Shake Rattle and Roll

Earthquake season is upon us, three earthquakes in two days in Sumatra with sceptics starting to say that a "biggie" is on it's way! Meanwhile in Sulawesi two earthquakes struck yesterday.

On Wednesday September the 2nd a large 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck West Java, this one caused quite a panic in Jakarta and was quickly followed by two aftershocks, measuring 5.1 and 5.4 within a few hours.

I had been in a watering hole in Kemang (a fashionable suburb of Jakarta as I am told) and never having encountered an earthquake before was at first unsure what was going on.

Was this the fabled flash-backs that Timothy Leary had written about, after effects from 30 years ago while experimenting with psychedelic's, apparently not when I realised that the pictures on the walls were swaying and the floor below me felt like jelly.

Out in the carpark, watching a building site next door I saw the guy from the tower crane which was about 14 stories high perform the quickest emergency evacuation ever while the 6 tons of counterweight on the cranes jib moved dangerously from side to side.

Realising through simple trigonometry that where I was standing was just about where the crane would fall if it were to let loose I decided that perhaps I was safer indoors with a beer rather than exposed to danger in the car park.



Yesterday's quake in Padang is thought to have killed over a thousand people, but, as has been demonstrated before, this initial number is likely to increase exponentially due to the difficulties in assessing exactly how many people live in any given area.

I really don't think my tinfoil hat will protect me when the next one shakes up on us!

Terrorist my arse!

I don't know why, but, it seems that the government needed to de-construct the myths surrounding Noordin Top, the terrorist mastermind who was killed during a raid in Central Java last month.

Obviously Forensic Scientists were obliged to study the body to ensure that it was in fact him who had been shot, but the latest news has made me question how far a forensic examination will go in search of the truth.

Here is the report!

“There is an anomaly in Noordin’s anus because it is shaped like a funnel,” said Mun’im Idris, a forensic pathologist from the University of Indonesia. “It indicated that somebody had sodomized him.”

Mun’im was part of the team of experts that conducted the autopsy on the body of Noordin, a Malaysian-born terrorist sought for a string of attacks carried out across the country in the name of Islam.

It is unclear why Mun’im released the information. A photograph was released to substantiate this information.



It appears that this information has caused speculation on Noordin’s “sexual deviance” and it is also thought that there may be a backlash from supporters and extremists within the Muslim community that supported Noordin and his supporters. (I am currently smirking trying to imagine what their protest banners may look like.)

Separately, a national Police spokesman said he had no information about the allegations.

“I haven’t received the report about the anomaly on Noordin’s body because it is not a part of the investigation, however, we always knew he was an arsehole”

It now brings into question as to whether he had met a former Prime Minister while he lived in Malaysia. State sponsored terrorism anyone?

When is a chicken not a chicken.

The Bugils Group owns a number of good bars here in Jakarta and truth be told I frequent two of them on a regular basis.

I am apparently well known in De Hooi and Eastern Promise, an irregular visitor to Cazbar but, unknown in the One Tree bar in Block M.

Block M, or more specifically Jalan Faletehan, the street One Tree Bar and many others are situated in has a reputation for friendliness which can be purchased, the purveyors of such affection are known as "Ayam" (Chickens) and they contribute a great deal to the street's popularity.

One Tree Bar has until now been Ayam free but, it appears that may no longer be the case. The bars latest promotion had me scratching my head......



However, in fairness they do operate under an equal opportunities programme which forbids sexual discrimination. I am sure that Monday nights in One Tree must be a delight for us straights and rugmunchers alike!

Poaching for beginners

Poaching has never been so easy. No need to get into the jungle, set traps, avoid conservation officers or any of the real “poaching stuff” .

The new method is simple, a bit like buying a TV Dinner instead of cooking, the cunning plan, get your animal fresh from the zoo.

Police in the believe that it was an inside job questioned the vet and five other workers from the Taman Rimbo zoo in the town of Jambi in Sumatra after its Sumatran tiger was killed early on Saturday.

Detectives suspected the thieves poisoned the female tiger, and slaughtered her in the wee hours when the zoo was almost unguarded.

The police found remnants of meat bait that contained anaesthetics and intestinal parts of the protected animal in her cage. It was also thought that the tigress did not attack as she knew the intruders.

