Running Amok

2011-12-01T14:13:00.003+11:00

Arthur Beetson dies at 66.

When I was in high school growing up in Sydney, Big Artie Beetson was an unstoppable, hard tackling prop for the Roosters (Tigers and Eels as well). He also appeared as a Queensland State of Origin original. Because the opposing packs couldn't put Artie on the deck, he offloaded the most sublime passes to players like John Peard and Russell Fairfax who would dart over the line for yet another Artie-inspired try. Artie was remarkably light on his feet for a man of his great size and his cunning, feigning manoeuvres resulted in many individual tries up the middle. He was also one of the toughest tacklers - able to smother man and ball. The spear tackle was also in his fearsome repertoire. We salute you big Artie Beetson - greatest prop of them all. Rest in Peace. @abcgrandstand http://t.co/VvuhbTXb

Buy Running Amok When Family And Foreign Affairs Collide Book by Mark Bowling (9780733620423) at Angus and Robertson with free shipping

2011-11-21T10:38:00.000+11:00

Buy Running Amok When Family And Foreign Affairs Collide Book by Mark Bowling (9780733620423) at Angus and Robertson with free shipping

Ten Years After

2008-05-21T09:20:00.006+10:00

Ah yes.. May 21st 1998.. and Indonesians were stunned as Suharto stood before TV cameras at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta and announced he was standing down as leader. His speech to the nation was covered live on Indoneisan TV and there was instant jubilation across the archipelago.
On that day, as this drama unfolded, I was reporting from the ABC's office in central Jakarta. It was a mad scramble writing radio news stories and crossing for TV News interviews describing events as they unfolded. Later in the day I joined the celebrating crowds of students at Indonesia's parliament as they sang and danced beneath the fountain in the forecourt.

You can read about this day and the massive change of REFORMASI that engulfed Indonesia in my book RUNNING AMOK.

I had the privilege to host and "In Conversation" session this last week with one of Indonesias's leading writers and intellectuals Goenawan Mohamad. He remembers those days very well too. The magazine he helped found TEMPO was banned during the Suharto years.. for daring to criticise the state.. only to re-emerge as reforms including press freedom took shape.

Pak Goenewan reckons the greatest issue facing Indonesians in 2008 is the rise and rise of radical Islam.

What do you think?

New Website Explores North Australia

2008-05-15T15:02:00.006+10:00

It's amazing how little most people know about Australia's deep north.

Check out this website newly created to foster a conversation about North Australia and to promote a free public forum organised by the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) in Darwin on 24 June.

The website contains news and features about North Australia and you can register for the Forum.

Oh.. and you'll see that there's a feature on the front page about moi.. here's a taste:

Heads up: for great yarns, go north
With its proximity to Asia, North Australia is the jumping off point for some of the biggest stories in our region. But the ABC’s strong connection to local communities means some of the best gets can be a lot closer to home.
When ABC journalist Mark Bowling was asked if he wanted to swap the Sydney newsroom for Darwin, he jumped in his yellow Torana and hot-footed it to Australia’s northernmost capital.
Two decades and various job descriptions later – including North Australia Correspondent and the ABC’s Indonesia Correspondent - Mark is now ABC Director Northern Territory and is in a good position to know what it takes to make it as a journalist in the region.
“You need to be pragmatic, (you need) a sense of humour, flexibility and a good ability as an all-rounder,” Mark said.
“In the big cities you get dedicated to a particular round and you might be on it for a long time. You might be in an air-conditioned court system for months and months or years and years.
“But in Darwin or Cairns, Broome or Townsville, there’s more chance than not you’ll get the chance to work in lots of different areas.
“I like to think of it as a centre of excellence. There are many journalists and broadcasters who have cut their teeth in the north for the ABC and have gone on to all sorts of careers – foreign correspondents, leading broadcasters, key technicians – right around the ABC network.”
Communities in North Australia rely heavily on ABC content through 105.7 ABC Darwin and 783 ABC Alice Springs, news, current affairs, sport and entertainment – as well as its emergency broadcasts during times of flood, fire and cyclone.
The close connections forged by this relationship put the ABC in a position to uncover local stories that appeal around Australia.
The upcoming documentary feature In a League of their Own, which follows the first Indigenous football team to join the NT Football League in their first season, is just one example.
Filmed by Steve McGregor, who worked most recently as Indigenous acting coordinator on Baz Luhrmann’s new movie Australia, the documentary chronicles the first season of the Tiwi Bombers as they move from being the new kids on the footy block to passionate participants in the nail-biting finals.
Mark, the Executive Producer of the feature, said he was keen to capture the importance of football in North Australia, particularly in remote communities.
“In a place like the Tiwi Islands and in many remote Indigenous communities, it is not a cliché or stretching the truth to say that boys grow up bouncing plastic water bottles along the street like footballs until they get a real football in their hands. They end up with incredible skills.
“On the other hand, the situation they are living in, in some cases can only be described as third world. For instance, living in the Tiwi Islands community is in many ways precarious, with the highest youth suicide rate in the country and is struggling to find male role models.”
These harsh realities, set against the backdrop of the Northern Territory Federal Intervention, combine with the rollercoaster ride of the team’s football season to make compelling drama.
At the start of the season the Tiwi Bombers create their own code of conduct and commit to stick to it. It means no ‘ganja’ (cannabis) and reduced alcohol consumption – no drinking before games, a celebratory drink afterwards, but tapering down as the week wound toward the next match.
The documentary explores how the players handle this challenge, as well as the many other logistical barriers the Tiwi Bombers face in their first season.
Team members fly from all over the Tiwi Islands, or drive over rough dirt roads to Nguiu on Bathurst Island just to train, while game day involves flights to and from Darwin for all players.
“We film all these challenges. It becomes a journey of the season, a journey of week to week and then it is a journey of a new club,” Mark said.
In a League of their Own will be screened on ABC1 and there are already plans for an accompanying DVD, which will include footy tips and health and lifestyle advice from the players, to be distributed among Aboriginal communities.

Bombers Crash - But Tiwi Island Football Alive and Well

2008-03-03T15:25:00.012+11:00

It was the night that the Tiwi Bombers dived out of the Northern Territory Football League finals. It was the emotional end to their first year in the "big league" - as they described the NTFL - an end to their fairytale run which saw the team dominate early in the season, and win over fans who witnessed their "Island-style" of football with freakish skills, lightening pace and keep-the-ball-alive-at-all-costs play.

But in the end, the Tiwi Bombers succumbed to the far more experienced clubs with their big name players, structured football and hard-trained bodies. Frankly, the Bombers looked puny in their final game against the Warriors. It seems that by the "business end" of the footy season opposition coaches had worked out the Bombers magic formula.

But the Bombers have proven inspirational. They have fans in remote indigenous communities right across remote Northern Australia, and beyond in the suburbs and cities of main stream Australia (and around the globe!). They have proven what can be achieved with hard training and discipline and a will to tackle new challenges.

A documentary "In a League of Their Own" featuring the Tiwi Bombers in their first season will be out mid year (July 2008), and will delve into the lives of the players and the unique aboriginal community of the Tiwi Islands which they call home.

Find out more about "In a League of Their Own" by dropping me an email. And in the meantime, tell me: What do you think about the Tiwi Bombers? Leave a comment.

A New Groove for Indigenous Songs

2008-02-19T10:10:00.005+11:00

What happens when an Australian jazz musician living in the mainstream decides to team up with aboriginal women singers from the tiny Tiwi Islands? A new music blend which is like no other!

The jazz musician in question is Genevieve Campbell: "The idea for this project started in late 2006 when I heard a tape of the ladies singing and thought it might be fun to put my music together with theirs… just to see what might happen. The journey since then has been one of song, laughter, friendship and sandfly bites. On the face of it there's perhaps not much in common between the main street of Nguiu and the inner city of Sydney, but we've found, having talked and played and sung and danced together that in many ways we are coming from the same place."

Of course the Tiwi Islands are also the home of the famous Tiwi Bombers. Some of these women singers are mothers and aunties of these emerging stars.. and on Saturdays can always be found at the football.

Tiwi Bombers - thrilling football as new doco takes shape

2008-01-31T11:46:00.000+11:00

(Right:The Tiwi Bombers in a half-time huddle)

(Director Steven McGregor. Photos: Mark Bowling)

Lights. Action Camera. Shooting is in full swing for the film "In a League of Their Own". It's an observational documentary tracing the exploits of the Tiwi Bombers - a team of talented and highly skilled Aboriginal footballers from the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin. The Bombers are flying high in their first full season in the Northern Territory Football League. With just a few games until the finals, they are on top of the league table.

But can the Tiwi Bombers go all the way and win the coverted NTFL Premiership? And can the Bombers prove to their fiercely loyal supporters that they are capable of not only matching the best footballers in the TOP END, but they are in fact "In a League of Their Own"?

All will be revealed as this film takes shape - documenting the excitement of the Bombers first season, but also the real lives of the players, their supporters and their island community. I am the Executive Producer of this documentary, and together with co-pro Producers Tony Collins and Carmel Young, I'm proud to have the acclaimed indigenous Director Steven McGregor (pictured above) leading the project. His last major work was the award-winning drama "My Brother Vinnie".
Stay tuned for updates as the Bombers season reaches a crescendo in coming weeks.

See also: Tiwi Bombers blast off

Peddle Power, Wind Power - and a thirst for adventure

2007-11-20T10:35:00.000+11:00

A few months ago I blogged about Benji Rogers-Wilson, a young Aussie adventurer who is biking and sailing around the world; a journey which he reckons could take about five years. At that time Benji was in Darwin, North Australia. Now he's peddling his way through SE Asia on route for China and Japan. He has some fantastic tales to tell.. like his recent precarious road trip from Singapore to Bangkok.

Follow this unique journey on his excellent website.. there are some gripping, footloose yarns. There's an important message behind it too.. His aim is to journey using no fuel (other than calories) & emit no greenhouse gasses & he hopes his example will inspire others to think more seriously about living their lives in more sustainable ways.

And I like this quote from his website which sets the tone for his current trip:

"A few years ago while touring in northern Spain a young woman asked me, ‘How do you do it, pull yourself out of your tent each morning and ride all day?’ A curious but not uncommon question to which I replied, ‘How do you do it, pull yourself out of bed each morning and go and work a 9 to 5 job?’ Of course, she may have been perfectly content in her vocation, but for my part, struggling to accept the mediocrity of the rat race and the tyranny of boredom is reason enough to jump on a bicycle and head off into the unknown."

Zorba dance is a smash

2007-11-02T16:44:00.001+11:00

A group of 10 traditional dancers from Northern Australia has a smash hit on YouTube, with their unique interpretation of Zorba the Greek.

They are called the Chooky Dancers, a group of young men and boys from Elcho Island - part of a vast Aboriginal region known as Arnhem Land.

Their Zorba dance has gone around the world, and even been screened in a public square in Greece.

Lionel Djirrimbilpilwuy, who is 19, is the lead dancer who came up with the idea of fusing modern Yolngu dance with the Greek Zorba.

"The crowd just loved it, you know. If it's three o'clock in the morning, if it's two o'clock in the morning, the crowd just loved them," he said.

"They just pick up whatever style or tune they like to pick, you know, as long as it's a fast moving type, up-tempo music style with a lot of rhythm.

"They do it at home, just to keep themselves busy and fit, and main thing is to keep themselves away from boredom."

Click here to see the dance!

