Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
Looks like the operation to rescue the Thai teens trapped in a cave is doing well, although a Royal Thai Navy Seal doing the rescue op died due to loss of oxygen and was knocked out.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"
In the name of being honest
And on a lighter note: the International Band at RIMPAC '18 did a cover of an Indonesian pop hit.
The Wanderer
‘We Cannot Afford This’: Malaysia Pushes Back Against China’s Vision:
Nearby, a rail network mostly financed by a Chinese government bank is being built to speed Chinese goods along a new Silk Road. And a Chinese developer is creating four artificial islands that could become home to nearly three-quarters of a million people and are being heavily marketed to Chinese citizens.
Each of these projects is being built in Malaysia, a Southeast Asian democracy at the heart of China’s effort to gain global influence.
But where Malaysia once led the pack in courting Chinese investment, it is now on the front edge of a new phenomenon: a pushback against Beijing as nations fear becoming overly indebted for projects that are neither viable nor necessary — except in their strategic value to China or use in propping up friendly strongmen.
At the end of a five-day visit in Beijing, Malaysia’s new leader, Mahathir Mohamad, said on Tuesday that he was halting two major Chinese-linked projects, worth almost $16 billion together, amid accusations that Mr. Najib’s government knowingly signed bad deals with China to bail out a graft-plagued state investment fund and bankroll his continuing grip on power.
His message throughout his meetings with officials, and in public comments, has been unambiguous.
“We do not want a situation where there is a new version of colonialism happening because poor countries are unable to compete with rich countries,” Mr. Mahathir said on Monday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing after meeting with Premier Li Keqiang.
Edited by rmctagg09 on Aug 21st 2018 at 4:51:10 AM
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
This isn't the first time that concerns have been raised about Chinese infrastructure projects abroad tending to be white elephants that give the impression that they are planned as a tool for financial blackmail. I think there was an airport in Sri Lanka which didn't get any traffic but did land Colombo in some financial dependence.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Oh, bother.
Chinese projects are basically Trojan Horses meant to give China an avenue of attack in other nations.
The phrase "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" is somewhat ironic considering that China is pulling similar shit on Greece itself.
You'd have better odds dealing with a loan shark than with the CCP.
Edited by M84 on Aug 21st 2018 at 5:54:29 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Dread Pirate Captain
Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) falls to its weakest level in more than 20 years.
Well, nothing I can do except just watch helplessly as my country's economy goes to shit, I guess.
Don't stop, just proceed, 'cause this is what you need-proceed, just proceed, 'cause this is what you need!
Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
In other news, Duterte is now heading to Tel Aviv to visit the PM, pay his respects to the holocaust memorial and possibly be in talks to secure arms.
He also apologized for insulting Obama, now that he's no longer president.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
It is bad, but we'll survive. (Hello, I'm also an Indonesian.) We have survived a monetary crisis before. You can panic if Jokowi lose the next presidential election, especially if he lose it to someone like Prabowo or his ilk.
Oh, bother.
Granted, an economic downturn during a president's term is something that can and will be used against them come election season. Even if their policies had little or nothing to do with it.
Edited by M84 on Sep 3rd 2018 at 8:15:28 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised
In the name of being honest
Gonna be in Vietnam for a uni friend's wedding next month. Anyone knows good places to visit in Da Nang on a four-day stay? I know it's near the Marble Mountains and Hoi An, but I don't know if I can fit either on my schedule.
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
The House of Commons has passed a unanimous resolution calling for the revocation of Aung San Suu Kyi's honorary Canadian citizenship.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/suu-kyi-honourary-citizenship-revoked-1.4841377
In the name of being honest
The city of Palu in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, has been hit by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake and tsunami. The national geophysics agency reported 80 fatalities and thousands still unaccounted for, including several hundred people attending a beach festival.
EDIT: The death toll has been revised to 384.
Edited by eagleoftheninth on Sep 29th 2018 at 1:31:46 AM
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
Ouch. Hope the survivors stay safe.
An editorial by the Guardian regarding Duterte's drug war.
Such provocations are inevitably followed by supporters insisting that he is exaggerating or joking. His spokesman called his latest remarks “playful”, though widows and orphans are unlikely to consider them lighthearted. The campaign has left 4,500 people dead even on official statistics, and 12,000 dead according to human rights groups, almost all from the urban poor. In the first year alone, 54 children were killed. Though campaigners say the pace of killing has slowed, it also seems to have shifted away from the capital, Manila – and so away from attention.
Yet Filipinos knew what they were getting when they voted for Mr Duterte in 2016: the “death squad mayor” of Davao warned on the eve of the poll that drug dealers “better get out because I’ll kill you”. Indeed, while he won the presidential race with only 39%, his approval rating, currently at its lowest since he took office, stands at 75%. He has systematically dismantled the checks and balances that might have constrained him, or at least prompted some voters to think again. Senator Leila de Lima, who dared to open an investigation into the killings, was smeared and seized on highly dubious drugs charges. She is still in custody.
This week another critic, Antonio Trillanes, was arrested after an amnesty granted to him was revoked. Government threats, restrictions and an army of trolls have muted the media, despite the courage of individuals. Maria Lourdes Sereno, the country’s top judge, was ousted from the supreme court in May after opposing controversial government proposals. Civil society, too, is suffering.
This makes external pressure all the more crucial. Mr Duterte has given two fingers to critics. When the US halted the sale of assault rifles, Russia stepped in. The admiration of Donald Trump has increased his ability to play the US and China off against each other. And though China and the Philippines have their own disputes – notably over the South China Sea – Japan has cosied up whenever it senses the Manila-Beijing relationship might be cooling.