It appears that the cage had been left unlocked to allow zoo workers to feed the tiger, which had been settled in the zoo for 20 years since its birth at Ragunan zoo in Jakarta.

Obviously the recession is biting deep in Sumatra......

Burn Baby Burn

Last week in Sumatra it appears that hundreds of people rallied and burned down tens of houses in a red light district in Pelalawan, as part of a vigilante style anti-vice campaign ahead of Ramadan.

Police apparently stood by and stated that they could not stop the crowd from damaging the properties.

The Jakarta Globe reported…

Earlier, residents living around the red light district had demanded its closure, but their request was ignored, which led them to take the law into their own hands.

Initially, people were only vandalizing property in the area, but then some began setting fire to the dwellings. The fire spread quickly as most of the homes were made of wood.

The tenants in the houses attempted to extinguish the blaze and limit the damage to property, but it was too large.

“The people have long warned red light district operators to stop their activities but the warnings were ignored. This is the result of their arrogance,” said the third chairman of the local chapter of the Council of Ulema. (Pardon me but the use of the word arrogance is questionable here)

He said the red light activities in the area had been going on for decades and its presence had made the local community feel uncomfortable. It was also hurting the morality of the younger generation, he added.

Bit heavy handed but it seems that if you are moral enough, mob rule overcomes Law and Order.

All it amounts to is that the former customers will be deprived off (see photo below) for a while…..

There is something so very wrong about this!

Captured at a mosque presumed to be in Bandung...I wonder if he knew what his tee shirt implied!

Another WTF moment! (Thanks to Geoff for the heads up on this one)

It Beggars belief!

Sit at any traffic light in Jakarta and within seconds there will be the sound of grains of rice in a water bottle being rattled outside the car window. The beggars are everywhere and despite begging being illegal, it seems the city authorities are powerless in the matter.

However, with Ramadan on hand, the city fathers have ordered a “clampdown on the surge of beggars who flock to capital” during the holy momth.

One official went on record to state:

“On the second day of fasting [Sunday], there were 200 beggars caught in five municipalities,” he said. “This is part of the bylaw enforcement that aims to anticipate the sudden surge in the number of beggars during the fasting month.” 

It has been claimed that that in 2008, there were 7,000 beggars caught in raids during Ramadan. Around 5,000 were placed in social shelters, about 1,100 were sent home and the rest were taken back by their families. 

Under the 2007 bylaw on public order, the city administration bans people from giving money to beggars. It advises the public to channel their alms instead to trusted aid organizations. The bylaw regulates that giving money to beggars is punishable with six months' imprisonment and maximum fines of Rp 20 million. Those caught receiving alms on the street would be sent to a “Social Institution”  in West Jakarta.

The Social Institution is in essence a short time prison, the arrested beggars would sometimes be in the same cells as other petty criminals. Report’s have been made that Public Order Officials locked up a wide range of people, from 3-in-1 jockeys who used to be thugs, to homeless people and sex workers.

The Jakarta Post ran an editorial in June which contained the following quote!

While rules against violators of public order are supposed to be indiscriminate, what catches our attention are most often arrests of roadside vendors, traffic "jockeys", sex workers, squatters or beggars - coincidentally, it seems, all members of the urban poor.

Public order officials have thus earned little respect in their efforts, behaving like thugs in uniforms. A public outcry followed the recent death of a sex worker in Tangerang (just west of the capital) who jumped into a river to avoid a raid. And the latest uproar followed a raid on vendors in Surabaya during which a pot of boiling water belonging to a noodle vendor was overturned, fatally scalding the vendor's infant child.

Despite angry calls to dismantle the entire institution of public order, Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo says it is still needed, to help uphold city rules.

There are however moments of amusement. A few years ago a raid on beggars at the Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta, turned ugly when dozens of people inside the mosque chased the officers away, hurling plastic bottles and chairs at them. Seeing the public order officers approaching the mosque at about 11:30 p.m., many of the beggars ran inside the mosque.

This interrupted a Koran reading, the participants of which thought the officers had come to check their identity cards. The participants put down their Korans and gave chase to the officers.

It seems this year that the city is serious, I’ll keep my camera in the hope of seeing a mob of the faithful in full flight after the city officials………..