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World Trade Center reopens, 13 years after attack NEW YORK — The silvery skyscraper that rose from the ashes of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to become a symbol of American resilience opened for businessMonday, as 175 employees of the magazine publishing giant Conde Nast settled into their first day of work there. The opening of the country’s tallest building, One World Trade Center, marked a symbolic return to a sense of normalcy for the site where the twin towers fell more than 13 years ago. “The New York City skyline is whole again,” said Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns both the building and the World Trade Center site. Steps away from the new 1,776-foot (541-meter) tower are two memorial fountains built on the footprints of the decimated towers, a reminder of the more than 2,700 people who died.Conde Nast, publisher of Vogue, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, is expected to move in about 3,000 more employees by early next year, eventually occupying 25 floors of the $3.9 billion, 104-story tower. Privately, some Conde Nast employees acknowledged that they were nervous about working in a skyscraper that could
again be a terrorist target. Foye countered that it’s “the most secure office building in America.” And its chief architect, T.J. Gottesdiener, said the high-rise was built with steel-reinforced concrete that makes it as terror attack-proof as possible — much stronger than the original towers that collapsed when the hijacked planes hit. The stairwells are built with a hardened concrete core, and wider to allow firefighters to move while people exit. The building’s mechanical systems are also encased in hardened concrete. “If my son told me he had a job in the trade center Tower 1, I would have no qualms about him being there,” Gottesdiener said. One World Trade Center is 60 percent leased. Its eightyear construction came after years of political, financial and legal infighting that threatened to derail the project. The area has prospered in recent years. About 60,000 more residents now live in the area — three times more than before 9/11 — keeping streets, restaurants and shops alive even after Wall Street and other offices close for the day. Still, it’s a bittersweet victory. “The city and the world were watching us, and we had to do it right, to do it better than before,” Gottesdiener said. “And we did it, we finally did it.”
AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
People walk past One World Trade Center, Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, in New York. Thirteen years after the 9/11 terrorist attack, the resurrected World Trade Center is again opening for business, marking an emotional milestone for both New Yorkers and the United States as a whole.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
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Indonesia’s first family blaze a modest trail in SE Asia
BUSINESS
Associated Press
Bali News
International
International
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Agence France-Presse
JAKARTA - With a wife who eschews designer outfits and a daughter happy to queue at public health clinics, Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s family are setting a modest example in a region where leaders’ relatives are better known for greed and corruption.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Barack Obama sits across the table from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, left, and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew during a meeting with financial regulators in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 6, 2014.
Obama, Yellen discuss economy, financial rules Associated Press
WASHINGTON — With the Federal Reserve’s role in the U.S. economic recovery at a crossroads, Fed Chair Janet Yellen on Monday sat down with President Barack Obama in their first face-to-face meeting since she assumed her post as head of the American central bank in February. The White House said the two discussed their perspectives on the economy both at home and abroad. The White House called the meeting “part of an ongoing dialogue on the state of the economy, financial reform, and other economic issues.” The Fed last week announced the end of its landmark bond-buying program, a form of economic stimulus largely credited with helping the recovery by increasing the supply of money to financial institutions and keeping long-term interest rates low. Yellen now faces a key decision on when to raise short-term interest rates, which the Fed has kept at a record low near zero since December 2008. Many economists believe the first rate increase will not occur until June at the earliest although the Fed has maintained that it will
be dependent on the performance of the economy, which has seen some strengthening in the job market. The Fed is an independent institution and presidents insist they do not meddle in the central bank’s monetary policy decisions. But faced with a politically divided Congress and the possibility of a Republican-led House and Senate following Tuesday’s elections, Obama’s own economic policies have faced resistance. That makes the Fed one of the most influential players in the nation’s economic trajectory. The meeting also comes a week ahead of Obama’s Asia trip which includes a gathering in Australia of the Group of 20 largest economies. U.S. policy makers have been keeping a wary
eye on the economic struggles overseas, particularly China where the economyhas been slowing down and in Europe where the eurozone nations are in danger of a third recession in seven years. “Obviously the Fed is an independent body,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “They make their own policies, but there is an opportunity for the president and the chair of the Fed to have conversations. Those conversations, at least in the context of today, are focused on the long-term outlook for the American economy and even the longer-term impact of the global economy as well.” Obama, who held periodic meetings with Ben Bernanke when he chaired the central bank, did see Yellen last month while meeting with financial regulators to review measures aimed at avoiding a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. Monday’s meeting was their first meeting alone. Yellen and Obama on Monday also discussed the implementation of the financial regulatory law that Congress passed and Obama signed in 2010.
