Indonesia Govt Responsible for Those Gas Blasts

If there is a tragic happening which has continuously scared a lot of Indonesians over the past few months, it is most likely the gas cylinder blasts! What really had happened? Since the government’s policy of converting the use of kerosene into Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) has been implemented 2007, dozens of gas cylinder blasts have occurred in various parts of the country.

The blasts have not only injured and even also killed dozens of people, they have also ruined the houses and property of the ill-fated victims. From June 2 to July 1, 2010, at least seven gas cylinder-related accidents had occurred in the cities of Surabaya, Bekasi, Jakarta, Malang and Medan, killing six people, wounding seven others, and damaging 38 houses.

Local print and electronic media reported that the blasts were more frequently related to the three-kilogram gas cylinders than the 12-kilogram bigger ones. It means that the accidents are closely related to the implementation of the government’s conversion policy. Due to these gas cylinder bursts, a lot of ordinary Indonesians have felt they were being terrorized. Many have returned to woods and kerosene while others keep using the LPG cylinders for cooking on their stove.

"I am scared of the gas cylinder blasts that I often seen on TV news bulletins over the past two months," said Ida, a resident of Kampung Baru village, Babalan sub-district, Langkah district, North Sumatra.

However, the 63-year-old woman, who is now relying only on a pension as a retired teacher and living with her husband at her modest house, said would continue using gas stoves as kerosene has become too expensive and increasingly difficult to get.

"I have been using gas stoves for the past two months as kerosene has become difficult to obtain these days. Although I can still afford it, but then I have to pay Rp7,500 a liter of it, and its quality has gotten worse. It may have been mixed with diesel oil by irresponsible people. With three children are now living in Java.

In avoiding any such accidents, Ida said she preferred the 12 kilogram gas cylinders to the three-kilogram ones although the the latter are cheaper. In preventing the people like her self from the LPG cylinder-related blast terror, she demanded the government to immediately solve the problem.

Ida’s demand is acceptable and needs to be responded to soon. In its July 2 editorial, Kompas, reminded government of its responsibilities of protecting the people. Through its editorial entitled "Protecting the People", this leading daily newspaper underlined the government’s pledge to improve the management of its kerosene-LPG conversion policy implementation.

The government had vowed to withdraw the three-kilogram gas cylinders, gas pipes and valves (regulators) which did not met the Indonesian National Industrial Standards (SNI) from the people.

All the withdrawn devices were then replaced with those meeting the SNI. In implementing its kerosene-LPG conversion policy, at least 45 million packages of gas stoves and three-kilogram gas cylinders had been distributed to the people for free more than two years ago.

In addition to the 45 million free gas stoves and cylinders, Kompas noted that other 25 million gas cylinders were currently available in the local market. "The people surely do not know about those bad quality gas stoves, cylinders, pipes, and valves. It means that the gas cylinder-related blasts can still occur at any time and place."

"At the same time, while the government remains busy with the discourse of who does what as well as how in meeting the needed supplies and distribution, the gas stove blasts are likely still a threat," the newspaper warned. The government itself is responsive enough to the blast incidents. Through the state oil company, PT Pertamina, it has been trying to secure the use of gas stoves.

As recently stipulated by Pertamina’s Marketing and Business Director Djaelani Sutomo, the recommended SNI gas pipes and cylinders to replace the bad quality ones would have been available in West Java and Jakarta on July 6. They are not distributed free, but those wishing to get a set of these good quality gas stoves and pipes would have to pay Rp45,200.

Whether this government’s effort is effective in avoiding gas cylinder blasts remains to be seen. What the government need is to always keep in mind the safety and security of its people as its "raison d’etre" (reason for being). Therefore, as warned by Indonesia’s news channel and Metro TV, "don’t send bombs to Indonesian homes".

What SBY Brings Home after Visiting 3 Countries

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and First Lady Ani Yudhoyono arrived back in Jakarta on Friday after conducting visits to three countries, namely Canada, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, since June 24, 2010. The presidential aircraft landed at Halim Perdana Kusuma airport at 9 am local time after which the head of state disembarked and shook hands with state officials greeting him.

Among those who welcomed the president were Vice President Boediono, Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri, Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) Chief Gen Djoko Santoso and Jakarta Governor Bauzi Bowo. The president also greeted journalists who covered his tour of the three countries, including Saudi Arabia where he performed a minor hajj pilgrimage.

"I conveyed my prayers (during minor hajj ritual) for all. I prayed for His blessings for the nation and state," Yudhoyono said while heading towards the VIP room of the airport.

