Free BBQ Night

All Indonesian “Mahasiswa” Please come and join us for a BBQ at Wisma Indonesia in Los Angeles. The message as the following:

Bersama ini dengan hormat disampaikan bahwa Konsul Jenderal RI, Bapak Subijaksono Sujono, mengundang seluruh mahasiswa Indonesia di California Selatan untuk hadir dalam acara BBQ bersama dan ramah tamah (peralatan musik tersedia), yang akan dilaksanakan pada :

Hari/Tanggal : Minggu, 21 Maret 2010

Waktu : Pukul 18.00 s/d 21.00

Tempat : Wisma Indonesia, 627 South Windsor Blvd , Los Angeles , CA 90005

Mohon bantuan untuk menyebarluaskan undangan ini.

Salam,

Pensosbud

It’s going to be a great BBQ night. Don’t wanna miss it. See You All There!

According to him, freedom of the press in Indonesia has not fully supported, so no wonder if his position at the Asian level was still above the 170 ranked. “The ranking of the independence of the press in Indonesia was below 100, because our legal system does not support the freedom of the press,” he said.

It was also due to Indonesia do not currently have a regional human rights court in Southeast Asia, as well as countries in Europe and America, if there is a dispute of the press, journalists are not prosecuted when on journalistic duty. In this regard, he said, the Indonesian press is not pure free yet, tried to be kept no longer to criminalize  press.

But with the existence of ITE Law precisely assessed the government will limit the freedom of the press and freedom of expression again, like when the era of the New Order (Order Baru). He further said that press freedom can not be achieved if without the support of the community. Therefore, since the government was opened reform, freedom of the press who previously confined, continue trying to help promote applied democracy. “For example, escorting the media crowded and Chandra seed cases and cases Prita be evidence of the press force to defend the public interest,” he said.
source

Obama & World

When President Barack Obama was sworn in one year ago, the world embraced him as one of their own.

The first African-American president could claim heritage from Kenya to Kansas and from Indonesia to Ireland. He was elected on the hope of a nation, and inaugurated amid the pride of a global family.

And guess what? Now they’re all treating him like, well, family.

They expect more from him. They wonder why he never calls. He doesn’t write…

In Indonesia, their feelings are hurt that he hasn’t come to visit the place where he came of age. In Kenya, they wonder if he has forgotten the place from which his ancestors hailed. In Afghanistan, they are profoundly disappointed in his behavior. In Iraq, like all in-laws, they can’t wait to say goodbye after too long a visit. Europe, like an older brother, feels protective, and maybe a bit jealous.

And right here in the liberal bastion of Boston, the home of his closest political relatives, Obama is in a full-blown family feud. Tuesday, Obama and his policies were stunningly rebuked when Massachusetts voters elected a hard-right Republican to fill the Senate seat of the “liberal lion,” Ted Kennedy.

On that cold day on Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama put his right hand on the same bible used by Abraham Lincoln, GlobalPost featured a series of essays, reports, videos and photo slideshows in a special report titled “… For Which It Stands: America and the World.” In the series, we explored how the world views America and how America views the world.

After eight years of President George W. Bush, it was a time when one poll after the next showed America’s image in the world had never been lower. And here was a new president reaching out to and engaging with the world. It seemed the beginning of a new era, a time of unbridled hope and optimism that this president would indeed bring about change.

We invite you to take a look back at last year’s stories as a metric for whether Obama has succeeded and where we are today. One year on, we asked many of those same correspondents and columnists to revisit how Obama and America are viewed today.

Obama's inauguration

Now 365 days later, the world seems largely impatient with the idea that the president’s soaring rhetoric has not been matched with deeds. His public diplomacy is strong, but our correspondents are hearing from every corner of the world that to carry out the hard work of affecting change he still has a long way to go.

In Kenya, Tristan McConnell writes that Obama’s speech last July during a visit to sub-Saharan Africa resonated with Africans.

“Africa’s future is up to Africans,” Obama declared to loud applause.

But as McConnell reports from Nairobi, the administration policy on Africa still has not taken shape.

