

Have a read of this post from http://indosnesos.blogspot.com dated Jan 13, 2008

Tofu, tempe producers stage rally outside presidential palace

Some 3,000 tofu and tempe (fermented soybean cake) producers staged a rally outside the presidential palace here on Monday, urging the government to stabilize the soybean price which jumped almost 100 percent in the past year.

To get their demand fulfilled, the demonstrators agreed to cease production for three days starting on Monday, tofu producer Kliwono Sutoro said.

The soybean price spiral dealt a major blow to tofu and tempe producers as the selling prices of the products remained, he said.

Then I have a quote from http://www.antara.co.id/en

Indonesia mulls cut in soybean import duties - trade official

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia is considering cutting import duties for soybean to offset soaring soybean prices which have hurt the local food industry, a senior government official said on Monday. Soybean imports are subject to a 10 percent duty.

"One option is to lower import duties for soybean but we don't know yet how much it will be," Ardiansyah Parman, director general for domestic trade at the Trade Ministry, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

U.S. soybean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade rose by the 50-cent a bushel trading limit on Friday, notching an all-time high amid spillover buying from corn after the USDA reported a smaller-than-expected corn inventory, traders said.

Old-crop January soybeans ended 42 cents higher at $12.86 a bushel.

But Parman said the policy on import duties would be temporary and in the long-term there should be a policy to improve domestic soybean output.

Indonesia still imports nearly 70 percent of its soybean demand, mainly for the food industry which uses soybean for tofu and soy sauce production. The industry is dominated by small and medium-sized companies.

Indonesia's soybean output is expected to reach 750,000-800,000 tonnes this year, rising from 608,260 tonnes in 2007.

The country imported an estimated 1.4 million tonnes of soybeans in 2007, up from 1.2 million tonnes in 2006, according to data from the Indonesian office of the American Soybean Association.

The association said Indonesia imports between 80-90 percent of its soybeans from the United States, with the rest coming from Argentina.

* my personal definition of a near-vegan: someone who doesn't eat eggs, cheese or milk directly but who still consumes them indirectly via bread, pastries, biscuits etc.

The Aquarian Gospel

Well I seemed to be hooked on this Jesus thing for a while longer. I've read nearly all of "Jesus in India" as mentioned in my previous post and the arguments that Ahmad puts forward are logically and clearly expressed. The Gospels describe Jesus walking around and talking to his disciples after his alleged death, in much the same way as he did before his crucifixion but I won't try to summarise it all here. The hyperlink is there for those who wish to read his account.

What's interesting is that I discovered from a post on another blog by Randeep Ramesh that:

Hollywood is to fill in the Bible's "missing years" with a story about Jesus as a wandering mystic who travelled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the iniquities of the country's caste system. Film producers have delved deep into revisionist scholarship to piece together what they say was Jesus's life between the ages of 13 and 30, a period untouched by the recognised gospels. The result is the Aquarian Gospel, a $20m movie, which portrays Jesus as a holy man and teacher inspired by a myriad of eastern religions in India. The Aquarian Gospel takes its name from a century-old book that examined Christianity's eastern roots and is in its 53rd reprint.

Now in the book "Jesus in India", Ahmad brings up the idea of the Buddhist connection in the early life of Jesus but dismisses it fairly quickly. However, he also says that Jesus was referred to as the "traveling prophet". A quick search of the Internet reveals a location for the Aquarian Gospel with the comment that:

The Aquarian Gospel was rediscovered during the spiritual ferment of the 1960s; a beat-up paperback copy of this book was de rigeur in every hippie pad, and it no doubt played an unsung role in naming the 'Age of Aquarius'.

Well, I have to confess that I didn't read it but I guess my (at that time) still recent escape from the madness of Catholicism didn't incline me to investigate JC any further. So it seems that 40 years later, I will be reading this book in electronic format rather than as a "beat-up paperback".

The Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam

The Ahmadiyya "sect" has been so much in the news lately that I thought it high time that I found out a little more about it. The founder is Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian (Punjab, India) who lived from 1835 until 1908. He was certainly an interesting character but he managed to antagonise mainstream Islam by claiming he was a prophet. Most Moslems believe firmly in Khatme Nabuwwat meaning "finality of Prophethood". They accept that Muhammad was the last prophet and there are no more to come after him. In their eyes, Ahmad is a false prophet.

I don't want to fan the flames of that debate in this post but it would seem that Ahmad has also put the Christians off-side as well because he claims that Jesus Christ did not die on the cross at all. Instead, he went off to India, Afghanistan and Tibet looking for the lost tribes of Israel. He lived to the ripe old age of 120 and died in Kashmir. He actually wrote a book about this which can be found here. I downloaded it and turned it into a PDF file of 63 pages. I've still to read it but read it I shall.

It seems that Jesus made a clean break with Israel and didn't return again or have any communication with his followers. Meher Baba, my greatest spiritual influence, made a similar claim and actually visited a place called Harvan Hill in Kashmir, where he claimed there was a cave in which Jesus was buried. Given the paucity of detail about the life of Jesus both before and after his alleged Resurrection, I think the Kashmir story is quite plausible. Most Christians would be aghast at this idea of course and so Ahmad managed to antagonise Christians as well as Moslems.

Jakarta's New Public Order Bylaw

Reading The Jakarta Post this morning, I was surprised to learn that:

Jakarta's city council during a press conference Thursday ... reported via a 23-page publication made available to the press that it had issued 10 city bylaws, including ... (one that) restricts residents from keeping alcohol in private refrigerators.

That was the first I'd heard of it and I'm sure I'll hear more about it as the month of January unfolds. I don't actually live in Jakarta but in the adjacent municipality of Tangerang whose council recently passed some public order bylaws of its own, including prohibiting women from being out on the streets alone after dark. If the Jakarta city council has actually approved such a law on alcohol in fridges, then Tangerang city council won't be far behind.

This bylaw is consistent with the creeping Islamisation of the country. The mainstream Indonesian Muslim Council (MUI) has recently issued fatwas (Islamic edicts) that outlaw the deviant Ahmadiyah sect, pluralism, secularism and liberalism. This has led conservative Moslems to attack liberal Islamic organisations and encouraged many attacks on the places of worship of the adherents of the Ahmadiyah sect.

Fortunately, there is widespread oppostion to the MUI fatwas. In the letters to the editor today, one Indonesian reader by the name of Tami Koestromo writes:

Since Prophet Muhammed was universally known for his wisdom, chivalrousness, justice and great tolerance, the members of MUI, who decidedly are not in his league and are but human, would do well to mold their behaviour and decisions upon his sterling example.

Meanwhile, the five cans of beer in my fridge will anxiously await their fate. If they don't get consumed by myself or visitors, they may well end up being confiscated by public order officials from Tangerang Council. What if I take the cans out of my refrigerator? Technically, I wouldn't then be keeping the alcohol in my refrigerator.

Of course it's that sort of smart aleck attitude that's going to get me a well-deserved, Aceh-style, public flogging before too long.

Chairman Rudd

Given the current landslides and flooding in Indonesia and the other ills that seem to regularly befall the country, the logo above might be used as part of the 2008 tourism campaign. It couldn't be any worse than the existing campaign that began with the slogan "Indonesia: 100 years of nation's awakening". Oops. How did that one get through? Of course it had be changed even though Garuda planes already had it stuck on their tails and clearly a lot of money was going to be lost on already printed material that would need to be tossed away. The slogan is now "Indonesia: 100 years of national awakening". How this slogan is going to entice tourists to the country is a mystery.

No matter. Leave it alone. This year I'm going to be positive, or at least negative about another country. What about Australia? I notice Chairman Rudd is pushing ahead with the Great Internet Porn Filter and may well be on his way to emulating the Great Firewall of China. This YouTube video that I found is quite funny as it parodies his Chinese connections.