Bunaken Masuk World Natural Heritage

Taman Nasional Laut (TNL) Bunaken yang berada di perairan Manado, Sulawesi Utara (Sulut), telah diusulkan masuk World Natural Heritage karena memiliki keunikan tersendiri di dunia.

"Indonesia sementara berjuang di mata sejumlah negara di dunia, untuk mendukung TNL masuk World Natural Heritage," kata Dirjen pengawasan dan Pengendalian Sumber Daya Kelautan dan Perikanan Departemen Kelautan dan Perikanan Aji Sularso saat press breafing terkait Sail Bunaken di Manado.



Salah satu lembaga badan dunia, UNESCO, yang telah meninjau langsung ke TNL Bunaken di Kota Manado, sangat tertarik akan keindahan alam biota laut yang ada sehingga perlu diberikan penghargaan untuk ditetapkan menjadi World Natural Haritage.

Pergelaran Sail Bunaken yang diikuti puluhan kapal perang dan 165 kapal layar (yacht) berbagai negara akan menjadi momentun untuk terus mengenalkan kepada publik internasional tentang keindahan TNL Bunaken.

TNL Bunaken merupakan salah satu keindahan laut yang dimiliki Indonesia dan tidak dimiliki negara lain karena terdapat jutaan biota laut dan karang yang sangat indah.

TNL Bunaken telah diusulkan bersama dengan Komodo di Provinsi Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB) untuk masuk World Natural Heritage, dan itu masih harus melalui voting sejumlah negara yang ada.

Asisten II bidang Perekonomian Pemerintah Provinsi Sulut, Marietha Kuntag, mengatakan, pihaknya terus membenahi infrastruktur penunjang TNL Bunaken agar diharapkan masuk World Natural Heritage.

Segala kekurangan di TNL Bunaken, seperti infrastruktur dermaga dan fasilitas umum lainnya, akan terus dibenahi agar menjadi menarik untuk dikunjungi turis.

Families mourn hundreds of Taiwan's storm victims

SHIAO LIN, Taiwan – Families and friends paid homage Saturday to victims buried alive under mud and rock after the worst storm in more than 50 years pounded southern Taiwan unleashing flash flooding and massive landslides.

Some 380 people were killed in the hardest-hit village of Shiao Lin — more than half its entire population — after Typhoon Morakot pummeled the island last weekend causing tons of earth to come crashing down surrounding mountains.





Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou said Friday more than 500 had died in southern and central Taiwan in the typhoon.

TV images Saturday showed survivors from Shiao Lin being shuttled from shelters by pickup trucks to attend a Buddhist memorial service a few miles (kilometers) away from their buried homes.

Villagers cried, held each other tightly, and lit sticks of incense at the service to honor family and friends who perished in the storm.

"My parents, my brother ... my aunt ... there were 17 of them in total (who died)," an unidentified woman in her 20s told the TVBS news station.

Morakot dumped more than 80 inches (2 meters) of rain on the island and stranded thousands in villages in the mountainous south. A total of 15,400 villagers were ferried to safety and rescuers were working to save another 1,900 people.

The storm destroyed the homes of 7,000 people and caused agricultural and property damage in excess of 50 billion New Taiwan dollars ($1.5 billion), according to government estimates.

The only structures standing in Shiao Lin, once a village of about 600 people, were a small brick home and a tiny temple. Large boulders were scattered where houses once stood and streams of mud continued to flow down the mountainous landscape. Helicopters flew overhead on their way to rescue survivors from nearby areas.

Criticism of Ma's handling of the Morakot disaster has risen quickly — even within his own party and in media outlets normally friendly to the president.

Lawmaker Lo Shu-lei of Ma's own Nationalist Party took the leader to task Friday for not taking responsibility for disaster prevention and relief efforts.

"If we expect the people to do everything themselves, what do we need a government for?" she said, adding Ma "seems to be out of the loop and doesn't understand the way the relief system works."

