1. MATI, 2 cols, 25 counts

1. MATI, 2 cols, 25 counts

Why can it be so difficult
for local leaders to die?

When former president Soeharto was admitted to the Pertamina
Hospital in Central Jakarta last December, people speculated that
he could be about to die. The fact is the 78-year-old man managed
to survive and was released from the hospital after intensive
treatment.

People then linked his physical condition with a Javanese
belief that such a person must be in the Sumlanggoro and
Sumlanggem conditions, meaning the difficulty for a person to die
because he possesses extraordinary mystical energy or strength
acquired during his lifetime (called Joyokawijayan in the
Javanese language).

Such a person must be fully aware that the powers in his
possession will become a pepalang (obstacle) to his death though
the physical condition no longer supports life.

This opinion was recently revealed by a Javanese cultural
observer, Suryanto Sastroatmadja, to The Jakarta Post. He said a
person who experiences great difficulty in dying at his old age
is suspected to have some unfinished business in his life.

"But it's also possible that such a person has some secret
mystical powers, which creates an obstruction for him to meet his
death."

In the traditional Javanese belief, there are five elements
that could make a person's death difficult.

First, in the case of a person who feels guilty for committing
numerous sins in his life, it is called Pantirasianta, literally
meaning the home of imprisoned emotions. This applies to
everyone, from the common people up to the high-ranking leaders.
Normally a huge number of problems reside inside such a person.

Second is Andayupanti, meaning to create superiority through
various sacrifices, including searching for mystical powers to
enrich oneself or to enhance one's physical prowess.

The person is less aware that the accumulation of these powers
will weaken him against external energy. For example, when he is
attacked with black magic sent by another person, he would not be
able to resist but could only attempt to hold out and retain his
physical self.

The third element is Wicaksagriya or Wicaksangriya, referring
to an old person who cannot experience a simple death. Instead,
he must go through a painful process. This could be caused as his
early life was lived far from virtiously.

It also applies to those searching for mystical powers in
faraway places to cover up their economic shortcomings in their
youth. This kind of small-mindedness prevents them from positive
interaction in the society and later creates difficulties for
them in the face of death.

2. TOILET, 1 line, 35 counts

Indian toilet museum lifts the lid

NEW DELHI, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Forget the grand parliament
building in New Delhi. Or even the majestic 17th century Red Fort
in the Indian capital.

One of the must-see stops on the list of many tourists to the
ancient city dotted with fabulous historical monuments is an
unusual little building tucked away at a far end of Delhi: a
toilet museum.

Toilets may have been the butt of many jokes for years, but
the museum has taken the once taboo subject out of the water
closet and made it an object of tourist curiosity. It also
strives to make a serious point about the dignity of the poor.

The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets tracks the history
of toilets from the basic burnt brick drains in India in 2,500 BC
and the chamber pots of the Middle Ages to the high-tech waste
disposal gadgets in submarines and spacecraft today.

The museum helps lift the lid on the world of toilets through
an inventive use of photographs, copies of old loos as well as
trivia on toilet humour, technology and etiquette through the
years.

"We get about 500 visitors every month during the tourist
season from November to January," Madhu Singh, spokeswoman for
Sulabh International, told Reuters. "Most of them are drawn by
the unusualness of the subject."

But the museum has a serious purpose. It is part of a wider
effort by a non-governmental organisation, Sulabh International
Social Service Organisation, to set up a string of public toilets
across the country where many of the over one billion people
still relieve themselves on roadsides and behind bushes.

Sulabh -- Hindi for convenient -- has built over 650,000
toilets used by about 10 million people every day and has also
designed a mobile toilet which is used for huge gatherings such
as last year's Hindu festival in the holy north Indian city of
Allahabad attended by millions.

3. TOBACO, 2 lines, 27 counts

Tobacco may be good for you
as food supplement

MANILA, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Forget for a moment that this plant is
blamed for millions of deaths every year.
If the Philippine government gets its way, tobacco -- held
responsible for a variety of ills including cancer, emphysema and
birth defects -- will soon be turned into food supplements,
antibiotic ointments and skin creams.
Building materials, paints, pesticides and paper are also on the
way.
Independent testing and approval for sale are still pending, but
the Philippines is hoping the alternative products will
supplement a farming sector set to suffer as evidence mounts
about the harmful effects of smoking.
"The phase-out (of tobacco) may be implemented slowly, but it
will still have an effect" on farmers, said Carlitos Encarnacion,
head of the government's National Tobacco Administration.
The country's 62,000 tobacco farmers are better off than those
farming other crops because demand is up -- smoking in the
Philippines is still increasing by two percent a year,
Encarnacion said.
But fears that an international anti-smoking campaign would drive
the crop toward obsolescence prompted the government to re-think
its tobacco research in the mid-1990s.
Government testing soon found the plant's seeds, stalks and roots
-- not just the leaves people smoke -- could be used for a wide
variety of uses.