Apartments offer privacy, convenience and prestige By Sugianto Tandra and Stevie Emilia JAKARTA (JP): The city's population is growing but land availability for housing is shrinking because it is being allocated to develop office buildings and public facilities. A lot of people are forced to buy a house in the outskirts of Jakarta or in the city's bufferzone areas, including Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi.

Living and working in the buffer zones Jakarta, the home of some 10 million people, has become so crowded it can be hard to find a place to live. To meet the rising demand for housing, new towns are being developed in Jakarta's bufferzone areas. They are designed to be self contained and to be more than just a place to live. Employment opportunities are offered in the towns. What are they like? The Jakarta Post's team of reporters Benget Simbolon Tnb., Sugianto Tandra, Ridwan M.

The price of a dream: New town residents cope with commuting JAKARTA (JP): For many people living in new towns around Jakarta, their homes are more like a rest stop between long commutes to and from work. Thomas, a resident of Bumi Serpong Damai, Tangerang, leaves the house at 6 a.m. every morning to get to his office in Sawah Besar, Central Jakarta. The 40-kilometer journey takes a "brief" one hour and 15 minutes. Oddly enough, he usually arrives an hour before the office opens.

Dive with the sharks and stingrays at SeaWorld's aquarium By Rebecca Moubray JAKARTA (JP): As Margie Bauer was petting a turtle on the head, a stingray zoomed by and nibbled on her's. She offered the stingray a fish, and then mustered her courage to touch it. "It was like feeling velvet underwater," she said.

National car on credit After 50 years of independence Indonesia is showing rapid development in many fields: technology, science, business, and education. Indonesian citizens should feel proud of the country's achievements which have given the nation dignity and prosperity. Education has played a big part in the formation of human resources for development. It is regrettable that people tend to prefer working in companies rather than in schools as teachers.

Hunting for adventure in 'The Ghost and the Darkness' By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan JAKARTA (JP): If you think that The Ghost and the Darkness sounds like one of your typical Joseph Conrad titles, you may not be far off the mark. Instead of taking place in some exotic Malayan locale, it tells the story of the "most famous African adventure" as seen from the eyes of yet another sterling specimen of the British Empire, Lt. Col. John Patterson.

Vietnamese media fights against graft By Russell Heng Gone are the days when a Cabinet Minister or a Provincial Party Secretary would be brought to book through the pages of the press. SINGAPORE: In keeping with political and economic reforms, Vietnam has also liberalized its mass media. Observers often point to the frequent exposes of official corruption by the country's newspapers as one of the prominent features of such a less-controlled press.

Guess What? Some people believe that being an underdog is the way to get things done. Businessman Fadel Muhammad is among them. "You get a lot more appreciation and respect if people underestimate you," he said, giving away one of his precious business secrets during a break at the ASEAN Business Summit last week. For instance, he was grateful when Finance Minister Mar'ie Muhammad told legislators that the chemical plant formerly owned by the Golden Key Group was in a "hopeless" condition.

ABRI source of fascination The Armed Forces of Indonesia By Robert Lowry ALLEN & UNWIN, NSW, February 1997 Paperback, 282 pages MELBOURNE (JP): It would not be an exaggeration to say Indonesia's Armed Forces has been a source of fascination, speculation and awe for people in the region, be they inside or outside Indonesia.

Sales of vast tracts of land affect the house prices By Benget Simbolon Tnb. JAKARTA (JP): Heny considers herself lucky. In 1989 she bought a house in a housing complex in Bekasi, east of Jakarta, for Rp 43 million. Today it is worth more than Rp 100 million. "I can't believe it, the prices of houses in the area are getting higher and higher," she said. No one can deny that everything increases in price, mostly due to inflation. But the increase in land prices go way beyond the inflation rate.

Government encourages law-cost housing JAKARTA (JP): Akbar Tandjung, the minister of public housing, has been active in political organizations since he studied at the University of Indonesia in 1960s. Being active in the college senate made him popular among youths and students. As a student activist, he was elected chairman of the Association of Indonesian Moslem Students (HMI) in 1971.

Haj transport takes of to a flying start JAKARTA (JP): The first batch of 8,000 haj pilgrims left for Mecca from six embarkation ports across the country yesterday to begin a month-long compulsory journey for well-to-do Moslems. About 197,600 Indonesians will go on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia this year. The six embarkation ports are Medan, Jakarta, Surabaya, Ujungpandang, Surakarta and Balikpapan. The pilgrims from Medan are expected to reach Jeddah's King Abdul Aziz airport first.

Parangtritis mega project From Sinar The controversy surrounding the Parangtritis tourism center development in Bantul regency, Yogyakarta, ended when Yogyakarta Governor Paku Alam VIII decided to cancel the mega project. However, the Bantul regent is still endeavoring to continue the project and has promised to conduct another feasibility study. The Bantul regent's stance needs to be underlined. Paku Alam's decision to reject the mega project was certainly not on his own will.

RI beats Taipei to win Fed Cup Asia Oceania JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia, unbeaten since the opening round of the Fed Cup Asia Oceania regional qualifying women's tennis tournament, beat Chinese Taipei 3-0 yesterday and will now play in July for promotion to world group two. The singles clash between the finalists' highly-rated number one players, Yayuk Basuki of Indonesia and Wang Shi-Ting of Chinese Taipei, was one of the highlights of the tournament.