Tiwi Bombers blast off

2007-11-01T13:14:00.000+11:00

The Bombers celebrate their pre-season victory

After winning the pre-season comp in Darwin, indigenous sensations, The Tiwi Bombers have made a dramtic start to the "real" footy season. After losing their first game, the Bombers have re-couped and won the next two matches.

It all makes for an exciting football..

Watch Bombers action in this great story from ABC News

Would you donate to see this amazing film documentary go ahead?

2007-10-30T22:09:00.000+11:00

(Left: A carving of The Footy Man: traditional Tiwi art with a modern, twist)

(Below: The Tiwi Bombers - talented footballers from a tiny island community)

The Scene: Tropical Northern Australia.

This is the story of a new and sublimely talented Aboriginal football team from a remote island community. The Tiwi Island Bombers (picture above) are breaking new ground by entering the highly competitive Northern Territory Football League for the first time. The documentary follows the team as it strives to win in its first season, revealing not just the players energetic and entertaining brand of footy, but the hopes and dreams of their disadvantaged island community. There is a strong expectation that the Tiwi Bombers will make the finals and intense speculation about whether they can do even better by winning the premiership in their first season.

This documentary takes us inside the lives of some of the Tiwi players, their families, club officials and supporters – revealing the Tiwis as expert hunters of bush tucker and knowledgeable exponents of traditional ceremony. "In a League of Their Own" also explores the challenges to the Tiwi Bomber’s success - a community afflicted by the abuse of alcohol and "ganja", and where the youth suicide rate is one of the highest in Australia. The way this documentary explores the reality of indigenous community life is honest and inspiring.

Suitability for Philanthropic support

The Documentary is called “In a League of Their Own”. It is to be produced soon for Australian television. It carries an inspirational message for young, indigenous people. The Tiwi Bombers may come from a disadvantage community but as this documentary unfolds we see them emerge as role models – striving to reach their full potential and promoting discipline, health and well-being through sport.

As such, the documentary provides a compelling face for socially conscious organisations that support Indigenous Australia moving forward.

The positive messages contained in "In a League of Their Own" are universal. While the documentary tackles complex and difficult aboriginal issues, the football backdrop makes it naturally appealling to a wider, sports-loving audience. This means that many of the important key messages such as health and well-being, zero tolerance for drugs, and controlled drinking are universally accessible.

2007-10-30T13:42:00.000+11:00

BURMA UPDATE:

Leading poet and comedian Zargana (pictured), has been released from three weeks in detention and is reported to be well but exhausted. Zargana remains under heavy surveillance and is restricted in his movement and activities, as he has been for many years. PEN - the international organisation that supports writers everywhere - understands that fellow comedian U Par Par Lay was also one of many pro-democracy activists reported to have been arrested in the ongoing government crackdown in Burma and is believed to remain in detention. U Par Par Lay was imprisoned from March 1996 to July 2001 for, among other things, scripting and performing comedies that criticised the Burmese authorities.

Burma: Grave Fears for Zarganar

2007-10-03T13:29:00.000+10:00

Zarganar - a great Burmese talent
What has happened to one of Burma's boldest and bravest? I am referring to comedian and poet Maung Thura (popularly known as Zarganar)? He was arrested Burma's military government on 25 September as part of the violent crackdown on pro-democracy activists.

Information from PEN points to his arrest for supporting the monks demonstrating in Burma's capital, Rangoon. Zarganar remains in detention and there are mounting concerns for his well-being and safety.

PEN has long been concerned about freedom of expression in Myanmar. Since the 1988 crackdown on the National League for Democracy (NLD) in which thousands were killed and thousands more arrested, the numbers of detained writers known to PEN has remained largely unchanged.

PEN is currently campaigning for the release of nine writers serving sentences ranging from seven to twenty-one years imprisonment in Myanmar. All are detained for their peaceful opposition activities. They include Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the NLD and writer, who has spent the large part of the past eighteen years in detention.

To download PEN's latest caselist click here.
Click here for more details about PEN's work for Aung San Suu Kyi:

Burma: The Junta's last stand?

2007-09-28T16:46:00.000+10:00

From The Irrawaddy:

Rangoon, Morning—About 10 fire trucks took up positions around Rangoon’s City Hall on Friday morning, and about 12 empty military trucks were positioned at Bandoola Park, according to witnesses. Authorities have also blocked a main road with barbed wire leading to Sule Pagoda. Authorities also positioned security forces at Kandawgyi Park and the Livestock and Fisheries office in Kyeemyindaing Township, witnesses said. According to sources in Rangoon, representatives elected in the 1990 election (nullified by authorities) plan to lead a demonstration march on Friday.

Rangoon, Midday—Demonstrators gathered in front of the Trader Hotel around noon on Friday to start a peaceful march, a source told The Irrawaddy. The demonstration will be lead by politicians elected in the 1990 election that was nullified by the junta. A source said they will try to talk to the soldiers and ask them not to shoot at peaceful demonstrators. A large number of soldiers have been positioned around Sule Pagoda.

Burma's Pressure Cooker

2007-09-27T14:27:00.000+10:00

Street tension mounting in Rangoon

Ask yourself: How long could you stand living in a country under iron-fisted military rule, with no democracy and in fear of a violent crackdown at any time?

This is the Pressure cooker that is Burma.. and once again we are seeing - if only a glimpse - what happens when a long-suffering people take to the streets.

A Burmese blogger gives a first hand account at Ko Htike’s Prosaic Collection

History shows that eventually, regimes like Burma's military junta can't last. People need their dignity and are resilient enough to hold out for basic human rights.

The last time I was in Burma was 2002.. just as the military junta was planning to release Aung San Suu Kyi. They did - for a short while - and I was privileged to be in Rangoon reporting the event for ABC TV.

I also compiled a report for ABC Radio's The World Today about the quirkiness of reporting in Burma

Cameraman Mark Laban who travelled with me to Burma in 2002

Old Friends

2007-09-04T09:27:00.000+10:00

What happens when you receive an email from a friend from your distant past? Of course You read it and discover all manner of surprises.

When I opened an email from a schoolmate Andy A. I was directed to the most amazing MY Space site. I have to share it with you.. http://www.myspace.com/andyatwill

Andy is one of the most accomplished jazz bass players on the planet. (Back in our school band Andy played guitar and I played bass). He certainly has kicked on!!

Do you like it?

Timor under the Microscope

2007-08-10T11:27:00.000+10:00

Comment - Get this Alkatiri: you didn't win

Damien Kingsbury from the Masters of International and Community Development School of International and Political Studies Deakin University, writes for Crikey.com:

The troubles currently gripping East Timor following the appointment of Xanana Gusmao as prime minister reflect many of the reasons the country was plunged into political crisis early last year.
In short, former prime minister Mari Alkatiri does not accept the basic principles of parliamentary democracy. It was this authoritarian tendency that directly led to last year's troubles and him being forced to resign as prime minister.

In the period since East Timor's otherwise successful parliamentary elections, Alkatiri has continued to insist that his party, Fretilin, should lead the new government. This is despite Fretilin being overwhelmingly rejected by more than 70 per cent of the population, seeing its vote cut by around half.

Alkatiri has variously insisted that Fretilin be allowed to form a minority government, that it lead a unity government and that it accept a 'neutral' prime minister.

The basis of these assertions was that, as the 'most voted party', Fretilin had the right to determine the shape of the new government. This was in turn claimed to rest on section of section 106:1 of East Timor's constitution. Section 106:1 of the constitution says that the government will be formed either by what is being translated from Portuguese as the 'most voted party' OR 'an alliance of parties that form a majority in parliament'.

There is some dispute about the translation of the first part of this section from the Portuguese, which seems to allow a minority government. But in any case, Alkatiri has consistently neglected the second part of this section. Despite the clear constitutionality and workability - of a majority coalition government, Alkatiri has claimed it is 'illegal', that he will not recognise it and that Fretilin will withdraw from parliament.
Similarly, former Fretilin minister Arsenio Bano has said that Fretilin's supporters believe the party 'won' the elections. Even if explicit instructions were not given to Fretilin supporters to go on the rampage, Alkatiri's language alone would incite such rampage. Fretilin did not 'win' the elections and was unable to form a coalition.

The alternative CNRT-led coalition is, constitutionally and according to parliamentary precedent, a legitimate government reflecting overwhelming majority support. The international community has, conventionally, congratulated Xanana Gusmao on his appointment as prime minister.

It should now condemn Mari Alkatiri for refusing to play by the rules of the democratic game and, in the process, again pushing his country to the brink.

Running Amok in East Timor - When will it End?

2007-08-07T21:50:00.001+10:00

Protesters set fire to buildings in anger at
Xanana Gusmao's appointment as PM

Mobs are once again running amok in East Timor's capital Dili.

This time angry youths -supporters of the ex-ruling party Fretilin party - are protesting the naming of independence hero Xanana Gusmao as prime minister, as the former ruling party leader vows to fight the move in court.
Youths have hurled rocks, set up road blockades and torched buildings in the capital and two other towns, with police and international peacekeepers rushing to keep outbreaks of violence under control.
The incidents came a day after President Jose Ramos-Horta named Gusmao to lead a coalition government -- without the ex-ruling Fretilin party -- which broke a deadlock following inconclusive polls in June. Read more

Xanana Gusmao - Former guerrilla leader who led East Timor to independence

Spent six years in Indonesian prison

Made first post-independence president

Stepped down in early 2007 to run for more hands-on role of PM

Profile: Xanana Gusmao

Is it safe to travel to the Indonesian island of Ambon?

2007-07-17T22:23:00.000+10:00

Families, once displaced by violence, are returning to their home villages on Indonesia's Ambon Island. Read their story Photo: Kim Johnston/Mercy Corps.

A colleague has come to me with this query:
I am thinking about sailing to the Indonesian island of Ambon as part of the Darwin to Ambon yacht race? Should I go or is it still too dangerous?

Background: Ambon is both an island and a city, and is the main centre in the eastern province of the Moluccas, (once known as the Spice Islands). It was once a easy-going tranquil place off the beaten track - but was well known to sailors - particularly those who competed in the annual Darwin to Ambon yacht race. In 1999 violence broke out.. Ambon became another of Indonesia's flashpoints after the fall of President Suharto, when law and order disintegrated across the archipelago. (You can read about this in my book RUNNING AMOK). Once peaceful Christian and Muslim communities were turned against each other.. and the violence escalated into a bloody civil war which claimed at least 6,000 lives up until 2003. Many parts of Ambon have been destroyed - I have witnessed the fighting, arson and looting and seen the terrible trauma left by those who have been tortured or mutilated.

Suffice to say the Darwin to Ambon Yacht race was halted - but crews are once again ready to sail. So has the violence stopped? Is it safe to travel to Ambon for a yacht race, or even fly in as a tourist?

Generally, calm has returned. However there ARE sporadic acts of violence that should be noted:

On May 2 this year a grenade exploded as worshippers were gathering outside Ambon's
Al-Fatah Grand Mosque in preparation for morning prayers. There were no injuries.

A grenade exploded on April 25 at a bus station, followed the same day by a grenade which was hurled at a house. Six people were injured in the earlier attack. April 25 was the 56thKedaulatan Maluku or FKM. This group is not widely supported.. but it could be growing in strength. anniversary of the founding of a Christian separatist group, the Moluccas Sovereign Front - the Front

The bottom line in considering whether to visit Ambon at this time is that overall the situation is much calmer, however take every travel precaution - don't do anything you wouldn't do at home (travel in seedy neighborhoods, wander alone at night - particularly in central Ambon city, or go partying in loud tourist groups). If you do go - enjoy the wonderful sail!