The president visited Canada, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. In Toronto, the president attended the G20 summit. On the sidelines of the summit, he happened to meet US President Barack Obama to discuss a number of programs.

In Turkey, the head of state conducted a state visit and met with a number of local business leaders. After his visit to Turkey, Yudhoyono headed to Saudi Arabia to perform a minor hajj ritual.

Toyota Starts Recall in Japan over Engine Defect

Toyota has started recalling Lexus and Crown luxury vehicles in Japan over an engine defect in the latest setback for the automaker beset with quality problems.Toyota Motor Corp. said actions in overseas markets will follow soon.

The world's top automaker told the government Monday it is recalling 91,903 vehicles in Japan for flaws in the valve springs. The defect could make the vehicle stall while it is moving.

Toyota disclosed the problem last week and said it planned action. It affects some 270,000 vehicles around the world. About 138,000 of the Lexus vehicles are in the U.S. The company said it has received 220 complaints about the problem but no crashes have been reported.

Fireworks Follow Sun-Scorched July 4 Festivals

The nation's largest fireworks show lit up the skies in a burst of red, white and blue over the Hudson River straddling New York and New Jersey on Sunday, a scene that was being repeated in hundreds of communities in a sizzling end to a scorching day for much of the U.S.

"It's amazing on TV," said Marcos Jimenez, a golf caddy who joined thousands of others lining the riverfront for a prime view of the show. "I figured seeing it live would be even better."

Budget cuts forced some communities to pull the plug on the pyrotechnics, but the gigantic Macy's fireworks show went on as planned on Manhattan's West Side, where it moved in 2009 after eight years on the East River.

Ten-year-old Nathan Felde of Folsom, Calif., watched with his parents and 6-year-old brother, Elijah, who screamed at the sight of a glowing red circle with a blue ring around it.

"Look Nathan, it's Saturn!" Elijah said.

The show, which aired live on NBC, began just before 9:30 p.m. with huge fireballs exploding in the night sky to the strains of patriotic tunes like "Stars and Stripes Forever" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Austin Noon, 12, of Ontario, Canada, said his favorite firework was one that looked like a face, with a red circle, two dots for eyes and a smile.

His mother, Janet Noon, said the family often comes to the United States for the Fourth of July. "It's so festive, we had a lot of fun," Noon said. "We like to crash birthday parties."

The shimmering fireworks that streaked across the night sky replaced a blazing sun that broiled nearly everywhere east of the Mississippi with temperatures in the 90s.

In Washington, vendors with stocked coolers hawked "cold," "ice cold," and even "super cold" bottles of water along Constitution Avenue. There was a long line for watermelon — $3 for a huge wedge — and near the Washington Monument, firefighters and U.S. Park Police officers sprayed hoses into the crowd.

"I just need some AC," said Brooke Fenske, 16, of Elgin, Minn. Fenske, in town for a 4-H trip, said it doesn't get this hot in her home state.

In Bellevue, Iowa, a 60-year-old woman was killed and at least 23 other people were injured at a parade after two runaway horses pulling a wagon took off, running into spectators along the streets, police said. Four of the victims were critically injured.

In New York, American Joey Chestnut won the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on Brooklyn's Coney Island for the fourth straight year, but one of his biggest rivals tried to crash the celebration and was taken into custody.

Six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi, who has not signed a contract with Major League Eating to be free to compete in contests sanctioned by other groups, went on stage after the competition. Police officers grabbed him, and he tried to hold onto police barricades as they took him into custody.

In Washington, thousands gathered on the National Mall were treated to 17 minutes of fireworks, shot off behind the Washington Monument. Thousands of visitors sat on the steps of the U.S. Capitol for the July 4 concert, featuring David Archuleta, Reba McEntire and the National Symphony Orchestra.

The Obama family celebrated the holiday by hosting members of the military and their families for a barbecue, concert and a view of fireworks on the South Lawn of the White House.

"Michelle and I couldn't imagine a better way to celebrate America's birthday than with America's extraordinary men and women in uniform and their families," President Barack Obama told the guests.

Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq on Saturday evening for the holiday weekend, his second visit there this year, and attended a citizenship ceremony at one of Saddam Hussein's former hunting lodges.

Festivities in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, will conclude Monday after 11 days of parades and concerts. The Goo Goo Dolls were headlining a free concert on Sunday night, which will be followed by a fireworks show.

There will be more than 40 firework displays in Los Angeles. One of the largest in the area is held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Fire crews have spread fire retardant on the nearby hillsides to prevent sparks from igniting brush fires.

