Psychopathocracy

I just love my recently discovered word psychopathocracy, which means rule by psychopaths, because to a large extent it helps to explain the state of the world. A psychopath can lie, cheat, manipulate and charm the people about him without feeling the slightest glimmer of conscience or guilt. I say him because the majority of psychopaths, about 80% or more, are male and given their superficial charm and inner ruthlessness, it's not surprising that they rise quickly in politics, business and the judiciary. They are attracted to power because they then have more opportunity to indulge their utter self-centredness.

The term psychopath has been widely misunderstood and misapplied. There is a tendency to think of the screen character Hannibal Lector as the archetypal psychopath but in fact this character is rather atypical. The great majority are not murderers and never attract the attention of the police. Psychopaths are far more likely to manipulate than to murder. It is their shameless and skilful scheming that helps them rise to the top of whatever profession they enter. Non-psychopathic personalities cannot conceive of such deviousness and are always at a disadvantage.

Psychopaths can never admit that they are wrong and will always find an excuse for their behaviour or someone else to blame if their schemes are uncovered. The percentage of psychopaths in the general population is estimated to be around 5% but their concentration is likely to be far higher in the upper echelons of the military, government, medical profession, legal profession and the CEOs of large corporations. They live amongst us, dominate our institutions and yet they are an alien race that has remained undetected for the larger part of human history. Only in the last one hundred years has their existence been recognised but even today, their numbers and influence are vastly underestimated.

I'll have more to say on this topic of course and I'll quote from some corroborating sources (the idea is not just in my head) but today I'd like to congratulate myself on reaching prime day number 21599. Saturday is also a prime number day (21601) and so I'm especially happy to be enjoying twin prime days.

Handouts to the Poor

Who says SBY doesn't care about the peasants? He's getting ready to hand out US$1.55 million to 19.1 million households (or 76.4 million people) of the nation's poor to offset the forthcoming fuel price increases. During the first phase of this scheme, each household will receive Rp100,000 per month until December. Dire threats have been issued against "any officials found to be hindering the flow of funds to rightful recipients" but as usual this will be a relatively common practice. Typically, some of this amount will be cut by the distributing official, let's say Rp20,000. If the recipient complains then some bureaucratic impediment will be invented to stop any money being paid at all.

Many genuinely poor people don't qualify because they don't have the necessary documentation. The documentation costs money and so it's a Catch 22. Even those poor who do manage to get the full amount will find that it doesn't go far. Eventually the handouts will stop altogether, so it's only a temporary expedient at best. People are hurting and it's interesting that The Jakarta Post, that sad excuse for a national daily, carries very little news coverage of the real impact this is having. From other reliable sources, I've heard that suicide rates caused by financial stress are soaring but statistics on this are hard to come by. Crime rates are climbing as well and again there's very little coverage given to this. I guess they don't want to be seen to be panicking the expats.

Blogging Back from the Brink

Is there anything sadder than a dead blog? Someone has actually started a Graveyard of Dead Blogs, a site where people can drop off links to dead blogs (defined as blogs that have been inactive for more than three months) so that they have a final resting place. Here is the link.

I don't want my blog to end up there and so it must live on, at least while I remain in Jakarta. There's no shortage of interesting news, that's for sure, and the most interesting is a plan to raise the price of fuel by 25 or 30% in July. The fuel subsidy within the country in blowing the budget out of the water because of the soaring price of oil but reducing the subsidy will be deeply unpopular and a rash of demonstrations can be expected over the next couple of months in the lead up to it. Electricity prices are also expected to rise shortly and food prices have been soaring all year. More and more people are slipping below the poverty line and the government seems oblivious.

The Vice President recently got annoyed when questioned about rising poverty rates and countered with the observation that all the malls were still full of shoppers. Indeed they are and more luxury malls are being built and more are planned. These ground water guzzling, electricity hungry, green space swallowing malls are lasting monuments to rampant corporate greed and environmental irresponsibility. Needless to say, the Vice President is a businessman. Away from the shopping malls however, all is not well and these monuments to Mammon may end up as smoking shells if the peasants decide to revolt.

The VP is also a politician of course and lately he's been seen almost daily in photographs on the pages of The Jakarta Post, doing the sorts of things politicians do to get noticed. Clearly, he has an eye on the presidency but his popularity is low and he is unlikely to be a serious contender. The President remains the most popular choice for voters by a long margin in spite of a demonstrated lack of leadership and a well-established reputation for indecision. The run-up to next year's election should be interesting with the VP and his Golkar Party desperate to regain the glory days they enjoyed under Suharto. To this end, they are certainly working on "strategies" but further speculation on this subject is subject to self-imposed censorship.

