Indonesian Fighter Jet Crashes in Pekanbaru

Indonesian fighter jet crashed in a residential area of Pekanbaru

An Indonesian fighter jet crashed in a residential area of Pekanbaru, Riau during a routine practice flight Tuesday morning, according to officials and media reports.

The plane’s pilot — identified by Kompas.com as Second Lieut. Reza Yori Prasetyo — safely ejected before the crash.

“The fighter aircraft crashed in a residential area,” Gagah Prakoso, spokesman of the National Search and Rescue Agency (SAR) told the Jakarta Globe. “But since it is a military aircraft, I’m not authorized to talk about the details of [pilot].”

The Hawk 200 plane was produced by British Aerospace — now called BAE Systems. It was flying over the provincial capital at 9:30 a.m. when it went down near Pandau Permai.

The Indonesian Military was investigating the cause of the accident.

“We’re still searching the data,” spokesman Rear Admiral Iskandar Sitompul said. JG

Planet With Four Suns Discovered

The new planet - a gas giant - is about six times the size of Earth

An international team of amateur and professional astronomers announced the discovery of a planet with four suns -- the first reported case of such a phenomenon.

The planet, located about 5,000 light years from Earth, has been dubbed PH1 in honor of Planet Hunters, a program led by Yale University in the United States which enlists volunteers to look for signs of new planets.

PH1 is orbiting two suns, and in turn is orbited by a second distant pair of stars. Only six planets are known to orbit two stars, researchers say, and none of those are orbited by other distant stars.

"Circumbinary planets are the extremes of planet formation," said Yale's Meg Schwamb, lead author of a paper presented Monday at the annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in Nevada.

"The discovery of these systems is forcing us to go back to the drawing board to understand how such planets can assemble and evolve in these dynamically challenging environments."

US citizen scientists and Planet Hunters participants Kian Jek and Robert Gagliano were the first to identify PH1. Their observations were then confirmed by a team of US and British researchers working in Hawaii.

PH1 is a gas giant with a radius about 6.2 times that of Earth, making it a bit bigger than Neptune. It orbits a pair of eclipsing stars that are 1.5 and 0.41 times the mass of the Sun roughly every 138 days.

The two other stars are orbiting the planetary system at a distance that is roughly 1,000 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.

The Planethunters.org website was created in 2010 to encourage amateur astronomers to identify planets outside our solar system, using data from the US space agency NASA's Kepler space telescope.

Kepler, launched in March 2009, is NASA's first mission in search of Earth-like planets orbiting stars similar to our Sun.

The discovery of PH1 was made available online Monday at the site arxiv.org and has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal for publication.

"It still continues to astonish me how we can detect, let alone glean so much information, about another planet thousands of light-years away just by studying the light from its parent star," Jek said. AFP

24-Mile Skydive a Boon for YouTube, Social Media

skydiver 10 15 12

Felix Baumgartner’s 24-mile (38.6-kilometer) skydive from the stratosphere was a boon for social networks as millions of users shared in the wonder of the moment from their computers, tablets and phones.

Here’s a look at how the world, through the Internet, watched the jump.

YouTube:

As Baumgartner ascended in the balloon, so did the number of viewers watching YouTube’s live stream of the event. Its popularity grew as the moment of the jump drew closer, as people kept sharing links with each other on Twitter and Facebook and websites embedded the stream.

Nearly 7.3 million viewers were watching as Baumgartner sat on the edge of the capsule, moments before the jump.

In the United States, the opportunity to watch the jump on TV was limited to the Discovery Channel, though more than 40 television networks in 50 total countries carried the live feed, organizers said. It was streamed by more than 130 digital outlets.

Facebook:

After Baumgartner landed, sponsor Red Bull posted a picture of the daredevil on his knees to Facebook. In less than 40 minutes, the picture was shared more than 29,000 times and generated nearly 216,000 likes and more than 10,000 comments. Immediately after the jump, Red Bull solicited questions for Baumgartner through Facebook and Twitter, promising to answer three at a post-jump news conference.

Twitter:

During the jump and the moments after Baumgartner safely landed, half the worldwide trending topics on Twitter had something to do with the jump — pushing past tweets about Justin Bieber and seven National Football League games being played at the same time. Celebrities of all kinds weighed in, including athletes, actors and high-profile corporate executives.

“It’s pretty amazing that I can watch, live on my computer, a man riding a balloon to the edge of space so he can jump out of it. #TheFuture,” tweeted Wil Wheaton, who acted in the iconic science-fiction series “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

“Felix Baumgartner is a boss,” tweeted Jozy Altidore, a soccer player for the US men’s national team.

Reddit:

Two threads related to the jump made the front page of Reddit. Users quickly upvoted a request for Baumgartner to participate in an “Ask Me Anything” on the site, where users pepper someone on the site with questions about anything they want. President Barack Obama held court as the subject of a similar thread in August.

