The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- A first for Indonesia, ethnic Chinese leader takes charge in the capital
- Suspected Boko Haram attack Chinese workers in Cameroon; 10 missing
- More than 3,000 Chinese evacuated from Vietnam after violence - Xinhua
| A first for Indonesia, ethnic Chinese leader takes charge in the capital Posted: 17 May 2014 09:11 PM PDT JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's presidential race isn't until July. But there's already one winner. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known by his nickname "Ahok", has taken over as acting governor of the Indonesian capital Jakarta. He is the first ethnic Chinese to do so in a country that is 95 percent native Indonesian and has the world's largest Muslim population. A Christian, Ahok succeeds Joko "Jokowi" Widodo who has stepped aside to run for the presidential election on July 9, which opinion polls suggest he will win. Ahok will automatically take over to complete Jokowi's five-year term if he does win. Indonesia's Chinese make up only about 2 percent of the 240 million population. Resented for their wide control over trade and business, and suspected of loyalty to China, Indonesian-Chinese have been deliberately kept out of the political and military hierarchy for most of the country's almost 70 years of independence. The resentment, which has burst into bloody riots in the past, appears to be on the wane, although it's not over. Even critics of Jakarta's acting governor complain mostly about what they see as his abrasive style of governance, not his background. "People are voting for a track record today," Ahok told Reuters in an interview in his office in April. "It's not about the race or religion...or some primordial idea of who should run (the country)." BAD COP Ahok has been the bad cop to Jokowi's good cop. In contrast to the typically soft-spoken and Javanese Jokowi, Ahok has gained a reputation for being a tough guy not afraid to shake up the city's sleepy bureaucracy. "The first thing we have to fix here is the bureaucracy...by testing and evaluating their performance," Ahok said. "We say to them if they don't want to follow us, they can get out. Sometimes we have to kick them out. Of course they are angry but we don't care." Ahok, 48, has served as Jokowi's right-hand man since winning the 2012 Jakarta gubernatorial election when the pair toppled the incumbent with their can-do, transparent ideas on fixing the many problems of the chaotic city, including chronic traffic and flooding. "I personally don't agree (with Ahok becoming governor) because he's too temperamental," city councillor Boy Bernardi Sadikin told media. Sadikin is the son of a former Jakarta governor from the 1970s, who many residents believe was the last popular and effective leader the city saw before Jokowi and Ahok. Videos of Ahok losing his temper with inefficient bureaucrats have gone viral in Indonesia but the public has been largely supportive of the acting governor's no-nonsense style in a country bedevilled by corruption and bureaucratic inertia. When running in the 2012 Jakarta election, Ahok, who is from the resource-rich Bangka-Belitung province, faced smear campaigns from rivals. But the at times blatant racist attacks had little effect and Jakarta residents voted in the Jokowi-Ahok team with a 55 percent majority. Indonesia, the world's third largest democracy, has a history of communal tensions that have at times boiled over into violent attacks specifically targeting the ethnic Chinese minority. The country saw one of the most horrific attacks on the Chinese community in 1998 as Indonesia descended into political and economic chaos following the Asian financial crisis. Rampaging mobs targeted Chinese-owned businesses and in some cases killed and raped Chinese-Indonesians, forcing hundreds to flee the country. Hardline Muslim groups, who last year protested the appointment of a Christian woman to a Jakarta district office, have also threatened to protest Ahok's rise to power. But Ahok believes Indonesia is becoming more pluralist. "The Jakarta election was a test and...we see more ethnic Chinese running for (public office) now," Ahok said. "One day soon Indonesia will be ready for a non-Muslim or ethnic Chinese leader, even president." (Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Raju Gopalakrishnan) |
| Suspected Boko Haram attack Chinese workers in Cameroon; 10 missing Posted: 17 May 2014 09:10 PM PDT YAOUNDE (Reuters) - Suspected Boko Haram rebels from Nigeria have attacked a Chinese work site in northern Cameroon, killing at least one Cameroonian soldier while 10 Chinese workers were missing and believed to have been abducted, officials and state media said. The Chinese embassy in Yaounde confirmed the attack on Friday at a site near the town on Waza, 20 km (12 miles) from the Nigerian border close to the Sambisa forest, a Boko Haram stronghold. Chinese Embassy political counsellor Lu Qingjiang said one Chinese worker was injured in the attack and 10 were missing, China's Xinhua state news agency reported. Ten vehicles belonging to China's state-run construction company Sinohydro, which is repairing roads in Cameroon, were also taken in the attack, Xinhua said. Lu called on the Cameroonian authorities to "not put the lives of Chinese nationals missing in danger in case actions of liberation be launched", Xinhua said. The Islamist group kidnapped more than 200 girls from a school on the Nigerian side of the border last month and Nigerian troops backed by foreign units are searching the area around the forest for them. Friday's incident began when power was cut in the evening. A five-hour gunfight followed, a guard at the Waza National Park told Reuters. "Some of us decided to hide in the forest with the animals," the guard said, requesting anonymity. The governor of Cameroon's Far North Region, Augustine Fonka Awa, said earlier he believed Boko Haram had carried out the attack. Authorities were investigating reports that at