OPEC leaves output on hold, causing oil price jump

Associated Press, Vienna | Thu, 06/09/2011 8:33 AM

OPEC has unexpectedly left its production levels unchanged, causing oil prices to jump, as senior officials said their meeting ended in disarray - a stunning admission for an organization that places a premium on consensus decision making.

OPEC officials said that because of a policy deadlock, the group will maintain present output ceilings with the option of meeting within the next three months to consider a hike.

"We are unable to reach consensus to ... raise our production," OPEC Secretary General Abdullah Al-Badri told reporters, in comments reflecting unusual tensions in the 12-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi called it "one of the worst meetings, we've ever had," while analysts covering OPEC for more than 20 years said they could not remember any other time that the normally closed group had admitted to such divisions in its ranks.

Some even saw the abortive meeting as a harbinger of demise for the organization, which produces more than a third of the world's petroleum.

"OPEC is ... on the point of break-up," said Marc Ostwald of Monument Securities. "A broader perspective is that the post World War II world order is fracturing in a spectacular fashion, be it the EU/Eurozone, the World Bank/IMF, (or) OPEC."

Other experts were less outspoken but agreed Wednesday's outcome would weaken the image of OPEC as a major regulator of oil markets.

"I think there were some tensions," said Jason Schenker, president of Prestige Economics. "But everyone has to do business and countries have different views on what the future of demand looks like."

The news caught markets by surprise, sending oil prices sharply higher. Benchmark crude for July delivery was up $1.25 to $100.34 per barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange after trading lower ahead of the OPEC meeting.

Saudi Arabia and other influential Gulf nations had pushed to increase production ceilings to calm markets and ease concerns that crude was overpriced for consumer nations struggling with their economies. Those opposed were led by Iran, the second-strongest producer within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Oil miniter Rafael Ramirez of Venezuela- like Iran, a price hawk - said there was a "very tight" discussion in OPEC, in comments to his nation's state media. Any production increase "could cause a collapse of our price," he added.

While the Saudis and the Iranians are frequently at loggerheads over pricing, pat meetings normally fell in behind Saudi Arabia, which produces the lion's share of OPEC output. But this time, the Saudi-Iranian rivalry combined with major political and economic uncertainties to lead to deadlock.

Among the biggest worries is that unrest in Libya and Yemen could destabilize larger oil-prducing nations in the region. The two countries normally produce less than 4 percent of the world's oil needs, and Saudi Arabia and others have boosted output to make up for much of the shortfall.

But while the Saudis have served notice that they are ready to further increase supplies to help compensate fo the loss of the daily 1.6 million barrels normally brought to the market by Libya, other OPEC nations - already pumping close to capacity - cannot contribute much. This appeared to have fueled the strong opposition to an output ceiling hike.

Global economic weakness is also worrying producers and consumes.

Poor housing and employment reports from the United States added to the gloom spread by Europe's attempts to bail out governments and Japan's post-Fukushima slump. At its present price of around $100 a barrel, benchmark crude may be too expensive for nations struggling to make ends meet, worsening the eonomic picture and leading to less oil demand.

But with sputtering economies using less energy, raising output to lower prices also risks flooding the market, leading to a surplus that could drive prices below $80 a barrel. That benchmark, which is prferred by the Saudis and other moderate OPEC members, is considered too low by price hawks Iran and Venezuela.

Tuesday's sober assessment of the U.S. economy from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke added to concerns, especially as the central banker failed to indicate that more monetary stimulus was likly.

"Despite all their efforts, the Saudis were not able to convince Iran and other countries to increase production," said Ehsan Ul-Haq, an analyst with KBC Energy Economics. " It means there is a huge disagreement - but it also means that it gives the Saudis free space to do what they like."

Goig into the meeting, some OPEC nations had signaled that the ministers could opt to raise the output ceiling to actual production levels of around 26 million barrels a day. Add to that the daily 2.7 million barrels produced by Iraq, which is not bound by quotas, and OPEC would have been bringing more than 29 million barrels a day to the market.

