Indosmelt Set to Start As Govt Plans Ore Ban

Indosmelt Set to Start As Govt Plans Ore Ban
Brunei & poland establish bilateral defence ties
Body of elderly woman found at bottom of lift shaft at san peng flats
Mandela the AIDS activist
World bows in respect to Mandela
Anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela dies aged 95

Posted: 05 Dec 2013 05:56 PM PST

by Muhammad Al Azhari. Posted on December 6, 2013, Friday

Indosmelt, a smelter and refinery company, plans to break ground on the construction of its $1.5 billion copper and gold smelter and refinery in February, Jakarta Globe reported news.

"We expect in early 2017, it [the smelter and refinery] can begin operations," Indosmelt president director Natsir Mansyur said on Thursday.

Indosmelt, owned by local investors, plans to build a smelter with an annual capacity of up to 120,000 metric tons of copper cathode; 300,000 tons of slag — one of the raw materials in cement making — and 200,000 tons of anode slag — a key ingredient in the gold refining process — according to a document from the company.

The smelter, located in Maros regency of South Sulawesi province, will also be capable of producing 20 million gold bars per year. The smelter will be supported by a jetty and docks that can accommodate ships of around 5,000 to 20,000 dead weight tons.

Natsir said he was looking for bank loans to finance 70 percent of the investment. He declined to name potential lenders. The remaining financing is expected from the equity participation of Indosmelt. Natsir declined to reveal the company's investors but said he owns a substantial amount of stake in the company.

"We don't rule out the possibility of attracting domestic or foreign partners," he said.

Indosmelt has been aiming to secure a steady supply of concentrates from the top two copper and gold miners in Indonesia — Freeport Indonesia and Newmont Nusa Tenggara — for its planned smelter and refinery. On Thursday, Indosmelt signed a conditional sales and purchase agreement with NNT to supply copper concentrate to be smelted and purified in Indosmelt's smelter.

"Cooperation with a major supplier like NNT is an important stepping stone for development of our project. We are upbeat to be able to complete the smelter development in 2017 or 2018," said Natsir. He added that he hoped to also seal a deal with Freeport Indonesia.

NNT has been selling 20 percent of its copper concentrate to Smelting, the only copper smelter in Indonesia currently, which is located in Gresik, East Java. Meanwhile, Freeport ships 30 percent of its concentrate. Indosmelt seeks to secure 500,000 tons of gold and copper concentrates per year to feed its smelter, which will be supported by 100 megawatts from Perusahaan Listrik Negara.

Natsir declined to reveal the amount of concentrate that NNT will provide, but said Indosmelt expects other miners to become suppliers.

Separately, the government said on Thursday that it would proceed with the ban on ore exports in January.

Sutan Bhatoegana, chairman of House Commission VII for energy affairs, said in Jakarta that lawmakers and the government have agreed to implement the regulations despite opposition from the business community.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik said the government would anticipate some protest at the beginning of the implementation in January.

Jero told reporters that of the 177 companies that submitted interest to build smelters to the government, 28 have started construction. One company, Aneka Tambang — a state miner known as Antam — has reached the commissioning stage. The smelter, situated in Tayan, West Kalimantan, will process bauxite ore into chemical grade alumina.

Another company, Jogja Magasa Iron, has reached the construction phase for its smelter to process iron ore.

Weda Bay Nickel, a local unit of Paris-based Eramet, and nickel miner Vale Indonesia had announced plans to build smelter in Indonesia.

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Brunei & poland establish bilateral defence ties

Posted: 05 Dec 2013 05:54 PM PST

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN: The Government of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam as represented by the Ministry of Defence and the Minister of National Defence, the Republic of Poland, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoD) concerning the development of mutual defence relations between the two countries, according to a press release from the Ministry of Defence (MinDef), Borneo Bulletin reported.

The signing ceremony was held at the BRIDEX Conference Hall.

Signing on behalf of His Majesty's Government was Colonel (Rtd) Pg Dato Paduka Hj Azmansham bin Pg Hj Mohamad, Permanent Secretary (Defence Policy and Development) at the Ministry of Defence, while the Minister of National Defence of the Republic of Poland was represented by Robert Kupiecki, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence Policy at Poland's Ministry of National Defence.

Under the MoU, Brunei and Poland are committed to developing and boosting cooperation through trainings, procurements, exchanges of visits and information-sharing on matters pertaining to both defence establishments.

