Sampoerna Foundation clarifies

First of all, I, on behalf of the Sampoerna Foundation, would like to express our deepest gratitude for your coverage related to our latest project to build a high school in Yogyakarta.

However, we would like to clarify the following in the article titled World-class school to be built in Yogya (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 9):

1. Elan Merdy is Sampoerna Foundation's chief operating officer and not "the school's chief operating officer Elan Merdy."

2. Sampoerna Foundation is an independent non-governmental organization that focuses on providing access to and improving the quality of education and not "the foundation, a social wing of giant tobacco firm PT HM Sampoerna, is a non-governmental institution that focuses on education."

Since May 18, 2005, when Philip Morris International acquired PT HM Sampoerna Tbk (HMS), there has been no organizational relation between the Sampoerna Foundation and PT HMS. The only relation that still exists between the Sampoerna Foundation and HMS is a donor-recipient relation.

SAPTO H. SAKTI, director of marketing and communications, Sampoerna Foundation, Jakarta

Note: Thank you for the correction.

--Editor