Chicago traditionally celebrated a day early on July 3 with a fireworks display that drew more than 1 million people, but the show was canceled this year to save at least $500,000. The city will hold three smaller shows on Sunday.

In Seattle, local businesses and individuals donated the $500,000 needed for the city's 20-minute fireworks show, in which 3 tons of explosives will be set off over Lake Union.

In Durango, Colo., the fireworks display will go on thanks to embattled oil giant BP.

The company stepped forward in December to pay for the fireworks show, five months before oil began spilling from the spot in the Gulf of Mexico where one of the company's rigs exploded.

City officials were poised to cancel the $15,000 show because of a budget crunch but BP, which drills for natural gas in Colorado, offered to pick up the tab.

Cristiano Ronaldo's Shocking Announcement on Facebook

Cristiano Ronaldo has become the father of a baby boy according to an extraordinary announcement on his Facebook page. The shock message, which was also posted on the 25-year- old former Manchester United star's Twitter account, indicated that he would bring up the child without the unnamed mother.

The footballer is currently dating Russian underwear model Irina Shayk, but the baby's mother is said to be American. Ronaldo spent last summer in Los Angeles and Miami after signing for Real Madrid from Manchester United for a record £80million.

The world's most expensive and arguably most famous footballer said his son would be kept under his ' exclusive guardianship', leading to questions about why the mother has given him up.

The baby is thought likely to be brought up by Ronaldo's family in his native Portugal. Ronaldo, whose poor World Cup campaign came to an end last week when Portugal were knocked out by Spain, is now concentrating again on club football.

But his gruelling training regime and fixtures at Real Madrid, where he earns £180,000 a week, combined with a love of the high life, make it all but impossible to imagine him being a single parent.

That makes it likely that the child's upbringing will have plenty of input from Ronaldo's formidable mother Dolores. The announcement of the birth was made on the internet in the early hours of yesterday morning.

It said: 'It is with great joy and emotion that I inform I have recently become father to a baby boy.

'As agreed with the baby's mother, who prefers to have her identity kept confidential, my son will be under my exclusive guardianship.'

Last night, more than 18 hours after the messages first appeared and after 40,000 fans had registered their congratulations on Facebook, Ronaldo's agent confirmed the story, saying: 'Yes, it's true. We make no further comment.'

It is not known whether the footballer had a fling with the woman in question or whether she had the child through a 'Ricky Martin'- style arrangement.
The singer became a father to twins with help from a surrogate mother in 2008.

Yesterday a Portuguese newspaper, Correio da Manha, said Ronaldo's son was born in early June. A family friend apparently told the newspaper that the player's mother and sisters Elma and Katia were preparing the documentation to take the child to Portugal.

However, last night it was understood that the baby is already in Portugal. Ronaldo has been linked to scores of beautiful women in the past few years.

He was linked with tennis player Maria Sharapova, 23, in 2006, and Big Brother star Imogen Thomas, 26, in 2008. Last year he was romantically linked with Paris Hilton, 29, in June and with Kim Kardashian, 29, in April of this year.

If it is true that the baby was born in June, it must have been conceived around September last year when 21-year-old Italian Raffaella Fico claimed to be dating the footballer.

Ronaldo took her to an Elton John concert in Lisbon in June 2009. Months later, she claimed she was still dating the star and had met his family, but Ronaldo never commented on the supposed relationship. The striker is said to be madly in love with current girlfriend Irina.

Last month they were enjoying a five-day pre-World Cup break on a £50,000 a-week yacht off the coast of Corsica, with the 5ft 10in green-eyed beauty telling friends Ronaldo wanted to have children with her.

Only two months ago, Ronaldo was at the centre of a pregnancy riddle involving a stunning Spanish model. Former Miss Spain Maria Jose Suarez was linked to the star after splitting with her boyfriend, tennis player Feliciano Lopez, when she discovered she was pregnant.

The footballer was named in the media as her secret lover, sparking speculation he was the father of the child. But she denied sleeping with Ronaldo and last week it emerged she had lost her baby.

Facebook Nipplegate Row

Facebook's prudish police are out in force yet again, this time threatening action against a Sydney jeweller for posting pictures of exquisite nude porcelain dolls posing with her works.

Victoria Buckley, who owns a high-end jewellery store in the Strand Arcade on George Street, has long used the dolls as inspiration for her pieces and hasn't had one complaint about the A3 posters of the nudes in her shop window.

But over the weekend she received six warnings from Facebook saying the pictures of the dolls, which show little more than nipples, constituted "inappropriate content" and breached the site's terms of service.

