PPATK FINDS 2,300 Suspect Bank Account Tied to Ofiicials

            Denpasar. A financial transaction watchdog has found 2,300 potentially problematic bank accounts belonging to heads of regional administrations or their families, its former chairman said on Thursday.

            " It is not yet known whether there are any (illegally) fat accounts among them, " Yunus Husein said on the said on the sidelines of a seminar on regional financial management in Bali.

                 Yunus said hundreds of the suspected problematic accounts in the names of regional heads or their families were being investigated by The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK).

                Any iregularities in the accounts, he said, would be evident in the way the money was moved among them.

                " The Funds are usually only moved around between the accounts of the wife, their children or other relatives," Yunus said.

                He cautioned that not all of the suspicious accounts flagged necessarily involved coruption, and said the investigation would eventually make it clear which were innocent.

                Meanwhile, Isran Noor, the head of the Association of Municipality Governments of Indonesia (Apkasi), said regional leaders were now concerned that they could potentially be accused of coruption because of an administrative error. He said unjustified suspicion could damage their careers even if they were eventually cleared.

                "Once they have been summoned by the prosecutors' office or the police, the case gets compilcated and they can no longer work comfortably," Isran said.

                He also objected to the PPATK's surveillance of Bank Accounts, arguing that bank customers had the right to privacy.

                Yunus, however, said the PPATK had the legal authority to investigate suspicious accounts.

               He added that the PPATK never released names, and said that if any were leaked to the press, the information must have come from other sources.

                Meanwhile, a spokesman for The Corruption Eradication Comission (KPK), Johan Budi, said the comission had not yet received any reports from the PPATK regarding the suspicious bank accounts.

            He said that because the KPK was busy addresing a significant backlog of cases, the commision could not take the initiative to request a report from The PPATK.

                Among the cases currently under KPK Investigation are those of
nine high ranking officials at the Finance Ministry found to have unusually large balances in their bank accounts.

                The reports about the accounts in question also came from the PPATK.

                In february, the center said more than 1,800 questionably large bank accounts had been detected since 2003.

                These included 707 accounts held by civil servants, 89 by police officers, 12 by prosecutors, 17 by judges, 65 by lawmakers, and one by a KPK official.

Source : Jakarta Globe Newspaper

Comment :

Commission should be careful in handling this case. KPK should be able to distinguish between suspicious accounts and normal accounts. But, recently there was a new cases of misappropriation of funds by the head of the regional. Negative funds deviation is done by Salatiga Mayor for alternative road Salatiga-Semarang. When the investigation will be held, Mayor Salatiga suddenly sick and had to be at hospital untill he become well. KPK should not pity, it is just a camouflage for the long-running from law and given a little relief. KPK must also be clean of corruption. In order to move forward into the best institutions in Indonesia. Go KPK!

Nama : Tisa Novita Sari

Kelas : 3EB06

NPM : 25209641

AGO to present Siti Fadillah as witness

Attorney General’s Office (AGO) prosecutors say they will present former health minister Siti Fadillah Supari as a witness in the trial of Mulya A. Hasjmy, who was Siti’s subordinate during her 2004-2009 tenure.
“We will present another four or five witnesses, your honor. One of them will be Siti Fadillah Supari,” prosecutor D. Sihotang said on Thursday.
Mulya’s lawyers objected to the prosecutors’ request, saying that they needed more time until the police finished their investigation into Siti’s role.
But presiding judge Mien Trisnawati said: “Prosecutors have the right [to present Siti].”
The trial was adjourned until next Thursday.
One of Mulya’s lawyers, Syaiful Ahmad Dinar, said after the trial session that they needed the police to find more evidence against Siti that might take the blame away from Mulya.
“We want to uncover facts behind the prosecution of Mulya that also involved Siti. If we rush the trial, we cannot reveal all the facts,” Syaiful said.
Mulya is indicted on corruption charges for directly appointing state-owned pharmaceutical company Indofarma in a botched ministry procurement case.
In 2005, when Mulya was the head of the ministry’s health crisis response center, he allegedly granted Indofarma marketing director M. Naguib a crisis response medical equipment procurement project without holding an appropriate tender.
Mulya has repeatedly accused Siti of ordering him to help Indofarma win the bid.
Just recently, the National Police detective unit named Siti a suspect in the case, which caused Rp 6.15 billion (US$670,350) in state losses.

Source : The Jakarta Post

Cheating on exam a ‘root of corruption': KPK leader

Cheating in this week’s National Examination is “one of the roots of corruption practice in the country” and school students should avoid doing so, a senior official of the anti-graft agency has warned.
Deputy Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chief Bambang Widjojanto said Monday that students must be “brave enough” to take the exams “without any devious tricks.”
“Who we are today reflects who we are in the future. Cheating during an exam is an atrocious thing to do. It will sabotage your future,” Bambang said in a text message to The Jakarta Post.
Education expert Arief Rahman echoed Bambang’s statement, adding that any form of dishonesty, including cheating, might trigger fraudulent practices when they become older.
“Basically, any dishonest act is part of one group, let it be cheating, adultery or corruption,” he said in a telephone interview.
Arief acknowledged that the battle against cheating in exams was difficult. He recalled the case of a whistle-blower who revealed cheating in East Java in last year. Siami was shunned by her neighbors after disclosing cheating during national exams at her son’s school in Gadel, Surabaya.
“Fighting against fraudulent practices has never been easy, even since the colonial era. The thing is, we must accustom our society to shrug off the practice because cheating has become systemic and cultural,” he added.
A total of 2,580,446 high school students are sitting the National Examination from Monday to Thursday.
In order to pass the exam, students have to score a minimum of 4 in each subject and their average score in the test, their school exams and reports should be above 5.5.
Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh said his team believes that this year’s exam would be “clean” and “reliable”.

