Porn Scandal Ended with Resignation from Parliament

Shear Blog - A conservative Indonesian lawmaker caught watching a pornographic video on his computer during a parliamentary session has resigned.

The case has transfixed this Muslim-majority nation, dominating headlines and discussion on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter since the lawmaker was caught on camera Thursday.

Arifinto, who like many Indonesians uses one name, is from a conservative Islamic party and helped push through an anti-pornography law that came into effect in 2008. 

The law faced strong opposition from the public and some members of government, with many saying it is vaguely worded and carries harsh penalties. The 50-year-old lawmaker apologized to his constituents Monday and said he'd decided to step down from Parliament.

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"Indonesia Has Large Potentials to Develop Nuclear Energy in the Future"

Shear English - An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official said Indonesia has large potentials to develop nuclear energy in the future. "Indonesia has long experience in using nuclear energy. It also has many nuclear scientists and potentials to have good nuclear energy in the future," Kwaku Aning, deputy for technical cooperation to the IAEA director general, said at the National Atomic Energy Board (BATAN) here on Monday.

Kwaku Aning is in Indonesia to open the 33rd meeting of the Regional Cooperative Agreement (RCA) National Representatives in Bali on April 12-15. The meeting is expected to be attended by heads of nuclear energy agencies from 17 countries. Admittedly, nuclear power plants had the potentials to generate up to thousands of megawatts needed to improve the living standard of a country.

Compared to other energy, the use of nuclear energy also helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the use of nuclear energy entailed high risks, he said. Despite the high risks, nuclear power plants gave priority to the principles of safety. Therefore, according to Kwaku Aning, all efforts covering regulations, construction activities, operations must be tightly directed towards the principles.

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Migration of Tringa Birds to Air Mati Beach - Ketapang

Shear English - Tringa brevipe birds of Siberia, Northern Asia, from March to April migrated to Air Mati Beach, Muara Pawan district, Ketapang district for search of food in the winter, an environmental activist said here Monday. The birds which were looking for food in the muddy shore are 25 centimeters long, a member of Bird Observers Association (bird watching) of Ketapang bird’s friends, Abdurachman Alkadri noted.

"The birds are one of the migrant birds from other countries," Abdurachman said.

They are also regular visitors of Air Mati Beach. In March and April they can still be found in Air Mati, Sungai Pawan village. According to him, the bird watchers association, managed to capture the activity of the birds including while they were looking for food.

"These birds migrate from their original place to the continent with a tropical climate or a tropical country to avoid the winter, " Abdurachman explained.

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Facebook Shares Green Data Centre Technology (BBC News)

Shear English - Facebook has announced that it will share the design secrets behind its new energy-efficient data centre with rival companies. The social network's facility in Prineville, Oregon is said to use 38% less power than existing centres. It hopes, by making the innovations public, to cut the amount of electricity the industry consumes.

Despite Facebook's advances, some environmental groups have criticised the firm over its green credentials. Working under the title Open Compute Project, Facebook will release specifications and mechanical drawings of the building and its servers.

"It's time to stop treating data centres like Fight Club (do not talk about them)," said Jonathan Heiliger, the company's vice president of technical operations. His comments are likely to be interpreted as a dig at other web firms, such as Google, Twitter and Amazon which have kept their own designs under wraps.

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A New Book Released, "The Secretive World of Google"

Shear English - A new book released next week lifts the lid on the secretive world of Google, revealing how the founders fell out with Apple's Steve Jobs and what happened in the search engine's exit from China. 'In the Plex' was written by Steven Levy, a technology reporter who says his latest work is 'informed by a two-year deep dive into the company'.

He reveals that when founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were on the hunt for a chief executive they wanted Steve Jobs to take up the job. The only problem was that Mr Jobs had a much better job at Apple - a much more superior company at the time.

He turned their offer down but because he saw the potential of Google he agreed to mentor Mr Page and Mr Brin, even sharing advisers. Eric Schmidt, the man who eventually took the job as chief executive until last week, was also installed as a board member at Apple. Problems came when Google bought and started work on the Android mobile phone system. Apple saw it as a direct threat to iPhone and relationships broke down with Mr Jobs feeling betrayed by the pair.

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TNI-AU to Acquire T50 Golden Eagle Planes

Shear English - The Indonesian Air Force (TNI-AU) will acquire South Korean-made T50 Golden Eagle training planes next year, a top military officer said here Saturday. Speaking to newsmen after attending the 65th commemoration of the TNI-AU Anniversary here, Air Chief Marshal Imam Sufaat said there would be a squadron or 16 units of T50 Golden Eagle aircraft.

The procurement of the new training airplanes was part of the Indonesian Air Force’s efforts to meet its minimum essential force by 2024, he said. "The president’s policy is accelerating the needs of military equipments, especially changing the airplanes whose ages are above 30 years old," he said.

These T50 Golden Eagle planes would replace the British Hawk 53 MKs. Besides those new training airplanes, the TNI-AU would also buy Super Tucano planes to replace those of OV-10 Broncos. The Defense Ministry had even allocated budgets for purchasing these Super Tucano planes, he said. Asked about the total amount of budget allocated for buying a squadron of T50 Golden Eagle, he said the government had to allocate 400 million US dollars.

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