Nearly 29,000 users weighed in on a separate thread about the jump itself, voting it up and down and robustly commenting.

Agence France-Presse

Borobodur Temple to Get Solar-Powered Lighting

Borobudur

Greenpeace has started installing a solar-powered lighting system that will illuminate the ancient temple of Borobodur on the outskirts of Yogyakarta.

The lighting system is scheduled to start working on Oct. 28, the group said in a press release on Sunday.

The organization said that the project was part of a nationwide campaign, called the “Climate Rescue Station,” to promote awareness about renewable energy to people in Indonesia.

The project also aims to urge the government to implement a massive uptake of renewable energy sources and to decrease dependence on dirty fossil fuels like coal.

“Greenpeace intends to light up Borobodur to enlighten Indonesians about our vision of a clean and safer energy future. We want to remind Indonesians, particularly the government, that we can work together for a better future with renewable energy,” said Arif Fiyanto, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

He said the government must make the switch to renewable energy to protect communities from the health and environmental hazards of coal pollution.

“We are calling on all Indonesians to be part of the solution and join the movement for renewable energy by visiting the Climate Rescue Station at Borobodur, or by signing up at our website,” Arif added.

Borobudur, the world’s biggest Buddhist monument, was built in the ninth century and has been Indonesia’s leading tourist attraction.

“Today, it is a symbol for enlightenment not only for Indonesians but for people around the world,” the group said. “Greenpeace is providing solar-powered lighting around the temple complex to show that renewable energy is not only possible but a viable alternative to meet Indonesia’s energy needs.”

Marsis Sutopo, head of Borobudur Heritage Conservation, voiced his appreciation to Greenpeace’s initiative.

“Our hope is that people grow increasingly aware that solar power is needed as an energy source, thus reducing our dependence on energy from fossil fuels,” he said.

Many experts have agreed that Indonesia’s position on the equator allows it to use the sun’s abundant supply of heat as an energy source throughout the year. But it’s something the country has not taken advantage of.

According to Greenpeace, the country’s abundant geothermal potential accounts for roughly 40 percent of the world’s total resource.

Latest government data shows that renewable energy contributes to less than 5 percent to the country’s power-generating capacity, according to the group.

Greenpeace said it is calling on the government of Indonesia to fast-track the development of renewable energy in the country by setting ambitious and binding targets for renewable energy, guaranteeing priority access to the grid for renewable power generators, providing defined and stable returns for renewable energy investors, and phasing out all subsidies for fossil fuels.

The group would also like fossil fuel companies to shoulder the social and environmental burden caused by their facilities.

“Renewable energy is a key building block for a fair and equitable green economy,” Arif said. “We call on Indonesians to sign up and join our renewable-energy campaign and be part of the movement that will steer our country to a better future.” JG

Julius Caesar Killing Spot Open To Tourists In 2013

The site in Rome where Julius Caesar was assassinated, according to scientists. AFP

The area among Rome's ancient ruins where general Julius Caesar was assassinated will be open to tourists starting in 2013 following long-running excavation work, local officials told AFP on Thursday.

"Next year we will complete the excavation work and give the area back to visitors," said Umberto Broccoli, the head of cultural heritage for Rome.

"It's good to do excavations but we can't keep digging holes," he said.

Contrary to legend, Caesar was not killed in the Roman Senate but in the lobby of a theatre built by Pompey the Great more than 2,000 years ago.

The site is now Torre Argentina square in the centre of the Italian capital. The area is rarely open to tourists and is better known as a stray cat colony.

Research carried out recently by Spanish archaeologists in the area has mapped out its layout and could help draw visitors to a site where there is only an old sign saying it was the place where Julius Caesar was killed.

An archaeologist working in the area told AFP that a mysterious garland of flowers is left on the site and on Caesar's tomb in the nearby Roman Forum every year on the anniversary of the assassination on March 15, 44 BC

Astronomers Find Diamond Planet

An artist's rendition shows interior of 55 Cancri e. (AFP/YALE UNIVERSITY/Haven Giguere)

Twinkling stars are not the only diamonds in the sky. Scientists Thursday reported the existence of a "diamond planet" twice the size of Earth, and eight times its mass, zooming around a nearby star.

In fact, this is not the first diamond planet ever discovered, but it is the first found orbiting a sun-like star and whose chemical makeup has been specified.

The discovery means that distant rocky planets can no longer be assumed to have chemical constituents, interiors, atmospheres, or biologies similar to those of Earth, said lead researcher Nikku Madhusudhan, a Yale postdoctoral researcher in physics and astronomy.

The planet was first observed last year -- but researchers initially assumed it was similar in its chemical make-up to Earth.