Climate of Fear

I'd actually prepared a post several days ago but hesitated to publish it. On further reflection, I realised the time had come to cease commenting on events in Indonesia. A climate of fear is taking root in this country and I for one no longer feel comfortable publicly broadcasting my views on the political and social situation here. Enough said.

Blogger Problems

I've been having trouble accessing Blogger in the sense that I can't access this blog directly at http://sean-reeves.blogspot.com. I can access my dashboard via http://www.blogger.com however, which is odd. Maybe the government is following up on its YouTube debacle and has decided to ban access to Blogger. Anyway, I'll attempt to post this and see what happens.

Back to Biasa

The bans have been lifted after many complaints, especially from businesses who rely on YouTube and multiply.com for advertising. Instead, the ISPs will focus on banning individual pages that are causing offence. This could easily be a solution to Indonesia's unemployment problems because this approach to the problem will necessarily employ massive teams of people working in shifts, night and day, scouring the Internet for offending pages. Additional teams could be employed tracking down Indonesian bloggers who are causing trouble in the blogosphere.

Latest laugh in town concerned a very popular music group called Slank who wrote a song four years ago about the members of the House of Representatives, accusing most of them of being a bunch of crooks. Some of the current crop of members had recently begun considering legal action against the group after they performed the song at the Corruption Eradication Commission's Jakarta office last week. Unfortunately, one of them has been caught accepting a bribe and so the prospect of litigation has suddenly evaporated.

As writer for the The Jakarta Post commented:

The problem with our lawmakers is they are not used to critics. Nearly half of them date back to the New Order era, when lawmakers were protected from criticism by the heavy-handed tactics of the regime.

RetroWorld

Welcome to RetroWorld, also known as Indonesia 2008. Recent government initiatives have been to pass legislation that will impose draconian penalties on bloggers who are a little too outspoken and to ban YouTube, MySpace and some other sites that have hosted a recent video that was critical of Islam. The ban is very easy to circumvent and only serves to further diminish the country's status within the international community. If the government's reaction is to ban any site, blog, video-sharing or social networking site that features anything that is critical of Islam, then it may as well ban Internet access completely as Burma effectively does.

The blogging legislation is perhaps most disturbing because it threatens to muzzle the burgeoning community of Indonesian bloggers at a time when freedom of expression elsewhere within the country is already under threat. The black cloud of Wahabism is growing darker and more ominous within the country and continues to intrude into the everyday lives of Indonesian citizens. The latest craziness involves a call for masseuses in Jakarta to wear some sort of chastity belt when they are working in massage parlours. Apparently, such devices are already in use in East Java. Jakarta is a relative oasis in the surrounding desert of Islamic conservatism but maybe not for much longer.

Life Imprisonment

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Of Whingers and Bingers

While lamenting the dearth of wine in Jakarta, I have been saving money every month by not being able to visit the duty free bottle shops anymore. I also think Indonesia is better off for not having embraced alcohol. This substance is devastating aboriginal communities in Australia, causing nationwide health problems and contributing to domestic and social violence. I read The Sydney Morning Herald most days and the press that alcohol is getting at the local, state and national level is not good. It seems as if Australia simply can't handle its alcohol. While Indonesia has many problems, widespread alcohol abuse is not one of them.

The key question for Australia is whether the problem is getting worse or whether it's just getting more publicity or more attention from health professionals. There is of course a problem but there always has been, ever since the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. The hard drinking culture of Ireland and England was exported along with all the other Anglo-Celtic baggage. Rum was actually used as currency in the early days of the colony. When I was growing up in Australia, the pub was an exclusively male domain and opening hours were strictly regulated. Pubs didn't open on Sundays. Things have changed a lot since then. Women finally won access to pubs, the opening hours lengthened and the availability of cheap alcohol proliferated.

One things for sure. My body is less resilient than it used to be to the effects of ethanol. Fortunately, living in Indonesia means that the opportunities for drinking are limited and the cultural pressure to drink (outside of the expatriate community) is zero. However, I'm shortly off to Oz for ten days or so and I'm certainly looking forward to an occasional glass or three of some fine wines. Of course, I'll be careful not to binge drink because the Great Helmsman himself has warned against that. I am a whinger but not a binger. In fact Annabel Crabb writes in the SMH that "binge drinking is such a popular issue at the moment that it has generated a brand new noun" as in "I'm just here for a spot of binge" or "Another glass of binge?".

