Before we all start running around like headless chickens on news this week of the first human fatalities of avian influenza in Bali, and possible more infections, it’s worth bearing in mind that in terms of prevalence, bird flu does not even register on the health radar.

Not only in Bali, but across the country, which has recorded the highest number of bird flu fatalities worldwide.

It’s also worth noting that the regrettable Bali deaths occurred in an isolated village on the west coast of the island, where, like in so many rural parts of Indonesia, people live side by side with their fowl, and other farm animals.

In recent years, Southeast Asia has been wracked by one health “crisis” after another, leaving such key pars of countries’ economies as tourism in tatters. In all cases, the hype – largely media-generated (see:
SARS) – was just that: a hysterical overreaction to a health threat that had about as much punch as the common cold.

We do not wish to dismiss the World Health Organization’s fears that the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus could mutate so that it is easily transmissible and therefore possibly trigger a global pandemic that could wipe out millions.

But as of now, with government teams fanning out to warn villagers of the inherent dangers of living with animals, there is little threat. Other diseases – dengue fever, malaria and others endemic to this region – require vastly more attention, and resources. They may not make for better news stories, but that is where the focus must be.

If the central government hopes for a more robust, clearer judiciary, it needs to start supporting the nation’s courts – with hard cash.

Indonesia’s chronically underfunded court system has made it notorious here and overseas, a place where the highest bidder often decides the outcome of cases.

At the Denpasar District Court alone, there is no fax machine, no photocopier, and a well-placed source told this newspaper that when judges wish to print out their verdicts, they have to first pay administrative staff to buy paper and ink – with their own money.

The system is creaking under a mountain of paperwork as the Dickensian courts struggle without any IT network to speak of.

This is a scandal. Is it any wonder some in the court system are open to offers to determine case outcomes?

The heavy caseload of vastly underpaid judges is another prime concern, as they handle up to 40 cases a day. Indeed, due to the lack of proper assistance, in the form of secretaries, judges have to work into the early hours of the morning in writing their lengthy decisions, the source, a judge, said.

Hardly surprising, then, that some would appear to “doze off” during back-to-back sessions the following day, as activists claimed last week of the long-running Newmont pollution trial.

“There is enough evidence to show that the judges in this case violated the (judges’) code of conduct and we hope the Supreme Court will respond swiftly,” Mas Achmad Santosa of the Indonesian Centre for Environmental Law said.

He said video recordings had been handed over to the Supreme Court showing that the judges were “sleeping, chatting over the phone and among themselves and ignoring witnesses’ presentations in court.”

Part of the recordings showed a judge apparently sleeping as a witness for the prosecution was giving testimony.

As President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono continually strives to make good on his election promise of ridding the country of the evil of corruption that has for so long beset the nation, first stop must be with those tasked with dealing with such cases.

A proper budget to bring the country’s court system into modernity – and to give overwhelmed judges some breathing space - would be a good start.

The capture of the head of the organization bent on destroying this country and its close neighbors bodes well for the nation’s anti-terrorism efforts, and sends a clear, robust signal to terrorists that their demented ways will not be tolerated.

And if a militant’s comments broadcast on English-language Al-Jazeera television on Thursday are anything to go by, the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiah (JI) organization that groups most of these would-be terrormongers is now running about like the proverbial headless chicken.

“We are all confused and awaiting further instructions from the leadership,” the individual, who was unnamed, said in East Java.

“The arrests last week have made me very sad because they are like brothers to me,” he said, warning that “The situation could become more dangerous now because some members will be getting impatient without clear instructions from the top.”

With lunatics like this on the lose, the anti-terrorism unit Detachment 88, which made the arrests of JI chief Zarkasi and the group’s military leader Abu Dujana, along with six others, must not waste a moment in ferreting out the lingering members of this cancerous organization.

It is essential to swiftly round up such fanatical individuals before they lash out at the crackdown with further attacks, however poorly planned, or by going into hiding and establishing splinter groups, as some intelligence analysts have warned.

Key to this will be confessions of those who have been picked up. As will cooperation from religious and community leaders at village level right across the country. Only by working together, can we rid the country – and the wider region – of this festering tumor.

How times change.

Once denounced as part of the “axis of evil,” the leader of the country that infamously coined that dangerous phase is now seeking talks with member Iran to try end the ever-downward spiral of violence in neighboring Iraq that even a recent “surge” of troops has failed to dampen.

Be careful who you label as enemies; one day you may just need them.

This week we learned the American President George W. Bush has approved direct talks with Tehran in a bid to restore some semblance of order to blood-soaked Iraq, spurned by the capture of a reportedly Al Qaeda unit of three US troops that thousands of soldiers are hunting for before they befall a lethal fate of other such kidnapped troops.

Talking to Iran to try stem the Iraq violence was one of the suggestions of the much-heralded report by the Iraq Study Group last year that was swiftly discarded by Washington. Now, in times of desperate need, thankfully the US administration is listening – albeit because it is severely fenced in and under immense pressure from its Republican ranks ahead of the presidential election next year in which, with almost 3,500 US troops killed, Iraq is the key issue with voters, and Bush’s approval ratings are hazardously at Nixon level, and sinking.

The time given over to blinkered presidential Iraq happy talk is over; everyone, including outside the US, wants action, a withdrawal of coalition troops, an end to a conflict that is now into its fifth year and still killing Iraqis, Americans and others.

