Australian Pm Insists No Argument with Indonesia

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130918/australian-pm-insists-no-argument-indonesia

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday said he was confident his government could work with Indonesia despite a senior Jakarta official calling his controversial asylum-seeker policy "offensive".

Indonesian MP Tantowi Yahya, a member of the parliamentary foreign affairs commission, said there were "major concerns" that the policy would interfere with his country's sovereignty.

His comments echoed sentiments expressed recently by Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, who said Jakarta would rebuff Abbott's plans to tow back boats in a military response titled Operation Sovereign Borders.

Under the scheme, Abbott also plans to embed Australian police in Indonesian villages, buy up fishing boats to keep them from people-smugglers and pay locals for intelligence.

"I think the policy will be very offensive and we in the parliament fully support what was said by our foreign minister -- that we will fully reject the policy," Yahya told ABC television late Wednesday.

The divisive issue of halting asylum-seeker boats that typically originate in Indonesia loomed large in Australia's recent election race and Abbott's pledge to "Stop the Boats" was a central plank of his campaign.

Yahya said towing boats back was "illegal" and implementing the policy as it stands would strain ties.

"It will obviously damage our relationship," he said, adding Jakarta only learned details of the plan "from the newspapers".

"We have to work together. The platform is cooperation," he said, adding that one country should not become "the police".

Abbott, who was sworn in as Australia's new prime minister on Wednesday, said he would not "conduct discussions with Indonesia through the media".

"Too much damage has been done in the past through megaphone diplomacy and it is never going to happen under this government."

But the conservative added: "I have no argument with anyone in the Indonesian establishment.

"Indonesia is a robust democracy, as Australia is. There are many voices in Indonesia but I am very confident that this government will be able to work effectively with the Indonesia government as former coalition governments have done."

On Monday, new Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she would talk with Natalegawa about the issue at a UN meeting in New York this weekend, insisting the policy would not breach Indonesia's sovereignty.

"We're not asking for Indonesia's permission, we're asking for their understanding," she said.

Abbott is expected to visit Jakarta in the coming fortnight.

Australia has struggled to manage the stream of asylum-seekers arriving on rickety, overloaded fishing boats with hundreds dying on the risky journey in recent years.

As well as Abbott's Operation Sovereign Borders policy, the new government has said it plans to stand by the former Labor administration's policy of sending any boatpeople arrivals to Papua New Guinea and Nauru for processing and resettlement.

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Jakarta Crown Eco Management: Wind Power Creates Jobs, Saves Money – Design21sdn Group

http://www.design21sdn.com/organizations/989/posts/23773

This clean energy investment will:

Create jobs: Create 460 construction jobs over two years and 48 permanent jobs.

Save money: Is expected to cut consumer rates by $3.3 million in 2015, growing to $10 million annually by 2017.

                          

Benefit farmers and the state: Landowners that allow turbines on their land will be paid $3.2 million annually and the state is expected to generate more than $360 million in additional property tax revenues over the next 30 years.

Attract businesses: Facebook recently chose to locate a new data center in Iowa, in part because the company wants to meet its goal of getting 25% of its power from clean sources.

It's no wonder that clean energy enjoys such strong support when projects like this are creating jobs, attracting investment, saving consumers’ money and reducing pollution. More than 70% of Americans support expanding wind power and a whopping 85% of Iowans see wind energy as a positive for the state.

Smart politicians of both parties have already seen that running on an overwhelmingly popular issue like wind power can contribute to winning campaigns. In our Running Clean report, we describe the way that President Obama campaigned on wind energy during the 2012 election. He cited his support for federal tax incentives for wind energy (and his opponent's opposition to them) during stump speeches, in a television ad and in a special website dedicated to Iowa wind. Conservative Republicans in the state like Rep. Steve King and Rep. Tom Latham took the same position as the president, supporting wind energy and even urging Mitt Romney to change his mind. On Election Day, the President won the state by 6 points.

While some Members of Congress and other Washington insiders may think of clean energy as a wedge issue, the news out of the heartland shows that isn't the case on the ground. In the real world, clean energy is creating jobs and saving consumers money. And those are concepts that voters in both parties can agree on.

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Benefits of biomass boiler at showcase environmental farm

http://network.nature.com/groups/crowncapeco/forum/topics/12659

As a multi-faceted 118-acre organic agricultural site, Highfield Farm in Topsham runs not only as a fully functioning farm, but also as an established campsite and well-known local educational facility.