The warnings said Facebook would remove the images and Buckley is worried she will be banned from the site if she re-posts them.

It comes after the site incurred the wrath of mothers all over the world by banning photos of them breastfeeding their children, calling such shots "obscene content". Facebook has also come under fire for banning images of a British woman's mastectomy scars, published on the site to raise awareness of breast cancer.

Buckley said Facebook were behaving like "philistines" and blamed the issue on "American puritanism".

"Really here we're talking about nipples on a doll - I've got A3 posters of her in my window in the Strand Arcade that have been up for months and we haven't had one negative comment. The doll herself is in the window," Buckley said.

"Somebody's got a Michelangelo fan group on there and they do have a picture of the Statue of David ... why is that OK and this isn't?"

And these aren't just regular barbie dolls, they're high-end porcelain figures designed by Marina Bychkova of Enchanted Doll in Canada, featured in art and culture magazines all over the world.

Those who want to buy one face a two to three year wait and they can cost anything from $5000 to $45,000, which is the price one sold for on eBay in January.

"The shoe designer for Louis Vuitton collects her dolls and they're really hard to get hold of, they're really precious things, they're not just a barbie or something," said Buckley.

"They're the right scale for my jewellery, they interact with it visually, so I actually design collections around these dolls and their interactions with my jewellery."

For now, Buckley has censored the images of the dolls on her Facebook fan page but has posted the uncensored versions on a new group dedicated to the doll called "Save Ophelia - exquisite doll censored by Facebook".

Buckley wants to gauge Facebook's response to the images being posted on that group before deciding whether to put the uncensored version back on her own fan page.

Her emails to Facebook have so far fallen on deaf ears, although this may be because Sunday is a public holiday in the US. Buckley had also posted the photos to Flickr but these were removed for similar reasons.

"I've invested quite a lot of money in this campaign for my jewellery and I'm quite reliant on the Facebook page to get the message out," she said, adding thousands of people had said they love the dolls and imagery.

"You can invest thousands of dollars and months of your time building a new campaign and you put it on sites like Facebook and Flickr and it just takes one person [complaining] to bring the thing down.

"I've got another campaign coming up soon with another doll but I don't know what to do."

Ironically, while Facebook is overzealous in targeting relatively innocuous images on the site, it has been criticised by police for its unresponsiveness to real criminal issues.

The Australian Federal Police has said the site's woeful relationship with law enforcement bodies was hampering police investigations and putting lives at risk.
Facebook has been approached for comment.

Taming A Man by Making Him Wait for Sex

The mystery of how famous lothario Russell Brand was finally tamed by Katy Perry has been uncovered - she made him wait for sex.

The fiery singer has revealed she turned down the British comedian - who she said was basically a 'professional prostitute' before he embraced monogamy - on the night they met.

She boldly told him 'You've met your match m****** f******' as she threw a plastic water bottle at him at their first meeting.

The pair hit it off instantly, Perry said in an interview with Esquire magazine, and went clubbing together that night.

But when Brand assumed he would be taking the songstress home, he was in for a surprise when she refused him.

'Can you imagine the horrible feeling he had when he was used to getting everything he wanted,' she told the magazine.

She demanded that he take her on a date, and the romance blossomed from there. A week later the pair were holidaying in Thailand.

Posing for a series of raunchy photographs for the magazine, the 25-year-old said she has reformed the former sex addict, who according to rumours used to sleep with up to 80 women a month.

'He was a heroin addict and now he's not. He was addicted to all kinds of things and now he's not. And he basically used to be a professional prostitute and now he's not,' she said.

'So he's an extremist, which can be both good and bad.'

'I always needed someone stronger than me and I am, like, a f****** strong elephant of a woman.'

'I say that hopefully in the humblest way I can. When we have an argument he knows I'm not just gonna throw my hands up and say, 'okay, you win.'

'Let's get into it. Let's start debating. Let's wrestle, Russell.'

And if he wasn't already won over, she further enticed the football fan by donning a West Ham basque and pair of hot pants with Rusty' on the back.

Perry said she had got through to Brand's 'deep layer.'

'I always like hitting that deep spot, and I knew that West Ham was a deep spot for Russell,' she said.

Perry, who will wed the Get Him to the Greek star in a lavish October wedding, also revealed details of their engagement for the first time.

Brand got down on one knee in Jaipur, India, and had organised fireworks, roses, and even an elephant.

'Russell had a little turban on and we got into a horse and carriage which took us to this tent made out of tens of thousands of roses.

'Inside there was a stage show featuring dances. Just before midnight an elephant turned up. A painted elephant.'

