JAKARTA ~ Public transport operators are preparing to raise fares in anticipation of a government hike in the price of fuel, a transport association official said this week.

“We plan to submit a demand for a fare increase to the government soon after a fuel price increase is announced,” the secretary general of the Jakarta Public Transport Association, TR Panjaitan, said on Wednesday.

The government said earlier this week it planned to cut its generous fuel subsidies in the face of soaring oil costs, with discussions underway about a resulting hike in fuel prices of up to 30 percent.

The government has so far not set a date for the price rise.

Panjaitan said a rise in fuel prices could create a “multiplier effect,” pushing up costs for spare parts, lubricants and other items needed to operate public transport fleets.

“We are currently preparing the fare increase percentage based on various scenarios. If fuel prices are increased by 30 percent, our fares would approximately be raised by about 20 percent,” Panjaitan said.

Indonesia last increased the fuel price by a massive 126 percent in 2005, igniting widespread protests.

JAYAPURA ~ The death toll from a landslide in the eastern province of Papua rose to 19 on Wednesday as bad weather forced a halt to the search for survivors, miners involved in the rescue effort said.

A spokesman for Freeport Indonesia, which operates a nearby mine, said it was unclear how many people had been buried when a cliff slid down on an illegal mining operation late Monday.

“As of this afternoon when we had to halt the search efforts because of the bad weather, a total of 19 bodies had been found,” spokesman Mindo Pangaribuan said.

Pangaribuan said the victims were all illegal gold panners working on tailings from the Freeport mine but were not inside Freeport’s concession area as claimed earlier by police.

The landslide took place late on Monday evening in an area about 3,000 meters above sea level that is continuously shrouded by mist.

Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of US mining giant Freeport-McMoRan, said its operations had not been affected by the landslide.

JAKARTA ~ Three Taiwanese men have been arrested trying to enter Indonesia with more than nine kilograms of methamphetamine, state media said.

A 40-year-old man identified only by the initials WCM was arrested at Jakarta’s Soekarno Hatta International Airport with 1.8 kilograms of methamphetamine and 1.046 kilograms of ketamine, the Antara news agency reported.

Customs officer Darmanto said the Taiwanese man was on a flight from Macau and was “dressed well, like a businessman.”

Another two Taiwanese citizens were arrested Sunday at Surabaya’s Juanda Airport with more than 7 kilograms of methamphetamine, customs official Argandiono told the agency.

“We stopped them when we became suspicious of their baggage after seeing the x-ray. (The drugs) were placed in biscuit tins, then wrapped in aluminium foil and covered under packs of cigarettes,” Argandiono said.

If convicted the men face up to 15 years imprisonment or the death penalty if they are proven to be part of an organized drugs ring.

JAKARTA ~ A court ordered the attorney general on Tuesday to reopen a probe into a massive corruption scandal involving billions of dollars in loans lent during the Asian financial crisis.

District court Judge Haswandi ordered the Attorney General’s Office to “continue the investigations” into Syamsul Nursalim, one of Indonesia’s richest men, over missing billions of dollars his defunct bank owes the government.

Bank Dagang Negara Indonesia (BDNI) owes Rp30.9 trillion (US$3.37 billion) in so-called liquidity funds handed out by the central bank in 1998 at the height of the Asian financial meltdown.

Bank assets confiscated and sold by the state have only yielded about Rp1.8 trillion, but the Attorney General’s Office decided in February to drop its 10-year investigation into the missing money.

Days later, the chief prosecutor on the case, Urip Tri Gunawan, was arrested with $660,000 in cash as he left Nursalim’s Jakarta home. His case remains under investigation and he has not been charged with any crime.

Two other top officials involved in the BDNI probe have been removed from their posts following an internal inquiry by the Attorney General’s Office.

Nursalim left the country several years ago and is reportedly living in Singapore.

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JAKARTA ~ The government is considering withdrawing from the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC), President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

“In our last cabinet meeting we thought about whether to stay or leave OPEC and increase our domestic production,” Yudhoyono was quoted by the state Antara news agency as saying.

He said Indonesia was producing almost one million barrels of oil per day, or just under the OPEC ceiling for the country, but the development of new wells could boost capacity beyond the ceiling in the next three years.

Indonesia is the only Southeast Asian member of the oil cartel but declining production levels have turned it into a net importer.

JAKARTA ~ Four rebels wanted over armed attacks against East Timor’s president and prime minister were extradited amid tight security from Indonesia on Monday.

The unidentified four, wearing red T-shirts and handcuffed, were seen boarding a charter plane under heavy armed police escort at the Halim Perdanakusumah airport in East Jakarta.

More uniformed and plainclothes police, some of them armed, were deployed on the runway as the rebels left for East Timor to face justice over the February 11 attacks.

East Timorese Prosecutor General Longuinos Monteiro told reporters during a stopover at the airport on the Indonesian resort island of Bali that the four rebels could face up to 25 years in jail in their home country.

“The four were directly involved in the attacks on the president Jose Ramos-Horta’s residence and the prime minister Xanana Gusmao’s convoy before they illegally crossed the East Timor-Indonesia border,” he said.

Indonesian police arrested the four East Timorese former soldiers - two in a border town in West Timor and two in Jakarta - in the weeks after the failed attacks which almost killed Ramos-Horta.

The president was shot several times when gunmen ambushed him at his Dili residence and had to be flown to Darwin in northern Australia for life-saving surgery.

Gusmao escaped unhurt from a separate ambush on his convoy the same day.

Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado and one of his men were killed in the attacks. Reinado’s deputy, Gastao Salsinha, and 11 of his men gave themselves up to East Timorese police last week.

PARIS ~ Pop diva Madonna turned sexy hard-rock queen for a night at a private concert in Paris on Tuesday night, telling her fans she loves to french-kiss the French as she ground away at an electric guitar.

Wearing black from head to toe, her blonde curls loose to her shoulders, Madonna put on a high-voltage half-hour show for a privileged 1,500 fans to mark the release of “Hard Candy”, her 10th chart-topping album.

“Who do you love more, me or the Rolling Stones?” she asked the crowd packing the Olympia, a mythical concert hall near the Paris opera, before launching into a ear-popping heavy-metal version of her mega-hit Hung Up.

“I thought you might say that,” quipped the queen of pop, who turns 50 on August 16, as the adoring crowd roared back their answer.

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