least one Cameroon soldier was killed and 10 people were abducted, he said. Cameroon state radio said in a report from the region that a Cameroon special forces soldier was killed. It said four others including two soldiers were seriously wounded. As well as at least 10 vehicles, the rebels took a container of explosives belonging to the Chinese company, it said. In a meeting in Paris on Saturday to improve cooperation in the fight against Boko Haram and other militant groups, French President Francois Hollande said it was becoming a threat to all of West and Central Africa Boko Haram has staged several attacks in northern Cameroon during its five-year fight to set up an Islamist state. Last month, it attacked a police post killing two people. The rebels kidnapped a French family in February 2013. VISITS SUSPENDED Sinhohydro's vice general manager, Lan Ronghe, was quoted by Xinhua as saying the man wounded in the attacks was shot twice, in the shoulder and the abdomen, in the attack on his camp near the Waza park, Xinhua said, citing Lan. The Chinese embassy suspended visits to the area. "For companies operating in the northern part of Cameroon in particular, they should instantly start security contingency plans," the embassy said in a statement. At least two Chinese enterprises operate in the region. Xinhua said an engineering unit of Sinohydro operated the camp. Yan Chang Logone Development Holding Company, a subsidiary of China's Yanchang Petroleum, is exploring for oil. Cameroon's president, Paul Biya, who is attending the Paris summit, said Boko Haram was becoming not only a regional problem, but also a Western one. Two Italian priests and a Canadian nun were kidnapped in April. "They have committed one more attack. They attacked businessmen and this comes after the French hostages were kidnapped. As we speak, we are searching for the Italian priests and Canadian nun," Biya said. Nigerian authorities say Cameroon has not done enough to secure its border because Boko Haram has been using the sparsely populated Far North Region as a transit route for weapons and as a base for attacks in northeastern Nigeria. Cameroon said in March it would send 700 soldiers to the border as part of regional efforts to tackle the armed group. Outrage over the kidnapping of the schoolgirls has prompted Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, criticised at home for his government's slow response, to accept U.S., British and French intelligence help in the hunt for the girls. (Additional reporting by Anne-Mireille Nzouankeu in Yaounde, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Bate Felix in Abuja; Chen Aizhu and Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Alison Williams and Robert Birsel) |
| More than 3,000 Chinese evacuated from Vietnam after violence - Xinhua Posted: 17 May 2014 08:00 PM PDT BEIJING (Reuters) - More than 3,000 Chinese nationals have been evacuated from Vietnam, state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday, following deadly rioting that stemmed from an outpouring of rage over Chinese oil drilling in a disputed area of the South China Sea. The violence was triggered by China's positioning of a $1 billion oil rig in a part of the South China Sea claimed by Hanoi, a move described by the United States as provocative. It is the worst breakdown in ties between the two Communist neighbours since a short border war in 1979. The evacuation followed days of clashes between Vietnamese rioters and Chinese workers. Crowds of thousands massed as rioters turned against Chinese workers and Chinese-owned businesses, or those thought to be Chinese, smashing windows, gates and walls and torching vehicles and factories. The trouble broke out in Vietnam's south on Tuesday after nationalist rage boiled over during protests around industrial parks near Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. Two Chinese nationals were killed in the violence and more than 100 others injured, Xinhua said, citing China's foreign ministry. China is to send five ships to Vietnam on Sunday to evacuate more Chinese nationals, Xinhua said, citing the transport ministry In Beijing. Sixteen critically injured Chinese nationals were evacuated from Vietnam early on Sunday aboard a chartered medical flight arranged by the Chinese government, the foreign ministry said in a separate statement. Workers from the China 19th Metallurgical Corporation, a contractor for an iron and steel plant being built by Formosa Plastics Group, Taiwan's biggest investor in Vietnam, were evacuated back to China early on Sunday, Xinhua said. On Saturday, China's Foreign Ministry advised Chinese nationals to hold off from travelling to Vietnam and told its citizens in Vietnam to avoid leaving their premises. Separately, China's Spring and Autumn Airline said it plans to suspend all charter flights from Shanghai to Vietnam from Monday, according to Xinhua. The airline said it would suspend nine flights carrying 350 passengers to Vietnam over the next month. Also on Saturday, China's Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng told Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang that he strongly condemned the violent attacks against Chinese nationals and companies in Vietnam. [ID:nL3N0O306X] Gao called on Hanoi to "improve the country's trade and investment environment", the commerce ministry said on Saturday. In a meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting held in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao, Gao also made "solemn representations" to Vietnam and urged authorities to "bring the relevant issues under control" and create a favourable environment for trade and investment. Vietnam's lead police investigator has defended security forces and has said "illegal acts" would not be tolerated. Hoang Kong Tu has said adequate measures would be taken to make sure there is no repeat of the violence. (Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Paul Tait) |
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