It is a significant milestone reflecting both parties' willingness to foster and broaden defence cooperation in mutually beneficial areas.

Witnessing the signing was Dato Paduka Hj Mustappa bin Hj Sirat, the Deputy Minister of Defence, and Boguslaw Winid, the Under-Secretary of State for Security Policy from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Poland.

Also present at the ceremony were the Defence Executive Committee and senior officials from the Ministry of Defence and members accompanied by the Polish delegation to BRIDEX.

Prior to the signing, Robert and Boguslaw with the Polish delegates paid a courtesy call to Dato Paduka Hj Mustappa and the Defence Executive Committee members.

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Body of elderly woman found at bottom of lift shaft at san peng flats

Posted: 05 Dec 2013 05:07 PM PST

KUALA LUMPUR: The body of a half-naked elderly woman was found in a lift shaft at Block 11 of the Sri Selangor Flats in Jalan San Peng here today.

The woman identified only as Gaurima, 62, was a sweeper at the flats. Her body was found after residents complained of a stench emanating from the lift shaft.

A resident who did not wish to be named said a Rela member found her body in a decomposed state and a leg fracctured.

A police spokesman when contacted by Bernama said the case had been classified as sudden death pending a post-mortem.

Meanwhile, a cousin of the woman who identified the body said her sister had told him she had been missing for three days.

Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue assistant director of operations Azizan Ismail said firemen took about 10 minutes to retrieve the body after being alerted on the case. — BERNAMA

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Mandela the AIDS activist

Posted: 05 Dec 2013 05:02 PM PST

Nelson Mandela was one of the first public figures to break the taboo over AIDS in South Africa, a disease that hit close to home when it claimed the life of his own son.

Mandela, who died Thursday aged 95, faced criticism for saying little about the pandemic while he was president from 1994 to 1999, but became increasingly vocal in later years as the country was ravaged by the disease.

"Africans are very conservative on questions of sex. They don't want you to talk about it," the Nobel Peace Prize winner once said when asked about his initial silence.

"I told them we have got this epidemic which is going to wipe out our nation if we don't take precautions. I could see I was offending my audience. They were looking at each other horrified."

Once he retired from office, Mandela began paying more attention to the scourge of AIDS in a country where some 5.5 million people — more than 10 percent of the population — are living with the HIV virus.

In a speech to mark World AIDS Day in December 2000, he said: "HIV/AIDS is worse than a war. As we speak now, there are thousands of people dying from it. But this war can be won. This is one war where you can make a difference."

Two years on, he implicitly criticised his successor, then-president Thabo Mbeki, who had questioned the link between HIV and AIDS.

"The debate about some fundamental issues around HIV continues to rage in manners that detract from what should be our concerns in combatting this major threat to our future," Mandela said in February 2002.

He later told reporters that HIV sufferers should be given anti-retroviral drugs. It was a radical statement at the time, given that the African National Congress (ANC) government was still refusing to make the medicine available at state hospitals, saying it needed to test its toxicity first.

That same year, Mandela met with leading AIDS activist Zackie Achmat to try and convince him to drop his "medicine strike". The HIV-positive campaigner, who was fast contracting full-blown AIDS, had refused to take drugs until the state made it available for free in the public health sector.

The country's Constitutional Court had already ordered the government to give AIDS drugs to HIV-positive pregnant woman.

In the face of growing national and international pressure, Mbeki's cabinet made an about-turn on AIDS in 2003, announcing a plan to make anti-retroviral drugs available at state hospitals.

"Mr Mandela and his (charity) foundation are overjoyed by the government's announcement," the Nelson Mandela Foundation responded.

That same year, Mandela launched his worldwide music 46664 campaign to raise awareness and money in the fight against the AIDS crisis.

The campaign, named after Mandela's number when he was an apartheid prisoner on Robben Island, called for all governments to declare a global AIDS emergency. The campaign included a star-studded concert with Bono of the pop band U2 and American singer Beyonce Knowles.

"No longer is AIDS just a disease, it is human rights issue… We must act now to raise funds to help those affected by AIDS and raise awareness to help to prevent further spread of HIV," Mandela said at the November 2003 concert.

In January 2005, Mandela made his most emotional plea on the disease yet when he revealed that his only surviving son, 54-year-old Makgatho, had died of AIDS.