DNA shows body of slain militant not Noordin Top

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia's most wanted Islamist militant, accused in a string of deadly terror attacks including a bombing in Bali, was not killed in a shootout last week as initial media reports suggested and remains at large, police said Wednesday.

Tests comparing the body's DNA with that of members of Noordin Muhammad Top's family came back negative, said Eddy Saparwoko, head of the national police victim identification unit. The body was found to be that of a florist linked to Noordin who police said was a member of a terrorist cell that led last month's twin suicide hotel bombings in Jakarta.


Noordin, a Malaysian national, has been blamed for masterminding a series of deadly al-Qaida-funded attacks in Indonesia since 2003 and is a prime suspect in the July 17 hotel attacks that killed seven people.

Last month's strikes ended a four-year lull in terrorist attacks in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation. Bombings have killed more than 250 people in Indonesia since 2002, most of them on the resort island of Bali, where a 2002 attack killed 202 people.

"The DNA test didn't match with Noordin's family," Saparwoko said at a nationally televised press conference Wednesday.

Local media had reported that Noordin, a self-proclaimed al-Qaida commander who has eluded capture in Indonesia and Malaysia since 2001, was slain in a gunbattle with security forces.

But Saparwoko said the man who died in the shootout at a farmhouse in central Java on Saturday was a florist, identified only as Ibrohim. He made floral arrangements at the J.W. Marriott Hotel and Ritz-Carlton hotels, where suicide bombers attacked last month during breakfast, killing themselves and wounding more than 50 others.

Chief national police spokesman Nanan Sukarna identified Ibrohim as "a planner and arranger of the bombings" and said that five other suspects in the blasts remain at large, including Noordin.

Ibrohim, the father of four children, began working in Jakarta's luxury hotels in 2002 after gaining "an important position in the Noordin M. Top's network," Nanan said. He began working in 2005 for Cynthia Florist, which operated two shops at the American hotel chains.

Police say Ibrohim met Noordin several times in the run-up to the July attacks and had advanced preparations to kill President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, including a would-be suicide bomber and a car rigged with hundreds of pounds (kilograms) of explosives.

In April, Ibrohim began scouting the targets and smuggled explosives in through a basement cargo dock a day before the strikes, Nanan said, showing newly released security camera footage.

The grainy images show a lone man driving a small pickup truck into the J.W. Marriott Hotel and unloading what police said were three containers of explosives, apparently after skirting all security checks.

The video also showed Ibrohim leading the suicide bombers, one of them an 18-year-old high school graduate, through the hotels on July 8, apparently in a rehearsal for the attacks plotted from two rented safe houses on the outskirts of Jakarta.

"We know him. He worked as a third-party florist," said Allan Orlob, head of security for the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels.

Ibrohim resigned the morning of the bombings, Orlob told The Associated Press on Wednesday, and left only a letter to his employer in which he asked that part of his last paycheck be used to reimburse several people who loaned him money.

Noordin, 41, is also accused of orchestrating a bombing of the J.W. Marriott Hotel in 2003 and a massive explosion outside the Australian Embassy in 2004, attacks in the capital that killed more than 20 people.

The story behind of Gobi Treasure

In 1937, the treasure of Danzan Ravjaa, a famous buddhist master from the Gobi desert, was buried in the sand by Tuduv, the caretaker of his legacy, to protect it from being destroyed by the communist army.




Tuduv's grandson Altangerel is the only person alive who knows the precise location of the crates. A number have already been recovered, and the artefacts they contained are now on display at the Danzan Ravjaa Museum in Sainshand, 400km south of Ulaanbaatar. Another 15 remain where they were buried 72 years ago.

On August 1st, 2009, two of the last of Danzan Ravjaa's treasure crates will be unearthed in a live international satellite transmission, directly from the Gobi desert. The event will be part of 80+1 - A Journey Around the World within the program of Linz 2009 - Cultural Capital of Europe.

In addition, the live stream will be available on this website. There will also be public viewings at other places, such as Vienna, Austria.

