NEWS
By Paul Richter | February 19, 2009
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Indonesians yesterday that she wants to open a "robust partnership" with their fast-growing country, President Barack Obama's boyhood home. Arriving here on the second stop of her first trip as the top American diplomat, Clinton also announced that the Obama administration intends to sign a treaty moving the U.S. closer to a key regional group, the Association of South East Asian Nations. The Bush administration declined to sign the treaty, a move that critics took as a sign of its lack of interest in the region and preoccupation with the Middle East.
NEWS
By FROM SUN NEWS SERVICES | January 4, 2009
Earthquakes kill three in part of Indonesia JAKARTA, Indonesia : A series of powerful earthquakes killed at least three people in eastern Indonesia today, cutting power lines and badly damaging buildings. A 7.6-magnitude quake struck at 4:43 a.m. local time about 85 miles from Manokwari, Papua, at a depth of 22 miles, the U.S. Geological Agency said. It was followed by a strong 7.5 aftershock. Three bodies were found, including that of a 10-year-old girl, a hospital director said. Nineteen other patients were treated for injuries.
NEWS
December 12, 2008
ALI ALATAS, 76 Indonesian diplomat was once considered for top U.N. post Former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, who had the delicate task of representing Indonesia during an often-brutal dictatorship and was once considered for the top job at the United Nations, died yesterday in Singapore, a week after suffering a stroke. Mr. Alatas was the country's highest-ranking diplomat from 1988 until 1999 - the year after longtime President Suharto was swept from power after a wave of pro-democracy street protests.
NEWS
By FROM SUN NEWS SERVICES | November 25, 2008
Former Biden aide chosen for Senate seat WILMINGTON, Del. : Edward Kaufman, a former aide to Sen. Joe Biden, was named yesterday by Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner to fill the Senate seat Biden is leaving for the vice presidency. Kaufman is president of a political and management consulting firm based in Wilmington. He served on Biden's Senate staff 1973-1994, including 19 years as chief of staff. He is an advisory board member to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. Speculation on Biden's successor had centered in recent weeks on his son, Attorney General Beau Biden.
NEWS
By FROM SUN NEWS SERVICES | November 17, 2008
Obama officially steps down as Illinois senator CHICAGO : On the day he formally stepped down as Illinois' junior senator, President-elect Barack Obama released an open letter to state residents, saying they had taught him lessons he would draw on during his presidency. Obama, whose resignation after nearly four years in the Senate was a formality in the aftermath of his Nov. 4 election victory, thanked Illinois residents in a nostalgic letter published in newspapers throughout the state yesterday.
NEWS
By Jill Rosen | October 13, 2008
At first, he thought it must be a hoax. The man in the picture didn't have hands at the ends of his arms; he had what looked like tree branches - two masses of tangled, overgrown bark. In more than 20 years of practicing medicine, Dr. Anthony Gaspari, chief of dermatology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, had seen terrible skin conditions, but he'd never seen anything so incredible or so bizarre. "It was just so outrageous, so unusual, I wasn't convinced the hands were real," the doctor remembers.
NEWS
February 14, 2008
Science always seems to fall short in its explanations of love and courtship. Hormones, chemistry, evolution, genes, all the usual suspects are inadequate for the task. But rarely have we witnessed a scientist so thoroughly misjudge the nature of romance (and thus Valentine's Day) as did a Singapore primatologist who spent 20 months observing the behavior of 50 long-tailed macaques in Indonesia. It seems these macaques, a kind of monkey found in North Africa and parts of Asia, have a recognizable prelude to sexual encounters.
NEWS
By Richard C. Paddock and Paul Watson | January 28, 2008
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Former President Suharto, an army general who rose to power in Indonesia with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people and ruled for 32 years during an era of rapid economic growth and extraordinary graft, died yesterday in Indonesia. He was 86. Suharto's unyielding opposition to communism won him the backing of the United States during the height of the Cold War, although he was one of the most brutal and corrupt rulers of that era. He governed the world's fourth-most-populous nation with a combination of paternalism and ruthlessness from 1965 until he was ousted in spring 1998.
NEWS
By Joshua Kurlantzick | January 13, 2008
In the fall of 2002, the Indonesian island of Bali, once known for its luscious beaches and vibrant Hindu culture, became synonymous with terror and radicalism. After a massive bombing in Bali's nightclub district killed more than 200 people, the world suddenly realized what many locals had known for years: Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation on Earth, faced a serious internal terror threat. Even before the Bali attack, Indonesia had suffered a wave of bombings in the winter of 2000, and earlier that year someone had bombed the Jakarta Stock Exchange.
NEWS
By Laurie Goering | December 17, 2007
NUSA DUA, Indonesia -- Flying around the world to stem climate change isn't easy to defend. And that was just one of the environmental quandaries facing some 10,000 delegates, policy experts, activists and journalists at climate talks in Bali, which ended Saturday with a framework plan to trim the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. Free bicycles, for instance, were available on loan to delegates who wanted to ride between the meeting's various side events. They got plenty of use. But a share of negotiators and journalists alike, exhausted after days of overnight talks and dripping sweat in Bali's steamy heat, took one guilty look at the bikes and then waved for an air-conditioned taxi instead.