It was only after a more detailed analysis that the French-American research team determined the planet is vastly different from our own.

It "appears to be composed primarily of carbon (as graphite and diamond), iron, silicon carbide, and, possibly, some silicates," the authors wrote in a statement ahead of their findings' publication in the US journal "Astrophysical Journal Letters."

"The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite," he explained.

In fact, the planet, dubbed Cancri 55 e, appears to have no water at all. And as much as a third of the planet's substantial mass could be made of diamond, a super-dense compound of carbon.

In comparison, the Earth's interior is rich in oxygen and very poor in carbon, explained Kanani Lee, also of Yale and another of the study's co-authors.

The researchers estimated the planet's radius with data collected while it was transiting in front of its star.

That information, combined with an estimate of its mass, was used to model the planet's chemical composition, based on a calculation of just what elements and compounds could result in that specific size and mass.

The planet's orbit around its star is lightning fast -- a year lasts just 18 hours, compared to the 365 days of an Earth year. And because it is so close to its star, the surface temperatures average 3,900 degrees Fahrenheit (2,148 degrees Celsius), rendering it completely inhospitable to life.

But the planet -- 40 light years away from Earth in the Cancer constellation -- opens new avenues for studying geochemical and geophysical processes of Earth-sized planets outside our solar system. Afp

Indonesians Say Democracy Can Hurt Minorities, Spark Conflict: Survey

Illustration Picture (ucanews)

Indonesians support the democratic system but believe that it can harm minority groups and economic development, as well as spark conflict, a survey reveals.

The survey, which was conducted by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) between June and July, revealed that 53.3 percent of 1,700 respondents believed that democracy tended to put pressure on minorities.

The survey also disclosed that 50.4 percent of respondents said that democracy could hinder the country’s economic development, while 49.9 percent of them believed that democracy could trigger conflicts.

LIPI researcher Wawan Ichwanuddin said Thursday that 35.2 percent of respondents considered that democracy was not in line with the nation’s traditional and community values. “The survey shows that 70 percent of respondents believe that democracy is the preferred political system. However, several people view democracy very negatively,” he told reporters during a press conference in Jakarta.

According to Wawan, the survey also revealed respondents’ disapproval of existing political parties.
Only 23.4 percent of them trusted political parties, he said. The figure was lower than the respondents' trust in the President (55.5 percent), the courts (32 percent) and the House of Representatives (29.7 percent).

Respondents believed that Indonesia should have fewer political parties. A staggering 58.3 percent of them said they would prefer five political parties, while the remaining 28.1 percent wanted three parties. Only 3.5 percent of respondents said Indonesia should have more than 10 political parties.

The survey's participants also said the government’s performance was poor in economic welfare (22 percent) and corruption eradication (46 percent). JP

Indonesian Leader Says Bali Bombings Strengthened Nation

More than 200 people died in the blasts on Bali's party strip in 2002

Indonesia's president said Thursday the "monstrous act of terror" in Bali 10 years ago failed to achieve its goal of fracturing the nation, ahead of an anniversary held under the shadow of a security threat.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's comments came as some 2,000 police and military personnel including snipers deployed across the island to ensure commemorations Friday pass peacefully after "credible information" of a threat to the ceremony.

Bali's deputy police chief I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana told AFP authorities were "ready to tackle any kind of terror threat during the commemoration event" which Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard will attend.

The bombings in the predominantly Muslim nation on October 12, 2002, by the Al-Qaeda-linked group
Jemaah Islamiyah, opened an Asia front in the war on terrorism one year after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

More than 200 people died in the blasts on Bali's party strip, mostly Western tourists but also including 38 Indonesians.

Yudhoyono, who was security affairs minister at the time, said the atrocity only succeeded in drawing the country closer together.

"Whatever the motivation and calculation of the terrorists, the Bali bomb attack did not produce its desired effects," he said in an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald.

"In fact, it resulted in just the opposite. Throughout Indonesia, Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists overwhelmingly condemned the attack and repudiated those who misused religion to carry out acts of violence.

"The entire nation galvanised to defend freedom, democracy and tolerance.

"And internationally, Indonesia became a key player in the fight against global terrorism. Indonesia also became an active proponent of interfaith co-operation," he added.

Some 88 Australians were among the Bali dead and Gillard reiterated her intention Thursday to attend the memorial despite the possible terror threat which prompted Indonesia to declare its top security alert.

"I am intending to go to Bali. I want to be in Bali," she said.

Gillard is due to give an address to remember the Australians who were among the victims of the strike against the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar on the tourist island's nightlife strip of Kuta.

"We would give everything to erase the events of that night, from the page of history," she said.

"But we cannot. We will carry the images of Bali on October 12, 2002, for the rest of our days. Its horror and its meaning are imprinted on all of our hearts forever. Tomorrow and always we will remember.'

