Judge detained in bribery case

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