Indonesia's new hobby

Indonesia's new hobby

The country has a new hobby -- increasing its provinces. A
province begets "children" and "grandchildren", along with
districts and municipalities.

The result is complicated. It not only confuses pupils on
answering such questions as how many provinces Indonesia has, but
it also has more serious consequences. Indonesia suddenly needs
many governors, district heads and mayors.

For sure, this has an impact on state funds. Why did the
country suddenly have this strange hobby? The answers are many.
One of them is that reform has encouraged many people to feel
that they are capable of becoming governors, district heads and
mayors.

This hobby might disturb the general election in 2004.

It is high time we stop it. From the point-of-view of the
general election, it has two bad sides. On the one hand, it
might give advantages to a certain party, and on the other hand,
it has the potential to hamper the election.

Indonesia is indeed a vast nation, currently being "dwarfed"
and "deflated" by this hobby.

-- Media Indonesia, Jakarta

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ANPAk..r..
Otherop-war-protests
War protests
JP/6/

War protests

American and British military forces ... increased the
intensity of the war against Saddam Hussein's regime that has
brutalized Iraq and threatened world peace for more than a
decade.

One of the most disturbing elements so far is that anti-war
protests in the United States have become more intense, too.

While we, and surely other Americans, were at philosophical
odds over the past few months with the protest movement, it's
recognized that the right to assemble and exercise free speech
are foundations of this country. And many Americans who
participated in earlier peace rallies likely are embarrassed by
what they are seeing.

What has been exposed over the past few days is a hard-core
element behind the protests that is more anti-American than pro-
peace. Violence and aggressive civil disobedience hardly are
calling cards of people who simply don't want war.

These protests are doing more than blocking city streets. They
are taking stretched-thin law enforcement away from more critical
assignments related to homeland security.

-- The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina

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Otherop-TV-US-POWs
On the televising of American POWs
JP/6/

On the televising of American POWs

The international outcry over the display of American
casualties and prisoners on Iraqi state television is thoroughly
justified. This was not only a flagrant violation of the Geneva
convention, which requires that prisoners of war "must at all
times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or
intimidation and against insults and public curiosity;" it was
also an offense against the very fundamentals of human decency.

For all his pledges that the U.S. would treat Iraqi prisoners
of war humanely, however, Bush's words rang just a little hollow.
There were times, especially at the start, when the prisoners at
Guantanamo Bay came very close to being paraded before television
cameras. They were shown in conditions that seemed designed to
humiliate, confined to metal cages, led hooded and blindfolded to
interrogation sessions that were not, and could not, be
monitored. Bush's call for U.S. prisoners to be treated humanely
would command more credibility and wider sympathy if his
administration had appeared more amenable to accepting rules that
most other civilized countries accept.

-- The Independent, London