Bush's speech broadcast in Indonesia

Many Indonesians were able to follow President George W. Bush's state of the union address on Tuesday morning thanks to a simultaneous translation into Bahasa Indonesia courtesy of the U.S. Congress in Washington.

The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta organized a gathering of selected journalists and scholars to watch the live telecast of the American president's speech in both English and Indonesian.

Some radio stations and TV stations relayed part the Bahasa Indonesian version of the speech live.

This is the first time that the state of the union address has been simultaneously translated into Indonesian.

An embassy spokesperson said the decision to provide the service was prompted by the growing interest in the president's speech in Indonesia, and was not a reflection of changing attitudes in Washington toward Indonesia. -- JP