All donations made on this web site and at the public viewings will be handed over to Altangerel in order to support the Danzan Ravjaa Museum in Sainshand and the reconstruction of the Khamariin Hiid Monastery.

Mona Lisa smiles on after Russian teacup attack

PARIS (AFP) – An "unhinged" Russian woman threw a teacup at the world's most famous painting, Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," but it emerged unscathed due to its bullet-proof glass cover, the Louvre museum said on Tuesday.

"The young woman took a cup out of her bag and threw it over the heads of other people who were looking at the painting. The cup smashed on the bullet-proof glass which was slightly scratched," a spokesman said.


"It looks like it was done by someone who was unhinged and wanted to draw attention to herself," he said.

The woman put up no resistance when museum guards apprehended her after the incident on August 2.

She was handed over to police who said the woman "did not have all her mental faculties and has been transferred to the police psychiatric infirmary."

The Louvre, the biggest art museum in the world, has thousands of paintings, but most of the millions of visitors a year make a bee-line for the Mona Lisa, known in France as La Joconde.

The 500-year-old painting was stolen in 1911 from the Louvre but was returned two years later after an Italian was arrested for its theft.

It was doused with acid by a vandal in 1956 and later the same year a Bolivian damaged it again by throwing a rock at it.

Garudayana, Kisah Perjalanan Garuda Sakti

Ada sebuah legenda, di dunia Arcapada. Tentang dia yang bergelar Gaganesvara, Sang Raja Langit. Angin memujanya. Halilintar ditaklukkannya, Para Naga lari dari hadapannya...dan inilah kisahnya....

Lembah kuno para Batara. Itulah tempat bekas pemujaan untuk para dewa. Sepi dan angker. Sapa pun yang masuk lembah ini, tak kan keluar hidup-hidup. Tapi, dengan gagah berani Kinara, si pemburu harta karun memasuki wilayah ini.


Sampai akhirnya menemukan telur burung garuda dan harus membawanya dengan penuh kewaspadaan karena siluman juga raksasa menghendaki telur ini. Telur yang kemudian menjadi garuda kecil adalah calon raja, si Gaganesvara yang bakal menguasai langit.

Para ksatria dan raksasa mengejarnya agar bisa memiliki dan bahkan memakannya. Tentu saja agar tambah sakti. Untung, Kinara yang tak lain anak angkat Ki Lurah Semar tidak sendirian. Ksatria Pringgodani, Raden Gatotkaca menjadi pengawal dan pelindungnya dari serangan siluman dan raksasa.

Singkatny, Garudayana yang dibuat Is Yuniarto, salah satu komikus dari delapan komikus muda Indonesia yang baru-baru ini meluncurkan komik mereka secara bersamaan ini berkisah tentang perjalanan Garuda.

Garudayana, menurut penuturan si pembuatnya merupakan komik pendek yang dibuat untuk lomba komik animonster pada tahun 2006. Tapi baru sekarang bisa diterbitkan.

Selain mengenalkan salah satu kisah epos terkenal, pembuatnya ingin memperkenalkan tokoh-tokoh seperti Punakawa, Pandawa, Kurawa, Raksasa Ashura Kalagni dan beberapa tokoh lain seperti Adipati Karna dengan nuansa pewayangan bergaya bahasa dan ekspresi komikus.

Berbeda dengan komik epos Mahabarata dan Ramayana lain, komik ini bisa dikatakan lebih ekspresif dan nge-slank. Penampilan tokoh rekaan seperti Kinara, masih bisa disahkan dalam hal ini. Yang penting pakem cerita tidak kelewat melenceng dari yang sebenarnya.

Seperti kisah mahabarata lain, kisah yang berlatarbelakang cuplikan lakon besar yakni pengasingan Pandawa ini juga menampilkan beberapa adegan lucu dari para punakawan, Gareng, Petruk, Bagong dan tentu saja Ki Lurah Semar penghuni Karangtumaritis. Kelucuan-kelucuan seperti yang tergambar dalam wayang orang maupun wayang kulit dinampakkan di sini, meski suasana dibuat moderen seperti misalnya punakawan ini digambarkan sebagai penghibur dan badut di sebuah pasar malam sementara Semar sebagai Ki Lurah dan penyembuh.