In Indonesia, Peter Gelling writes of a nation that was honored tohave had a personal connection with the life of Obama, who lived in Jakarta as a boy. The word on the street was that Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, might be the first place he visited. It never happened. He went to Canada and then London and then Egypt and Africa and China and he made it to Oslo to collect his Nobel Peace Prize and then to Copenhagen for the conference on climate change.

The Indonesians even built a statue of 10-year-old Obama in shorts and a T-shirt with the Nobel Peace Prize hanging around his neck and a butterfly on his hand. A plaque reads, “The future belongs to those who believe in the power of their dreams.”

Now a Facebook page is gaining more and more members – more than 60,000 and climbing – calling for the statue to be taken down.

In Afghanistan, correspondent Jean MacKenzie writes that the thing Afghans might remember most is that the day of Obama’s inauguration was the day full electrical power came to Kabul and the lights came on – and stayed on through the night. It was a first since the fall of the Taliban.

“Now, a year later, much of the glow has dimmed, at least from the perspective of this sad and war-ravaged nation,” writes MacKenzie.

“It was inevitable, of course – no one could have lived up to the inflated expectations that Obamamania had generated. But in Afghanistan the disappointments have been especially bitter.”

In almost every corner of the world, it seems Obama has fallen short of the extraordinary faith so many were willing to put in his ability to affect change. Our columnist HDS Greenway observes that there are few foreign policy successes to highlight. And Greenway quotes former U.S. national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who said Obama “has not yet made the transition from an inspiring orator to compelling statesman. Advocating that something happen is not the same as making it happen.”

GlobalPost columnist Mohamad Bazzi agrees. Bazzi introduces an Arabic term used in the Middle East for bloated rhetoric. It is called, “haki fadi,” or “empty talk.”

As Bazzi writes, “In his appeal to the Arab world, President Barack Obama is dangerously close to being full of haki fadi.”

But not all corners of the world are expressing discontent in Obama.

In London, columnist Tom Fenton write that Obama is more popular in Europe than in his own country.

In fact, a German Marshall Fund poll released in the fall showed that support for the American president has jumped 88 points since the days of President Bush.

“You can bask in the glow of being an American in Paris these days, like you could in the good old days after World War II,” writes Fenton.

So perhaps at the end of the day, Obama is now truly part of the family, no longer an honored guest or a favorite son. And, as the saying goes, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.”

source

Google announced Wednesday that it will start encrypting all its Gmail traffic when using a remote wireless server.

This comes within days of Google’s announcement that it might pull its offices from China after discovering concerted attempts to break into Gmail accounts of human rights activists.

Gmail users will now default to using HTTPS, the secure, encrypted method for communicating with a remote server.  This is for the entire e-mail session, not just for log-in as was previously the case.  Since 2008 this option has been officially available for Gmail users but Google hesitated at turning it on for all users because the encryption does slow down the service.

Gmail Engineering Director Sam Schillace wrote in the Gmail blog that  “Over the last few months, we’ve been researching the security/latency tradeoff and decided that turning https on for everyone was the right thing to do,”

When people were using fixed and trusted connections, such as home and work, this wasn’t as necessary but as Wi-Fi connections become more popular, hackers simply began using sniffing software to access people’s online activities.

Rest assured that the HTTPS does not encrypt your email messages, the e-mails sent to other people are transmitted as they have always been in plain text.  It simply encrypts the communications it transit between Google’s servers and the user’s computer.

It was a coalition of privacy and security experts that called on Google publicly to make the change last June.  They stated that Google was putting millions of people at risk by not using encryption as the default for their cloud computing services.

The HTTPS can be turned off in their account settings for users that really find it slows them down or that they just don’t need the added security/privacy. Just note that failing to use HTTPS increases your vulnerability to nasty hack attacks when using open or badly secured network, particularly a public Wi-Fi spot.
Source

“I have ordered an Indonesian contingent to be sent to help the people of Haiti who are victims of this massive natural disaster,” the President said after taking part in evaluating the preparation of 3,000 members of the Rapid Reaction Team for Disaster Handling (SRC-PB) at the Halim Perdanakusumah airbase here on Thursday.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN the death toll of the quake could be “well over 100,000” with tens of thousands confirmed dead and thousands more unaccounted for. Many people
are believed to be trapped alive under the rubble after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake decimated the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday.

