1. NU: 12 x 4 lines
1. NU: 12 x 4 lines NU seeks to reunite scattered members Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the nation's largest Muslim organization, opened on Thursday a national conference aimed at reuniting its fragmented politicians and ulemas scattered throughout different parties and social groups.
The three-day meeting, held at Jakarta's haj pilgrim dormitory complex in Pondok Gede, was expected to recommend the establishment of an NU political commission at the national and regional levels to achieve its goals and strengthen the political role of its members.
"Through this meeting we want to reunite the NU figures scattered everywhere and reposition its national role," NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi said in his speech.
2. TKW: 34 x 2 lines 'Stop sending female workers to Middle East'
State Minister of Women's Empowerment Sri Redjeki Sumaryoto has strongly urged the government to stop supplying women workers to Middle Eastern countries as they are still treating Indonesian women employed as domestic helpers in the region as slaves.
"Such treatment amounts to abuse and therefore, a serious effort is needed to ensure that Indonesian women working in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries are treated humanely," the minister said in the West Nusa Tenggara provincial capital of Mataram on Thursday.
She said she had delivered a letter to Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea to stop temporarily the dispatch of women workers to the Gulf countries until they revised their rules to provide for protection of foreign workers.
3. MPR: 43 x 1 line Analyst warns of public apathy toward MPR Annual Session A political analyst warned on Thursday that the public could prove to be apathetic toward the upcoming Annual Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), saying bribery among politicians would erode the credibility of the session's outcome.
Political analyst Indria Samego of the Center for Information and Development Studies (Cides) said the public had become used to widespread corruption among the political elite.
But when asked what the public could do to help make MPR members accountable, Indria replied: "Not much".
"People are tired of politics, they're apathetic, they probably think the entire process (of democracy) just cannot be made to move faster," he said after a discussion on political and economic conditions ahead of the MPR Annual Session, slated for next month.
4. HDI: 38 x 1 line People's poor welfare blamed on small budget allocation The small budgetary allocation for health, education and social welfare expenditure was a major factor that rendered Indonesia one of the countries least successful in improving the welfare of its people, population experts said on Thursday.
Chairman of the Indonesian Legislative Forum on Population and Development Surya Chandra Surapaty said social spending had yet to enter the mainstream in the budget at either national or provincial level.
"Meanwhile, the education sector should receive 20 percent of the development budget and the health sector some 15 percent. At present we receive only 5 percent for each," he told The Jakarta Post.
5. LEGAL: 48 x 1 line Don't hire disreputable lawyers say attorneys Who contributes the most to the corrupt judiciary in the country? Are they the prosecutors, lawyers or judges?
"All do, including the public and businesspeople who persist to win legal case by buying the justice," noted lawyer Frans Hendra Winarta said on Thursday.
Frans, also a member of the National Commission on Law Development (KHN), was addressing a workshop on the benchmark of the recruitment of prosecutors, judges and advocates co-organized by the KHN and the Yogyakarta-based legal watchdog, the Indonesian Court Monitoring.
Human rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis, who shared the same table with Frans in the workshop, asked the public not to hire "disgraceful lawyers", who he described as those violating the lawyers' moral ethic by guaranteeing victory to their clients and having enjoyed "luxurious" life in their early career as lawyers.