Akbar out of the running
Akbar out of the running
MEDAN, North Sumatra: The Golkar chairman, Akbar Tandjung, was
excluded from presidential nominations by the party's cadres in
the province.
The meeting of Golkar cadres -- from Aug. 12 through 14 --
invited media tycoon Surya Paloh, businessman Aburizal Bakrie,
former Indonesian military chief Gen. (ret) Wiranto, Yogyakarta
Governor Hamengkubuwono and the Coordinating Minister for
People's Welfare, Jusuf Kalla, to select presidential candidates.
Akbar is a native of North Sumatra.
Earlier, Golkar's Yogyakarta chapter refused to nominate Akbar
on moral grounds, referring to his status as a graft convict.
The Golkar leader in the province, Marzuki, suggested on
Sunday, that the party executive board nominate a candidate from
Java to lure as many voters as possible in the presidential
election next year.
More than a half of the country's population of 215 million
population live on Java island. -- Antara
;JP;AMD;
ANPAa..r..
Scene-robot-competition
RI students join robot contest
JP/4/robot
RI students join robot contest
SURABAYA: A team of students from the Surabaya Institute of
Technology (ITS) will soon depart for Bangkok for an
international robot festival.
Lecturer Dadet Pramadihanto said on Sunday the team would make
a stop-over in Jakarta on Thursday before leaving for Bangkok the
day after.
The team will feature the AI-Sya robot which won the
Indonesian Robot Contest last May.
ITS students also won the national robot contest in 2002,
featuring robot,Ellite. But they lost the Asia Pacific Robot
Contest in Tokyo in August 2002.
In 2001, a team from ITS created theB-Cak robot that won the
International Robot Contest in Fukushima, Japan, defeating 19
rivals contestants from, among others, Japan, the United States,
and France. -- Antara
;JP;ANT;
ANPAa..r..
Scene-govt-create-jobs
Govt pledges creation of more jobs
JP/4/govt
Govt pledges creation of more jobs
JAKARTA: The Minister for Manpower and Transmigration, Jacob
Nuwa Wea, has called on relevant government agencies and business
entities to initiate action to handle the burgeoning problem of
unemployment in the country.
The minister said on Monday that the standing unemployment
figures had reached an alarming level at 38 million unemployed.
"The figure is worrying as the new work force entering the
labor market reaches 2.5 million per year," he told reporters.
He said the government had sought every avenue to deal with
unemployment, including his ministry's plan to create up to 1.5
million jobs this year.
The ministry has also set the target of exporting between
650,000 and 700,000 workers this year.
The minister hoped business entities would follow in the
government's footsteps and create more jobs. -- Antara