A new road for Indonesia and the United States

jakarta post
Richard G. Lugar, Washington D.C | Tue, 07/06/2010 11:14 AM | Insight

The Indonesia-US relationship continues to strengthen. It received an important boost when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono proposed in 2008 a Comprehensive Partnership between the two countries.

In 2009, Secretary of State Clinton and Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda announced agreement to implement the proposal.

We must not let this and other successes in our bilateral relations be overshadowed by the latest postponement of President Obama’s much-anticipated trip to Indonesia. While there is understandable disappointment in Indonesia, neither White House scheduling problems nor the subsequent glee emanating from a few anti-American pockets in Indonesia should detract from a growing relationship.

Both sides are working hard to enhance ties. President Yudhoyono and other Indonesia leaders are implementing ambitious strategies to strengthen the rule of law, combat corruption, implement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, improve human rights, and reform Indonesian Military (TNI) and the Indonesian Army’s Special Forces (Kopassus).

Some naysayers in Indonesia are trying to discourage President Yudhoyono from moving ahead in these areas, suggesting they represent Western ideas and thinking.

However, these measures are in Indonesia’s own self-interest. History shows that when implemented, such proposals will develop stronger foundations for the long-term success of democracy while attracting more visitors, investment and economic commitment for Indonesia. This translates into jobs for the people of Indonesia, a cause to which the President is fully committed.

In January of 2005, he said, “I know economic plans generally have pros and cons. For my part, I would like to think that my economic vision based on the Triple Track Strategy has three pros: pro-growth, pro-employment and pro-poor”.

In that spirit, I would encourage Indonesian officials to establish a formal mechanism for stakeholder consultation prior to publishing any regulation that may impact the ability of investors to do business in Indonesia, a step that will facilitate greater foreign investment.

President Obama and Secretary Clinton have built on the previous administration’s efforts at strengthening ties by reaffirming the US commitment to Indonesia and the region.

During President Bush’s 2003 trip to Indonesia, he announced a five-year, US$157 million “Basic Education Initiative”, to improve educational quality.

That amount and more was spent on basic education needs with additional funding dedicated to the transfer of responsibility for the implementation of the school-based management approach to district and provincial governments and to facilitate its nationwide replication.

Close cooperation in education is a fundamental element of the US–Indonesia Comprehensive Partnership. At the G20 in Toronto, President Obama and President Yudhoyono announced a Higher Education Partnership in which the United States will commit to help build Indonesian capacity to provide world-class university education, and to help realize the aspiration to double within five years the number of American and Indonesian students who study in each other’s country.

On the security front, officials of the US Department of Defense and Indonesia’s Ministry of Defense recently signed a framework defense agreement in areas of security dialogue, education and training, procurement of military equipment, maritime security and other mutually agreed areas of cooperation.

The recent announcement of the joint deep-sea exploration by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Indonesia’s Ministry for Marine Affairs and Fisheries and the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology is an important example of the variety of possibilities for cooperation between the two countries.

If the Comprehensive Partnership is sufficiently structured to survive the political tests of time in both countries, it will facilitate an unprecedented level of bilateral cooperation that will pay long-term benefits to the people of Indonesia and the United States.


The writer is the Republican leader of the Foreign Relations Committee and a member and former chairman of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.

smartphone market in Asia

Asia with biggest population in the world, having consumetive behavior in many products at market. Almost all people in Asia have cellphone. Smartphone qwerty trend demand proved that cellphone still use for the best interactive communication in asian people. Qwerty type make easier to connect people each other Doing activities on net more easier with smartphone qwerty e.g blackberry, as we know blackberry have many fiturs, social networking, etc

Market update

Weekly Recap - Week ending 23-Jan-09

It was an historic week for the country with Barack Obama being inaugurated the 44th President of the United States. For the stock market, though, it was another bewildering week that was governed with a sense of uncertainty about the financial sector and the timing of an economic recovery.