The 11 OPEC members are already exceeding their current production quotas. Their output is an estimated 26.15 million barrels daily - about 1.3 million barrels above the daily overall OPEC production target of 24.85 million barrels a day agreed two years ago.

The power of theater as a humanizing force

The Jakarta Post | Thu, 06/09/2011 8:00 AM

Ron Jenkins, a professor of theater at Wesleyan University, started running a theater project in Kerobokan correctional institution, Kuta, in January this year. To learn more about the project, The Jakarta Post’s Rita A. Widiadana interviewed the professor on the way to rehearsals last week. The following are excerpts of the interview.

Question: How did you become interested in running theater activities in prisons?

Answer: I have always been interested in theater that happens outside of ordinary venues, especially when the subject matter is important in some special ways to the people who are performing or watching it. The incarcerated groups I have worked with have always been passionate about theater as an art form that empowers them in an environment where they are otherwise powerless, and gives them a voice when they often feel voiceless. Their passion to write and perform motivates me to keep coming back to prisons.

As a teacher of the humanities, I believe that theater can help us understand what it means to be human, and I have never felt the power of theater as a humanizing force than I have in prison.

Prison is by its nature dehumanizing, and one of the things I have heard often from incarcerated actors is that performing theater makes them feel human again.

How relevant is Dante’s work to our contemporary lives especially to those inmates in Kerobokan prison?

Through Dante’s classical work Divine Comedy, the incarcerated actors have a lot to teach the rest of the world, not only about Dante, but about the true meaning of freedom and justice.

An important aspect of our work is to let people outside prison hear the words written by people inside prison so that the stereotypes we all have about prison from Hollywood can be forever put to rest, and we can see people in prison as human beings, not statistics.

When you first entered Kerobokan prison, how did you feel? Did you think the project would work well?

The most difficult part of working in prisons is dealing with the official bureaucracy, but in this case Director Siswanto (Kerobokan prison warden) was very supportive from the beginning and has helped make everything work smoothly. He understands theater can provide a unique form of rehabilitation in a prison environment.

When you first met with members of Kerobokan theatre group, what went through your mind?

When I first met the group at Kerobokan, I was impressed with their intelligence and creativity — most of all with their ability to embark on this project with such a positive attitude in spite of their difficult situations.

Now that I have seen the preliminary results of their writing and performance, I am even more impressed with their talents and their generosity of spirit. I expected to learn a lot about Dante by seeing his story from their point of views and I also expected to learn a lot about being a human being by listening to how they coped with difficulties in their lives.

I am not disappointed, and have learned even more than I expected from these extraordinary men and women (in Kerobokan). My hope is that we can continue this work and give more people a chance to discover their powers — inside and outside of prison.

The Kerobokan Theater Group will perform before the public in January 2012.

Comments: Tiananmen anniversary

The Jakarta Post | Thu, 06/09/2011 8:00 AM

June 4, Online

Chinese security forces rounded up more government critics ahead of Saturday’s anniversary of the crushing of the 1989 pro-democracy movement centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, adding to an already harsh crackdown on dissent, activists said.

Stricter measures against dissidents are routine on the June 4 anniversary, but this year coincides with the most sweeping suppression campaign in many years. Hundreds of activists, lawyers and bloggers have been questioned, detained or simply disappeared in the four-month campaign that aims to quash even the possibility of a pro-democracy movement forming along the lines of those sweeping the Arab world.

Bao Tong, a former aide to the late liberal Communist Party secretary Zhao Ziyang, was taken to an unknown location by security officers this week along with his wife, according to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a group that publicizes information on dissidents collected from sources within China.

Your comments:

Yet another show-off by the Chinese dictator. A population of more than 1.3 billion doesn’t seem to react to this kind of iron-fist rule.

Venus
Jakarta

The unidentified young man with the shopping bags standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square will remain one of the abiding and living memories of the invincibility of the human spirit and the desire for freedom — even in the face of a corrupt and paranoid Police State like China.And in time, his iconic stance will bare fruit and conquer.