In the News

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More on Tofu and Tempe

Disturbing news in The Jakarta Post this morning. Here it is:

Consuming tempeh can reduce the risk of developing dementia in the elderly, but eating tofu can increase it, said a joint study between universities here and in Britain on Wednesday.

The study between University of Indonesia (UI), Indonesia Respati University, University of Loughborough and University of Oxford said people over 68 years of age who consumed tofu more than twice a day had a worse memory than those who rarely ate it.

The tofu news is surprising but the article goes on to explain that this could well be caused by the common practice in Indonesia of adding formaldehyde to tofu in order to extend its shelf life. There have been intermittent crackdowns on the practice but it still remains widespread. You just don't know whether the tofu you're eating is contaminated or not. This is a worry considering that I usually eat tofu once a day. Being a vegetarian is never easy but I guess I should look around for a testing kit. I remember reading about one not all that long ago.

The Lighting of the Lamps

There have been several power blackouts in Jakarta over the past couple of weeks caused apparently by a lack of coal. The ships that carry the coal (that heats the water that drives the turbines and so forth) have not been able to dock due to inclement weather. If they can't dock next week then things could get very black indeed, especially at night. You could well ask why coal hasn't been stockpiled as a buffer against temporary disruptions like this but that would imply some sort of forward planning and there simply isn't too much of that in PLN, the government-run organisation that's responsible for supplying electricity to the country.

Widely regarded as one of the most corrupt institutions in Indonesia, PLN has overseen a steady decay of the country's electricity-generating infrastructure, aggravated by a dearth of foreign investment and its own mismanagement, of which the current coal shortfall is the most recent example. While PLN continues to enjoy its lucrative monopoly, things will only get worse. The organisation has a strategic plan however, that will fix everything: build nuclear power plants across Java, one of the most densely populated and seismically active islands on Earth. It's insane of course but there is a lot of money to be made in the awarding of contracts and very little money to be made in researching renewable energy resources. Bring on Chernobyl.

A New Approach to Valentine's Day

You may or may not know that 2008 is Indonesia's Tourism Year. That's why the Deputy Mayor's comments in the article below are even more interesting. Here is part of what he said and you can imagine that the local business people were overjoyed to hear this. If you click on the map above you'll get a larger image and you can see where Bukittinggi is located.

"As a tourist city, many people visit Bukittinggi to celebrate New Year's at Jam Gadang, the city's tourist icon. New Year is the same as Valentine's Day... its celebrations are closely linked to immoral acts," Ismet said. "So let Bukittinggi be deserted by tourists, rather than be allowed to serve as a place for immoral acts."

Here is the full article as it appeared in today's The Jakarta Post:

Valentine's celebrations banned in Bukittinggi

Nation News - Thursday, February 14, 2008

Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, The Jakarta Post, Padang

The Bukittinggi municipal administration has banned residents from celebrating Valentine's Day, on Thursday, on the grounds the occasion is not in line with Minangkabau traditions or Islam.

"The Valentine's Day celebration is not our culture as it usually relates closely to immoral acts where, during the celebration, young couples tend to hug and even kiss each other. This is an immoral act, right?" Bukittinggi Deputy Mayor Ismet Amzis told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

A similar prohibition was implemented by the administration on cafes, restaurants, hotels and other tourist sites planning to hold Valentine's Day celebrations.

The administration said it would enforce existing regional regulations on "immoral act eradication" and take companies that celebrated the day to court.

A number of permits already issued for Valentine's Day activities have also been revoked.

Bukittinggi Mayor Djufri told a press conference earlier that his administration would shut down a number of tourist sites known to attract visitor's on Valentine's Day, including Jam Gadang, and some cafes.

Djufri urged parents in Bukittinggi not to let their sons and daughters go out Thursday night.

In order to replace Valentine Day's parties, the Bukittinggi administration urged schools to drive their students to mosques or prayer rooms Thursday night to hear religious sermons "for the sake of improving their morality."

The suggestion was made in response to the circulation of pornographic photos depicting a young couple from a senior high school in the city.

The photos, taken on a mobile phone camera, have been widely circulated in Bukittinggi over the last three weeks.

The couple captured by the photos has been expelled from school.

Ismet said the municipality had assigned 100 public order officers to keep an eye on cafes, restaurants, hotels and other public places on Thursday.

The officers have been given authority to detain young couples found on the streets or at tourist sites.

Besides Valentine Day's, Ismet said, the Bukittinggi administration would also ban New Year's Eve celebrations at Jam Gadang next year.