"For some time, I have been saying 'let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS' and not hide it," a grief-stricken Mandela said.

"That is why we have called you here today. To announce that my son has died of AIDS.

"To come out and to say somebody has died because of HIV… people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary, as an illness reserved to people who are going to go to hell and not heaven," Mandela said.

Mandela is survived by his wife Graca, his three daughters and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.-AFP

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World bows in respect to Mandela

Posted: 05 Dec 2013 05:01 PM PST

The death Thursday of South Africa's liberation leader and first democratic president Nelson Mandela triggered an unprecedented worldwide chorus of awed respect.

Statesmen, resistance leaders, Nobel laureates and prisoners of conscience have died before, but never had one man united such global unity in honoring his passing.

Foreshadowing the guest list of what will surely be the most important funeral of recent decades, world leaders queued up to issue solemn tributes to the 95-year-old anti-apartheid leader.

"He no longer belongs to us; he belongs to the ages," US President Barack Obama said, in a deliberate echo of an early tribute paid to Abraham Lincoln, the American leader who emancipated the slaves.

Over and over, leaders returned to the dignity Mandela displayed during his long imprisonment by South Africa's former racist regime and then later, when he led his country to majority rule.

"We will not likely see the likes of Nelson Mandela again," said Obama, America's first black president, citing Mandela's release from prison as one of his own early political inspirations.

Speaking on behalf of the United Nations, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared Mandela a "giant for justice."

"Many around the world were influenced by his selfless struggle for human dignity, equality and freedom. He touched our lives in deeply personal ways," Ban told reporters.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who in 2006 apologized for what he said were the "mistakes" of his Conservative Party in its response to apartheid in Britain's former colony, was also moved.

"A great light has gone out in the world," he said in Downing Street. "Nelson Mandela was a towering figure in our time; a legend in life and now in death — a true global hero."

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius dubbed Mandela "a charismatic giant", adding: "The father of South Africa has died, the driving force for freedom and for reconciliation."

Retired political leaders who remembered Mandela during his 27 years of imprisonment or worked with him after his 1990 release were also effusive.

"Barbara and I mourn the passing of one of the greatest believers in freedom we have had the privilege to know," said former US president George Bush, who invited the released Mandela to the White House.

"As president, I watched in wonder as Nelson Mandela had the remarkable capacity to forgive his jailers," he said.

Another former US leader, Bill Clinton, tweeted a picture of himself with his "friend", and said: "Today the world has lost one of its most important leaders and one of its finest human beings."

In Africa and other parts of the world that shook off the shackles of colonialism, emotion was running high.

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan dubbed Mandela "one of mankind's greatest liberators" and Mexico's Enrique Pena Nieto said: "Humanity has lost a tireless fighter for peace, freedom and equality."

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said: "The example of this great leader will guide all those who fight for social justice and peace in the world."

Business and religious leaders, the heads of international agencies, writers, thinkers, entertainers, sports personalities and activists also joined the parade of emotion.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has turned over his business acumen and part of his fortune to battling disease in Africa, said he and his wife had been personally inspired.

"Every time Melinda and I met Nelson Mandela, we left more inspired than ever. His grace and courage changed the world. This is a sad day," Gates said.

There were also tributes from Hollywood, where a new movie based on the South African leader's autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom" has just been released.

?What an honor it was to step into the shoes of Nelson Mandela and portray a man who defied odds, broke down barriers, and championed human rights,? British actor Idris Elba said.

Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, shared with South Africa's last apartheid leader F.W. de Klerk for their role in ensuring a peaceful transition to elected rule.

His fellow Nobel laureates were among those paying tribute, including the Egyptian former head of the IAEA nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei, who declared: "Let freedom reign. Humanity has lost its greatest son."

In the years since his retirement as South Africa's elected leader, Mandela became a magnet and an icon for celebrity activists fighting for social causes.

Brazilian football legend Pele declared Mandela "was a hero to me. He was a friend and a companion in the popular fight and the fight for world peace."

But for all the sentiment around the world, the emotion was strongest in South Africa itself, where the celebration of the life of the nation's greatest leader was tempered by concern to preserve his legacy.

"Over the past 24 years Madiba taught us how to come together and to believe in ourselves and each other. He was a unifier from the moment he walked out of prison," said Archbishop Desmond Tutu.-AFP

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Anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela dies aged 95

Posted: 05 Dec 2013 04:51 PM PST

Nelson Mandela, the revered icon of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and one of the towering political figures of the 20th century, has died aged 95.