So, when its owners, Ian and Lyndsay Shears, started working towards an even more environmentally friendly agricultural establishment, there were many elements to consider in their long-term plans.

They began their eco-systems by installing 42 PV panels throughout the farm. Having already started to see the huge benefits associated with creating their own electricity, when the time came to replace the old gas-fired boiler, they were already considering the installation of a replacement, environmentally friendly and renewable energy-sourced biomass boiler.

Mr Shears explained: “We’d been considering biomass for a couple of years. We are Soil Association-certified and we installed solar PV panels to create our own electricity harnessed from sunlight, which also meant a lot of economic sense.

“When we converted some of our barns, an additional heat requirement was created that our old gas boiler simply could not cope with efficiently. So, we decided biomass was the way forward.”

Exeter-based renewable firm Fair Energy provided the new biomass heating and water system, not least because, based in Exeter, they were the most local to his farm too.

“Our conference facility accommodates up to 50 people. Rain water from our barns supplies the loos, and the 10kW solar PV system provides the electrical power,” Mr Shears added. “So, we felt that to be able to heat it and the water with a renewable energy source – our own wood from the farm – would really enhance the whole building itself, particularly in relation to our organic, environmental status.”

The installation at Highfield Farm took place in August and the 90kW biomass boiler was installed and sized to cope with both the immediate and future requirements. Already covering 2,000 square feet, the system will cope with an additional 3,000 square feet when all the buildings are converted.

At first, the biomass boiler ran on wood chip pellets, but now Mr Shears is sourcing wood chippings locally in Newton Poppleford. Next year, Highfield’s fuel will be totally self-sufficient as he intends to use the farm’s own coppice, which will be cut next summer in time for use in the autumn.

He explained: “We’ve been really impressed with the biomass installation and feel it might also eventually help us with the campsite facilities. We’re currently installing a new shower block that will initially run off the solar panels next year, but also have the option with the new biomass system to consider linking the showers to the mains if necessary.

“It’s estimated that our new biomass boiler will save us a massive £12,500 with RHI and fuel savings annually.”

Highfield Farm has already run an event about renewable energy and, with its weekly visits from local schools, who help with all sorts including the kitchen garden, sewing seeds, soil preparation, weeding and harvesting, the Shears feel that if renewable energy gets included on school curriculum’s, they are well placed to talk about and demonstrate the benefits of biomass.

Fair Energy’s Director, Kirsten Parrick, commented: “Highfield Farm is an extremely proactive farming site in terms of its environmental awareness, eco-systems and renewable energy. Ian and Lyndsay display a clear understanding of all the benefits as well as a deep-rooted environmental conscience”.

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INDONESIA FRAUD WATCH CROWN CAPITAL ECO MANAGEMENT - SO WHEN DID ENVIRONMENTALISM LOSE ITS SOUL?

The Vermont Times Argus published a spot-on review of a new book by Bill McKibben -one of many who made a career out of jetting between conferences about the environment.

It’s written by Suzanna Jones, described as “an off-the-grid farmer living in Walden.” She does not object to local power – but disagrees with McKibben about the trend towards industrial scale renewables. It is, she says, part of the mainstreaming of the environmental movement.

“In his 2008 book “Deep Economy,” Bill McKibben concludes that economic growth is the source of the ecological crises we face today. He explains that when the economy grows larger than necessary to meet our basic needs – when it grows for the sake of growth, automatically striving for “more” – its social and environmental costs greatly outweigh any benefits it may provide.

Unfortunately, McKibben seems to have forgotten what he so passionately argued just five years ago. Today he is an advocate of industrial wind turbines on our ridgelines: He wants to industrialize our last wild spaces to feed the very economy he fingered as the source of our environmental problems.

His key assumption is that industrial wind power displaces the use of coal and oil, and therefore helps limit climate change. But since 2000, wind facilities with a total capacity equivalent to 350 coal-fired power plants have been installed worldwide, and today there are more – not fewer – coal-fired power plants operating.

(In Vermont, the sale of renewable energy credits to out-of-state utilities enables them to avoid mandates to reduce their fossil fuel dependency, meaning that there is no net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.)

At best, industrial wind simply adds more energy to the global supply. And what for? More! More energy than the grid can carry, more idiotic water parks, more snowmaking, more electronic gadgets, more money for corporations.