Travel Adventure - World Journeys that really inspire

2007-07-12T16:18:00.000+10:00

Sometime we hear inspiring and adventurous tales. On December 10, 2006 Benji Rodgers-Wilson set off from Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia to embark on a solo expedition to circumnavigate the world by bicycle and sail.

Green Focus

One objective of his journey is to highlight the damage mankind is doing to our fragile planet & to raise awareness of the responsibility we all have to protect it. His aim is to journey using no fuel (other than calories) & emit no greenhouse gasses & he hopes his example will inspire others to think more seriously about living their lives in more sustainable ways.

Benji is currently in Darwin... and says he's always keen to meet the locals ("what better way to learn about the places I visit", he says).

By following his website you'll discover all sorts of wonderful info and stories.

I heard Benji on ABC Radio Darwin today (105.7 FM) and I found him to be a really inspiring bloke. He's headed for Japan on route for Europe, but as he noted during his radio interview.. his travel plans could easily change. Ah the wonders of footloose travel!! On the subject of travel for travels sake it's worth checking out this site too: Vagabonding.

Stars cause a stir at a Darwin cafe - Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, David Wenham

2007-07-10T17:42:00.000+10:00

Nicole Kidman and husband Keith Urban in Darwin

Movie star fever has certainly hit Northern Australia's capital Darwin this week. The famous Roma Bar Cafe managed to elbow its way centre stage as two of Australia's biggest stars (and their spouses) sat down for a hearty TOP END breakfast. ABC News managed to turn the stars meal into a front page story.

Hugh Jackman hits Darwin

2007-07-09T16:41:00.000+10:00

Nicole Kidman has been joined by co-star Hugh Jackman as filming of Baz Luhrman's epic "Australia" continues in Australia's northern capital Darwin.

The burly Aussie star has been sighted as shooting continues at Darwin's Stokes Hill Wharf. (see ABC news)

Nicole in Darwin - A Helping Hand Gone Wrong!

2007-07-03T15:26:00.000+10:00

Darwin, Australia's northern capital, is on Hollywood watch as shooting for Baz Luhrmann's multi-million dollar epic Australia gets under way.
Hundreds of locals have been trying to get close to Darwin's wharf to catch a glimpse of actress Nicole Kidman and some of them certainly did see her in an embarrassing moment.
Darwin's local newspaper, the NT News caught the moment with the paparazzi shot of the day: an Outback helping hand gone wrong.
Nicole Kidman is starring in the outback adventure "Australia" together with Hugh Jackman and a cast of top-name Australian stars.

Foreign Correspondents on display

2007-06-27T14:21:00.001+10:00

The Northern Territory Library in Darwin is hosting an inspiring exhibition showcasing the work of ABC Foreign Correspondents during the past seven decades. The exhibition is open for the next two months, so if you are passing through Australia's TOP END, don't miss it. There are some great photos, anecdotes, and memorabilia reflecting correspondent's experiences - sometimes precarious - reporting from around the world.

There's also an online version of this exhibition. What do you think?

Movie stars, models, yachts and corporate highflyers

2007-06-23T16:28:00.000+10:00

The "Aussie Angel" ... Kristy Hinze. Could this person be reason at least one of two superyachts are parked in Darwin Harbour?

Thanks to all those bloggers helping me to solve the mystery connection between the two superyachts - the Athena and the Octopus - newly arrived in Darwin Harbour just as filming is about to start on Baz Luhrman's epic "Australia". The movie features two of Hollywood's hottest Aussies, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

Now.. the Athena (see yesterday's blog) is owned by American billionaire Jim Clark.. and here's the breakthrough to my mystery former Sydney model Kristy Hinze - once dubbed by the US press as the "Aussie Angel" is his girlfriend. Last year she was at the centre of Jim Clark's $US125 million divorce.

Kristy Hinze is also the granddaughter of the late Russ Hinze - Queensland's original "minister for everything". And of course she has a few film credits to her name. (The Extras 2005), and SNAP!! WOW!!, now I get it she must be here for "Australia".. perhaps alongside Nicole, Hugh, and other Aussies like Peter Wenham, David Gulpilil etc.

Jim Clark - owner of the most wonderful yacht I've ever seen visiting Darwin Harbour - is the founder of Netscape, mega-wealthy, and about 36 years older than Kristy Hinze.

Last August Hinze was spotted cruising the South Pacific aboard Clark's $100 million superyacht Athena, taking in the sights of French Polynesia with stops at Tahiti, Bora Bora and Rangiroa. No doubt she felt right at home in the master suite, which features a huge marble bath atop a pedestal.

Hinze has been living in New York for years and was signed to the Ford Models agency there.

So what about the Octopus?? What is it doing in Darwin Harbour?? Can any sleuths join me unravelling this puzzle.

Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and Darwin's mystery yachts.

2007-06-22T12:24:00.000+10:00

The Athena anchored in Darwin Harbour.

Can anyone tell me the connection between two of Hollywood's hottest Aussie stars Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, and their impending arrival in Darwin, capital of Australia's Northern Territory, for filming of Baz Luhrmann's "Australia", and two of the world's most luxurious yachts now anchored in Darwin Harbour? The yachts I'm talking about are the Octopus - measuring almost 130 metres long - the world's fifth largest super yacht. It's owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the fifth richest man in the world.
The yacht has three helicopters on board and is valued at more than U.S. $200m.
Diners at Darwin's Stokes Hill Wharf can gaze in envy at the huge yacht, while a little further offshore, the world's largest privately owned sailing yacht is anchored not far from where rusty old illegal fishing boats are kept.
The striking Athena is owned by another software developer Jim Clark.
It has three 60 metres masts and is about 90 metres long.

Meanwhile, filming for "Australia" will start at Darwin's Stokes Hill Wharf on July 3 to 5, when Kidman is shot arriving in Australia from England in a Qantas flying boat. The big old wharf will feature prominently in the movie. Nicole Kidman is playing an English woman who comes to Australia inheriting a big property, falling in love with a stockman by the name of Hugh Jackman. Filming in Darwin will resume on July 10 and 11, after the real life working wharf is made to look as it would have a couple of hours after the bombing of Darwin (a real life event that occurred in 1942).
So what's the connection between the yachts and the arrival in Darwin of our beloved movie stars Nicole and Hugh?

Book launch: Singapore, Indonesia, East Timor and Australia

2007-06-12T12:02:00.001+10:00

Here's an amazingly original anthology just launched! It's called TERRA - a unique publication for the Austronesian region. Where? I haven't heard of that before!

The work is in English and Bahasa Indonesia - representing the best of prose and poetry from 40-plus-strong list of writers includes some of the leading literary lights from Australia, Indonesia, East Timor and Singapore. Edited by Sandra Thibodeaux and Sitok Srengenge, with Chief Translator Kadek Krishna Adidharma. Check out more and make your order by contacting the NT Writers Centre.

Here's what some of Austronesia's leaders are saying about Terra:
...the powerful works in this collection speak to me with force and passion of matters of huge individual and political relevance to our region: freedom, belonging, fear, insecurity, identity.
Kirsty Sword Gusmao, Timor-Leste

Edgy and vibrant, TERRA...gives us insigts into the multiple aspects of "Territory": possession, dispossession, racial, religious and environmental conflict, personal spaces, love, fear and hope.
Mike Ladd, Australia

Proof that post-20th century world literature is a movement from margin to margin...not something that spreads out from the centre.
Nirwan Dewanto, Indonesia

Nuclear Protest, Nuclear Dump in Northern Australia

2007-05-29T11:26:00.000+10:00

APEC energy officials meeting in Northern Australia have stepped from the air-conditioned conference room inside Darwin's Parliament House to the elevated balcony to spy this unusual sight. It's a giant inflatable nuclear power stack erected by protesters who don't want a nuclear power industry in Northern Australia. Currently there is one uranium mine - the Ranger Uranium mine - which operates on a lease inside the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park and there is pressure on traditional aboriginal owners - the Mirrar people - to agree to a second mine closeby at Jabiluka. The Mirrar's senior custodian, Yvonne Margarula, has for years strongly opposed Jabiluka's development, often explaining that uranium mining at Ranger had upturned aboriginal people's lives, brought access to alcohol and created arguments - mostly about money.

There's another nuclear issue brewing in Northern Australia. Aboriginal elders living on a remote Northern Territory community have agreed to accept $12 million for allowing Australia's first nuclear waste dump to be built on their land.
Under the deal, Canberra would take the land for up to 200 years to store nuclear waste. Up to 150 truckloads of radioactive material would be driven thousands of kilometres from Lucas Heights in Sydney and Woomera in South Australia to the site. Suspend your judgement about what this could all mean and click here for taste of what this same issue has produced elsewhere.

... And back to the APEC meeting in Darwin for one moment. Greenpeace is questioning why no renewable energy representatives were on a key panel at the meeting. Other protesters used the opportunity of visiting nations to voice their anger at human rights abuses in Indonesia's West Papua. The flag on display (right) is "The Morning Star" - the independence flag of the Free Papua Movement.

Portrait of an average Indigenous Australian

2007-05-28T14:06:00.000+10:00

This week, Australians are celebrating the 40th anniversary of a national referendum that allowed Aborigines to be counted as members of the Australian population. It seems incredible now, but before that vote, Australia's indigenous people weren't counted as people, they came under the Flora and Fauna Act.
So what's it like 40 years on? Crikey has compiled a revealing snapshot of Aboriginal life today. It's a grim view of untimely death, marginalisation and stunted opportunity.

Aborigines will help "fat" teens survive on TV

2007-05-25T14:22:00.000+10:00

Hunters like this boy will help teenagers survive in Northern Australia's Arnhemland.

Opponents say its "voyeuristic television designed to humiliate fat people" - a BBC reality television show which will showcase the hunting prowess of 10 overweight young Britons let loose in the Northern Territory. What do you think?
The British teenagers will have to spear wallabies, trap lizards and skin snakes when they go hunting with Aborigines in Arnhemland as part of the series "Fat Kids Can't Hunt".
Drawing on 40,000 years of knowledge, Aborigines will teach 10 overweight young Britons how to survive on bush tucker in the series Fat Teens Can't Hunt.
The participants will have to swap burgers, chips and pizzas for lizards, mangrove worms and charred kangaroo. If they fail to find food in the wild, they will go hungry.
The programme, due to start filming in the Northern Territory in August, will feature five boys and five girls, aged 16 to 19. The six one-hour episodes are expected to be screened later this year or early next year.
The series is based on an earlier programme, Fat Men Can't Hunt, in which eight obese adults were sent to live with Bushmen in Namibia.
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Between them they lost 106 lbs after being forced to live on nuts and berries and having to kill a pair of porcupines with spears.

The Fourth Estate

2007-05-17T09:24:00.000+10:00

As you would know the term Fourth Estate refers to the press, both in its explicit capacity of advocacy and in its implicit ability to frame political issues. The term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle in the first half of the 19th century.

Novelist Jeffrey Archer in his work The Fourth Estate made this observation: "In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the 'Estate General'. The First Estate consisted of three hundred nobles. The Second Estate, three hundred clergy. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, 'Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.'" How true.

On this theme, add typewriters, guitar, bass and drums and you have Darwin's 4thEstate which provides a very interesting twist.