Yet even in its death throes, the US government still attempts to link what has been happening in Iraq to the attacks of September 11, 2001, in a vain but fallaciously calculated move to garner public support that has long since waned.

It is time now for stark realism, for those in power in the US and elsewhere to publicly recognize that the Iraq invasion and the subsequent years of death and destruction has amounted to an almighty folly, one that can only be righted by the coalition retreating and allowing the warring factions in Iraq, and those militants attracted to the current anti-US honeypot, to sort it out for themselves.

It is a start, at the very least, in talking to Iran.

The lesson is never say never, and even during the darkest days, when there is no end in sight, never lose hope. A more salient learning in these troubled times: talk to your enemies; they may become – if not your friends – your allies.

Events in Northern Ireland this week showed just how bitter enemies can bury the hatchet – or, in this case, vast caches of weapons and bombs used in a decades-long, deadly campaign against British rule – and move forward for the common good.

Throughout the years of bloodshed in Northern Ireland, in which more than 3,000 people lost their lives, many north and south of the border, and in Westminster, never dreamed they would see the day when staunch unionist Ian Paisley sat down with the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, Sinn Fein, and agreed to share power in the province.

“Northern Ireland has come to a time of peace. A time when hate will no longer rule … How good it will be to be part of a wonderful healing in this province,” Paisley, who over the years became infamous for his refusal to deal with Sinn Fein, said on Tuesday as he was sworn in as first minister, with Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein’s deputy leader, as his deputy.

From these early days of power-sharing, for sure the road will be rocky. But the long-suffering peoples of Northern Ireland and Britain can at least take comfort in the mature, sagacious attitudes of its new leaders.

Those in power in other parts of the world – notably the torrid Middle East – would do well to take a lesson from Belfast.

The authorities’ success in breaking up a purported terrorism ring is reassuring on two fronts: the police here, working with their counterparts overseas, notably the Australian Federal Police, are leaving no stone unturned in ferreting out hate-filled militants bent on destroying life and causing untold misery, personal as well as economic. It also provides comfort to everyone living here, and abroad, that the likelihood of further tragedies is fast dimming as the evildoers are swiftly rounded up.

The announcement this week by Indonesian and Australian police that they had broken up a terrorist cell and made eight arrests, in joint operations last month, should also serve as a stark warning to other crazed militants that their days are indeed numbered.

During the raids in Java, in which one of the suspects was shot dead by police, a stunning amount of deadly weapons and explosives was covered, according to the police, who say they found 20 bombs, 730 kilograms of explosives, 45 kilograms of dynamite, nearly 200 detonators, weapons and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

Clearly a massive attack in the works has been foiled, not only possibly here but also in the wider region in which Al Qaeda-linked cells are festering, notably in the southern Philippines.

And these suspects, say police, are some of the same men behind deadly blasts in Jakarta and elsewhere in recent years. Their apprehension marks a major move forward in the battle against terrorism, but there is much more to be done, including picking up fugitive Noordin Mohammad Top, believed to be a leading figure in the militant movement and who has repeatedly escaped police raids.

Police believe Top, whose compatriot Azahari Husin died in a police raid in Java in November 2005, is still in this country, and they must make extra efforts now to track him down. Gaining grass roots knowledge is vital in this endeavor, which is why operatives must be placed at village level to interact with locals and gain relevant information.

The country is at war with terrormongers, and it is winning.

The central government’s apparent desire to change from brutal firing squad to lethal injection for death row inmates is not good enough; it should get rid of the medieval death penalty altogether, and set a new precedent among our neighboring nations here in Southeast Asia.

Even in execution-happy America, increasing numbers of states are calling a temporary halt to the grisly practice amid claims that the lethal injection procedure in use may cause excruciating pain as it is being administered.

Nearer to home, the compassionate Philippine president, Gloria Arroyo, last year banned any further enactments of capital punishment, valiantly abolishing the punishment altogether.

“It gives the Philippines a well-deserved niche as one among Asia’s leading human rights advocates in the global map,” lawmaker Etta Rosales said at the time.

“The abolition of capital punishment addresses the basic right to life and the dignity of the human person. It anchors the entire criminal justice process on the principle of rehabilitative and restorative justice, no matter how heinous are the crimes committed by the offenders of the law. It directs society and its government towards a vision that makes the right to one’s humanity a universal reality,” she said.

Our neighbor Singapore, meanwhile, has done itself few favors with its rigid use of the death penalty.

In Indonesia, the government persists with the death penalty, with some 90 people on death row, some of them Australians here in Bali, according to Amnesty International, which rightly points out that executing people is not a deterrent to future crimes being committed.

With crimes of passion or otherwise, being killed by your country for your misdeeds are almost never on people’s minds when the event occurs – otherwise crime rates would be negligible.

Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh said earlier this month that Indonesia was mulling changing from its inhuman firing-squad policy - in which the condemned is taken to a remote location in the early hours and shot in the heart – to death by lethal injection, a foolhardy change given the rolling controversy over that method in the US.

“First the person will be injected until they are unconscious; then they will be injected with poison,” the attorney general said, adding that death by firing squad often proved problematic, as oftentimes it required repeated shootings to kill the person – and sometimes they had to be shot in the back of the head to get the job done.

If that’s not brutally cruel, we don’t know what is. And that’s not even taking into account any possible miscarriages of justice that may be discovered after the person’s death.

Follow the Philippines, and repeal.