Meski bisa menggambarkan suasana tegang dan lucu, penggambaran karakter beberapa tokoh tampak belum maksimal. Ini terlihat dari penggambaran karakter raksasa Ashura yang lebih mirip wayang kulit.

Namun demikian, alur bolak-balik yang dibuat cukup menggambarkan detail cerita yang ada sehingga pembaca tidak kehilangan sesi. Misalnya setelah raksasa Ashura kalah, frame cerita beralih ke cerita lain, tapi kemudian balik sebentar melanjutkan cerita kekalahan si raksasa yang tertimbun kotoran garuda kecil yang ternyata bisa menjadi garuda raksasa. Dan seterusnya.

Tapi secara keseluruhan, Is berhasil menggambarkan karakter dari masing-masing tokoh yang memiliki keistimewaan seperti misalnya Arjuna yang flamboyan yang tiba-tiba dikejar-kejar wanita muda, ibu-ibu dan nenek-nenek, Adipati Karna yang jagoan memanah bertanding lawan Arjuna, Gatotkaca yang sakti bagai mesin tempur, dan tentu saja punakawan yang lucu.

Cerita berakhir dengan sampainya Kinara, bersama si garuda kecil ke tempat Lurah Semar disambut punakawan dan Ki Semar sendiri dan kekalahan raksasa Ashura yang kedinginan akibat tembusan panah beku Batara Indra yang hanya dimiliki oleh satu ksatria, Arjuna.

Anda, para penggemar wayang bakal terhibur membaca komik ini. Bagus dan enak dibaca terutama bagi anak-anak muda zaman sekarang agar makin mengenal kekayaan tradisi bangsa, cerita pewayangan. Karya Is sungguh patut diacungi jempol dan perlu dilanjutkan untuk cerita-cerita mahabarata dan ramayana lain.

Judul : Garudayana
Cerita dan gambar : Is Yuniarto
Penerbit : M&C! PT Gramedia
Tahun : 2009

Perjalanan Noordin M Top Berakhir di WC

TEMANGGUNG - Sekitar pukul 09.50, Sabtu (8/8) tadi, polisi akhirnya memasuki rumah Muzahri yang sebelumnya beberapa kali diledakkan dan ditembaki aparat Detasemen Khusus 88 Antiteror Polri.

Polisi pun mendapati hanya ada satu orang di dalam rumah itu yang ditemukan tewas di kamar mandi. Dengan demikian, penggerebekan terhadap rumah yang diduga menjadi tempat persembunyian teroris paling diburu, Noordin M Top itu berakhir sudah.



Kini polisi sudah terlihat lebih santai. Garis polisi sudah dipasang di rumah itu, sementara warga dan wartawan juga lebih leluasa mendekat, meski tetap tidak bisa memasuki rumah tersebut.

Meski demikian, sampai saat ini belum diperoleh keterangan pasti, apakah korban tewas itu adalah Noordin M Top atau bukan. Tentang identitas dan ciri-ciri korban sampai saat ini juga belum diperoleh.

Memang, sejak kemarin beredar rumor bahwa orang yang bersembunyi di rumah itu adalah Noordin M Top, gembong teroris asal Malaysia yang disebut-sebut mendalangi hampir seluruh peledakan bom di Indonesia.

Saat ini, mayat korban tewas itu sudah dikeluarkan dari rumah Muzahri dan ditempatkan di sebuah rumah warga yang sebelumnya telah dikosongkan. Rumah itu sendiri dijaga ketat polisi.

Wartawan juga belum bisa mendekati rumah itu untuk melihat kondisi korban. Juga belum ada keterangan resmi pihak kepolisian mengenai identitas korban.