East Timor Violence Flares

2007-05-16T20:33:00.000+10:00

Today, the day that Jose Ramos-Horta was officially declared East Timor's president, fresh outbreaks of violence were reported in the capital, Dili.
Four homes were burned to the ground as rival gangs clashed in renewed unrest that officials say is unrelated to last week's presidential election.
The UN's spokeswoman Allison Cooper says it's a sign of a resurgence in clashes between gangs.
"We don't believe it was related to the election, although UN police are investigating," Cooper told AFP.
One resident says some of the gang members were carrying guns as they battled in Bairro Pite area, although no injuries were reported.
"They attacked this morning at 10:00 am. They took over the area and burned houses until police came. Some of them were carrying automatic weapons," the resident told AFP, declining to give his name.
The violence today flared just hours before the court of appeal officially declared the results of last week's landmark election.
Ramos-Horta won 69 percent of the vote in the election in a landslide victory many East Timorese hope will bring peace and heal deep divisions after last year's unrest. He'll be sworn in on Sunday.

All peaceful after Horta wins East Timor Presidency.. well almost.

2007-05-12T17:53:00.000+10:00

Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta has easily won the vote in East Timor's election after the counting of all ballots.
The election for president was the first since East Timor gained independence in 2002 after a bloody separation from neighbouring Indonesia three years earlier. Ramos-Horta will formally take office on May 20, succeeding former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao.
A National Election Commission spokeswoman has confirmed Ramos-Horta won 69 pct of the vote and his rival Francisco 'Lu-Olo' Guterres 31 pct.
The election was conducted peacefully.. well almost. Three men were today arrested for destroying the homes of Jose Ramos Horta's supporters.
Police say two houses were burned down and six others badly damaged in the villages in the Viqueque district, according to the local newspaper, Suara Timor Lorosae.
"Two houses owned by fishermen Elio and Hendrikus was burned on May 10," Inspector Jose de Carvalho is quoted as saying.. adding both were supporters of Ramos-Horta and that the arsonists were upset at the election result.

East Timor: Horta claims big lead after peaceful vote

2007-05-10T09:02:00.000+10:00

Above: AFP snaps East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao waiting in a queue to vote along with others at a polling station in Dili. East Timor's election for president was peaceful - bolstering hopes that months of deadly political turmoil could be near an end. Gusmao will stand aside for a new president, but he will make a tilt for the prime ministership.

East Timor presidential candidate Jose Ramos-Horta says he's secured a large lead over his rival as vote counting continues following this week's run-off election.
"I am still awaiting official results because they are still being counted, but I could get 70-80 percent," Ramos-Horta told reporters in the capital Dili. "In most of the districts, in all the western districts, I think I am winning."
East Timor held a peaceful presidential election on Wednesday, but Ramos-Horta a Nobel laureate - is alleging vote tampering in some districts that are strongholds of his rival, ruling Fretilin party president Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres.
"In Los Palos, Suai, observers and polling staff found many boxes with pre-perforated ballot papers for Lu-Olo, so there were strong attempts at manipulation," he says. Ramos-Horta repeated his call for the United Nations to stage the parliamentary poll in June, as the local body, the Timorese Technical Secretariat for Election Administration (STAE), was not up to the task.

More from Australia's ABC News

East Timor Vote for Hope

2007-05-09T16:23:00.000+10:00

(.. but there's confusion.. : read ABC News Online)

BAUCAU, East Timor, May 9, 2007 (AFP) - From just after dawn they began to queue, waiting patiently in the early light for polling stations to open. At first they numbered about 60, but they kept coming, and within an hour had swelled to several hundred at this primary school in East Timor's second city.
"If you want your country to be run by a person you trust, you have to vote," said Fransisca Belo as she joined the line for what is the tiny nation's first election since independence five years ago. Cancio Fernandes Quintao, a financial administrator at the local hospital, agreed. "Everyone should vote as the country needs a leader who loves and understands his people."
The queues at the school pointed to a good turnout, and observers said they were hopeful it would mirror the numbers at last month's round of voting.
"This is our right," said George Lopes Belo, 29, who was first in line. "We hope that the next president, whoever that is, can take East Timor out of the crisis, the conflict." Belo, who lives nearby, arrived about 30 minutes before the polls opened at the school in Bahu area of the city, east of the capital Dili. Unable to find steady work for several years, he said he hoped the new president would create jobs for the thousands of unemployed in this nation of just one million people.
"For the moment, everything is going well. I think the people need democracy, people need and want peace and they want reconciliation, and this is the way to solve the crisis," EU observer chief Javier Pomes Ruiz said. The quiet chatting among the voters in the rising heat was disrupted by the arrival of presidential candidate Jose Ramos-Horta and his large entourage. There were no cheers of welcome for the Nobel laureate, who spent about 20 minutes in the queue before delegating the duty to one of his minders. Voters looked on as Ramos-Horta, the current prime minister, disappeared to the terrace of a nearby house for a cold soft drink. "I'm totally relaxed, whatever the outcome, I will win," he told reporters. He returned in time, and held up his finger dipped in red ink after voting to warm applause from the crowd. Quintao said the Bahu area was a stronghold for the ruling Fretilin party whose candidate Francisco Guterres is challenging Ramos-Horta in the election to succeed the popular and charismatic Xanana Gusmao. "But it is quite alright for him to vote here. We do not have any animosity towards him or any other East Timorese politicians," Quintao said.
In Dili, voters were peacefully making their way to polling stations as police and Australian-led peacekeepers patrolled the streets. The election is being held amid tight security after violence erupted last year between factions of the military that degenerated into deadly gang clashes. More than 30,000 people remain displaced in Dili fearful to return home.
An election observer, Julio Tomas from the University of Peace of Timor Leste, said it appeared voter turnout in the capital was lower than the first round. "But I am convinced that the election is proceeding in a just way and with no manipulation ... because of the presence of international and national observers," he said.

East Timor's Balibo Five Mystery Remains

2007-05-08T16:57:00.000+10:00

The author, outside the "Balibo House" in Balibo, East Timor. In 1975, this is where the so-called Balibo Five spent their last night before Balibo was attacked by Indonesian soldiers. The House is now a museum dedicated to the memory of the five Australian-based newsmen.

This just in from the AFP:

May 8th - Sydney Former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam on Tuesday appeared at a coroner's inquest into the death of an Australian journalist killed with four colleagues in East Timor 32 years ago.

The 90-year-old former leader of the centre-left Labor Party, who held office from 1972-75, testified for three hours at the inquest into the death of cameraman Brian Peters at the East Timor border town of Balibo in October 1975.

Officials maintain the so-called "Balibo Five" were killed in crossfire during a skirmish ahead of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor but their families insist they were murdered and there was a cover-up by Canberra and Jakarta.

Whitlam denied he had prior intelligence warning the journalists would be targeted by the Indonesian military in Balibo, Australian Associated Press reported. He said he learned about the men's deaths on October 21 -- five days after they were killed -- and had not seen diplomatic cables sent before that date suggesting they had been executed by the Indonesian military.

Asked whether anyone told him the five journalists had been killed in the orders of the Indonesian military, Whitlam replied: "No." Whitlam said he had twice warned a member of the group, cameraman Greg Shackleton, not to travel to East Timor because there was nothing his government could do to protect them there. "I warned him the Australian government had no way of protecting him or his colleagues," Whitlam told the court. "I assumed Greg Shackleton would have taken notice of my warnings. I assumed he would have warned his colleagues." "It would have been very irresponsible if he didn't, then he would be culpable."

Deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch warned lawyers at the inquest on Monday that they could not question Whitlam about any potential cover-up of the men's deaths because the issue went beyond the parameters of her inquiry. Outside the court, Shackleton's widow, Shirley, described Whitlam's evidence as "bizarre" and said it had little value because the former prime minister claimed he could not remember vital details. Shirley Shackleton, who has led a decades-long campaign to find the truth behind her husband's death, also dismissed Whitlam's statement that he warned her partner about travel to East Timor. "He is totally despicable," she told reporters. "Dead men can't tell stories, so it's left to their poor old wives to do it for them."

Urge for Calm Before East Timor Vote

2007-05-07T20:57:00.000+10:00

ISF troops around 50 metres away from a Presidential rally in Ainaro.
Glenn Campbell, The Age

As leaders urge their supporters to remain peaceful, there are fears that if East Timor's ruling party Fretilin loses this week's presidential election, street violence could follow.
The UN mission in the tiny state urged voters to accept the result of Wednesday's runoff which many East Timorese hope will help stabilise the impoverished nation beset by violence and regional rivalry. It's the first presidential poll since East Timor gained independence in 2002, amid concerns of unrest.
Election observers have expressed concern that supporters of the ruling Fretilin party could trigger violence if their candidate, Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres, loses.
Guterres faces Nobel laureate and current prime minister Jose Ramos-Horta in the runoff being held because neither candidate won a majority in the first-round polls last month.
Asked if the UN mission was concerned violence would erupt once the result was declared, spokeswoman Allison Cooper said: "We would urge all people in East Timor to remain calm and peaceful -- so far this has been a free and fair process."
Ramos-Horta, who shared the Nobel peace prize in 1996 for championing East Timor's cause under Indonesian occupation, is favoured to win after five of the six losing candidates in the April 9 poll urged their supporters to back him.
Campaigning for the election has been peaceful, amid tight security provided by thousands of UN and local police, backed by international peacekeeping troops, deployed in the wake of unrest last year.
Meanwhile, Australian-led peacekeeping troops have rejected Fretilin accusations that they were deliberately intimidating party supporters and disrupting its campaign rallies.
Fretilin officials have written to the troops' commander, Brigadier Mal Rerden, complaining about the intimidation, which they suggested was done in support of Ramos-Horta.
A spokesman for the peacekeepers, known as the International Stabilisation Force, said all of their East Timor operations were done to "ensure a safe and secure election."
More on East Timor's presidential vote in "The Age"

Travel with a Twist

2007-05-03T21:36:00.000+10:00

Ken Haley - travel writer extraordinaire - has set off on another great adventure. It made me green with envy when he emailed me from St Petersburg to tell me he had just bought a ticket to Petrozavodsk - one of the early legs of his epic journey that will take him to the Arctic Circle, across, up, down and right through Europe.

I can't tell you exactly what's the aim of Ken's latest travels - you'l have to read his book to find out!! In the meantime, Ken is this month's featured writer in "Writers Interview" on my website.

Author Profile: Ken Haley
Ken Haley is one of Australia’s most widely travelled authors. To date he has visited 109 countries, 57 of these on his own two feet, and 52 in a wheelchair. He became a paraplegic in 1991, but as far as Ken is concerned the only difference this has made is that he now observes the world from a sitting position. A journalist by profession, Ken has a unique story to tell in his first book "Emails from the Edge" - in which with great humour, and not a hint of sentimentality, he lays bare his darkest times, when he plunged over the precipice into madness, and reveals the wanderlust that led him to the heart of the world�s hot spots.

Read a complete interview with Ken Haley in "Writers Interview" on my website.

Here's a taste:

How did you get started writing?

As a child, all I seemed to need was the alphabet. One was supplied in bubs' class, and it's served me perfectly well ever since. But I feel the urge to scrawl - literally to make my mark - has been so strong that if they hadn't supplied the alphabet I might have just scribbled the same nonsense in a code of my own device.
As an adult, I'm lucky that newspapers nurtured my early efforts long enough for me to work out what it was I was trying to do.

What do you consider your first "break" as a writer?

When a small country newspaper in western Victoria hired an insistent 20-year-old, sight unseen. As a book writer, when a small independent publisher in western Melbourne offered to take up the manuscript of Emails from the Edge and turn it into a book, despite the fact that - when it came to non-journalistic writing - I was an unknown quantity.

