"If necessary, we must organise a jihad...."

Abu Bakar Bashir

The spiritual leader of the terror group behind the Bali bombings has threatened to call for holy war against Indonesian police days after an anti-terror squad shot dead 15 suspected Islamic extremists. "There is an attempt in Poso to eliminate the Muslims so the unbelievers will control the town," Bashir said. 
Source: Bashir in jihad threat against police force

Obama Debunks Claim About Islamic School

Sen. Barack Obama fought back Wednesday against an allegation that he was educated at a radical Islamic school as a child in Indonesia, determined to avoid being tripped up by unsubstantiated charges like those that undermined John Kerry in 2004.

Obama, who was born in Hawaii, moved to Indonesia at age 6 to live with his mother and stepfather, attending schools in the country until age 10, when he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents.

"The allegations are completely baseless," said Akmad Solichin, the vice principal at SDN Menteng 1. (AP)

Dengue fever killed at least 51 in Indonesia in January
The disease spreads annually during the cooler wet season when mosquitoes are more prevalent. The ministry's director of communicable disease control, said that with 3,000 people hospitalized, the death toll is expected to rise in the coming days. "We have reports from some hospitals that there is a shortage of beds," she said. Dengue is spread by mosquitoes and causes joint pain, high fevers, nausea and rashes.(IHT)
 

Black Boxes From Indonesia Crash Found

The U.S. Navy has picked up signals from the flight data recorders of an Indonesian jetliner that crashed into the sea on New Year's Day with 102 people onboard. The Adam Air Boeing 737 went missing more than three weeks ago after reporting heavy winds off the western coast of Sulawesi while on flying from Indonesia's main island of Java.    FULL STORY (EP)

Indonesia bans sand exports
 

AC/DC LIVE IN EASTERN PROMISE

Indonesia to deport 3 Britons, 1 Australian

A Picture from the Past: Jalan Thamrin

On the far right you see the Hotel Indonesia and on the left they started building the Nusantara Building. There was no Sarinah Building yet.
 

Hobbit cave digs set to restart
LB1 was an adult female who lived 18,000 years ago who stood just 1m (3ft) tall and possessed a brain size of around 400 cubic centimetres (24 cubic inches) - about the same as that of a chimp. Long arms, a sloping chin and other primitive features suggested affinities to ancient human species such as Homo erectus and even earlier ones such as Homo habilis and Australopithecus. (BBC)

Key Bali bomb suspect 'wounded'

A key Indonesian militant wanted for the 2002 Bali bombings was hurt in a gun battle in the Philippines last week, the Philippines military says. Dulmatin has long been on Indonesia's most wanted list, and the US has also offered a $10m reward for information leading to his death or arrest. (BBC)

FROM  THE EDITOR:

Its Thursday evening while I write this. I actually wanted to go to Cazbar where the Foreign Correspondence Club is having a gathering, but I decided to get this newsletter out first. There are just too many events that have to be announced! Not a story from the life of a barman this time, but a bit of research into the history of Batavia. Why?

While I am building another (the 5th!) bar (in Pondok Indah, the ex Piza Boat Cafe), I am struggling to finding the right name for it. A number of suggestions have been made, but I just cannot make the decision. The Pondok Inn, House of Spirits (as there are a lot of ghosts in that area), The Clogged Artery, Hill Street Blues (or 'Bules'), Stokers, TGI BuGils, The Rose and The Bush, just too mention a few that I saved in my sms messages.

I wondered if I could find names of the old pubs in Batavia. There must have been hundreds over the last 400 years that the Dutch were here! So tonight I started my search into The Pub History of Indonesia. It is not easy. After hours of searching  I collected little information so far. But now, late in the evening, I finally found the first proof that there have been thirsty Dutch men in this country, long before BuGils started!

My breakthrough was an interesting piece (in Dutch), written by Capt. D.F. Stutterheim, while being detained in the Japanse camp Tjimahi 4 (1943-1945). Stutterheim worked for the Rotterdamsche Lloyd and while being detained, he did speeches for his fellow inmates. In one of them he describes his memories of the period around 1915, when he would visited the Tanjung Priok Harbour:

'......The train from Priok to Kemayoran took 45 minutes. The last one would return at 23.30. As far as I know there were no cinema's and our most favorite place to go was Cafe and Restaurant 'De Eerste Batavische Bierhal' (The First Batavian Beer Hall). Here they would serve cold beer and it would be reasonable cool as they used 'punjahs' (linen fabrics in frames, hanging on the ceiling) that were moved by a 'katjong' (young male servant). Tanjung Priok itself was not a good place to go. There was the notorious 'Zeemans Societeit Neptunes', a wooden building where only stokers and sailors would go, and where it was an indescribable drunken men mess with daily fights. I don't think there was any place on this earth where you could count more bloodied faces then here. There was one other place, a restaurant in 'the kampung of Blauwe Willem' (Blue Willem), a place with some twenty dessa huts with atap roofs, where you just did not go at all, because it was even more dangerous....'