This has happened repeatedly in history. After all, Moses brought down the might of the Pharaohs and the Egyptian empire with a stick. Tyranny thinks in months or weeks, freedom thinks in centuries.

Phillip Turnbull
Serpong, Banten

From heaven to hell at Kerobokan prison

Rita A. Widiadana, The Jakarta Post, Kuta | Thu, 06/09/2011 9:47 AM

Liberating: Prison inmates take part in a rehearsal as part of a theater project at Kerobokan prison, Bali. JP/Zul Trio AnggonoFrom the outside, the Kerobokan prison located near Bali’s popular tourist spot of Kuta looks like any other Indonesian penitentiary.

A number of prison guards, donned in dark-brown uniforms, stand with menacing stares at the gate, while others eye visitors suspiciously before taking their cell phones and personal belongings at the entrance.

Once inside, the prison, home to over 1,000 inmates and detainees (which is far above its ideal capacity of 300), looks less “fearsome” to outsiders, especially upon entering a spacious garden leading to a pink-curtained auditorium.

This Monday afternoon, The Jakarta Post was on a special visit to the prison to watch a theater performance casting around 20 women and men inmates, a culmination of six months of hard work for a theater activity called the Dante Project.

The project, named after Italy’s 14th century poet Dante Alighieri, was led by Ron Jenkins, a professor of theater at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, the US.

Since 2007, Jenkins has introduced theater activities in prisons, emphasizing its significance as a social catalyst in the prison culture and its potential importance in the penal system.

Jenkins has worked in prison theater projects before, in New York and other places in the US, Italy and Indonesia (at Kerobokan prison in Bali and Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara province since January this year).

In these projects, Jenkins uses the classical literary work of Italy’s 14th century Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy incorporated into the writings, poems of participating inmates.

“Dante’s Divine Comedy tells a story about taking a personal journey through hell and purgatory to heaven. It is a story that anyone who has experienced hard times can understand,” explained  Jenkins.

“But people in prison unfortunately have a deeper understanding of hell than most of us, and they can identify even more strongly with a character like Dante who is trying to learn something as he travels through hell, which will help him get to heaven.”

Incarcerated individuals indentify even more personally with Dante when they learn that he himself
was convicted of crimes that led to his exile and condemnation to death, he said.

When the sound of kendang traditional Balinese percussion and acoustic guitars echoed in the hall, the play started. Andrew Chan, a member of the Bali Nine drug smuggling group, stood up on the stage and chanted a poem by Dante.

A natural actor with a few colorful tattoos on his body, Andrew who is facing death sentence, read with stunning flair.

“Lost — In the middle of our life’s journey, I found myself in a dark forest. For the straight path was lost.”
Matthew Norman, also part of the Bali Nine group, voiced his innermost feeling through a poem entitled Loneliness.

“Sit in a cold dark room listening intently for something that’s not there. It’s just another empty space, another empty day, another empty moment. There’s nothing to do but listen to my thoughts and they are as empty as I feel. I am lonely but no one can help me for I am lost within myself. In an empty space trying to get out, but there is no way out.”  

A source of inspiration: One of the Kerobokan prison inmates holds up a script for a play inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. JP/Zul Trio AnggonoThis theater project, which started in January, has given prisoners a forum to find their own voices, rediscover their lost hopes and redefine as well as re-identify themselves as valued persons and free individuals (at least within their hearts and minds), despite their hardships and difficulties living within the sturdy walls.

During the course of the hour-long performance, the inmate artists eloquently expressed the concepts of justice and freedom of Dante’s versions and their own.

Sinta Puspitasari spoke loudly: “There is no justice in my beloved country which boasts of its Pancasila ideology — equal justice and welfare for everybody. Justice has been covered up with money, corruption and greed.”

Jon, another inmate, shared his perception of justice: “I want to scream. Law and justice is widely separated. Justice and court are transformed into a legal market in which anyone can bargain. Justice is for people with money.”

 Dante also teaches them about heaven. Lukman Agus views heaven as a dream come true; Yanti thinks heaven is seeing your mother again, while for Tantri, heaven is being able to see her two children.

