Word: aceh
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...tsunami left more than 123,000 dead in Indonesia's Aceh province. But when negotiators in Helsinki last week announced a breakthrough in talks between separatist rebels and the Indonesian government, it appeared that some good might come from the tragedy. The Free Aceh Movement, known as GAM, offered to drop its demand for independence. "There's not a single member of the GAM negotiating team who hasn't lost family members in the tsunami," says Damien Kingsbury, an Australian academic who advised the rebel negotiators in Finland. "There's a very deep sense of loss and the suffering...
...Other places bear the same taint. In Sri Lanka and the Maldives, businesses have watched tourists disappear and dollars dry up. Even Bali, more than 4,300 km away from the hardest hit Indonesian province of Aceh, has seen canceled bookings. At an emergency summit of the World Tourism Organization in Phuket early this month, Secretary General Francesco Frangialli called the cancellations in the region "irrational." Speaking to delegates from around the globe, he urged governments to take swift action to get the tourists back "in order to alleviate the suffering of the affected populations...
...force. CAN I BYPASS THE BIG CHARITIES AND GIVE DIRECTLY TO LOCALS? Local organizations are tough to vet, but they have a certain appeal. Big international charities often have to work through a host country's government, which may have an agenda of its own (suppressing separatists in Aceh, to use Indonesia as an example). If you prefer a local charity, stick to those that have partnered with more well-known organizations, suggests Eric Thurman, CEO of Geneva Global, a group that hooks up wealthy American donors with charities abroad. For example, leads is a Sri Lankan relief group that...
...Islamic radicals?especially those in Indonesia?who think it's cool to attack Western interests and die for their beliefs should seriously rethink their priorities. The people who are providing much of the aid to Indonesia's devastated Banda Aceh are not the Arabs with their petrodollars or Osama bin Laden with his inherited millions but the Australians, Germans, Japanese and Americans. To terrorist sympathizers and hard-line radicals in South Asia, I pose this question: Where are your terrorist friends when you need them most? Tim F. Peters Kuala Lumpur...
...Market price, before the tsunami, to rent a house with indoor plumbing in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, for one month...