But the international criminal court has opened a preliminary examination of the killings. There is growing support among members of the UN human rights council for an investigation. Mr Duterte has reacted with defiance and threats. Yet those around him may not be as bullish as they contemplate their future. The national police are particularly sensitive; its chief has blamed “scalawags” in the force for deaths. International pressure could yet have an impact. It must be exerted.
Something crazy is currently happening at the place where I live, Bali. This isn't in any of the news yet, but it is seriously crazy and extremely worrying.
Bali is inhabited mostly by native Balinese with Hindu as the majority religion there. The thing is there has been a movement to scare them into a frenzy with the usual rhetoric that I'm sure familiar to anyone like Bali Island is going to be invaded by non-Balinese Indonesians and they will replace Balinese culture with their own and also replace Hindu with Islam, Catholic, or Christian. There are two other sanctioned religions in Indonesia, Buddha and Confucianism, but their followers are too few to be able to be used to scare people.
There are even some stupid fake news to support this kind of rhetoric, and when I say it's stupid I mean it. I mean one of the news is Gojek (Indonesian version of Uber makeshift taxi service) want to build housings for their drivers (i.e. those "invaders"). And those housings can be paid slowly overtime with only 4000 Rupiah or 0.4 US Dollar per day if 10.000 Rupiah equal 1 US Dollar. And Gojek want to build a million of those cheap houses... Indonesian Uber is just that awesome. Do any of you really think this "news" is even believable?
The real news isn't even this dramatic, Gojek just try to attract a new batch of desperate fools to become their new drivers. A lot of their old ones quit for reasons that I don't need to state here if you know Uber, so Gojek is working together with our national bank to give subsidized, cheap loan to their drivers to buy house and it isn't 0.4 US Dollar per day. It's more expensive with "a little extra" just like any good cheap loan. And this is not even only available to Bali, so the invading Bali part is already questionable. Sure, there are cheap housings, but those housings weren't built by Gojek, but opportunistic estate developers and it isn't exactly cheap. Not to mention, none of those housings are in Bali at this point...
I mean what the f*ck is this shit? There is also a lot of "soft warnings" around that real Balinese should vote for real Balinese for any elected government officials in Bali because only real Balinese should be in charge in Bali or else... The situation and atmosphere here has been getting uncomfortable with each passing day. I mean if I try to translate this situation to America, it is like an American state is scared about getting invaded by another American states. This is as stupid as that sounds. And this isn't exactly only happening in Bali. Other Indonesian islands suffer something that is more or less similar to this shit.
I hope it's nothing but hot air. If something goes wrong, Indonesia could become the next Myanmar or something even worse.
I'm not as witty as I think I am. It's a scientifically-proven fact.
In the name of being honest
Considering the housing situation in Australia, if Go-Jek starts offering housing in Bali for that kind of down payment, I don't think it's Javanese invaders that the locals should be worried about.
Apparently they're starting the first round of recruitment here in Singapore. About time that someone shakes up the Grab monopoly.
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
It'll be extremely hilarious if this caused Australians to migrate to Indonesia. ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
This kind of thing is what make me laugh when there are people who think that racism don't exist in homogeneous society. People will always find something to make them different from each other and create a hierarchy. It's just compeletely unavoidable.
I'm not as witty as I think I am. It's a scientifically-proven fact.
I don't know about Indonesia being that homogeneous. It's right there in the name that it's a colonial era construct that did not really exist before. Maybe excessive efforts at homogenization/creating a national identity are being a problem there.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
If you just talk about local cultures and stuff, Indonesia isn't exactly homogeneous, but if we talk from the viewpoint of race, it's fairly homogeneous.
There are some outliers like Eastern Indonesians who have a darker skin and thus receive discriminatory treatment from other Indonesians who have a fairer skin similar to how African-American in America is treated to a certain degree. Not exactly the same, but you can see and understand why I make that comparison.
I'm not as witty as I think I am. It's a scientifically-proven fact.
In the name of being honest
Ehh, ethnic divides are as much a matter of language, faith and cultural practices as anything else. I'm admittedly speaking as an outsider here, but there are villages six hours' drive from Jakarta where all but a handful of district chiefs speak an archaic dialect of Sundanese instead of Indonesian. My Indonesian flatmates (one from Medan, one from Yogyakarta) often find themselves using a wildly different vocabulary to refer to the same things. Even within a single cultural grouping like "Batak" you could usually tell whether an individual belongs to the Toba, Karo or Mandailing subgroup based on clan names, cuisine and whether they're Protestant or Muslim. If someone from, say, Magelang steps into a taxi at Ngurah Rai Airport, addresses the driver as "mas" instead of "bli" and asks for the nearest mosque, you'd probably figure out that they're not a local pretty quickly.
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
In the name of being honest
Imelda Marcos just got arrested on seven counts of graft.
Edited by eagleoftheninth on Nov 9th 2018 at 5:43:00 AM
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
🍊orange fursona🧡
Been a long time coming.
ᜇᜎᜈ᜔ᜇᜈ᜔|I DO COMMISSIONS|ᜇᜎᜈ᜔ᜇᜈ᜔
Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
Looks like a politician from home is putting the hard question is why can't anyone focus on the good things the Marcoses have done.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"
Duterte is Assassinating Opponents Under the Cover of the Drug War, Philippine Rights Groups Say
On Tuesday, motorcycle-riding gunmen ambushed Mayor Ferdinand Bote in his car after he left a meeting in Cabanatuan City, about 100 miles north of Manila. The morning before, a suspected sniper shot Mayor Antonio Halili in the chest as he sung the national anthem in front of Tanauan City Hall in Batangas, about 40 miles south of the capital.
Their deaths have brought to at least 10 the number of mayors who have been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016.