The earthquake in the Carribean archipelago has been in world headlines, with humanitarian aid coming in from countries worldwide.

Haiti’s devastation is all too familiar to Indonesia: a mammoth quake struck off the country’s western coast in 2004, spawning a tsunami that killed about 230,000 people in 14 countries — half of them in
Indonesia.

“As a country that has been itself devastated by a similar situation, we are absolutely saddened by what’s happening in Haiti,” AP quoted Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa as saying at an ASEAN meeting in Vietnam. “We call on the ASEAN community, including ourselves, of course, to do what we can do to assist them.”

Two major donors, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, have cancelled US$1.2 billion in Haiti’s debts, freeing up funds for the government to pour cash into rebuilding roads, bridges and social programs, Reuters reported.

The World Bank has also pledged an extra $100 million in aid for Haiti and said it is considering setting up a special trust fund to mobilize and coordinate international aid for the country.

Yudhoyono said urgent action was needed to help Haitians because the first hours after the disaster were critical for saving lives.

“We shouldn’t waste time in the first hours after a disaster, it’s a golden chance. If we can quickly help those who can still be saved, then a lot of our brothers’ lives can be saved,” he said.

Meanwhile Syamsul Maarif, head of the National Agency for Disaster Management (BNPB), said the agency would send 30 medical officers from the Rapid Reaction Team along with food aid to Haiti on Friday.

The Foreign Ministry has confirmed that five Indonesians working in Haiti, including two UN staffers, survived the quake and were on their way home.

On Thursday Yudhoyono remained on site to evaluate the capability of the Rapid Reaction Team, which continued conducting their emergency drill despite a heavy downpour.

The team first flew over, mapping the disaster area. Information of the extent of the disaster was sent to the base, which specified the exact location. Another helicopter was then flown in to begin evacuations, while yet another helicopter delivered food aid to unreachable victims.

“The rain has made the [training] conditions more realistic and impressive,” Yudhoyono said.

Yudhoyono said the team would have two main bases, at Halim airport in Jakarta and at Abdul Rahman Saleh airport in Malang.

source

Date: Saturday, December 12, 2009
Time: 6:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: The Hall
Address: 320 W. Garvey Ave, Monterey Park, CA
Ticket: $15 ($19 at the door, DINNER included).
Dinner will be served 6 – 8 pm.
To purchase tickets: info@mudikaic.org or visit us: www.mudikaic.org

CASTS:
Arrio Saputra, Bella Gumulia,
Caecilia, Cindy, Daniel, Davin, Della,
Ella, Hendri, Kevin, Sheila, Thomas

CREWS:
Directors: Mario Anes, Kiki Kusuma
Writers: Audrey Suratna, Bella Gumulia
Original Song: Arrio Saputra
Music Conductor: Willy Kurniawan
Stage Crews: Christina Agis, Michelle Hartono
Set Designer: Nelson Wibowo
Lighting & Sound Engineer: Agus Halim
Multimedia: Setiadi Kawibawa, Lucas Sudiro
Executive Producer: Thomas Wang (Event Ministry Coordinator)

**************************************************************

About Mudika Nite:
Mudika Nite is a nite of Charity Event that is held by Mudika ICADLA (Mudika of Indonesian Community of Archdiocese of Los Angeles). It is the time when Mudika ICADLA presents a dinner with a live performance by Mudika members. With a small contribution, audiences will have a dinner with fun entertainment.

The whole income from this event will be given to charitable organization in need in Indonesia. Many organizations have been benefited from this event like: Adhi Luhur Catholic High School in Nabire, Irian Jaya, Yayasan PKP Seraphim in Sumba, Nusa Tenggara Timur, Pondok Bambu Cilincing in Jakarta,

Through this event, Mudika would like to thank and invite everyone to join the effort to help our brothers and sisters those in need back in our home country Indonesia.

