JAKARTA (JP): The three most important political and security

JAKARTA (JP): The three most important political and security
portfolios in the new Cabinet lineup go to generals: Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono, coordinating minister for political and
security affairs; Hari Sabarno, minister of home affairs; and
Agum Gumelar, minister of transportation. A civilian, Matori
Abdul Djalil, is now in charge of defense. It remains to be seen
whether this signifies a further step toward more democratic
control of the armed forces.

Indeed, by focusing on what has developed after the downfall
of Soeharto, few significant trends or programs show a
discernible path toward civilian supremacy.

2. 4Mideast -- Is anyone learning from Middle East chaos?
1 x 40 36 pt optima bold

LONDON: What we have in Israel and Palestine now is not crisis
but chaos, a situation in which purposeful activity and
intelligent policy is becoming daily less and less possible.
Between the Tel Aviv bomb and the Jerusalem bomb the Israeli
government and security establishment has learned nothing, the
weakened Palestinian Authority has done little but appeal for
outside intervention, and the United States and Europe have tried
only to keep the violence below a certain level.

But you cannot moderate chaos or control the effects of
profoundly dangerous and counter-productive policies. The next
phase will undoubtedly be a punitive attack, or series of
attacks, by the Israelis, an escalation wanted by nobody outside
the leadership of fundamentalist Palestinian groups, and perhaps
not even wholeheartedly there. Such attacks will serve, briefly,
to assuage Israeli public opinion. But it is an index of how
murderously futile things have become that Israeli staff officers
and intelligence people already know, even as they present the
options to the cabinet, that none of the plans can lead anywhere
but to fresh violence.

2. 3Hongkong -- Ministerial system for Hong Kong
1 x 30 36 pt NCSB

As the words "Hong" and "Kong" have been separated in headline,
they should be throughout the article too to be consistent.

HONGKONG: Hongkong's system of governance is still evolving.

A clearer picture could emerge in two months when Chief
Executive Tung Chee Hwa makes his policy speech, which observers
said is likely to include an announcement on the framework for a
ministerial system.

The Hongkong leader said in his policy speech last year that
the territory needed to devise 'a compatible system of
appointment for the principal officials' in the civil service.

When Secretary for the Civil Service Joseph Wong was sent to
Australia and New Zealand in March this year, observers
speculated that the purpose of the trip was to gather information
on the two countries' ministerial systems.