'We rode to another part of the hotel and watched the fireworks.'

Perry said the pair were incredibly similar.

'We're both larger than life. We're kind of cartoony.'

Perry is currently celebrating her single California Gurls reaching the Number One spot, while Brand has been receiving good reviews for his latest acting role.

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The Fortune/TIME/CNN Global Forum 2010

The world always looks better when you wake up and find yourself in a drop-dead gorgeous place basking in glorious weather. So it was hardly surprising that the overwhelming sense of the crowd at the Global Forum hosted by TIME and our corporate cousins FORTUNE and CNN in Cape Town should have been one of optimism. In winter sunshine, underneath a Table Mountain that (most of the time) was without its habitual tablecloth of cloud, South Africa's Mother City looked magical, its people enjoying to the maximum the thrill of hosting games in the soccer World Cup. (See TIME's special report on the 2010 World Cup.)

The theme of the conference was the New Global Opportunity. The phrase is not just a recognition that, as the world economy emerges from the Great Recession, there are markets aplenty in the developing world but also that, if we are wise, we will take the chance to build an economy that is more inclusive than before and more respectful of the need to conserve natural resources for future generations. That way, everyone will benefit. As former U.S. President Bill Clinton said in a keynote address to the forum, right now the world is "too unequal and too unsustainable to be stable." But it doesn't need to be like that. The question facing the more than 350 leaders of government, business and civil society assembled in Cape Town was how to help build a different world.

The developed economies of the Atlantic region are seeing a fragile recovery at best, one with little growth in jobs — and even that slow growth is threatened, in the view of many economists, by the hair-shirted fiscal tightening that has been seen of late in Europe. Concomitantly with the forum, world leaders at the G-8 and G-20 summits in Canada were wrestling with the question of how long stimulus programs that have injected much-needed demand into economies could be continued. In that context, the performance of what we will soon have to stop calling the developing world has been tremendous. China grew by 8.7% in 2009, according to official figures. India showed excellent growth too, and even in Africa — so long dismissed by seers as an underperformer — growth hit 2% before the recession took hold, which followed years when the continent was growing at the historically robust rate of 6% or more. (See more from the 2010 Global Forum.)

This isn't simply a function of the famous BRICs — Brazil, Russia, India and China — setting the pace. Indeed, as veteran global economist Kenneth Courtis of Themes Investment Management pointed out, Russia has fallen out of the club of most-favored developing economies, having been unable (so far) to use its endowment of natural resources to build truly world-class companies. With Indonesia increasingly catching the attention of business leaders, and Africa too, it might be time to try a new acronym: ABICI, for Africa, Brazil, India, China and Indonesia. Whatever you call them, the performance of the leading economies of the developing world has been sufficiently robust that political leaders like Rob Davies, South Africa's Minister for Trade and Industry, were able to trumpet the potential of south-south trade — while acknowledging that even the best-performing southern economies had been hurt by the continuing weakness in the rich world.

The caveat is important, especially if, as Oxford University's Ian Goldin warned, there remains the real risk of a double-dip recession in the most-developed economies. Household-debt levels remain worryingly high, which is bound to dampen the recovery of consumer spending, and some banks still have substantial exposure to overvalued assets. But the worrywarts notwithstanding, corporate titans in Cape Town could hardly restrain their sense of excitement about the opportunities in the developing world. For AstraZeneca's CEO David Brennan, DuPont's chair and CEO Ellen Kullman and management consultancy McKinsey's global managing director Dominic Barton, the story of the recession was the acceleration of a trend toward growth in the developing world that had been under way before the downturn started.

It isn't just that the developing world provides vibrant markets — 84% of the world's population lives outside the combined area of the North Atlantic economies, Japan and the four original Asian dragons — that explains the new corporate focus. Increasingly, it is the potential for low-cost innovation in the poor world that can provide goods and services that can be sold everywhere. From telecom to banking to medical supplies, companies are finding business processes and products in the poor world that they can apply and sell everywhere.

Rp 5 Trillion Credits for Small Businesses

The sharia-based bank BRI Syariah has set itself a target of providing Rp5 trillion in business financing credits for micro-small and medium-sized businesses (UMKM) this year, a BRI Syariah executive said.

"Now our credits in commercial financing worth Rp3 trillion are evenly provided to micro small and medium-sized and consumer businesses," Business Director of BRI Syariah Ari Purwandono said in a press release made available to ANTARA in Semarang, Central Java,on Sunday.

For that purpose, BRI Syariah would increase the number of its offices in business centers in the regions to exploit micro, small and medium business players, he said.