Source : The Jakarta Post

Westwood shoots 65 to lead Indonesian Masters

Defending champion Lee Westwood shot a 7-under 65 Thursday to take a two-shot lead after the first round of the Indonesian Masters.
The third-ranked Englishman opened his round with three consecutive birdies and added six more at the Royale Jakarta Golf Club, mixed with two bogeys.
Arnond Vongvanij of Thailand shot a bogey-free 67 to sit in second place.
A group of six golfers were another shot back in a tie for third, including Indian duo Jyoti Randhawa and Shiv Kapur.
Westwood took last week off after finishing third at the Masters, and said he felt rejuvenated after getting some rest.
"I had a break last week and hardly hit any balls," he said. "I played a lot of golf earlier this year and needed a rest. It was good to go home and recharge my batteries because the Masters always takes a lot out of you."
Arnond had birdies on the second and third holes and added three more on the back nine.
"I feel that my game in the last couple of weeks have been really close to where I want it," the 23-year-old Arnond said. "I hit my driver fairly straight and didn't get into too much trouble."
Three-time Asian Tour champion Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand had a disappointing start, making four bogeys and one double bogey on his way to a 75.


Source : The Jakarta Post

English Task 3 - Toefl (Reading)

READING

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in Vinci, Italy. He was the illegitimate

son of Ser Piero, a Florentine notary and landlord, but lived on the estate and was

treated as a legitimate son.

In 1483, Leonardo da Vinci drew the first model of a helicopter. It did not  look

very much like our modern day “copter,” but the idea of what it could do was about

the same.

Leonardo was an artist and sculptor. He was very interested in motion and

movement and tried to show it in his art. In order to show movement, he found it

helpful to study the way things moved. One subject he liked to study was birds and

how they flew. He spent many hours watching the birds and examining the structure

of their wings. He noticed how they cupped air with their wings and how the

feathers helped hold the air. Through these studies, Leonardo began to understand

how birds were able to fly.

Like many other men, Leonardo began to dream of the day when people would be

able to fly. He designed a machine that used all the things he had learned about

flight, and thus became the first model of a helicopter.

Poor Leonardo had only one problem, however. He had no way to give the necessary

speed to his  invention. You see, motors had not yet been invented and speed was an

important part of the flying process. It would be another four hundred years before

the engine was invented and another fifty years before it was put to the test in an

airplane. Leonardo’s dream of a helicopter finally came to pass in 1936.

The Italian painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist, Leonardo died on

May 2, 1519, and was buried in t he cloister of San Fiorentino in Amboise.

Choose the right one :

1.      What is the author’s main point?

a.      The invention of the helicopter

b.      Birds cup air with their wings and use feathers to help hold the air

c.       An overview of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s many skills

d.      Leonardo Da Vinci was born in 1452 and died in 1519

2.      The word problem in paragraph five could best be replaced by the word :

a.      Dilemma

b.      Mistake

c.       Danger

d.      Pain

3.      The word it in paragraph two refers to :

a.       Leonardo Da Vinci

b.      The first model helicopter

c.       1483

d.      Motion and Movement

4.      Which paragraph explains why Leonardo’s helicopter was not succesful in his lifetime?

a.       Paragraph 1

b.      Paragraph 2

c.       Paragraph 4

d.      Paragraph 5

5.      The word illegitimate in paragraph one is closest in meaning to :

a.       Against the law or illegal

b.      Not in correct usage

c.       Incorectly deduced, illogical

d.      Born out of wedlock

6.      The following sentence would best complete which paragraph? “ Since then people have been living out Leonardo’s dream of flying”?

a.       Paragraph 3

b.      Paragraph 4

c.       Paragraph 5

d.      Paragraph 2

7.      What was the main problem with Leonardo’s invention?

a.      Motors were not yet invented

b.      The birds lost their feathers

c.       He was illegitimate

d.      He couldn’t draw

8.      The word they in the third paragraph refers to :

a.       The feathers

b.      The birds

c.       The studies

d.      The wings

9.      In what year was the first helicopter clown?

a.       1483

b.      1452

c.       1519

d.      1936

10.  The word thus in the fourth paragraph could best be replaced by

a.       Wings and beaks

b.      Feathers and talons

c.       Wings and feathers

d.      Cups and feathers

Name   : Tisa Novita Sari

Class    : 3EB06

NPM   : 25209641

Source : Others