“They are cheerful-looking and photogenic, but close to all have a very sad story,” said Budi Soehardi, founder of the West Timor orphanage.

Budi Soehardi poses with young residents of Roslin Orphanage.

“Some of the babies come because a mother passes away right after delivery because of lack of nutrition. Others come from extreme poverty. Some come from families [that] just do not want the children and abandon them,” he said. Vote now for the CNN Hero of the Year

Soehardi, a 53-year-old Indonesian pilot living in Singapore, and his wife, Peggy, look after 47 children at the orphanage. They have a personal relationship with each one, and consider them part of their family. The couple named many of the children since they entered the orphanage as babies — some of them tiny victims and refugees from the conflict in East Timor.

Soehardi has three children of his own but says there is no difference between what he supplies for his biological children and those living at the orphanage. They all get clean living spaces, vaccinations, food, clothing and vitamins from the United States.

“Mr. Budi is like my own father,” said Gerson Mangi, 20, a resident at Roslin Orphanage. Mangi, who came to the orphanage when he was 12 years old, had no means to attend school after his parents died. Now, thanks to the educational training at Roslin and a private sponsor, he is in medical school.

Soehardi, whose father died when he was 9 years old, can relate to these young people’s hardships.

“Food was hard to come by and my school fee was very difficult,” Soehardi said. “The refugees just really strike me so badly and [I want] them to be better off.”

Young victims of a fight for independence

A 1999 news report on the situation in East Timor inspired the Soehardis to take action.

Soehardi was eating dinner and watching CNN with his wife and family at home in Singapore when he saw the plight of the refugees fleeing East Timor for West Timor, Indonesia. Families were living in cardboard boxes, children were wearing rags for clothes, and sanitation was nonexistent.

“It was devastating,” Soehardi said.

The poor conditions were a result of conflicts in East Timor that surfaced after the residents voted for independence from Indonesia. Following the election, militias — with support from Indonesian security forces — launched a campaign of violence throughout the region. Hundreds of East Timorese were killed, and as many as 250,000 were displaced from their homes, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The Soehardis had been planning on taking a vacation, but watching the news made them rethink their plans.

“[My wife and I] look at each other and we have a thought of our own. … ‘Hey, let’s do something else. Why don’t we visit the place … to make a different kind of holiday,’ ” Soehardi said.

He began coordinating financial donations, food, clothing and supplies. With help from friends and ground volunteers, the Soehardis navigated the conflict-ridden areas and delivered more than 40 tons of food, medical supplies and toiletries to East Timor refugee camps.

Soon the Soehardis determined West Timor could use a space for orphans.

“My wife was initially asking me to build three rooms. Then two hours later she [asked for] five rooms, and then later nine rooms and finally, the orphanage building.”

They completed their orphanage building in 11 months and named it Roslin Orphanage, after a pair of Timorese women whom Peggy looked up to as a girl.

In April 2002, the orphanage opened and provided a home for four children. Since then the residence has expanded to provide free education, clothing, housing and food for 47 children of all ages, newborns to university-age. About half of its residents are younger than 8 years old. 

An unexpected harvest

The orphanage was built on donated land that the Soehardis initially thought bore barren soil. But today, the rice they feed the children comes solely from their own land.

“We dared to take the challenge,” said Soehardi of his foray into irrigation. He and Peggy, who are not trained in agriculture, used two pumps and a generator to get water for irrigation.

Then they began planting rice. “One hundred days later, we were having our first harvest and declared ourselves to be self-sufficient on rice for the orphanage children,” he said.

It’s a fortunate cost-cutting tactic, especially with Soehardi losing his piloting job in November because of the struggling economy.

Soehardi, whose pilot salary goes toward maintaining the orphanage and funding medical student Mangi’s education, is hopeful that the end of his contract will not affect the children’s well-being.

“To help these children is a privilege for me and my wife because it’s giving back to society … giving back what has been blessed to us.”