But for everybody on stage as well as pack of fellow inmates the audience, “Heaven is FREEDOM… Merdeka… Merdeka,” they shouted while clapping their hands and smoking kretek cigarettes.

Rin Rin Marliani or Orin, one of the spectators, was crying while watching the performance. “It is so liberating, inspiring to share this feeling. Life has again showed more possibilities,” Orin said, while standing up on stage.

For Tanri, expressing herself through the prison’s writing, art and theater programs helped her realize her time behind bars has been productive.

“It’s not the end. It’s the beginning. It’s an opportunity to redefine who you are. You don’t have to go back to the same place you came from,” she said.

Nyoman Catra, a professor of arts at the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI), and his dancer wife Desak, mingled with the audience.

 In a dark forest: Andrew Chan, a member of the Bali Nine drug smuggling group, stands up on stage to chant a poem by Dante. JP/Zul Trio Anggono“They [the inmates] are people often misunderstood by those outside the walls. People view them as inmates portrayed on television and Hollywood movies. We saw their talents as artists,” said Catra who worked with Jenkins in a version of Dante at the Gardner Museum in Boston. He used Balinese masks to create the character of Minos, the demon guardian of hell.

After the performance,  Jenkins looked happy:
“Dante’s poem is about taking a journey from hell to heaven, and
in the months that we worked on this project, the performers wrote about taking that journey in their own terms.”

The performers, he said, wrote about it so clearly that in the course of an hour performance they and their audience were able to look past the bars of their prison and see a vision of heaven they themselves created with the power of their imaginations and their irrepressible desire to transform their lives in a positive way.

They experienced the transition from darkness to light that Dante expressed in the line they quoted from his poem:  “And then we emerged to see again the stars.”

Former child star Tasya launches teen album

The Jakarta Post | Thu, 06/09/2011 8:00 AM

JAKARTA: Former child star Shafa Tasya Kamila is no longer daddy’s little girl. Tasya, as people used to call her, released her first teenage album titled Say No on Wednesday, kompas.com reported.

“I am very excited but also anxious… I hope people like my new songs,” said the 18 year old.

Tasya explained that even though this album was a dream come true, it had taken a long time to release it.

“[However] I am grateful because the timing could not have been better. I am now a university student and I can manage my own time,” says the University of Indonesia student.

Tasya recorded five albums as a child, including Libur Telah Tiba (Holiday is Coming) and Gembira Berkumpul (Happy Together). — JP

Lack of desire to cut football wage bills: survey

Associated Press, London | Thu, 06/09/2011 9:04 AM

Clubs in Europe's top five leagues generate euro8.4 billion (US$12.2 billion) a season, but that revenue is being outstripped as salaries rise at a faster pace.

A survey of football finances found that while the total revenue for clubs in England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France rose by 5 percent, their combined wage bills soared by 8 percent to more than euro5.5 billion ($8 billion) in the 2009-10 season.

The 20th annual study from consulting firm Deloitte, based on the most recently published club accounts, warns that "competitive pressure to win outweighs any collective desire to limit wage costs."

The wage bill for England's 20 topflight clubs alone rose by 5 percent to more than 1.4 billion pounds ($2.3 billion).

And while they generated 2.03 billion pounds ($3.3 billion) in the same period, that represented only a 2 percent increase, resulting in an all-time high wages-to-revenue ratio of 68 percent.

"Cost control remains the biggest challenge facing clubs," said Paul Rawnsley, the Sports Business Group director at Deloitte. "Given the record wages/revenue ratio and pretax losses in the Premier League in 2009-10, we welcome the steps taken by football authorities, domestically and at a European level, to help clubs address this issue."

In a bid to end an era of so-called "financial doping" by teams with wealthy owners, clubs wanting to play in the Champions League or Europa League are required to stop spending more than they earn starting from next season.

