Indonesia

When the Saudi Crown Prince gave an interview to the Washington Post, declaring that it was actually the West that encouraged his country to spread Wahhabism to all corners of the world, there was a long silence in almost all the mass media outlets in the West, but also in countries such as Egypt and Indonesia.
Those who read the statement expected a determined rebuke from Riyadh. It did not come. The sky did not fall. Lightning did not strike the Prince or the Post.

Indonesia: ISIS claimed responsibility for members of a family, including pre-teen girls, blowing up three Christian churches, killing at least 10 people. The father was reported to be the leader of a local terrorist cell who blew up a Pentecostal church, two male teenagers blew themselves up at Saint Mary Immaculate Catholic Church and, in the third bombing, the mother and two daughters, ages 9 and 12, detonated suicide vests at another Christian church. [...]

Postscript: Additional Indonesian Impressions
 
It occurs to me that two additional impressions of Indonesia seem relevant enough to be worth a short supplement to my post of a few days ago.
 
Multituli, Max Havelaar, or the coffee auction of the Dutch trading company  (Penguin Classics, 1866)
 

Impressions from a Third Visit to Indonesia
 
 
Indonesia Visits
 

Western culture is clearly obsessed with rules, guilt, submissiveness and punishment.
By now it is clear that the West is the least free society on Earth. In North America and Europe, almost everyone is under constant scrutiny: people are spied on, observed, their personal information is being continually extracted, and the surveillance cameras are used indiscriminately.
Life is synchronized and managed. There are hardly any surprises.

Much ado about nothing.
That’s the “Russian interference” in the 2016 American election.
A group of Russians operating from a building in St. Petersburg, we are told in a February 16 US government indictment, sent out tweets, Facebook and YouTube postings, etc. to gain support for Trump and hurt Clinton even though most of these messages did not even mention Trump or Clinton; and many were sent out before Trump was even a candidate.

The Commission instead opted for the easiest way out, which is a shame as in my perception it reveals a lack of impartiality on your behalf!
— Xanana Gusmão, Chief East Timorese negotiator, February 28, 2018

When an airplane is approaching Singapore Changi Airport, it makes the final approach either from the direction of Peninsular Malaysia, or from the Indonesian island of Batam.
Either way, the scope for natural disaster under the wings is of monumental proportions.

On January 8, Fiona Bruce introduced an item about Syria on BBC News at Ten with the phrase: 'Syrian government forces, backed by Russia'. Why does BBC News not regularly use the phrase, 'Saudi government forces, backed by the United States and the UK' when reporting on bombs dropped on Yemen? The answer should be obvious.
The post ‘A Load Of Tosh’ – The BBC, ‘Showbiz News’ And State Propaganda appeared first on BSNEWS.

Pollution has become an everyday affair; a murderous way of life which, according to a report published in The Lancet, is responsible for the deaths of at least nine million people every year. The air we breathe is poisoned, the streams, rivers, lakes and oceans are filthy, — some more, some less — the land littered with waste, the soil toxic.