Extreme Adventures become Classics

2007-04-28T16:27:00.000+10:00

Looking for an adventure book to take you right out of your comfort zone? National Geographic compiled a list of the very best adventure books of all time and its worth a look. The list is from 2004 but most of these titles are timeless classics- like the Journals of Captain Cook, and perhaps the most influencial mountaineering book of all time, Maurice Herzog's tale of altitude and frost bite - Annapurna.

East Timor drowns in language soup

2007-04-24T22:08:00.000+10:00

This story comes from Reuters journalist Ahmad Pathoni. It highlights of one of many challenges facing East Timor:

Outgoing President Xanana Gusmao is one who understands the difficulty of the East Timor's language dilemna. He favours Portuguese - but speaks Bahasa and English.

Dili, East Timor - Portuguese is one of the two official languages in East Timor, but you can hardly hear it spoken in the streets of the young nation.

The tiny country was a Portuguese colony for more than three centuries, but only an estimated 5% of its one million people now speak the European language.

After Lisbon cut the territory free, East Timor was occupied by neighboring Indonesia for 24 years before gaining full independence in 2002.

Under Indonesian rule, Portuguese was suppressed and speakers of the language now mostly come from the political elite or are older people educated in the colonial era.

Despite government attempts to push the use of Portuguese as an official language, Indonesian remains the main language of instruction in secondary schools and universities, along with native Tetum, the other national language.
Many of East Timor's leaders left for exile in Portugal or its colonies before or soon after the territory was invaded by Indonesian forces and many of them do not speak Indonesian.

They consider Portuguese to be the language of resistance.

But the government's decision to enshrine Portuguese in the Constitution is criticized by some, who see it as short-sighted.

They say many young people educated under Indonesian rule have been denied state jobs because they lack Portuguese skills.

"This is the biggest type of discrimination practiced by the government," said Suzanna Cardoso, a Timorese journalist.

"The government does not recognize the contribution of those educated under the Indonesian system to the struggle for independence," she told Reuters.

Cardoso said English would be more useful for East Timor.

"Why do we have to use Portuguese? Portuguese-speaking countries are poor and they are far from us," she said.

Jumble of languages
Tetum is used in daily interaction but some experts say it is mainly a spoken language and has to be developed further for wider usage.

But the issue is sensitive and a Cabinet minister has been criticised for only speaking Portuguese and never using Tetum in public.

Signboards at government offices are written in Portuguese, although for most Timorese it remains a foreign language they don't understand.

Newspapers run articles in Tetum and Indonesian side-by-side. Indonesian TV soap operas are also hugely popular.

"I don't know any Portuguese. I'd rather learn English than Portuguese," said Ano Pereira, a driver and high school graduate.

The language issue was raised by some of the eight candidates contesting April 9 presidential elections, with one promising to ditch Portuguese if he won the presidency.

News conferences during the elections were held in four languages -- English, Tetum, Portuguese and Indonesian -- adding to the difficulty of coordinating the fairly chaotic polls.

No candidate in the election won a big enough majority to win outright and a run-off is expected to be held next month.

At the National University of East Timor, teachers give lectures and students write their theses in Indonesian.
"Most of our textbooks are in Indonesian and most lecturers don't speak Portuguese," management student Julio Rangel said as he sat at the hallway of a white-painted campus building, a Catholic seminary during colonial times.

A report released by the United Nations Development Programme in 2002 said 82% of East Timor's one million populations spoke Tetum, while 43% could speak Indonesian.

Only 5% spoke Portuguese.

The government, dominated by the Fretilin party that spearheaded the struggle against Indonesian rule, has brought in teachers mostly from Portugal to teach in elementary schools.

However, there are concerns that once pupils finish elementary education, they will have to enroll at a secondary school where teachers don't speak Portuguese.

"This is going to be a big problem. These students don't speak Indonesian and their teachers don't know Portuguese," said Julio Thomas Pinto, who teaches at two universities in the East Timor capital Dili.

The head of East Timor's National Institute of Linguistics, Dr Geoffrey Hull, defends the adoption of Portuguese as a national language.

"Anyone with the slightest familiarity with East Timor's history knows that the Portuguese language has long been central to the national identity," he said on the institute's website.

"East Timor needs both Tetum and Portuguese to be fully itself," he said.

But Silvino Pinto Cabral, an economics lecturer at the national university, is not convinced.

"This policy of imposing a foreign language will not work. I doubt that in 50 years the government will be able to make the whole nation proficient in Portuguese," he said.

Protest in Indonesia's Papua

2007-04-19T14:27:00.000+10:00

Papua's remarkable highland peaks. Below the mist is the Grasberg mine carved out of the mountains. This is the traditional lands of the Amungme people. According to legend these mountains are the sacred home of their ancestral grandmother who guards the balance of nature. Freeport has been accused of disturbing this natural balance.

In an unprecedented action, thousands of workers from a giant US-run mine in Indonesia's remote Papua province have staged a protest demanding better wages and welfare.

The workers come from the Grasberg gold and copper mine high up in the mountainous interior (see photo above). They demonstrated outside the Indonesian headquarters of Freeport-McMoRan, which is in the lowlands about 70 kilometres downstream from the minesite. News reports say the protest was peaceful , but the thousands of demonstrators were flanked by Indonesian police at all times.

The workers have been gathering in Timika from surrounding villages and towns demanding to speak with a Freeport executive in the US via teleconference.
Critics accuse Freeport of not giving enough to the people of Papua in return for the mine. They allege the mine causes pollution and that the military's protection of the site leads to human rights abuses.
The firm has disputed the claims.
A Freeport spokesman told the AFP News Agency that in the past decade the company had almost quadrupled its Papuan employment, from some 800 in 1996 to the current 3,000 workers.

Freeport runs its Grasberg mine under a 30-year contract with the Indonesian government that began in 1992. The company owns 91 percent of PT Freeport Indonesia, with the rest in government hands.

Members of the Amungme people who live downstream from the Freeport mine project. In 2000 I reported on a mine spill which wiped out part of the Amungme village of Banti. You can read about this story and the struggles of Papua's people in my book Running Amok

Phil O'Brien - Out of the scrub and onto the page

2007-04-12T21:46:00.000+10:00

Northern Australia is producing some unique writers - and Phil certainly is unique.
He's the first featured "Writers Interview" on my website.

Here's a taste:

Phil O’Brien spent his early years on Tempe Downs Station 250 km’s southwest of Alice Springs, in the red heart of Australia. Decades on, and several hundred adventures later Phil still roams the outback living a uniquely nomadic life, it’s a life full of challenges, panorama’s and camaraderie…and it’s a journey that has taken him to places and put him in situations that most other Australians living amongst the security of the suburbs ever get to experience...

The Interview:

How did you get started?

It was all pretty fluky how I got into writing, or maybe it was fate I’m not sure. I was at a party half cut sharing yarns as you do, jamming as much Victoria Bitter down my throat as I could, when this bloke came up and reckoned if I could somehow document all those stories in print people might really enjoy the read.

His name was David Harris, a professional writer and he really encouraged me. It was such a ‘way out’ proposition to start with, but once I chewed on it for a while I thought… why not?

For Phil's story and full interview click here.

Elections, headlines and fishing jackets

2007-04-10T11:33:00.000+10:00

So the people of East Timor have once again gone to the vote. Although it's likely there will be no clear winner in this presidential poll, the real story is perhaps that despite the precarious conditions, voting was peaceful.

One keen ET observer, Rob Wesley Smith reckons the media - and he singles out the ABC - have been obsessed with cheap headlines suggesting violence is the order of the day. This didn't eventuate, so he has written his own instructive sample of how a short radio news report should be written:

"Despite many fears and street gang violence over the last year, the election period has been remarkably violence free, save for some small incidents of rival political factions throwing stones. These incidents and suggested intimidation at times is regrettable, but under the existing circumstances of East Timor's history, gross poverty, gross lack of education and literacy, generalised hunger, lack of media in remote areas, and a short official electioneering period during the end of the Wet season when remote access is difficult, most seasoned observers have been pleased and optimistic of a generally free and fair election today Monday."

Meanwhile another keen observer Dili-gence has this pithy insight into the election scene in East Timor's capital:

"Dili is crawling with international election monitors (ie scrutineers, observers), many wearing fishing jackets. The award for the most stylish fishing jacket goes to the EU team, followed by Japan and the UNDP jacket in last place."

Monitoring elections in East Timor has a rugged history. The photo (at left) shows former Australian deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer and the author, preparing for a 'live' ABC TV news interview on the day of East Timor's independence vote in August 1999. Tim was leading Australia's election monitoring team, and he was fuming. He had just visited a polling station in the volatile town of Liquisa, only to witness an Australian 60 minutes TV crew asking would-be voters (including militiamen) how they were going to vote. The incident nearly caused a riot. You can read about this day - and the tumultuous days that followed - in my book Running Amok.

Xanana's big announcement

2007-03-28T22:53:00.000+10:00

(Backtrack to 1999. Xanana Gusmao and the author. Gusmao had just been released from gaol in Jakarta.. but was still being held under house arrest in Jakarta. I had just conducted an interview with the East Timorese leader.)

East Timor's politics has suddenly got very interesting indeed with President Xanana Gusmao announcing he's ready to become the troubled country's prime minister, after he ceases to be head of state.

Gusmao will not seek re-election in East Timor's presidential election on April 9th - instead he intends to join a newly formed political party after the vote.

"By becoming prime minister, there will be hope for change for the people. I will seek to improve everything," he has told AFP. During many past interviews, Gusmao has confided he has no stomach for leadership and would rather be a pumpkin farmer.

East Timor's current premier, Jose Ramos-Horta, is the favourite to win the presidential election. After that, a legislative poll is supposed to follow, but a date for it has yet to be set.

As a guerilla leader, Gusmao fought Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor and enjoys hero status amongst his people.

Ramos-Horta spent the entire Indonesian occupation in exile as leader of the country's independence movement and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

The two men could end up swapping their current jobs if elections go their way.

But expect fierce campaigning from East Timor's biggest political party, Fretilin, and regrettably expect more violence.

Tribute to a great conservationist

2007-03-23T13:31:00.000+11:00

It's six months since a tragic helicopter crash in Nepal killed all 24 on board.
It was the worst-ever helicopter accident in Nepal, and one of those on board was my sister, Australian scientist Dr Jill Bowling.
Jill was the UK director of conservation for the WWF, and died together with other WWF officials, the Nepalese Minister of State for Forests, Gopal Rai, his wife, senior officials of the Forest Ministry, Nepalese wildlife experts, two journalists and four crew members.
The helicopter was a Russian-built Mi-17, chartered by the WWF conservation organisation to transport V.I.P's to a function marking the hand back a conserved area - known as the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area - to a local community in far eastern Nepal.
The hand back ceremony had just taken place and the V.I.P. party boarded the helicopter in Ghunsa, a village in Taplejung district, for the return trip to Nepal's capital Kathmandu.
Soon after takeoff the helicopter crashed in a rugged mountainous region dominated by ravines and gorges.
It took two days for search teams to reach the crash site on foot.
Soon after confirmed news of Jill's death my father and I flew to Nepal. On route I wrote this tribute which was published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Many people have read this tribute and contacted my family to offer their condolences. I deeply appreciate the overwhelming response and extend the invitation to leave further comments here.

Also visit the WWF -UK and search for Jill Bowling.

Breakthrough malaria treatment

2007-03-09T22:05:00.000+11:00

Aussie Scientists discover malaria treatment

Scientists in Australia's tropical north say they have discovered an effective treatment for the potentially deadly vivax malaria.

This is a major breakthrough because vivax is the commonest strain of malaria and is the scourge of many developing countries.