Can One Laptop per Child Transform Rwanda's Economy?

Sitting behind a rickety desk in a room with cement floors and water-stained walls, Faina Iradukunda, 13, tinkers with a rudimentary animation program on a shiny green-and-white laptop. A cartoon cat dances across the screen and Faina smiles with pride. Her proficiency with the program, called Scratch, is startling given that she had never used a computer before a few months ago.

"I had heard from others who had the laptops that they were doing things, but when I got the laptop I was very excited and felt my dreams were coming true," Faina said through a translator. "I've found it easy. Learning how to use it is not too difficult."

The cute little laptop with its iridescent green keyboard is an XO, designed by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program. Rwanda has just finished a pilot OLPC program and plans to buy and distribute another 100,000 computers — at $181 each — to children by next June. A year after that, it wants to distribute laptops to half of Rwanda's 2.5 million schoolchildren.

OLPC wants to transform education in poor countries by giving children laptops that will, as it says in its mission statement, spark "collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning." The results of the deployment in Rwanda will, in some ways, determine OLPC's future; while the program has distributed more than 1.4 million laptops in 35 countries around the world, no nation as poor as Rwanda has embraced OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte's idea so fully. Deployment there will be a proving ground for OLPC's premise, that distributing laptops to the world's poorest children will make their lives better. "What is different about Rwanda is [President] Paul Kagame's long-standing belief in us and us in him. We will walk to the end of the earth to help him and Rwanda," Negroponte told TIME in an e-mail interview. "We want Rwanda to be a showcase." (See Nicholas Negroponte's plan to bring cheap computers to the world.)

To understand Kagame's decision to invest in laptops for Rwanda, you have to understand his vision for his country's future. Kagame wants to triple the size of Rwanda's economy by 2020, no easy task in a tiny, landlocked nation that has no natural resources and whose history includes the 1994 genocide, which killed 800,000 people. (See the XO laptop, one of the TIME's Best Inventions of 2007.)

The President wants to make Rwanda a technology and services hub — another tall order considering that just 7% of the country's 11 million people currently have electricity. And that, curiously enough, is where the laptops come in. He and OLPC proponents hope the computers will both teach the students the language of technology and offer them a way to chase down simple information they lack but which kids in rich nations take for granted. According to the government's vision, the laptop will be the engine for the spread of electricity and Internet across the country. The government is paying to deliver power and the Internet to the schools where laptops are deployed. The surrounding communities will then be able to tap into those services.

"Rwanda has been taking a lot of bold steps to ensure that it speeds up its development because we've lost so much time," the Rwandan Education Ministry's OLPC coordinator, Nkubito Bakuramutsa, referring to the genocide. "Rwanda wants to place itself as a player, first in East Africa, then in Africa and then worldwide, and for that to happen, we want to make sure all the kids have minimal access to the same knowledge that you would have in New York or California or Japan."

Given that there is no hard data on the effectiveness of OLPC, it is a risky — and costly — experiment for Rwanda, a country with an annual budget of just $1.2 billion; the per-laptop price of $181 is also more than half the average Rwandan's annual income. Skeptics of the OLPC program ask why Rwanda and other poor countries should spend so much money on the program's specially designed XO laptops when teachers often earn less than $100 a month.

Indeed, Rwanda's poverty has thrown up some unexpected challenges to the OLPC vision. One of the program's key principles is to involve children more in their own education by giving each of them their own laptop to take home each night. But for now, the two schools in Kigali that use the laptops keep them locked up after the school day. One problem has been that parents say that they do not want to be held responsible if the laptops are lost or stolen. Several students have sold their laptops to unscrupulous buyers for less than $10 — to the kids and their parents, still an enormous sum.

Like children everywhere when they get their hands on an exciting new piece of technology, kids can also use the laptops to distraction. In poor places such as Rwanda, where children are so integral to a household economy from a young age, fetching water and helping with farming, for example, those distractions can be disastrous. "These are still young children and they are excited, they love laptops very much, beyond anything else, so the parents find it is becoming an obsession," said Francoise Murekeyisoni, the principal at Nonko primary.