Why should we spend millions of dollars to destroy wildlife habitat, kill bats and eagles, pollute our headwaters, fill valuable wetlands, polarize our communities, make people sick, mine rare-earth metals – just to ensure that we can consume as much or more next year than we did this year?

The costs of industrial wind far outweigh the benefits – unless you are a wind developer. Federal production tax credits and other subsidies have fostered a gold rush mentality among wind developers, who have been abetted by political and environmental leaders who want to appear “green” without challenging the underlying causes of our crises.

Meanwhile, average Vermonters find themselves without any ability to protect their communities or the ecosystems of which they are a part. The goal of an industrial wind moratorium is to stop the gold rush so we can have an honest discussion on these issues.

Why does this frighten proponents of big wind? Because once carefully examined, industrial wind will be exposed for the scam that it is.

McKibben’s current attitude toward the environment has been adopted by politicians, corporations, and the big environmental organizations. Environmentalism has been successfully mainstreamed, at the cost of its soul.

This co-opted version isn’t about protecting the land base from the ever-expanding empire of humans. It’s about sustaining the comfort levels we feel entitled to without exhausting the resources required. It is entirely human-centered and hollow, and it serves corporate capitalism well.

In “Deep Economy,” McKibben points out that the additional “stuff” provided by an ever-growing economy doesn’t leave people happier; instead, the source of authentic happiness is a healthy connection to nature and community. As Vermonters have already discovered, industrial wind destroys both.

SOURCE OF STORY: http://www.topix.com/forum/business/THMT7M2B8PR84QNNT

Indonesia Beef Imports Rife with Corruption - Crown Capital Eco Management

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/indonesia-beef-imports-rife-with-corruption/571683

When Indonesia slashed quotas on beef imports in 2011, the goal was to boost domestic production. But the ensuing shortage has pushed prices skyward, and fed a corrupt system where quotas go to the highest bidder.

Several unscrupulous meatball producers were even caught secretly mixing pork with beef to keep costs low.

An ongoing investigation by the anti-corruption commission (KPK) has toppled the president of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), who resigned after being accused of receiving kickbacks from executives of a major meat importer, Indoguna.

Industry players said that endemic graft worsened after the government slashed import quotas in 2011 from 100,000 tones a year in 2011 to 40,000 tones last year and 32,000 tones this year. Some beef importers began bribing officials to get a share of the pie, and smuggled beef into the country.

Indonesian Meat Importers Association executive director Thomas Sembiring told The Straits Times that so long as meat import quotas are imposed and enforcement is "not transparent", graft will remain a problem. 

"Bribery, corruption — it's already in their bone marrow. You have to cut down maybe two generations to get rid [of it]."

The big problem, said Franky Sibarani, deputy secretary-general of the Indonesian employers association Apindo, is that there are no good numbers on demand and supply "and therefore, lack of enforcement of the quota."

Late last month, PKS president Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq resigned and was detained after his aide Ahmad Fathanah was caught with one billion rupiah ($103,000). The money was allegedly a bribe from Indoguna directors to Luthfi, who has influence with officials at the Agriculture Ministry led by fellow PKS member Suswono.

Days after his arrest, Customs officers found 1.7 tones of undeclared wagyu beef in a raid at Jakarta's Tanjong Priok port, brought in by Indoguna.

Importers said the process of securing a share of these quotas is opaque and open to abuse at various levels of government.

Investigative magazine Tempo, which broke the story on corrupt practices in beef imports in 2011, reported last week that a businessman had been offered a slice of the quota if he was willing to pay 10,000 rupiah a kilo in bribes.

Since quotas were slashed two years ago, the price of beef for the public has more than doubled, on average, to hit some 100,000 rupiah a kilo.

In December, consumers were outraged when police and agriculture officials, acting on a tip-off, raided a factory in South Jakarta and found workers had mixed beef with pork, which is much cheaper, to make meatballs.

Ultimately, critics said, the quotas should be reconsidered as local production is a long way off from meeting rising consumption.

"Indonesia cannot produce live cattle in time to cater to rising consumption from a growing middle-income group, foreign workers and tourists," Siswono Yudhohusodo, who is in the parliamentary committee on agriculture, told reporters. 

"The government needs to rethink its agrarian policy."

Biomass Boiler Addresses Alaskans' Environmental, Economic Concerns

source link: http://crowncapitalmng.livejournal.com/


Crown Capital Eco Management Indonesia - The heavily forested city of Ketchikan, Alaska, is built on rock and surrounded by water. Every commodity that comes into Ketchikan must arrive by sea or air. The use of fuel oil is problematic for both economic and environmental reasons because the oil must be obtained and refined elsewhere and transported (using additional fuel). What's more, fuel oil is subject to price instability.