Researchers at the Northern Territory's Menzies School of Health Research say they have successfully trialled two treatments for the vivax strain of malaria in Timika in West Papua (the easternmost province in Indonesia).

The treatment combines a Chinese herbal extract and a longer-acting anti-malarial drug used to combat another, even more potent strain of the disease found in Africa.

In Running Amok, I write about malaria research going on in Timika (page 230) - not the good work carried out by the Menzies School - but a more dubious experiment being carried out by one American researcher using locals as live bait to catch and collect malaria-carrying mosquitoes! Timika is an extraordinary town carved out of the tropical jungle. Men from all over Indonesia have flocked to work at the nearby Freeport mine - one of the richest gold mines on earth. It's Indonesia's "wild east" - a place of considerable social and ethnic as well as health problems.

On page 190-191 you can also read about my wife Kim's ordeal with vivax malaria - including days of cold fits and high fever. We suspect that she was bitten during a stay at a luxury resort on the island of Lombok. Kim describes how the whole experience felt like near death. Luckily she was treated relatively quickly with Primaquine at an Australian Embassy clinic.

Most malaria sufferers don't have the advantage of being treated quickly or with access to the right drugs. Each year there are up to two million deaths from the disease.

It's reported that malaria causes the death of an African child every thirty seconds, and the main victims are young children and pregnant women.

The value of this new treatment can't be underestimated. It not only stops the malaria infection but it also protects sufferers from reinfection.

More about the history and cultural issues at Freeport

Everyone in Indonesia has an airline story

2007-03-08T14:54:00.000+11:00

How very true.

Today on the Indonesia Blogsite a frequently flying Jakarta-based expat writes:
Following the Garuda air crash, there will no doubt be lots of newspapers publishing air disaster statistics, but they will not cover the near misses and the shambolic state of the Indonesian air industry as a whole, writes a Jakarta-based expat.

My comment on this is that as a one-time frequent flyer in Indonesia I know most passengers consider Garuda the airline of choice. Merpati Airlines for instance, is considered a far more precarious ride.
I have one experience to share: Several years ago flying aboard a Merpati Hawker Cassa from the tiny Banda Islands to Ambon. All was fine on the one hour flight until we hit the tarmac at Ambon's Patimura Airport. Suddenly the wheels jammed and the aircraft skidded off the tarmac into the grass. It was a wild, bumpy ride which ended with the plane on its side and the right wing wedged deep into the ground. We the passengers had to squeeze out through the door which was now like an overhead hatch in a boat.

We emerged into the Ambon sunshine with the smell of fuel all around us and the sound of emergency fire engines rushing across the airfield towards our plane.

Clock one up to good fortune! MB

Related: How Indonesia became aviation's Wild West

Indonesian aircrash: a tragic twist of fate for Australians

2007-03-08T13:25:00.000+11:00

Now being reported are some tragic explanations of why some of the Australian journalists and officials came to board the ill-fated Garuda 737. The following comes from the news service AFP:
Five Australians were among the 21 believed dead after the Garuda Airlines Boeing 737 crashed at Yogyakarta airport on Wednesday morning as they flew to the town ahead of visiting Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Some were due to have been on a plane that left the previous evening, but missed that flight when Downer's visit to a school in the capital Jakarta ran over schedule.
The Australian newspaper's Jakarta correspondent Stephen Fitzpatrick has described how, in a further twist, fate decreed he would live but fellow Jakarta-based journalist, the Australian Financial Review's Morgan Mellish, would die.
Both men were booked on a Garuda flight to Yogyakarta on Tuesday evening, but realised while following Downer on the school visit that they would miss the plane.
Discovering that the next morning's doomed Garuda flight was fully booked they reluctantly took seats on an Adam Air service leaving half an hour later "despite its appalling safety record," Fitzpatrick wrote.
But later that night, Mellish was having a drink with other journalists and Australian embassy officials when he was told there was a spare ticket on the Garuda flight in the name of an embassy staffer.
Embassy spokeswoman Liz O'Neill -- who is also missing and believed dead -- offered the ticket to Mellish "and his fate was sealed," Fitzpatrick said.
"I caught the Adam Air flight, which was turned around just minutes from Yogyakarta, after the Garuda flight crashed on landing," he wrote.
The other Australians killed were federal police officers Brice Steele and Mark Scott, and embassy staffer Alison Sudrajat.
Five other Australians, including Sydney Morning Herald foreign affairs correspondent Cynthia Banham, were injured in the crash.
Downer was to have travelled to Yogyakarta on his own official plane.

Lost for Words

2007-03-06T11:30:00.000+11:00

Australia has producd some fine writers in the last 150 years. The works of these great masters such as Henry Lawson and Patrick White have reflected the uniqueness of the Aussie character, lifestyle and landscape. The quality of writing has been applauded worldwide, but why isn't this distinct branch of literature celebrated Down Under?

Early in December 2006, the Weekend Australian's Review section featured an article on the teaching of Australian Literature in universities entitled 'Lost for Words' (The Weekend Australian Review, December 2-3). It noted that undergraduates seemed less interested in studying Australian writing than in the past and put forward various theories as to why this had occurred. The article attracted much comment, including claims that there needed to be more teaching of Australian literature in secondary schools as well.

As a follow-up, Sydney PEN has organised a panel to discuss how much Australian literature is currently read, as well as how much was, is and should be studied at school and university. Elizabeth Webby, Professor of Australian Literature at the University of Sydney, will be the participating chair and other panellists include well-known writers Delia Falconer, John Hughes and Emily Maguire, who are also teachers of literature and creative writing. More...

5.30 for 6.00pm, Wednesday 21 March 2007
Mitchell Theatre, Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts
Level 1, 280 Pitt Street SYDNEY NSW 2000
RSVP: (02) 9262 7300 or programs@sydneymsa.com.au
FREE ADMISSION

Inquiries: Kathryn 1300 364 997 sydney@pen.org.au

Canberra spotlight on travel writing

2007-03-01T22:37:00.001+11:00

"Bowling is far from the caricature foreign correspondent, braving bullies and bullets to "get the story". Instead he reveals himself as the sensitive family man.."

Tracks of Asian life on divergent paths - from The Canberra Times 24/02/2007

TWO BOOKS about Australian journalists coming to grips with Asia - and there the similarity ends. Mark Bowling's is a story about the usual hardships, frustrations and more than occasional dangers involved in reporting for the ABC on Indonesia during one of the most troubled periods in that country's recent past - descriptions sharpened in the context of renewed attention to the fate of the Balibo Five during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor more than 30 years ago.

lain Finlay and Trish Clark, as befits a late middle-aged couple who have lived and worked together for four decades, travel at a gentler pace. Not a gun is raised, or a blow struck during their stay of more than year in the Vietnamese capital as workers for Australian Volunteers International: their greatest dramas involve severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and bird flu. The battles they describe are now part of history.

Bowling is far from the caricature foreign correspondent, braving bullies and bullets to "get the story". Instead he reveals himself as the sensitive family man, constantly concerned about his wife, Kim, and children left alone in their temporary Jakarta house while he rushes from one trouble spot to another. "Kim feared for my safety, she feared that my work would consume me, that the close-knit family life we cherished would be blown apart, and that our relationship would crumble," he writes.

At other times he describes eloquently the panic that any reporter feels when threatened with becoming "part of the story": literally running for his life when spotted by a wild mob of pro-Indonesian militiamen in Dili: tear-gassed during student riots in Jakarta - "I remember the soldiers' clenched teeth, the look of hate in their eyes." Bowling arrived in Indonesia just in time to cover the last days of President Suharto. He saw the short, doomed reign of Bachartuddin Habibie, the mounting crisis around his successor, "Gus Dur" Wahid, and the rise of Megawati Sukarno Putri, and the first Bali bombings form a bloody epilogue to his four-year assignment.

He was present for the birth pains of East Timor: he looked into a mass grave in Aceh and experienced the fry of sectarian strife in Ambon, yet still found time for "colour" stories on exorcism Indonesian-style, starving Sumatran tigers and the misery of Jakarta's garbage-dump dwellers.

Somehow Mark's relationship with Kim survived Indonesia and they have settled with their four children in Darwin. I am left with the impression that Running Amok has been written as a form of catharsis, and that he will not be thirsting for more adventure any time soon.

Finlay and Clark, two of the founders of the long-ru ning television program Beyond 2000, were fulfilling a long-held promise to themselves to do some overseas volunteer work when they accepted an assignment in Hanoi with the English-language service of the Voice of Vietnam radio network.

There is really nothing in Good Morning Hanoi that the average working tourist might not discover and experience during a prolonged stay there. The couple get a taste for the culture and make many good friends among their Vietnamese colleagues, neighbours and other overseas volunteers, especially Rebecca Hales, a young teacher.

They give seminars and lectures, and start a program featuring news of entertainment and other events around the country which they bequeath to a couple of their younger colleagues, delaying their departure to take in the celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Dien Bien Phil, which ended French rule in the country and ushered in the "American War". Finlay and Clark are two good-natured Australians with a genuine desire to reach out to the people they have come to help, and only occasionally do the frustrations with the stultifying Vietnamese bureaucracy show through. There are a few dark moments and historical slip-ups (Richard Nixon was not the United States president during the 1968 Tet Offensive) but mostly everyone has a jolly good time. Good Morning Hanoi will be useful to anyone planning an extended visit, or even just a holiday, but that is about the sum total - a kind of superior guide book with a lot of anecdotes attached.

Graham Cooke is a former Canberra Times journalist.

Rebel leader caught in the crosshairs

2007-03-01T11:23:00.000+11:00

ChannelNewsAsia is reporting that Australian soliders are closing in the mountain hideout of Major Alfredo Reinado, about 50 kilometres south of the capital Dili. Reinado has been partly blamed for deadly civil unrest last year, and more recently accused of stealing firearms.

Whether he is arrested or not, Reinado remains one of Timor Leste's most intriguing figures as the tiny new nation heads towards a Presidential Election on April the 9th. Parliamentary elections are due to follow.. and one thing is for certain.. these are precarious times for East Timor.

Amidst this volatility, a Gold Coast filmmaking team is planning to head to Timor Leste. Producer Linda Arnold has written to me explaining that she and filmmaker husband, Philippe Deseck believe that "one of the ways we can help is by increasing public awareness of what the East Timorese have been through andthe problems they face now to build up their new nation." She adds that reading Running Amok was "the source of our inspiration".

Follow Linda and Philippe on a remarkable filmmaking journey by visiting their website . This will be a worthwhile but expensive project, and they are seeking donations and sponsorship. Linda confides on the website: "I decided then that I wanted to create documentaries and TV programs that would make a difference in the world. So I’ve quit working on Big Brother and put all my savings towards “East Timor”.

East Timor Unrest

2007-02-23T16:45:00.000+11:00

Tensions have heightened on the streets of Dili after the shooting death of a youth by an Australian soldier.

Radio reports in the capital say that the civilian was firing metal arrows at Australian troops carrying out an operation at a Dili refugee camp. The troops are part of an international stabilisation force.

The incident reflects an upsurge of street violence around Dili, mainly between members of rival martial arts gangs. In recent days there have been numerous house burnings and gang battles which have left seven UN police officers injured and led to 148 arrests in recent days.

With elections looming the security situation in East Timor is growing worse, according to the United Nations News Service.

The U.N. Security Council has just voted to extend the U.N. mission in East Timor for a year and beef up the international police force ahead of East Timor's Presidential election on April 9, with full parliamentary elections to follow.

The council has extended the mission until Feb. 26, 2008 and authorized an additional 140 police to supplement the current force "particularly during the pre- and post election period." The mission currently has about 1,300 international police.