OLPC workers say that by introducing laptops, they will allow kids to circumvent the shortfalls of their anachronistic national curriculum and poorly trained teachers. Rwanda faces other hurdles: a government decision to switch teaching from French to English, even though many teachers still don't speak English fluently; and the country has yet to recover from the fact that many of Rwanda's teachers were killed during the genocide. "We need to take these steps, start immediately and, as we go along, figure out a way to make it work," says the Education Ministry's Bakuramutsa. "We usually throw ourselves in the water and, while swimming, figure out how we're going to do the last steps."

seo magic, cara meningkatkan traffic

Sebuah filosofi mengatakan “Honesty is The Best Policy (Kejujuran adalah politik/strategi terbaik)” , inilah yang akan kita buktikan….apakah konsep kejujuran bisa kita olah menghasilkan traffic dan popularity yang lebih hebat dari konsep rumit para expert webmaster atau pakar SEO..?…
Saya yakin bisa asal konsep ini di jalankan dengan benar…,bila ini di terapkan pada web anda sesuai ketentuan maka:

* Web anda akan kebanjiran traffic pengunjung secara luar biasa hari demi hari, tanpa perlu repot-repot memikirkan SEO atau capek-capek promosi keberbagai tempat di dunia internet.
* Web anda akan kebanjiran backlink secara luarbiasa hari demi hari, tanpa perlu repot-repot berburu link keberbagai tempat di dunia internet.

Jika Albert Einstein memakai persamaan e=mc² untuk menggabungkan potensi masa dan kecepatan cahaya untuk menghasilkan energi nuklir yang luar biasa itu ,maka kita akan memakai persamaan t=v1+v2 untuk mnggabungkan potensi web saya dan web anda untuk menghasilkan traffic dan popularity yang luar biasa pula.

Jika Einstein menggunakan atom plutonium dan uranium untuk membuat bom nuklir, maka kita menggunakan Kejujuran dan ketepatan untuk membuat bom traffic dan popularity ini.

Yang perlu anda lakukan adalah ikuti langkah-langkah berikut :

1. Buat posting artikel seperti posting saya ini, atau copy-paste posting ini dan juga diberi berjudul : t=v1+v2 ,Cara meningkatkan traffic dan popularity dengan cepat dan alami
2. Selanjutnya Copy atau buat kalimat “SEO MAGIC TRICK” yang ada di bawah nomor 4 ini lalu pasang di web anda pada bagian yang paling mudah dilihat pengunjung, misalnya di bagian atas sidebar:
3. Pindahkan atau ganti link atau alamat url posting saya (disini-1) menggantikan alamat url rekan saya (disini-2).
untuk mengetahui alamat url posting saya dan posting yang anda buat adalah bisa dengan meng-klik judul/title posting yang kita buat ini.
4. Lalu isi alamat url posting anda pada pada disini-1 tadi. Jadi anda melakukan publish (terbitkan) 2 kali, setelah posting ini selesai anda buat lalu di terbitkan, dan lalu anda klik pada title (judul) posting untuk mengambbil/meng-copy alamat url posting anda dari address bar browser anda, lalu anda edit lagi posting tadi dan masukan pada link disini-1 itu. Berikut tulisan “KALIMAT SAKTI” yang perlu anda pasang di bagian web anda (setelah di ganti link url-nya sesuai ketentuan di atas) “Ingin meningkatkan traffic pengunjung dan popularity web anda secara cepat dan tak terbatas…?…
Serahkan pada saya…, Saya akan melakukannya untuk anda GRATIS…!..Klik disini 1 dan disini 2 “
Jadi setelah kalimat “SEO MAGIC TRICK” ini di letakan di web anda maka: jika pengunjung meng-klik link disini 1 akan menuju link posting anda, dan jika meng-klik disini 2 akan menuju link posting saya…dan seterusnya kan terus terjadi mata rantai yang tak terputus seperti itu…
5. Di bawah ini ada 2 link : link anda (link web saya sekarang) dan link saya (link web rekan saya sekarang) . Maka ganti (alamatnya) “link anda” dengan “link url web anda” dan “link saya dengan link url web saya” (link rekan saya di hapus).
link anda
link saya
6. Selesai, siapkan counter tracker dan pengecek link misalnya sitemeter dan technorati untuk melihat hasil banjir traffic dan linkback web anda.

Apa itu t=v1+t2…?
t : Jumlah traffic yang akan di peroleh web anda dalam suatu hari
v1 : Jumlah pengunjung web anda dalam suatu hari
v2 : Jumlah pengunjung yang dimiliki v1 (pengunjung dari pengunjung web anda) dalam suatu hari.