"As a tourist city, many people visit Bukittinggi to celebrate New Year's at Jam Gadang, the city's tourist icon. New Year is the same as Valentine's Day... its celebrations are closely linked to immoral acts," Ismet said. "So let Bukittinggi be deserted by tourists, rather than be allowed to serve as a place for immoral acts."

Roni Valian, head of the Bukittinggi chapter of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association, said he was still evaluating the mayor's ban and declined to comment further.

Prime Week

Tomorrow, Tuesday the 12th February, is a prime day for me. It's number 21499. As it turns out, Friday is also a prime day, number 21503, and so it's sort of a prime week for me. After this, it's two weeks exactly before I encounter prime day 21517 which is followed closely by a whole bunch of prime days (the twin primes 21521 - 21523 and then 21529). After that it's nearly a month until I enjoy twin prime days again with 21557 - 21559. Sometimes, like today, the prime days just sneak up on me and catch me by surprise. I need to do a little more forward planning by marking them in a special calendar that I guess I should reserve for just that purpose.

I quite understand that most people will not share my fascination with prime numbers and I've been labeled insane by one person when I shared a particular theory of mine about prime numbers and God-realization. However, I remain unperturbed and will refine my theory further before launching it on Scribd. If you haven't been to this site, you must visit. There is a cornucopia of information on it and a great many e-books by well-known and little-known authors. My most recent download was Nikola Tesla's autobiography which is simply fascinating. The more I visit, the more I download and I simply don't have time to read them.

Even as I write this, I was tempted to visit the site and type "prime numbers" into the search box. One of the search results was "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" which is a novel I read last year. The reason this novel came up is that the central character "Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic." It was an interesting read and Christopher certainly shares my passion for prime numbers.

Well, it's already prime day 21499 and I have school tomorrow, so time for bed.

Keating's Eulogy

Well, Keating has written a glowing tribute to Suharto in The Age, which I've linked to here. He regards him as Indonesia's saviour in the dark days when Communist forces were gathering on Australia's doorstep. As well as battling the Red Menace, he says that Suharto held back the tide of Islamic fundamentalism that otherwise would have seen boatloads of suicide bombers alighting on Australia's northern shores and trekking southwards to the big cities. It is a fulsome, silly article.

For a more balanced view of Suharto's legacy, I've linked to an interesting article in The Sydney Morning Herald by Hamish McDonald who wrote a book about Suharto in 1980. My opinion of the guy is determined largely by my feeling that he orchestrated the events of 1965 that led directly to the deaths of perhaps a million Indonesians. Now that he's gone, I think more evidence will come to light about that watershed event in Indonesian history.

I remember reading Time Magazine's account of the killings when I was in Year 12 and the stories left an indelible impression on me. From that time on, I vowed that I'd never set foot on Indonesian soil. Well, my resolve obviously waned over the years and I've ended living in the very place that I never wanted to visit. More than forty years on however, I still want to get to the bottom of what really happened.

Tough Time for Tigers

Part of the reason for the rapidly declining tiger population in Indonesia can be grasped by two stories that appeared in the local paper today. One article, describing the flooding in East Java, reported that floodwaters have reached 1.5 metres high inundating shops and houses and forcing students at one Islamic boarding school to abandon their mascot, an endangered Sumatran tiger in a cage (see photo). The tiger is showing paw deep in rising water that hopefully didn't rise too much higher. Of course, it's illegal to keep tigers but so what? Students need a mascot and what could be better than a Sumatran tiger.

The next article is equally disturbing and needs to be quoted in full. I doubt that the villagers are as innocent as they make out. I'd say they were involved as well but decided to shift all the blame to the soldier once the news got out. Anyway, if there were 400 tigers left in the wild yesterday, there are only 399 today. I'd say their extinction in the wild is assured.

Soldier kills endangered tiger, skins it, distributes meat

JAKARTA (AP): A soldier shot dead an endangered Sumatran tiger that was caught in a trap in Riau province, then skinned it and distributed its meat to villagers, a conservationist said.

The incident happened in Tenggayun village after residents asked the soldier to help release the animal from a pig snare, Bastoni, an official with the Sumatran Tiger Conservation Program, said Thursday.

"Instead, the soldier fired nine bullets to its body and head, and then asked villagers to skin the wild beast," he said, adding that the man proceeded to dole out the meat and take home the tiger's pelt.

"It was sadistic," said Bastoni. He said he intends to file a complaint with the army.

Environmentalists say the Sumatran tiger, or Panthera tigris sumatrae, is the most critically endangered tiger subspecies in the world, with fewer than 400 believed to be left in the wild.

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.