Yudhoyono said the moment when the bombs went off would also be etched in the memories of Indonesians, and that they set off a series of chain reactions.

"The public debate over whether terrorism was a real or imagined threat to Indonesia was laid to rest," he said.

"We recognised that freedom, democracy and tolerance cannot be taken for granted. Our national security thinking evolved rapidly, and terrorism became public enemy number one."

Bali's fortunes, which are heavily reliant on tourism, have now recovered and Indonesia has won praise for its crackdown on militants that has left all the leading Bali perpetrators either executed, killed by police or jailed.

Yudhoyono said he had been determined "that those involved in the attack would pay for their monstrous act of terror".

"A decade after the Bali bomb, we can say with some relief that justice has been done," he said.

"Some of those in jail have expressed remorse and regret, and renounced the extremist ideology behind it.

"Others have collaborated to provide intelligence that led to the arrest of a succession of terrorist cells." AFP

President Extols Yogya’s Success at Sultan's Inauguration

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, right, oversees the inauguration of Yogyakarta's sultan as governor on Wednesday. (Presidential Secretary Photo)

The president officially recognized the special status of Yogyakarta’s government system on Wednesday, during a ceremony to swear in the sultan as the governor.

“Law No. 13 of 2012 is a form of recognition and at the same time of respect by the state for regional authorities that have specific and special characteristics,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said. “The state recognizes the special nature of Yogyakarta as a regional government that is different from those in other provinces.”

Yudhoyono was speaking at the official ceremony in Yogyakarta to swear in Sultan Hamengkubuwono X as governor and Prince Paku Alam IX as his deputy for the 2012-2017 period. It was the first time the governor and deputy governor had been sworn in by a president.

The law signed by Yudhoyono on Aug. 31 and passed into law on Sept. 3 effectively ended years of disagreement between the central government and the special territory over how its governor and deputy governor were selected for office. The central government had argued for years that the territory needed to hold democratic elections, but a majority of residents disagreed, preferring to hold to tradition that Yogyakarta’s sultan and prince of Pakualam are automatically given the posts.

The tradition arose after the special territory, which functions as a province, was singled out founding President Sukarno in recognition of the city’s important role during the struggle of independence for the young republic in the 1940s.

In his speech Yudhoyono said that the special status accorded to Yogyakarta could not be separated from the territory’s role during the nation’s struggle against independence from the Dutch in the second half of the 1940s.

“History records that the special status accorded to Yogykarta is part of the process of the establishment of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia,” he said, referring to an official announcement issued on Sept. 5, 1945, by the then Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX and Prince Pakualam VIII, that the sultanate of Yogyakarta was an integral part of the young republic.

He said that Law No. 13 gave special authority for Yogyakarta to choose its own methods of filling the posts of governor and deputy governor and in its local government, cultural development, land and zoning affairs and special funding.

Yudhoyono also recognized that Yogyakarta has led much of the country when it comes to development.

“This province is superior and advanced in the fields of education, culture and tourism. The special territory of Yogyakarta also recorded achievements in the creative industry, in the high life expectancy and an education sector that is a main component of the human development index,” Yudhoyono said.

The president called on the two leaders to work hard to boost economic growth, create jobs, reduce poverty, safeguard the prices of essential goods and improve the quality of education and health services.

Analysts have praised the 66-year-old sultan as an able governor, with the population of more than 3.5 million people seeing rising economic prosperity since he took office in 1998. JG

Freed Pussy Riot Member Vows More Protests

Freed Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich (center) leaves the courtroom in Moscow on October 10.

A member of the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot freed unexpectedly from prison vowed defiantly hours later that the group's protest actions would continue.

"We are not finished, nor are we going to end our political protest," Yekaterina Samutsevich told CNN. "We have to act in such a way that they do not learn about concerts ahead of time and arrest us."

Samutsevich, 30, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for performing illegally at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February.

Calls to free the Pussy Riot women, who were given two-year prison sentences, came in from world figures from Madonna to Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, but Samutsevich's release was a big surprise.

Samutsevich said efforts by the Russian authorities to divide the group would not work and that her "negative" attitude toward President Vladimir Putin and his "mega authoritarian project" remained unchanged.

"The situation in the country has deteriorated since our performance and the trial itself is a testimony to that," she said in an interview on CNN's "Amanpour," billed by host Christiane Amanpour as the first since Samutsevich's release.

Samutsevich said she had been treated well in prison and that Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were "holding up very well" despite being "very, very upset" at being separated from their young children.

"They congratulated me, they were very happy for me and they wished me all the best," she said.

Samutsevich said she didn't know how things would play out, but stressed that it was important the Russian people understood there was no religious hatred or animosity driving their protests.

"This was a political action aimed at the authorities, at the convergence of religious and political powers and I want people to understand that," she said. AFP