Mandela, who was elected South Africa's first black president after spending nearly three decades in prison, had been receiving treatment for a lung infection at his Johannesburg home since September, after three months in hospital in a critical state.

His condition deteriorated and he died following complications from the lung infection, with his family by his side.

The news was announced by a clearly emotional South African president Jacob Zuma live on television, who said Mandela had "departed" and was at peace.

"Our nation has lost its greatest son," said Zuma.

"What made Nelson Mandela great is precisely what made him human," he said.

Mandela, once a boxer, had a long history of lung problems after contracting tuberculosis while in jail on Robben Island.

His extraordinary life story, quirky sense of humour and lack of bitterness towards his former oppressors ensured global appeal for the charismatic leader.

Once considered a terrorist by the United States and Britain for his support of violence against the apartheid regime, at the time of his death he was an almost unimpeachable moral icon.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner spent 27 years behind bars before being freed in 1990 to lead the African National Congress (ANC) in negotiations with the white minority rulers which culminated in the first multi-racial elections in 1994.

A victorious Mandela served a single term as president before taking up a new role as a roving elder statesman and leading AIDS campaigner before finally retiring from public life in 2004.

"When he emerged from prison people discovered that he was all the things they had hoped for and more," fellow Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said.

"He is by far the most admired and revered statesperson in the world and one of the greatest human beings to walk this earth."

From prisoner to global peace icon

He was a global cause celebre during the long apartheid years, and popular pressure led world leaders to tighten sanctions imposed on South Africa's racist white minority regime.

In 1988 at a concert in Wembley stadium in London, tens of thousands sang "Free Nelson Mandela" as millions more watched on their television sets across the world.

Born in July 1918 in the southeastern Transkei region, Mandela carved out a career as a lawyer in Johannesburg in parallel with his political activism.

He became commander-in-chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the armed wing of the by now-banned ANC, in 1961, and the following year underwent military training in Algeria and Ethiopia.

While underground back home in South Africa, Mandela was captured by police in 1962 and sentenced to five years in prison.

He was then charged with sabotage and sentenced in 1964 to life in prison at the Rivonia trial, named after a Johannesburg suburb where a number of ANC leaders were arrested.

He used the court hearing to deliver a speech that was to become the manifesto of the anti-apartheid movement.

"During my lifetime, I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society.

"It is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

He was first sent to prison on Robben Island, where he spent 18 years before being transferred in 1982 to Pollsmoor prison in Cape Town and later to Victor Verster prison in nearby Paarl.

When he was finally released on February 11, 1990, walking out of prison with his fist raised alongside his then-wife Winnie.

Ex-prisoner 46664 was entrusted with the task of persuading the new president F.W. de Klerk to call time on the era of racist white minority rule.

Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their role in the ending of apartheid.

Derived from the Afrikaans word for "apartness," apartheid was a brutally enforced system that discriminated politically and economically against "non-whites" and separated the races in schools, buses, housing and even public toilets and beaches.

After the ANC won the first multi-racial elections, Mandela went out of his way to assuage the fears of the white minority, declaring his intention to establish "a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world."

Critics said his five-year presidency was marred by corruption and rising levels of crime. But his successors, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, have never enjoyed anywhere near the same levels of respect or affection.

At our best, 'we'd like to be him': Clinton

In retirement, he focused his efforts on mediating conflicts, most notably in Burundi, as well as trying to raise awareness and abolish the taboos surrounding AIDS, which claimed the life of his son Makgatho.

His divorce from second wife Winnie was finalised in 1996.

He found new love in retirement with Graca Machel, the widow of the late Mozambican president Samora Machel, whom he married on his 80th birthday.

In one of his last foreign policy interventions, he issued a searing rebuke of George W. Bush on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, calling him "a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust".

Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton perhaps had a higher opinion of Mandela.

"Every time Nelson Mandela walks in a room we all feel a little bigger, we all want to stand up, we all want to cheer, because we'd like to be him on our best day," he said.

Mandela is survived by three daughters, 18 grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and three step-grandchildren. He had four step-children through his marriage to Machel.

His death has left his family divided over his wealth. Some of his children and grandchildren are locked in a legal feud with his close friends over alleged irregularities in his two companies.-AFP

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