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