This is what it looks like staring down the barrel of a gun.

2007-02-21T17:25:00.001+11:00

(Pictured: a young pro-Indonesia militiaman weilding a homemade gun, Dili 1999.)

As a Commission of Truth and Friendship convenes in Bali it is once again time to remember what really happened about the time of East Timor's vote for independence in 1999.

The Commission hearings are taking place in a luxury hotel on the holiday isle - surely this must be a surreal setting for witnesses recounting horrific memories of cold-blooded killings at the hands of militia squads organised and armed by the Indonesian military.

And what about the Commission's intent? Does it puzzle those long-suffering East Timorese citizens taking part that the whole idea of the commission is not to seek judicial prosecution, but to set the record straight.

Australia's major daily newspapers are covering the Commission hearings including The Sydney Morning Herald.

The horrific events surrounding East Timor's independece vote are also dealt with in my book Running Amok. In April 1999 I reported on the Liquisa churchyard massacre, and I was in Dili the day that militia squads attached the home of the independence leader, Manuel Carrascalao.

Book Review

2007-01-17T16:24:00.000+11:00

I've been absolutely chuffed with the response to my book Running Amok. Since release four months ago I've been interviewed on radio, appeared at writers festivals in Brisbane and Townsville and on tour in Sydney and the Gold Coast. Book reviews appearing in magazines and newspapers have been highly supportive. Wow!

Here's a sample:

“A wonderful account of the strange life of an overseas reporter.
Bowling has managed to present the public face of a broadcast journalist
while showing the complex, often fraught everyday life that is lead by
those who report from foreign countries.”
-Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald

This very encouraging review appeared on The Swanker just prior to Christmas..
(who is the Swanker? .. to quote from the site "..the name of this blog is more a tongue-in-cheek reference to a popular stereotype of the typical Sydneysider - shallow, ever in pursuit of money and beholden to all things glitzy.. " But I suspect there's nothing shallow about The Swanker. He's led an interesting life so far. Quoting again from his site: " ..I was born in Brunei, a small Malay sultanate in South East Asia, to Chinese parents. I spent some time in England as a child then moved permanently to Australia with may family when I was sixteen. My interest in South East Asia stems from my own upbringing there and my fascination with the ideas of culture, race, religion - particularly how all these things mingle and interact to form notions of ethnicity, identity and nationality."

Anyway.. this review from The Swanker..

Running Amok by Mark Bowling

Hachette Livre Australia were kind enough to recently send me a copy of Running Amok by Mark Bowling, the ABC's former Indonesia correspondent. Subtitled When News Deadlines, Family and Foreign Affairs Collide, the book recounts Mark's personal experiences during his stationing in Indonesia - from 1998 to 2002 - one of the most eventful periods in the country's history.
The book takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride across the far-flung archipelago, from the toppling of President Suharto in Jakarta, to Aceh, Kalimantan, Ambon, West Papua and of course, East Timor. The book documents in detail Mark's visits to that long-suffering territory as it finally achieved independence, but, as Mark emotionally describes, not without great suffering and death.
Interspersed between episodes of Mark and his crew dodging soldiers, running into the middle of riots or interviewing Islamic extremists, Running Amok also offers insight into the more mundane aspects of the foreign correspondent's job - the deadlines, the script-writing, the long hours working through the night.
Mark also highlights the difficulties of being constantly away from his young family, the pressure his marriage came under and the tragedy of a lost child. His was a job that put immense strain on family relationships like few other jobs did and the personal nature of the book is its real strength.
Indonesia-watchers will enjoy this book for the insights into the tumultuous events of the post-Suharto period. Budding journalists will either be thrilled by the stories of adventure and reportage from the front lines, or mortified by the personal and emotional commitment the job demands.
Running Amok is set amidst the grand political drama of Suharto's resignation, turmoil in the provinces and the creation of a new nation, but it never loses sight of the fact that, in the end, it's all about people - Mark's own family, and the ordinary Indonesian people he encountered. Separated by only a few hundred miles water we might be, but most Indonesians and Australians live on totally different worlds.
Riots and mass killings are not the chirpiest subject-matter for holiday reading, but Running Amok reminded me of how fortunate I am to be where I am. And during the Christmas/New Year season when getting overwhelmed with presents and parties is so easy, that's probably not such a bad thing.
Other recent books by Australians about Indonesia:
A Woman of Independence, by Kirsty Sword Gusmao
Indonesia's Secret War in Aceh, by John Martinkus
In the Shadow of Swords, by Sally Neighbour

Snake in the bowl!

2006-12-13T16:55:00.000+11:00

“.. I arrived to see a large python head peering out of the toilet bowl."

Australia's wild north is known for its weird and wonderful tales.

This story comes courtesy of police in Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory:

A seven foot carpet python was removed from a septic tank after it was found peering out of a toilet bowl this morning.

Parks and Wildlife Service wildlife officer Peter Phillips said he was called to the residence in Howard Springs (an outer suburb of Darwin) after a plumber fixing a blocked toilet found the python.

“The Howard Springs resident originally called a plumber because her toilet was blocked,” Mr Phillips said.

“I arrived to see a large python head peering out of the toilet bowl.

“The python was so long, the body was curled around the s-bend and we had to retrieve it from the septic tank, where we could remove it.

Mr Phillips said the largely nocturnal Carpet Python was probably temporarily living in the septic tank because it was a good place to wait for frogs or hide during the day and then emerge at night to go and look for other food.

“The tank was obviously a great home, because the snake was so fat and healthy it was it difficult to retrieve,” he said.

“We retrieved the snake without incident and it will be released tonight.

Mr Phillips said the Parks and Wildlife snake call out number would be operating as usual over the festive season.

“Someone will be on duty twenty four hours a day seven days a week,” he said.

“We advise that members of the public not to try and catch or kill snakes, this is how most people end up getting bitten.

“Even though most snake species around Darwin and rural areas are not poisonous, some such as King Browns and Western Browns are among the top 10 most deadly snakes in the world.

“A Parks and Wildlife Officer or a permitted volunteer will come and remove your snake if someone can keep an eye on it until we arrive.

“We will endeavour to catch the snake when we arrive, but cannot search for snakes that have gone.”

Stunning vote heralds new era for Aceh

2006-12-12T11:42:00.000+11:00

It appears a former rebel leader gaoled by Jakarta has won a surprise victory in the first democratic elections for governor of Indonesia's Aceh province. Irwandi Yusuf, a former spokesman for the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), has won 39 percent of the vote.

Irwandi Yusuf is hoping for co-operation with the Indonesian military.. not confrontation as in the past.

The director of the group which conducted a sample quick count, Denny Januar Ali of LSI (Indonesia Survey Institute) has told AFP: "I'm certain there will not be a second round because it's a win by a large amount. " A second sample by election monitors Jurdil Aceh projected Yusuf to win with 38.57 percent of the vote, and an estimated turnout of 85 percent. Yusuf said the result, if confirmed, was a dream come true for the Acehnese, who flocked to vote in elections they hope will cement the region's path to peace after three decades of war. "This is the dream of the Acehnese people being fulfilled. They want change in all aspects of life and governance," he told reporters. "It will be hard work for me, it is not easy to fulfil. Aceh in the future will be kind of a wild horse, because there are so many things to do. We need cooperation from all elements of Acehnese society, and most importantly with the Acehnese legislators," he said. Yusuf said cooperation with Jakarta would be "as normal" and did not think there would be a problem with the military. He was jailed in 2003 for rebellion, but escaped when the tsunami struck.

Read more about Aceh in my book Running Amok

A vote for peace... we hope so.

2006-12-11T12:33:00.000+11:00

"The outside world knows very little about Aceh's rich past.. mainly because of the decades of fighting."

Today the people of the Indonesian province of Aceh go to the polls in historic local elections. It's a democratic breakthrough that follows the signing of a peace agreement last year between separatist rebels and the Indonesian government ending almost 30 years of bloodshed.
Aceh has endured a tumultuous history, with the separatist conflict which ended last year just the latest in a long line of violent upheavals. As a correspondent, I visited Aceh at the height of some of the worst fighting and saw the the terrible results of war. There are no winners.. but at least something positive is now happening in the form of elections. Ironically it took the worst of natural disasters to shape this latest chapter in Aceh's history - the peace accord which paved the way for the polls was spurred by the December 26, 2004 tsunami, which killed an estimated 169,000 people in the province.

ABC Cameraman Dave Anderson (left) and myself during a visit to Aceh's grand mosque in the capital Banda Aceh, 2000.

The outside world knows very little about Aceh's rich past.. mainly because of the decades of fighting. Journalists were either banned or restricted from entering Aceh for long periods of time. I was lucky enough to visit Aceh on many occasions soon after President Suharto was toppled in 1998. I met with rebel guerillas and civic leaders who were instrumental in shaping the events now going on. I have written about some of these exciting trips and close encounters in my book Running Amok

Shut your eyes and think of Aceh.. if it's a complete blank here are some facts courtesy of AFP:

POPULATION: About 4.5 million (before tsunami)
GEOGRAPHY: Aceh stretches over 55,390 square kilometers (21,390 square miles) on the westernmost tip of Sumatra island.
CAPITAL: Banda Aceh.
LANGUAGE: Indonesian, Acehnese.
RELIGION: Muslim (97.6 percent), Christian (1.7 percent), Hindu (0.08 percent), Buddhist (0.55 percent).
ECONOMY: Coconuts, coffee, timber, tobacco, oil and natural gas.
HISTORY: In the 16th century Aceh was an important trading center and seat of Islamic learning. Its power began to decline over the next century, but it remained independent of the Dutch who dominated the rest of the Indonesian archipelago.
In 1873 the Netherlands declared war on Aceh after negotiating a treaty in which Britain withdrew any objections to their occupation of the region.
The first Dutch force of 7,000 retreated when its commander, General Kohler, was killed. A new army contingent, twice as large, succeeded in taking the capital, the central mosque and the sultan's palace but the war dragged on for 35 years before the last sultan, Tuanku Muhammad Daud, surrendered.
Even then no Dutch area was safe from guerrilla attack from the Acehnese until the Dutch surrendered to Japan in 1942.
The Japanese were welcomed at first but resistance soon sprang up. This period saw the Islamic Party, which had been formed in 1939 under the leadership of Daud Beureuh, emerge as a political force.
With the proclamation of the Indonesian republic in 1945, Aceh was given special territory status but in 1951 Jakarta dissolved the province and incorporated it into the mainly Christian province of North Sumatra.
Angry at the move, Beureuh proclaimed Aceh an independent Islamic Republic in September 1953.
This lasted until 1961 when military and religious leaders fell out. The central government resolved the conflict by returning the status of special province to Aceh.
In 1976 a separatist group, the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement) was established to fight for an independent Islamic state.
Aceh was declared a military operation area in 1988 and Indonesian troops were deployed to quash the separatist movement. Soldiers have since been accused by human rights groups of widespread violations.
Operations were stepped up in May 2003 after the collapse of a brief truce prompted the government to impose 12 months of martial law.
The Indian Ocean tsunami disaster on December 26, 2004 devastated the region, killing an estimated 169,000 people, destroying entire towns and pulverising its infrastructure and industry.
The catastrophe however encouraged both the rebels and the government to return to the negotiating table and in August 2005 they signed a peace deal in Helsinki.
The accord paved the way for Monday's elections, the first in Indonesia to allow the participation of candidates without links to Jakarta-based political parties.

