Minivan driver gets 18 years for killing 3

A angkot (public minivan) driver has been sentenced to 18 years in jail for the murder of two children and an adult in Makassar, South Sulawesi, in September 2011.

The Makassar District Court pronounced 28-year-old Petrus Lewek guilty on Tuesday of violating the Criminal Code, Article 340 on premeditated murder.

Judges also said that Petrus breached Article 80, Clause 2 of the Criminal Code on violence against children and Article 354, Clause 1 on public assault.

Petrus murdered Saldi, 12, Junaedi, 15, and Syamsul, 66, in front of Makassar Town Square. He was also suspected of assaulting several other Makassar Town Square visitors.

The murders were reportedly the result of suppressed anger after Petrus’ motorcycle was vandalized at Makassar Town Square two weeks before the murders, kompas.com reported on Wednesday.(png/iwa)

Prosecutor Cirus Sinaga gets 5 years in jail

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 10/25/2011 12:40 PM

Jakarta Corruption Court judges have found prosecutor Cirus Sinaga guilty of obstructing the course of justice and sentenced him to five years' imprisonment, with a fine of Rp 150 million (US$16,950) or an extra three months in prison.

“We find defendant Cirus Sinaga officially and convincingly guilty of indirectly obstructing the investigation, prosecution and court hearing of a corruption case,” chief judge Albertina Ho said in court on Tuesday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

The sentence is slightly less than the prosecutors' demand for six years' imprisonment and Rp 150 million in fines.

Cirus made headlines last year when notorious former tax officer Gayus Tambunan, who is serving a prison sentence of his own and who was on trial for multiple other charges, announced that he had paid Cirus a $50,000 bribe to drop the graft charges against him.

RI needs 4,000 pilots in five years

The Jakarta Post | Thu, 05/26/2011 8:27 AM

The government estimates that Indonesia needs 4,000 pilots from 2011 to 2015 but local schools can only supply 1,600 pilots.

“The country schools can only produce around 320 pilots a year [or 1,600 in five years],” Bobby R Mamahit, head of human resources development at the Transportation Ministry, said as quoted by kontan.co.id on Wednesday.

“We need more pilots to meet the demand.”

He said the demand for pilot rose as Law No 1/2009 on Flight obliged that each airline has to operate a minimum of 10 airplanes as of Jan. 12, 2012.

Bobby added that the government would establish new pilot schools in Palembang and Surabaya.

From 2011 to 2015, Indonesia also needed 7,500 airplane technicians and 1,000 air traffic controllers.

Borobudur’s post-Merapi eruption rehabilitating may take three years: Official

The Jakarta Post | Thu, 02/17/2011 10:02 PM | Archipelago

It may take as much as three years to rehabilitate the Borobudur Temple after last year’s eruption of nearby Mount Merapi covered the temple with volcanic ashes and affected the surrounding environment in general, an official said.

“The rehabilitation process includes the revitalization of the environment and the social economic [condition] of local residents,” the Tourism Ministry's director of history, Yunus Satrio Atmojo, said Thursday as quoted by Antara.

He added that ridding the temple’s stones of volcanic sediment would take at least six months.

The next phase would involve planting trees to prevent temperature increase, which can impact on the temple’s stone forms.

Yunus said that activities of local residents had also been affected by the eruption.

“Such a rehabilitation process needs around two to three years for the condition of the temple to return to how it was before the disaster, as long as there are no further Merapi eruptions as intense as the previous ones,” he said.

The Jakarta representative of UNESCO, Hubert Gijzen, said that the organization had donated US$ 3 million to the restructuring process.

RI targets $150 billion in investments for the next 5 years

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 02/04/2011 9:45 PM | Headlines

Industry Minister MS Hidayat said the government expected to grab investments totaling US$150 billion to accelerate development in a number of areas.

“[The meeting] was about investments. We want $150 billion in investments,” the minister said after attending a Cabinet meeting at the Presidential office in Jakarta on Friday, as quoted by Antara.

He added that the investments would be used to develop, among other things, the country’s agricultural, mining and industrial sectors.

Separately, Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) head Gita Wirjawan said $50 billion of the investment target was expected to come from local investors and the remaining $100 billion from foreigner investors.

He added that the target was expected to be met in five years at the latest, and that it would cover developments in western, central and eastern Indonesia.

Gita identified Japan as a potential investor of $59 billion of the targeted funds, India $15 billion, South Korea $15 billion, France $4 billion and Russia $2 billion.

Indonesian ex-cop given 10 years on terror charges

NiniekKarmini, The Associated Press, Depok, West Java | Wed, 01/19/2011 7:32 PM | National

A former Indonesian policeman was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for supplying weapons to a terrorist cell allegedly plotting a series of attacks on foreigners.

Sofyan Tsauri, 34, was arrested after security forces raided a militant training camp in the westernmost province of Aceh one year ago.

Judge Dwiarso Santiarto told a district court on the outskirts of the capital that Tsauri was guilty of selling dozens of assault rifles, revolvers and other weapons to the previously unknown terrorist cell called "Al Qaida in Aceh."

The militant group was allegedly plotting Mumbai-style gun attacks on Western hotels and embassies in Jakarta.

It also allegedly wanted to assassinate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and attack security forces to punish the state for lending support to the U.S.-led anti-terrorism fight.

Tsauri, fired from the police force in 2009 on charges of desertion, bought the weapons from two officers who were working at a police warehouse, the judge said.

The two were given jail time in separate trials last week.

Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim nation of 240 million, has battled extremists since 2002, when members of the al-Qaida-linked network Jemaah Islamiyah bombed two nightclubs on the resort island of Bali, killing 202 people, most of them foreign tourists.

Since then, members of an offshoot of the group have continued to carry out near-annual strikes on various targets, including a Western embassy, beach-side restaurants and upscale hotels, killing more than 60.

Tsauri is one of more than 100 alleged members of the Aceh terrorist cell to have been captured or killed since February. His lawyers said he would appeal the verdict, which was five years less than prosecutors had sought.

Tornado warning for Jakarta until New Year’s

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 12/28/2010 9:15 PM | Jakarta

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) announced that tornadoes were possible this week, and asked Jakarta residents to prepare for the possibility.

BMKG head of climate change and air quality Elvin Aldrian said the agency predicted the potential for tornadoes because of low air pressure around the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north of Australia that would draw masses of air from the west toward Jakarta.

“The air masses traveled across the mountains in Banten, forming wavy winds that will travel down to Jakarta, like what happened at 5.10 p.m. on Tuesday,” Edvin said, as quoted by Antara news.

The air masses, which travel in the form of cumulo nimbus clouds, are the seeds of tornodoes, he said.

According to Edvin, the cumulo nimbus clouds, which can move up to 30 knots, are now in the air above the Java Sea, and are expected to later move toward Sumatra.

“There is still the potential for tornadoes in Jakarta this week until the beginning of the new year,” he said.

Heavy rains and small tornadoes hit Jakarta on Tuesday afternoon, causing more than a dozen trees to collapse on a number of streets in Jakarta’s five municipalities.