Want to get involved? Check out Roslin Orphanage and see how to help.

Source : CNN Heroes

Paris..?no, this is Banteng Field in Jakarta (ini lapangan banteng)

Midnight at hongkong? No, This is Thamrin in Jakarta..

Pedestrian in US? No, this is in Makasar..

Shanghai? No, this is Mangga Dua in Jakarta

Look like an airport in Europe, right? This is in Makasar (Seperti Bandara di Eropa… ya)

This isn’t New Zealand, This is Komodo Island (Jangan ketipu ini bukan di New Zeland..tapi di pulau Komodo)

Feels like in Monaco, right? This is Bunaken Island. (Masih serasa di Monaco khan? jangan salah ini di Bunaken)

This one looks like in Africa, but this is Mount Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta (Kalo ini serasa di Afrika… tp di Gunung Kidul)

Looks like a university in Europe? Nope, think again (Kayak universitas di Eropa yah)

Similiar to the city of Gaza, Palestine? This is Medan (Mirip Kota Gaza …padahal ini Medan Bung)

Manhattan’s view (Wow Manhattan banget)

Looks like building in NYC (Jangan berharap ada Spiderman yahh karena ini gak di NY)

Feels like you are in Singapore, but this is in Surabaya (Umm kayak di Singapura yahh padahal ini Gramedia Surabaya loh)

Swiss’s village, this is in indonesia (Serasa di perkampungan Swiss)

This is Suramadu bridge, Surabaya (Wah kalo ini serasa mau melintas negara bagian di US..padahal mau nyebrang Suramadu hehe)

ENJOY…

SINGAPORE – After meeting with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President Obama said he accepted an invitation to visit the world’s most populous Muslim nation next year.

“I am very excited about our prospects for deepening relations in the future, and I want to make sure everybody knows that I intend to be visiting Indonesia next year,” Obama said at the Shangri-La Hotel here, where he conducted a one-on-one meeting with Yudhoyono on the sidelines of the APEC summit here.

“The invitation that’s been extended…is one I want to take up,” Obama said. “And I am hoping to take Michelle and the girls as well so that they can take a look at some of my old haunting grounds.”

Obama noted his “historic ties to Indonesia” and said he was “extraordinarily impressed with the progress that Indonesia has made in developing its democracy.”

Obama lived in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta from 1967 to 1971. His half-sister, Maya Soetoro Ng, was born there.

“As one of the world’s largest Islamic nations, it has enormous influence and really is, I think, a potential model for the kind of development strategies, democracy strategies, as well as interfaith strategies that are going to be so important moving forward.”

Yudhoyono called Obama “a friend of Indonesia,” adding he knows the nation of 230 million people spread over 17,508 islands (about 6,000 of these are inhabited), “very well and is well respected.” Yudhoyono also called Obama’s “positive outreach to the Islamic world” refreshing.

The Indonesia president said he expects relations with the US to achieve a “higher level for comprehensive partnerships on trade, investment, education, climate change, energy and counter-terrorism.

Just over a decade ago, Indonesians took to the streets to protest. Now they can make themselves heard without even leaving home.

A Facebook group supporting two senior officials from the anti-corruption agency, who many people think have been framed, has attracted almost half a million members in just four days.

This digital people power may well be one reason why on Monday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched a probe into the case.

It’s the second time Facebook has played such an important role in a public debate in Indonesia. Earlier this year, thousands “rallied” online in support of a woman who had been charged with defamation for complaining about her treatment in hospital.

Indonesia is the world’s seventh-biggest user of the social networking site, according to Inside Facebook, and 8.23 million of its 8.52 million Facebook addicts joined up in the last year. The new information minister, Tifatul Sembiring, is a daily user of microblogging site Twitter, and says he wants to use it to seek policy ideas.

After decades of authoritarian rule, Indonesia is now a flourishing democracy yet many individuals still feel frustration that their voices and opinions are seldom heeded by politicians. So will online social networking sites contribute to Indonesia’s political future or is this just a passing fad?

source: reuters