Persistent loss-makers can first be barred from the 2014-15 season under the "financial fair play" regulations. Owners will be allowed to cover losses up to a maximum euro45 million ($65.6 million) over an initial three-year spell, starting in 2012. In the three years from 2015, only euro30 million ($43.7 million) in losses can be covered.

Deloitte did find that net debt at Premier League clubs fell by 20 percent to 2.6 billion pounds ($4.3 billion)in 2009-10 and the subsequent takeover at Liverpool should reduce that figure further in the next report.

But Germany's Bundesliga remains more profitable than England's top flight, with a figure of euro138 million ($201 million) compared with 83 million pounds ($136 million).

They are the only two ofthe Europe's top five leagues to record operating profits, with losses in Spain, Italy and France.

Revenue in the Bundesliga grew six percent to euro1.7 billion ($2.5 billion), while the country boasts the largest average attendance (42,700) in European football.

Bin Laden's No. 2: Muslims will destroy America

The Associated Press, Cairo | Thu, 06/09/2011 8:32 AM

Osama bin Laden's deputy warned Wednesday that America faces not individual terrorists or groups but an international community of Muslims that seek to destroy it and its allies. He was delivering a28-minute videotaped eulogy to slain al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's longtime No. 2 and considered the network's operational head, also sought to cast a role for the terror group in the popular uprisings shaking Arab world.

"Today, praise God, America is not facing an individual, a group or a faction," he said, wearing a white robe and turban with an assault rifle leaned on a wall behind him. "It is facing a nation than is in revolt, having risen from its lethargy to a renaissance of jihad."

Al-Zawahri also heaped praise on bin Laden, who was killed in the May 2 raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad. Al-Zawahri, who is believed to be operating from somewhere near the PakistanAfghanistan border, also criticized the U.S. for burying bin Laden at sea.

"He went to his God as a martyr, the man who terrified American while alive and terrifies it in death, so much so that they trembled at the idea of his having tomb" he said.

Al-Zawahri - who referenced the toppling of rulers i Tunisia and Egypt and continued uprisings in Libya, Yemen and Syria - tried to cast recent developments as in line with his group's longtime goal: to destroy America and its allies. He said America now faces the international Muslim community.

"Our brothers who are working in Islam in all places, I tell ou that our hands are extended to you and our hearts are open to you, so that we can work together to make Allah's word the highest and to make Islamic law in Muslim lands the ruler, not the ruled," he said in a video released on militant websites.

Al-Qaida has long sought to topple many of the Arab leades whose regimes have been shaken or toppled by popular uprisings this year, though militant Islam has played next to no role in any of them and most activists say they seek civil, not religious rule.

Within days of th bin Laden raid, al-Qaida had issued a statement vowing to keep fighting the United States, a message that was likely designed to convince followers that the organization would remain vigorous and intact even after its founder's demise.

But al-Zawahri's eulogy was the first comment by one of his potential successors on bin Laden's killing.

He also said U.S. officials withheld the release of photographs of bin Laden's body, fearing the "Islamic peoples' anger and hate" for America. He claimed bin Laden "achieved what he wanted to do, which is to incite the Islamic nation to holy war, and his message had reached all."

Al-Zawahri, who is Egyptian, is a less charismatic figure believed to lack bin Laden's ability to bring together the many nationalities and ethnic groups that make up al-Qaida. His appointment as the next al-Qaida leader could further fracture an organization that is thought to be increasingly decentralized.

The eulogy included five poems of praise for bin Laden, describing him alternately as modest, noble and shrewd commander and "the vanguard of jihad against the communists and then the Crusaders," a reference to bin Laden's campaign in the Afghan war against the Soviets in the 1980s and the Sept. 11, 2011 attacks against the United States.

Al-Zawahri also vented his anger at Pakistani military leaders and politicians, implying they had a role in bin Laden's death.

"I call on the Pakistani nation to rise up against the mercenary military traitors and the corrupt politicians who turned Pakistan into an American colony, allowing it (America) to kill or capture whoever it wants," al-Zawahri said.

He concluded by saying bin Laden will remain a "source of horror and a nightmare chasing America, Israel and their allies."