On the picture: The Eerste Bataviasche Bierhal from a lithografie taken around 1910, probably produced by Tio Tek Hong (1910-1920)

(Stutterheim also mentions two 'pub' names in Surabaya: '....In Surabaya was also not much to do. The only place to go was the old 'Hellendoorn of Grimm', where now (1943) the Marine Soos is located...'  If anybody knows more about these cafes, please send me an email)

Any suggestion for a good name for the bar in Pondok Indah is welcomed. Send your favorite to unibind@cbn.net.id  -- Thanks, Bartele

THE LITTLE BLACK BAG
Remember the story about the man with the little black bag who frequently visited the One Tree in Blok M? The rumor that his little bag was filled with underwear was indeed true. The man happens to be a reader of this newsletter, and after reading the story in the last edition he sent me an email and explained the contents further:

Dear Bartele,

Just to prove someone actually reads your newsletter, this is a reply
from the guy with the little black bag, a.k.a. bule gila kato (not to be confused with bule gila Cato, the Norwegian shipping magnate, whose name is pronounced exactly the same way).
I can't tell you what is in the bag because it is a state secret. Friends speculate that I cannot provide an answer because I don't know, it being so long since I cleaned out unnecessary rubbish. If so this still makes it a state secret. My usual cover story is that it is 'seribu kondom'.

Now about the celana dalam... (underwear): you are way off the mark. Whenever I went out of Indonesia, I used to buy about 20 pairs of 'Celana Dalam Seksi' to hand out as "ole-ole" (souvenir) to the girls of your bars and others in Jalan Felatehan (Blok M), both waitresses and regulars. This began because acute observation of panty lines etc showed that, while their external dress sense was improving, underneath some of the most beautiful girls in the world had celana dalam that was seperti tenta and seperti nenek (grandmother). Some I probably COULD have worn myself if that was my inclination.
So about 5 years ago I decided to embark upon a campaign to change
this, hence the 'ole-ole' policy. I am pleased to report that the campaign seems to have been a total success. (And has made very worthwhile a few nervous moments in Airport Security). Can I suggest you verify this by holding an inspection of the celana dalam of your waitresses.
A free beer for this modest contribution to beautifying the city would
be much appreciated.

Bule Gila Kato.

THE PREVIOUS EDITIONS:

http://www.bartele.com/2007/jan19nl03/LATEST20070119.htm
http://www.bartele.com/2007/jan12nl02/latest.html 

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EVERY SUNDAY & MONDAY:

GET A FREE BAR CALENDAR 2007

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ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD:

Man fights off shark  A diver who was almost swallowed alive by a 10-foot-long shark said Wednesday a lead-lined vest prevented the animal from biting him in half. Eric Nerhus, 41, was working with his son and other divers collecting shellfish when the shark suddenly attacked him about 25 feet below the surface. Story  Also: Shark survivor tells how 'half my body was in its mouth'
 

 

 

Indonesia Newmont boss says charges don't hold up
Richard Ness, president director of PT Newmont Minahasa Nusantara (NMR), which once operated a gold mine in Indonesia's North Sulawesi province, faces charges over allegations the miner dumped toxic substances into a bay near its now defunct mine, making villagers sick. The company is also being prosecuted. (Reuters)

Bali bombings recreated on screen
For the first time since the bomb attacks in Bali four years ago, an Indonesian film company has tackled the subject on screen. (BBC)

Natural Disasters or Mass Murder?
On average, there is one deadly train accident every six days in Indonesia, many caused by the lack of gates at its approximately 8,000 crossings. By comparison, Malaysia suffered no fatal train accidents for the 13 years. Despite the fact that Indonesia has a relatively small number of cars per capita, its roads are the "most used" of any nation in the world (second only to Hong Kong, which is not a country) — 5.7 million vehicle-kilometers per year on the road network (2003, "Pocket World in Figures"—The Economist Books, 2007 Edition). Despite this epic congestion and the generally slow pace of traffic, more than 80 people die on average every day on Indonesian roads, mostly due to the terrible state of the infrastructure and poor law-enforcement, according to The Financial Times. Local companies and officials have developed a unique ability to make profits from everything, even from disasters and the suffering of millions of fellow citizens. In simple terms, corruption is stealing from the public. But when the overall toll has to be calculated in hundreds of thousands of lost human lives, it becomes mass murder.

Falling skies for Indonesian aviation

EVERY MONDAY IN BUGILS

FROM 5 TILL 7:

FREE FLOW OF BEER

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