Riot rocks Lombok after bus station closure JAKARTA (JP): About two hundred public van drivers ran amok in the small West Nusa Tenggara town of Praya in Central Lombok yesterday morning, attacking two bus stations and a government office, the military said. Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Slamet Supriadi said here last night the drivers went on the rampage in protest over the closing of an old bus station before the new one was finished.

Red and White School By A.D. Donggo The scouts' flag in our school, an emergency junior high school in a small town in Nusa Tenggara, was red and white with a triangle in the upper left corner. Our junior high school was considered an emergency school because the facilities were limited, including the number of teachers and lessons. It existed in the territory occupied by Dutch colonial troops in the post-World War II era. In Indonesian, junior high schools are known by their abbreviation S.M.P.

Ecological balance sought RIO DE JANERIO (DPA): Eight countries shoulder the main responsibility for maintaining the Earth's ecological balance, the WorldWatch Institute said Friday.

Wushu athletes to train in China JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's wushu athletes will undergo a two- month overseas stint in China in July in preparation for the 19th SEA Games here in October. The Indonesia Wushu Association chairman Antonius Haliman said yesterday the Games athletes, being groomed here and in Surabaya, would also take part in several tournaments in three countries in April and May. Wushu is a martial art originating from China.

Guess What? What a does wife do when her husband works every single hour, even on weekends? She shoves a note under his nose. That is what Hasri Ainun Habibie decided to do when her husband, B.J. Habibie, the state minister of research and technology, kept scribbling away under heaps of paper at home. "Do you have time for me?" the note said, as quoted by the Minister. Mrs.

Playful combination of jazz and gamelan By Franki Raden JAKARTA (JP): If you are a musician, you are used to recognizing the differences in pitch of various instruments. In an ensemble, the differences of pitch among instruments are to be avoided if you do not want the music to be out of tune. This is the basic problem with fusing Javanese gamelan (using the slendro and pelog scales) with piano, saxophone, accordion and other Western instruments using the diatonic scale.

Six generations hammer away at gong-making tradition Text by Rebecca Moubray, photos by P.J. Leo BOGOR, West Java (JP): Above the roar of the Bogor traffic, the rhythmic pounding of the gongmakers' hammers can be heard on the red-hot bronze. Inside the barn, four barefoot men strike the metal with their seven-kilo sledgehammers, while another rotates the gong in and out of the fire. Each hit makes a ping sound much like the sound of the gamelan instrument they will ultimately produce.

Between the rich and the poor JAKARTA (JP): A young girl climbed the stairs to the main entrance of Plaza Senayan, one of Jakarta's prestigious shopping malls. She wore torn pants. They seemed to have been ripped purposely. The shreds were on both knees and the front and back part of both thighs. A youngster standing on the pavement a few meters away turned to his friend and said: "Distortion. The poor want to be rich and the rich want to look poor".

Raden Saleh paintings to be auctioned in S'pore By Amir Sidharta JAKARTA (JP): The boom in Indonesian art seems far from over. At the end of the month, four works by Raden Saleh will be auctioned in Singapore. Sotheby's will feature a painting of Fighting Animals (ca. 1850), depicting a pair of lions fighting a pair of tigers over a horse for an estimate of between S$420,000 and $480,000. The second one is a landscape of the Dieng Plateau (1972) at an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000.

Indonesian shuttlers fail in All England BIRMINGHAM, England (Agencies): Indonesia failed to bring home a single title from the All England Badminton Open yesterday. First seeded Tri Kusherjanto/Minarti Timur failed to fulfill the country's only hope of winning the mixed doubles, losing 10- 15, 2-15 to fifth seeds Ge Fei/Liu Yong. Tri/Minarti failed to take advantage of Ge's physical condition. Ge had just won the women's doubles with partner Gu Jun earlier.

Amir Syamsuddin recounts his tough life By K. Basrie JAKARTA (JP): During his childhood, even a plate of rice was a luxury for Amir Syamsuddin. Today, as one of the country's most prominent lawyers, he earns Rp 2 billion (US$832,300) a year, drives the latest Mercedes Benz and belongs to several exclusive golf clubs. "My life's journey hasn't been so beautiful," recalled 55-year-old Amir, who has been in the media spotlight for the past few years due to the "big" criminal cases he's handled.

India and Southeast Asia: Neighbors at ease Multifaceted relations have expanded enormously in recent years, but there are still a few uncertainties. By Kripa Sridharan SINGAPORE: As regional neighbors, India and the Southeast Asian countries in the 1990s have been on a rediscovery mission identifying areas of co-operation that had been dormant for a disturbingly long period of time.

Former information minister dies JAKARTA (JP): Former minister of information Vice Air Marshal (ret.) Boediardjo died shortly after midnight yesterday while in a coma at the state-owned Cipto Mangunkusumo hospital. Boediardjo was information minister from 1968 to 1973 and had undergone intensive medical treatment for prostate cancer since Tuesday. He was 75 years old. He is survived by his wife and six children.

Guess What? Celebrating a birthday with peppermints and chocolates would be very rare for an Indonesian minister. But Minister of Industry and Trade Tunky Ariwibowo did it when he turned 61 last Thursday. A journalist met Tunky after speaking at the first ASEAN business summit and wished him a happy birthday. Other journalists followed suit. Tunky then asked his staff to take peppermints and chocolates he had prepared in his car and distribute them to journalists.