Traffic:
Misalnya, web saya ini atau web anda dalam sehari memiliki rata-rata pengunjung 50 orang.., dan semuanya menerapkan konsep kita ini (SEO MAGIC TRICK) dengan benar, dan dari 50 orang itu masing-masing memiliki 50 orang pula pengunjung dari blog-nya , maka web kita akan berpeluang di kunjungi 50 ditambah 50 x 50 orang pada hari itu = 2550 orang , dan akan berpeluang terus meningkat pula hari demi hari ,karena setiap hari selalu ada pengunjung baru di dunia internet, setiap hari juga ada blogger atau web baru di dunia internet…

Popularity:
Misalnya, web kita memiliki pengunjung 50 orang dalam suatu hari, dan semuannya menerapkan konsep ini , maka dalam hari itu web anda akan mendapatkan 100 linkback ke web anda, yaitu sebuah link pada kalimat “SEO MAGIC TRICK” dan sebuah link pada link saya di kalikan 50. dan akan berpeluang meningkat terus hari demi hari….

Kenapa perlu di buat link link anda dan link saya pada posting…?
hal ini untuk menjaga keabadian link kita, karena seperti kita tau link pada posting lebih kecil kemungkinannya terhapus….

Bisakah kita berbuat tidak fair atau tidak jujur menyabotase konsep ini, misalnya “menghilangkan semua link asal” lalu di isi dengan web/blog kita sendiri…? ….Bisa, dan konsep ini tidak akan menjadi maksimal untuk membuktikan Kejujuran adalah strategi/politik terbaik…..Tapi saya yakin bahwa kita semua tak ingin menjatuhkan kredibilitas diri sendiri dengan melakukan tindakan murahan seperti itu…

Contoh Nonoy Aquino, Pejabat di Indonesia Diimbau Tak Pakai Vooridjer

Jakarta - Tindakan pejabat yang kerap membelah di tengah kemacetan dengan pengawalan atau vooridjer kerap mengundang sumpah serapah. Tidak heran muncul imbauan agar pejabat tidak memakai vooridjer, kecuali bagi presiden dan wapres.

"Mereka yang boleh menyeruak ruang publik pake voorijder hanya Presiden dan Wapres, tamu negara, polisi dalam tugas, pemadam kebakaran, dan mobil jenazah atau ambulans pembawa orang sakit," kata mantan Wakil Ketua KPK Erry Riyana Hardjapamekas saat dihubungi detikcom, Senin (5/7/2010).

Imbauan ini mengingatkan pada kebijakan Presiden baru Filipina, Benigno Aquino (Nonoy), yang ingin diperlakukan seperti warga biasa saat berpergian dengan kendaraannya. Akibatnya, Nonoy dan rombongan terjebak macet di jalan.

Seperti dilansir AFP, Jumat (2/7/2010), pada hari keduanya berkantor, Nonoy memerintahkan sopirnya untuk berhenti saat lampu merah dan menolak menggunakan jalur khusus bus.

Menanggapi sikap Noynoy itu, Erry menilai hal itu patut dicontoh pejabat di Indonesia. "Sangat layak ditiru oleh segenap pejabat tinggi di seluruh Indonesia, bukan saja menteri, juga pimpinan atau anggota DPR dan DPD, Wantimpres, Gubernur, Bupati dan Walikota," terang Erry.

Meski demikian Erry menegaskan, keteladanan oleh pejabat di Indonesia harus dimulai dari dalam negeri sendiri, ini bisa dilakukan dengan paksaan.

"Tapi biasanya kita tidak mempan diberi keteladanan dari luar negeri, harus dari dalam negeri sendiri, dan dengan paksaan, baru para pejabat itu patuh," tutup Erry.

8 Pengedar Video Porno Ariel Jadi Tersangka

Jakarta Polisi menetapkan 8 orang pengunggah video porno yang diduga dibintangi Ariel-Luna Maya dan Ariel-Cut Tari sebagai tersangka. Namun siapa pengunggah pertama, polisi belum menemukan pelakunya.

"Sudah ada 20 orang lebih yang kita periksa. 8 Orang sudah ditetapkan sebagai tersangka," kata Kabareskrim Mabes Polri Komjen Pol Ito Sumardi di Mabes Polri, Jalan Trunojoyo, Jakarta Selatan, Senin (5/7/2010).

Kedelapan orang tersangka itu dikenai pasal UU ITE dengan dugaan melakukan penyebaran pornografi. Para tersangka yang diperiksa itu berasal dari Jakarta dan Jawa Barat. Mereka belum ditahan karena polisi masih memerlukan pemeriksaan lebih lanjut.

"Yang jelas kita proses dulu dan akan kita sampaikan kepada kawan-kawan," tegas Ito.

Untuk kasus video porno, polisi telah menetapkan Ariel sebagai tersangka. Sementara Luna Maya dan Cut Tari masih berstatus sebagai saksi.