Southeast Alaska Discovery Center in Ketchikan, which provides information to more than a million visitors each year, is the site of a pilot biomass boiler system now coming to life. Two oil-fired boilers serving the 250,000-sq-ft center were replaced with a highly efficient system fueled by local wood. Manufactured by Hurst Boiler & Welding Company Inc., the hot-water boiler was custom-designed to fit within very limited indoor space.

Under the direction of E. Dane Ash, project manager for Tyonek-Alcan Pacific LLC, the biomass boiler system was developed with Hurst representative Gregory W. Smith of Global Energy Solutions Inc. to address environmental concerns, as well as issues related to building space, fuel costs, comfort, reliability, and simplicity of operation.

The new boiler is located on the lower level of the Discovery Center, which requires heating for a minimum of nine months a year. Local wood densified into fuel pucks is delivered to an elevated walking-floor storage bin in a vestibule area built to protect against excessive moisture. (The biomass-fired boiler can burn any wood product with up to 50-percent moisture content.) An auger moves pucks from the storage area to a metering bin and into the boiler. Freezing is not an issue because the walking floor easily breaks up any frozen contents.

The boiler system was designed to highlight how biomass can reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels. Visitors can see the boiler operate through specially designed windows. In the hall just outside of the boiler room, the noise level and ambient temperature is consistent with the rest of the building.

Savings

Fuel costs have been cut by two-thirds. The densified pucks are used with almost no residual ash; eventually, however, tree clippings from the Ketchikan walking trails will be ground and fed into the boiler, eliminating the need for transport to a landfill, burning, and other methods of disposal.

The Boiler

The Hurst S100 Series Fire Tube 27 HP Hydronic Water Heating Boiler features a pre-heater to optimize combustion and an underfeed stoker with dry-ash-removal system.

Results

The system easily can be replicated for heat or heat/power generation up to 20,000 kw. In June 2011, Smith served as a keynote speaker for the fifth annual Native American Economic Development Conference in Anaheim, Calif., where he described the initiatives being implemented in Ketchikan and shared success stories of biomass-fired boiler systems installed on institutional campuses and in manufacturing facilities throughout the United States, particularly in challenging and remote locations. Systems include municipal solid waste, as well as woody biomass for steam production and steam to power.

Crown Capital Eco Management Indonesia Fraud: Fraudsters attack even natural disasters victims

-Natural Disasters Victims: Scammers Wait until we are in our Lowest

Opportunists prey on natural disasters’ victims and even those who want to help. They would not miss any single chance that they could profit something from any kind of people by taking advantage of their weaknesses. Victims are at their most desperate state and scammers see this as an opportunity to deceive them.

“After practically every disaster, in the United States or abroad, charity scams pop up,” says John Breyault, vice president of the National Consumers League. “We saw charity scams pop up after Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti and the Indonesian tsunami, to name just a few.”

These frauds come in various shapes and sizes as well as the scammers. They would take advantage the helplessness of the victims, they will show up and their front door, offer help and after they collected the payment in advance they would not show-up afterwards or worse make a bigger damage on the victim’s properties.

Beware of email scams; through email fraud they can easily target victims during in time of need. Although natural disaster’s victims are not their target rather potential donors after the disaster are being preyed.

Following a number of cases against email frauds after a disaster, the U.S. Department of Justice established the National Center forDisaster Fraud. Email and social medias are often also being used, urging you to click on a photo and then would ask for many things after that will lead you to send out money. The department insisted not to click on links instead independently seek information about charities you are interested in helping. Better yet, go directly to well known charities or charities that you already know.

Request of money donations are automatically considered as illegitimate, no record will be provided if the said organization did received the money and on your part you will not have a record for tax purposes. It is not advisable to make donations.

It will be hard to be rational during a time of calamity but take time to think about things because more often than not being impulsive will worsen things. Number one rule that you must remember is never send out or give money until the work is done or the product is at hand. Government is sure to help you, better wait for their action before making decisions on your own.

If you would like to help out, go to reputable charities and send out help yourselves. Help also comes in different shapes and sizes, as much as possible avoid sending out money to help.

You must keep in mind that although there are good people out there, scammers are also not far. It is a matter of being rational and intelligent more especially in worse times. Double check everything first, it is better sure than sorry.