Indonesian politicians always say the darndest things about Singapore, from dismissive labels of "litle red dot" by former President B.J. Habibie to scoffs of being "like children in a tizzy" by senior minister Agung Laksono.
According to Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Singapore and Malaysia should be more fair and balanced when talking about the toxic haze, caused by rampant forest fires in Indonesia, that have been sweeping over their countries and choking their citizens.
“For 11 months, they enjoyed nice air from Indonesia and they never thanked us. They have suffered because of the haze for one month and they get upset,” Kalla said yesterday, The Jakarta Globe reports.
The veep went on to say that Indonesia has already apologized plenty of times for the haze problems, but also noted that it was foreign technology and foreign companies that were behind the forest fires causing the international air pollution.
And while Indonesia is certainly at fault for allowing companies to ravage their forests — with minimal governmental oversight and monitoring, making it easy for illegal, corrupt activities to take place — he does have a point about foreign companies, including those based in Malaysia and Singapore, being the culprits behind some of the worst forestry offenses.
Most of those companies are focused on clearing forests to create land for palm oil plantations. To produce highly profitable and increasing in-demand palm oil, those companies are willing to destroy invaluable rainforests, create clouds of toxic haze and much more.
We actually did a whole in-depth documentary about it, which you can watch right here:
Photo: eefeewahfah via Flickr
Story: Coconuts Jakarta
Got a tip? Send it to us at singapore@coconuts.co.
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Indonesian politicians always say the darndest things about Singapore, from dismissive labels of "litle red dot" by former President B.J. Habibie to scoffs of being "like children in a tizzy" by senior minister Agung Laksono.
According to Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Singapore and Malaysia should be more fair and balanced when talking about the toxic haze, caused by rampant forest fires in Indonesia, that have been sweeping over their countries and choking their citizens.
“For 11 months, they enjoyed nice air from Indonesia and they never thanked us. They have suffered because of the haze for one month and they get upset,” Kalla said yesterday, The Jakarta Globe reports.
The veep went on to say that Indonesia has already apologized plenty of times for the haze problems, but also noted that it was foreign technology and foreign companies that were behind the forest fires causing the international air pollution.
And while Indonesia is certainly at fault for allowing companies to ravage their forests — with minimal governmental oversight and monitoring, making it easy for illegal, corrupt activities to take place — he does have a point about foreign companies, including those based in Malaysia and Singapore, being the culprits behind some of the worst forestry offenses.
Most of those companies are focused on clearing forests to create land for palm oil plantations. To produce highly profitable and increasing in-demand palm oil, those companies are willing to destroy invaluable rainforests, create clouds of toxic haze and much more.
We actually did a whole in-depth documentary about it, which you can watch right here:
Photo: eefeewahfah via Flickr
Story: Coconuts Jakarta
Got a tip? Send it to us at singapore@coconuts.co.
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/* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block.
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First Name
Last Name
(function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true);