Judge detained in bribery case

BATAM, Riau: The head of the Batam District Court, Krisman Sormin, is being held at the local prosecutor's office for questioning as a suspect in a Rp 50 million bribery case.

"He is being detained for 20 days and the detention can be extended for 30 days, but this depends on the investigation," chief prosecutor Sution Usman said here on Friday.

He said his office had rejected Krisman's request to be placed under house arrest because the suspect has no home in the area.

Sution could not say when the suspect's dossier would be handed over to the courts.

It is alleged that Krisman received a bribe of Rp 50 million from a female defendant, the late Sulistianti Sudirohusodo, three years ago.

The court ruled against Sulistianti, despite Krisman's alleged promise to rule in favor of her. --Antara

East Java councillors told to cancel German trip

SURABAYA: Germany's deputy ambassador to Indonesia, Hermann Sausen, has asked the East Java (Jatim) Legislative Council's Commission B to cancel their plan to visit Germany to conduct comparative studies on tobacco plantations there.

"To learn about tobacco, you should go to Turkey or Greece, not to Germany. We don't have any tobacco plantations, we have only tobacco-processing and auctioning sites in Bremen," Hermann said.

Herman made his point on Thursday in response to a question raised by a commission member, Sri Hartono, about the extent of tobacco plantations in Germany and why the country was famous worldwide for tobacco.

East Java Legislative Council Chairman Bisrie Abdul Djalil said that they were to visit four European countries, including Germany. Other visits were to the Netherlands to study smallholdings, Switzerland for banking and France for small and medium enterprises.

"We haven't set a date for our departure, but I think Rp 20 million will be sufficient for each member's transportation and accommodation expenses, said Bisrie, a representative from the National Awakening Party (PKI).--Antara

Urban areas to get loans from World Bank

PONTIANAK, West Kalimantan: Each of some 46 poor rural subdistricts in West Kalimantan will get between Rp 1 and Rp 2 billion in financial assistance from the World Bank for the development of living environments.

Vice chairman of the Regional Environmental Impact Agency, Samsul Usman said here on Thursday that the assistance, known as Urban Poverty Project, was part of a national program and intended for developing poor urban areas across West Kalimantan.

Samsul, however, said he was not sure whether the Rp 49 billion budget proposed by his agency to help some 46 poor districts in seven regencies would be approved by the regional administrations.

Aspar Aswin, the West Kalimantan governor, said at a "Community Driven Urban Settlement" workshop held in the gubernatorial offices that the number of poor urban people had decreased significantly from 44,28 percent in 1999 to 24,28 percent in 2001.

He hoped that the Urban Poverty Project would prioritize to slum improvement, the development of industrial sites and water catchment areas and the reordering of living environments.--Antara

Bukit Asam to go public in June

MUARA ENIM, South Sumatra: President of PT. BA (Bukit Asam), a state-owned coal mining company, Ismet Harmaini, said here on Thursday that his company was gearing up to go public in June.

"We are now all ready for that as we have wanted to become a publicly listed company since 1997," Ismet said.

Ismet explained that if the South Sumatra based PT. BA, which produces some 10 million tons of coal annually, wanted to be professional and have a more competitive edge, it would have to increase its export capacity in the near future as well.

PT. BA's business manager Teguh said at a seminar on the potential of South Sumatra's natural resources in Palembang that the company planned to increase its exports to some 50 million tons annually over the next 25 years, making the company the world's biggest coal exporter.

Teguh further explained that South Sumatra had some 5.6 billion tons of coal deposits, amounting to 50 percent of Indonesia's reserves. Antara