Running Amok...again

2006-12-10T14:47:00.000+11:00

It used to be militia gang members loyal to Jakarta that terrorised the capital Dili. That was seven years ago - 1998. Militia gangs like Aitarak (Thorn)fired homemade pipeguns as they battled on the streets against pro-independence neighbourhood gangs.

Now with independence won, the violence should have ended. But East Timorese youths are battling again. The streets of Dili have been a battleground for the last six months. Unemployment, perceived government corruption, bittere rivalries between police and the army, lack of opportunities for grassroots kids in the new democratic Timor Leste have turned Dili into a cauldron.

So here's the latest installment in the battle to just keep order (from AFP)..

Portuguese police fired rubber bullets to disperse rival football fans who were shooting arrows at each other during a match in the East Timor capital Saturday, witnesses said.
"We were fighting when the police came, closed the main gate then started shooting into the air, a witness from Dili's Bidau district who declined to give his name told AFP.
"Some of them were shooting towards us. My friend's brother got hit by a rubber bullet, I saw dozens injured," he said.
There were no reports of casualties taken to the hospital.
Portuguese paramilitary GNR police arrived at the football ground where fighting broke after rival supporters started throwing stones and shooting arrows at each other.
"We won the game, but the Virgo-kuluhan (rival team) were not happy and started to attack us," another witness said.
"Then the stone fight began and the two sides start shooting arrows and fought with blades," he said.
The police left after the fighting crowd dispersed.
UN police have arrested 26 people this week on suspicion of involvement in deadly clashes between martial arts gangs that have left two people dead and six badly wounded.
International peacekeepers and UN police were deployed to restore order after the tiny nation was rocked by violence which left 37 dead earlier this year.

Vibrant Art Scene

2006-12-07T13:02:00.000+11:00

Across the Timor Sea from troubled Timor Leste there's a hugely vibrant art scene going on. Darwin is at the epicentre.. but a lot of the creative influences come from far-flung indigenous communities scattered across a huge area known as the Top END.. hence TOP END ARTS

Look out for regular posts about Australian indigenous arts and crafts, literature (including travel), contemporary dance and music which reflect the uniqueness of the serendipidous TOP END.

Violence in Dili

2006-12-07T10:30:00.000+11:00

..the grim reality of East Timor's division on the streets continues daily..

In the midst of ongoing gang violence on the streets of Dili, a public appearance by East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao. He said the violence by martial art groups is making everybody sad. Sad indeed. Gusmao is a passionate speaker and perhaps there was a emotion in his words lost in translation. But to be honest there are few situations in the world as tragic as the situation in East Timor right now. So much was hoped for after independence in 2002.. and now so little gained.

President Gusmao was speaking during a ceremony held at Jardim Farol in Dili to put away sacred weapons – which were withdrawn from Sacred Houses in the past during times of invasion from outside. During his speech Gusmao appealed to East Timor's young people quoting Prime Minister Ramos-Horta’s words that “the future of Timor-Leste is in your hands and not ours, we are already old, and as leaders we have recognized our failures, big or small in a state that has just been established. Through these mistakes we are putting the efforts to better contribute to the country”. Gusmão also appealed for unity and for everybody to consciously stand up and claim that there is only one Timorese, one nation that is Timor and no such thing as lorosae and loromonu.

The division between the East and West of the country - so called lorosae and loromonu - has been at the centre of street violence in Dili during recent months. So is it true for gusmao to say there is no such thing as lorosae and loromonu?

I hope to post more on this issue soon.. but for now ..the grim reality of East Timor's division on the streets continues daily..

DILI, Dec 6, 2006 (AFP) - UN police have arrested 26 people on suspicion of involvement in deadly clashes between East Timor martial arts gangs that have left two people dead and six badly wounded, a spokeswoman said.
The UN police confirmed two people had been killed during ongoing clashes between rival martial arts groups which erupted on Sunday in the capital Dili.
"Until now, the police has made 26 detentions in the last 48 hours, so we have arrested 26 people. And last night 40 weapons were seized, namely darts and machetes," UNPOL spokeswoman Monica Rodrigues told reporters.
One man was hacked to death and another beaten to death in clashes between rival martial arts gangs in Dili on Sunday and Monday, a witness and hospital worker have said.
The resurgence of gang violence has already prompted Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta to warn that he would crackdown on some martial arts groups.
The tiny nation was rocked in April and May by clashes between security force factions which quickly degenerated into street violence involving youth gangs.
At least 37 people died in the bloodshed, which prompted the deployment of 3,200 Australian-led peacekeepers to restore calm.
Their numbers have since been reduced to around 1,100, bolstered by the presence of about 1,000 UN police.

Review of Running Amok - from November edition of Australian Book Review

2006-11-29T10:49:00.000+11:00

A Foreign Correspondent's Life

2006-11-10T16:49:00.000+11:00

Juggling marriage, fatherhood and strict news deadlines while dodging bullets in a tumultuous country is no easy feat, Genevieve Swart writes.

DILI, August 1999: ABC foreign correspondent Mark Bowling runs the gauntlet of a militia gang, as men armed with pistols, rocks and pipes surround his car, smashing windows and shouting threats. The driver floors the accelerator, they escape and Bowling gives a breathless interview via his mobile phone to the PM radio program about the lead-up to East Timor's referendum. Then he calls his wife, Kim, (pictured right) at home in Jakarta to tell her he is safe.

"It was late in the day, I called her and said, 'Kim, I've got something to tell you', and she said, 'Yeah, well, look - I'm cooking the chicken nuggets and Joshua's climbing up the ladder . . . just call me back, all right?' Hang up.

"That," Bowling says, "was just a moment when you realise we're operating in two completely different worlds."

Running Amok: When News Deadlines, Family And Foreign Affairs Collide chronicles his four years in Indonesia as a foreign correspondent, covering events from the end of President Suharto's 30-year reign to the independence of East Timor.

Bowling - now in Darwin, where he is the ABC's director for the Northern Territory - found writing about Indonesia a cathartic exercise; one he hopes will throw some light on Australia's closest neighbour and the world's most populous Muslim nation.

"I believe we don't understand Indonesia . . . very well at all, we only just scratch the surface. It's an absolute cacophony of cultures.

"It's almost like the geography of the place - which is built on a tectonic plate and is the reason why there are tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions - it's almost like the culture and the society of Indonesia has some kind of equivalent."

Born in Sydney in 1959, Bowling went to Turramurra High School, then did an arts and communications degree at Macquarie University. He started as a reporter at the ABC in 1985 and became the north Asia correspondent, based in Tokyo, in 1992.

"I'd seen riots and tear gas and police fighting students in South Korea, and I'd spent time in PNG and seen a different sort of scary, you know, unexpected 'rascal gangs' . . ."

Still, his first week in Jakarta in May 1998 came as a shock. "I arrived on the Tuesday, Suharto was forced out on the Thursday and it was just a roller-coaster of events after that . . . meeting Xanana Gusmao, going to East Timor and this whole Reformasi movement that just sprung up."

In June, Kim and the children arrived. The couple, who met in the early '90s at a Darwin barbecue, had survived a long-distance relationship while Bowling was in Japan, but their real test was to come. As Kim said before the move: "It's all right for you - you'll be the foreign correspondent, and I'll be the foreign object."

Bowling's new job was all-consuming, with unexpected dangers. That November, a report appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald: "An ABC TV crew was beaten with sticks by security forces. They were not seriously injured, but their cameras were smashed."

Bowling says the attack - which took place during demonstrations pressing the Habibie government for reform - was a wake-up call. "[It was] in the gardens just outside the [Atma Jaya] University, when the students were marching on Parliament . . ."

Troops suddenly stormed towards the students and the crew. "I remember the soldiers' clenched teeth, the look of hate in their eyes, their ninja-like body armour, and the muzzle flash from their weapons firing close to my head," he writes in the chapter "Black Friday".

"I had never expected troops would open fire on a journalist," he says. "I somehow felt immune. That was probably the first time I actually felt how the people who I was reporting on felt."

His new neighbourhood, the leafy central suburb of Menteng, had hazards, too. The Suharto family compounds were nearby and the former dictator's daughter kept a pet Sumatran tiger tethered by a thin rope in the driveway.

Kim discovered this on a walk when their son Joshua, a Winnie The Pooh fan, said: "Look, Mummy. There's Tigger!"

Indonesia was still a fledgling democracy and Bowling writes of having "a box seat to Asia's greatest show". It was a single ticket, however, not a family pass, as Kim and children were left behind to adjust to life in Jakarta. When reporting took him away from home or put him at risk, "the niggling feeling always was about my responsibility as a parent and a husband. That's the dilemma for a correspondent, maybe it's just a single person's game".

Working by the journalistic adage, "If it bleeds, it leads", Bowling reported on many lead stories, including religious violence in Ambon and separatist struggles in Papua and Aceh, where he was present at the uncovering of a mass grave. He was in Dili when the Timorese courageously voted against Indonesia's autonomy plan, despite intimidation by militia gangs. One memory stands out: "Just the look of anguish on the faces the day the vote was declared - people were leaving Dili with their bedrolls on their backs and their mattresses, just knowing that it was about to go off and the militia were going to inflict this reign of terror."

He never had counselling after reporting on violence. "My wife is a psychologist and she is a very good source of comfort and advice and helps me get through those situations." Nonetheless, the job was "a real strain" on their relationship. The couple suffered a tragedy when Kim had a miscarriage. Weeks later, Bowling did a story on East Timorese refugees: "There was a moment [when] I saw a baby in a coffin. It reminded me of our kids and the unborn child that we'd lost . . . I'd never felt emotions so strongly, so rawly."

The correspondent never carried a gun and his helmet and flak jacket lay under his desk. Often amid ethnic violence, he says, it was like being a white ghost. "You don't exist. People see you but you're not the enemy. You're just there. It's the weirdest, weirdest feeling."

When Bowling returned to Australia, he noticed changes. "Little things like public risk [have developed] . . . cliff faces have got to have fences on them so you don't fall off. We're becoming a very safe society . . . and yet we live on the edge of this absolute chaos."

Yet he believes there's hope even in the darkest times, citing the aftermath of the Bali bombing: "Somehow there was a strength of character of the Balinese . . . They are just such shining, lovely people and to see them being resilient in the face of a monumental struggle between dark and light, and to see them be able to come through it and cling onto this life . . . that gives you some hope.

The Bowlings have four children - Joshua, 10, Jessica, 8, Steffanie, 5, and Samuel, 2, born after they left Jakarta. "Our kids speak Indonesian and a smattering of Javanese - the sound of Indonesian words is pretty common around our house." Another post abroad is not out of the question, although Bowling says his priority this time around would be to ask, "Kim, what do you think?"

Running Amok: An interesting read

2006-11-09T17:47:00.000+11:00

Here's my new book which I hope you find interesting. It is receiving very good reviews. I will post these reviews as they come in. Meanwhile here's a link to my publisher's website with info about the book and my bio..

http://www.hha.com.au/books/0733620426.html

Today's local news from Darwin

2006-11-09T17:40:00.000+11:00

News Roundup.

From the ABC;

An Indonesian fisherman who used a machete to threaten Navy and Army officers attempting to board his boat has been given an 18-month jail term by the Northern Territory Supreme Court.
The incident happened in waters off the coast of Arnhem Land.
Forty-seven-year-old Aceng was part of a 10-man Indonesian crew caught in July inside the Australian Fishing Zone, north-east of Cape Wessel.
He pleaded guilty to seven charges, including threatening serious harm and causing harm to public officers.
The court heard Aceng also threw concrete sinkers at the officers.