Various forces combined to cause second-guessing with respect to the conventional wisdom that the recovery will round into form in the next six months. We won't capture them all, but some of the bothersome developments included the following:

1. A disappointing earnings report from Microsoft replete with an indication that market volatility left it unable to provide quantitative revenue and EPS guidance for the balance of its fiscal year
2. The UK reporting a 1.5% decline in Q4 GDP that was its biggest contraction since 1980
3. A deceleration in China's Q4 GDP growth to 6.8% from 9.0% in the preceding period
4. South Korean company Samsung reporting its first quarterly loss ever
5. Royal Bank of Scotland triggering nationalization concerns in the UK with an indication its 2008 loss could be as much as $41 billion
6. A slew of banking industry earnings reports that contained sharp increases to loan loss reserves
7. A growing threat of competitive devaluations that was fed by further strengthening in the yen and the view from soon-to-be Treasury Secretary Geithner that China is manipulating its currency
8. Housing starts falling to an annualized rate of 550K units that is the lowest on record dating back to 1959 and initial jobless claims returning to a level (589K) seen Dec. 20, which matched a 26-year high
9. Rumblings in D.C. that partisan politics could delay the passage of a massive stimulus bill
10. A clear sense of skepticism about GE's ability to maintain its annual dividend of $1.24 per share

All told, the events of the week fed the bearish bias that has persisted since the close of trading Jan. 2. The end result is that the market slipped another 2.1%, bringing its year-to-date decline to 7.9%.

One of the sobering reminders the market provided participants this week is that seemingly cheap stocks can indeed get cheaper. Microsoft was the main case in point, followed by GE and any number of financial issues, like Bank of America, Wells Fargo and State Street.

The residual message is that the risk premium tied to stock selection continues to be high. Stocks can, and will, move to new lows on further earnings estimate cuts and poor outlooks. In turn, it was evident in the better-than expected earnings reports from IBM and Apple that good earnings news these days is a company-specific happening.

In general, companies continue to bemoan the lack of visibility, which leaves any earnings guidance that is offered in question. Accordingly, we expect the bear market tendency of selling into strength to continue.

One item that could certainly stem that reaction is a stabilization of the financial sector, which dropped another 7.1% this week and is the core driver of the market's frenetic behavior. What that stabilizing factor is remains to be seen, although we suspect a refocused effort by the Obama administration to get toxic assets off banks' balance sheets at market prices would be viewed as a step in the right direction.

The financial sector is sure to be a focal point in the coming week, which will be a busy one with 137 members of the S&P 500 due to report their earnings results, an FOMC meeting Wednesday, and a barrage of economic releases that are likely to contain more bad news.

The Q4 GDP report is the main event on the economic calendar (just how bad were things?), which also features reports throughout the week on existing home sales, consumer confidence, home prices, durable orders, initial jobless claims, new home sales, and manufacturing conditions in the Midwest region.

--Patrick J. O'Hare, Briefing.com

Internet Banking

Online banking
by dani

Use internet banking system makes your transactions more easy and allows customers to conduct financial transactions on a secure website operated by their retail or virtual bank, credit union, building society. Online banking have many features and capabilities in common, but traditionally also have some that are application specific.
The common features fall broadly into several categories

• Transactional (e.g., performing a financial transaction such as an account to account transfer, paying a bill, wire transfer... and applications... apply for a loan, new account, etc.)
  
• Non-transactional (e.g., online statements, check links, co-browsing, chat)
• Financial Institution Administration - features allowing the financial institution to manage the online experience of their end users
• ASP/Hosting Administration - features allowing the hosting company to administer the solution across financial institutions

Features commonly unique to business banking include

• Support of multiple users having varying levels of authority
• Transaction approval process
• Wire transfer

Features commonly unique to Internet banking include

Some online banking platforms support account aggregation to allow the customers to monitor all of their accounts in one place whether they are with their main bank or with other institutions. (wikipedia)
Use your online banking system, it doest not necessary take many times and more safe.

Iraq Dinar in Phenomena

by dani
Before UN embargo/ economic sanctions and war, one Iraq Dinars(IQD) = 3,22USD when Saddam lead Iraq, but now 1 IQD = 0.000824674 USD, some people buy this iqd in big amount, they have prediction that iqd will back like in year 1982, if it happens they will get big profit from dinars, do you think so?
Wait a minute, In the present day Iraq have no stable government, many infrastructures damage, civil war everywhere at the cities, and US troops almost dead everyday. Iqd is not open for free trading world market, you can buy iqd from dealers in your country and if you want to sell you can sell in middle east when you go there or your friends go to pilgrim, you cannot sell to your national bank or money changer.
How you can prediction that next year or this year iqd will stable and 1 iqd = 1 USD ?, stable government is the most important to be created in Iraq, if Iraq be safe country all investors will come and rebuild the infrastructures and it need many years.
But if you still want to buy IQD just be carefull, of course sometimes trading get gain sometimes lost. It's trading world ! you have many choice to get good currency for forex trading, just read many liuteratures about forex and surfing internet way.

News for YOu

this blog give many information and news about forex trading, financial, investing, sales marketing news, stock market from www.freshcontent.net you can read everyday when you need some economy news, and my posting. Get better info for you everyday!