Opportunity for SWF to buy another fire sale company in Indonesia

“The Jakarta Post, 18 Sep 2012

Following its recent controversial verdict declaring PT Telkomsel insolvent, the Jakarta Commercial Court is asking liquidators to supervise the nation’s largest cellular operator’s assets.

The court has appointed Feri S Samad, Edino Girsang and Mohamad Solihin as liquidators to assess the company’s books and to enforce court orders to settle the company’s debts.

The court declared Telkomsel bankrupt on Friday after it failed to pay Rp 5.3 billion (US$557,000) to PT Prima Jaya Informatika, the company’s top-up voucher distributor.

Telkomsel, which is 65 percent owned by state-run telecommunication company PT Telkom and 35 percent owned by Singapore’s SingTel, has total assets worth Rp 58.72 trillion ($6.2 billion) and booked net profits of Rp 12.82 trillion in 2011.”

This is another good buy. Cheap, cheap and cheaper. Can turn around and make many times more. SWF must be queueing up to buy over this company. The dumb investors from Thailand and Holland will be looking at buying over APB and F&N and paying a high price for them. They did not know how to look out for bargains.

First world city infested with third world bed bugs

The invasion of FTs comes with the invasion of bed bugs. The notification and request for help to get rid of these pests are getting more frequent. And hopefully bed bugs are not the only pests sharing the homes of HDB flat owners. They crawl up and down the walls of flats and the flats next door. Wait a minute, heard that they are commonly found in bus seats as well. Now, what about the airline seats they flew in from?

What about hair fleas or lice? This one hops around and the closed proximity in the trains and buses are idea environment to share them around. The thought of fleas/lice already makes my whole body feeling like they are crawling all over me. We may need another few decades to make it to first world as we consolidate our gains of third world FTs living among us, including bed bugs and fleas/lice. And TB is also making an appearance in greater number.

Maybe with more integration we will get use to them and be more like them. Our population has actually grown many more millions of bed bugs, fleas and lice are included. Welcome to the new Third World city, once First World. I was joking earlier about returning to the past, to the Third World. Now it is not a joke. We got rid of many of these unhygienic pests and bragged about a clean and green First World city. It is going on a rewind down memory lane.

Buckingham Palace angry with press freedom

The Buckingham Palace is furious with the news that naked photos of Prince William and Kate will be in the printed media. They are threatening to sue the press publishing them.

Funny, what is so funny about a few naked photographs. They were quite decently taken, not pornography stuff or lewd acts. Why so much anger and protest? Having seen those photographs and the video on the Innocence of Muslims, which is worst?

The Western media are claiming press freedom to make that video and make it available as infortainment. What is so bad about a few naked photographs then?

Double standard, different moral values for different people?

My worst fear in Education becoming a reality

After removing the banding of schools, there are suggestions from the govt elite that PSLE should be scrapped as well. This is front page news in Today’s paper. With the scrapping of O level in the through train scheme, and with this, the only examination left is the A level. And with all the emphasis and pressure left on this last remnants of the old system, it may also be scrapped. We will then have the most stress free education system in the world, replacing the best education system we have at the moment but found too stressful and still not producing good students.

Sinkieland would become another kind of paradise for school children, no examination all the way to universities. It is possible if the parents continue with the pressure and some unthinking govt elite will just bend on their knees and say ok, ok. The past philosophy of making tough decision is discarded and a new culture of pleasing the parents and voters is emerging. The past mindset of the govt knows best is changing to one that the voters know best or make the voters happy. Talk to the voters, ask what they want and give it to them.

Many many years ago when I was a young undergrad, we asked the lecturer how he graded his students. He said it was simple. Though he had hundreds of papers to mark, it only took him a few seconds to do it. He drew two parallel lines on the floor, threw all the papers into the air. Those scrips that fell on the left will get B. Those on the right will get C and those in between the parallel lines will get A. The number of A grades will depend on his mood and how far apart he drew the two lines. This could be re introduced when examinations are scrapped totally and all the happy students took a ride on the through through train to universities.

We are progressing. Many parents and students will be in cloud nine. For those parents who insist on having examinations for their children and stubbornly wanting to put pressure on them, the govt can offer schools that have examinations. Freedom of choice is important. This way, the parents that do not want to have examinations will be happy. Those who want examinations will also be happy.

This is a good start for the National Conversation.

The tide turning against the Americans

Afghanistan is turning out to be a short lived Vietnam for the Americans. They are now on the withdrawal phase, to get out and move their forces back to East Asia to open another theatre of war that could be more profitable. There is oil and the countries like Japan and South Korea would have the money to buy more American weapons.

While the Americans have it all planned, they did not expect that the tide is turning so rapidly against them. More and frequent attacks against them and their allied troops are seeing better results with more death. The latest attack in an air base saw 6 fighter aircraft destroyed and several allied soldiers killed. Fortunately the British heir to the throne did not get hurt.

The most damaging of the attacks is that the soldiers trained and armed by the Americans are turning their guns at their trainers, the Americans. And this is not only happening in Afghanistan, but also in the Middle East and in Libya with the killing of the American Ambassador and embassy staff.

This is something the Americans have not bargained for. The experience of training Obama and arming Saddam Hussein did not teach the Americans everything. They thought they are like the Arabs, pay them enough and they would kill among themselves, for the benefits of their paymaster, the Americans.

The tide is changing and more violence against American troops and civilians could be the new happenings in the war zone and out of the war zone. The Americans have created an enemy they cannot be defeated unless they do another Red Indian act, a concerted genocide of the Arabs and the muslims which is a near impossibility. The war has just begun.