Category: General

I (TP) went to the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta today to see about a visa for our six months in Malaysia.  You see, the embassy is technically part of Malaysia, so technically I’ve now been to Malaysia.  OK, whatever.  Things look pretty good as far as I can tell for the visa department.  We should be able to obtain a nice six-month visa this time with no real hassle, knock on wood.  We just need one more letter from the Malaysian American Commission on Educational Exchange, and then things should work out.  So that’s the status with that.

Indonesia and Malaysia are in the news today because the Malaysian government is about ready to crack down on illegal workers, and most of them are Indonesians.  There have been a number of high-profile deportations lately, but the Malaysian government is going to try something new this time by empowering ordinary Malaysian citizens to find and report illegal workers.  In return, the Malaysian government has promised to pay them for each illegal that they find.  While I’m all in favor of market solutions to government problems, I just can’t help but think that this might backfire in some way.

There’s another side to this issue…some in Malaysia and Indonesia are crying foul because of the circumstances under which Indonesian laborers came to Malaysia.  You see, the Malaysian government has been building a new administrative capital in Putrajaya–near Kuala Lumpur–and the gossip is that government contractors employed cheap illegal labor with the tacit approval of the Prime Minister and other bigwigs.  Now that the work is almost over, the government wants to get rid of the laborers.  Hmm.

The Freedom Institute will be closed on the 23rd and 24th…let it not be said that Indonesia is not eager to maximize days off when holidays fall inconveniently on the weekend.  So here’s an early "Happy Holidays" from both of us.  For me (TP) this will be a very unique Christmas, not having any snow and all.  For JM, even though it doesn’t normally snow in California, it’s not usually quite this hot, and it’s never sticky.

The big news from Indonesia today can be found on the front page of the good old NY Times involving Newport Mining Corporation.  Mercury + Environment = Bad.  It’s a real depressing bit of news to see how this company has allegedly screwed over Indonesians, especially given that the company seems to have known exactly what it was doing and what the consequences were going to be.  Shame on you, Newport.  If there was ever a need for prudential environmental regulation to overcome market failures, this would be it.

In other pollution-related news, we learned yesterday that the Indonesian city of Surabaya in East Java has the worst pollution of any city here.  So Jakarta’s not even the worst.  Four hundred thousand of the 3.7 million people in Surabaya have reported respiratory-related illnesses, according to the Jakarta Post.  They are implementing an emissions test for vehicles–something like a smog check.  The cost of the test will be $2.25 or so.  However, if you don’t comply and are caught, you can face six months in jail and a $5500 fine.  Ouch.  That’s like fining someone in America $50,000 for polluting.  Now let’s just see if they enforce it.