Southeast Asia’s ruling families have not generally espoused austerity -- from the controversial children of late Indonesian dictator Suharto to the wife of Malaysia’s premier, who is criticised as a spendthrift, and the excesses of Brunei’s royals. In contrast, the wife, daughter and two sons of Widodo, known as Jokowi, appear humble and down to earth, more representative of the country’s rapidly emerging middle class than an aloof elite. “Even now Jokowi has been elected president, they still want to live like other ordinary people,” Anggit Noegroho, a friend of Widodo’s who helped him during numerous political campaigns and has known the family for a decade, told AFP. They present the same image as 53-year-old Widodo himself, Indonesia’s first president from outside the political and military elites, who rose from a modest background and has pledged clean governance in one of the world’s most corrupt countries. However observers caution that it could be tough going for a family
unused to intense public scrutiny -- and point out it is not hard for them to look good, given what went before. The children of Widodo’s predecessor, ex-general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, sometimes courted controversy, with one of his sons having to fend off accusations of corruption, but it was the offspring of Suharto who provoke the most anger in Indonesia. His six children allegedly amassed fortunes by enjoying privileged access to lucrative business deals during his three-decade rule, which was marked by massive corruption. He was toppled in 1998 by the Asian financial crisis. The most controversial is youngest son Hutomo Mandala Putra, popularly known as Tommy. A playboy with a taste for flashy cars, he served four years of a 15year prison term for hiring hitmen to murder a judge who had sentenced him to jail for corruption. He was released in 2006. When it comes to Widodo’s family, his wife Iriana, 51, has forgone the designer clothes and fancy handbags beloved of many first
ladies, normally opting for plain shirts and trousers. His eldest son has set up a catering business in the family’s hometown of Solo, on Java, and drives a Mazda hatchback. While his family spent several days in Jakarta before Widodo’s October 20 inauguration, the 27year-old did not leave until the day before due to his heavy workload. “I will be able to leave the city only once my catering jobs are done,” he told the Jakarta Post newspaper. When Widodo’s daughter, Kahiyang Ayu, injured her hand, the 23-year-old reportedly insisted on being taken to a community health centre instead of an expensive private clinic and waited to be seen by a doctor. A blog by Widodo’s youngest son, 17-year-old Kaesang Pangarep, has shone a light on the first family’s private life, with tales of his father playing practical jokes and worries about what to wear to school adding to the sense they are just normal, middle-class folk. The family is not poor -- Widodo used to be a successful businessman -- and one area where they have splashed out is the children’s education. The two sons both attended high school in Singapore, while the eldest did business courses in the city-state and Australia. Even in wealthy Singapore how-
AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara
Indonesia President Joko Widodo, popularly known as “Jokowi”, center, and his wife Iriana, left, are greeted by villagers during his visit at a temporary shelter for people who are affected by the eruption of Mount Sinabung, in Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014.
ever, the youngest son said that his parents did not spoil him. “I very rarely take the MRT (subway) because it is more expensive than a bus ride,” he wrote on his blog during his time in the city-state, adding that his mother had refused to increase his meagre pocket money allowance. He said that his mother told him: “Your pocket money shouldn’t be a lot, so that you know the misery of living in another country.”
While they have mostly been praised by the public and media, it is still early days for the family and there are already signs that everything might not run smoothly. The eldest son faced criticism recently for responding angrily to reporters’ questions about why he did not appear with his father during the presidential campaign. “This man is too sensitive. He is not like his father,” one Twitter user commented.
Father of Indonesian murdered in Hong Kong urges death for killer Agence France-Presse
CILACAP - The father of a young Indonesian woman murdered in Hong Kong called Tuesday for her “sadistic” killer to be put to death, a day after a British banker appeared in court accused of killing her and a second woman. The mutilated and decomposing body of Sumarti Ningsih, in her 20s, was found on Saturday in a suitcase on the balcony of Rurik Jutting’s upmarket apartment in the southern Chinese city. Jutting, a 29-year-old securities trader, who until recently worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, had called police to his home in the Wanchai district in the early hours of Saturday. Investigators found a naked woman with knife wounds to her neck and buttocks in the living room of the flat, on the 31st floor of a plush residential block. The body of Ningsih, who had a young son and was from a poor farming family, was discovered hours later as police searched the
AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim
Models show creations designed by Yogie Pratama during the Jakarta Fashion Week 2015 in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, Nov. 3, 2014.
apartment -- court documents state that she was killed on October 27. Her father spoke to AFP of his shock and anger at the death of his daughter, who was one of four siblings and had been providing financial support to her family back in Indonesia. “I want the murderer of my child to be sentenced to death. He killed
her, sadistically, so he must be put to death,” said Ahmad Kaliman, 58, speaking to AFP in Cilacap, a port town on the south coast of Java. Hong Kong does not impose the death penalty. “I also plead for the governments of Indonesia and Hong Kong to return our child’s body as soon as possible. I want her to be be buried
in Indonesia,” he added. He said the family had been informed by one of their daughter’s acquaintances in Hong Kong that she had been killed. “We were informed by telephone that our daughter was murdered. I was very shocked, especially when I was informed that it was hard to identify the body,” he said. He said that his daughter had transferred some money to his bank account on October 22 but he had not heard anything from her since. Police reportedly believe the victims were sex workers, but Ningsih had told her parents she was working in a restaurant in Hong Kong. Ningsih’s parents were farmers who could only afford to put their daughter through elementary school. She went to work in several Indonesian cities, including the capital Jakarta, before moving to Hong Kong for the first time in 2011 to try to earn money to support her family. Her father said that she initially went to Hong Kong as a domestic worker. She had returned to the city
on two occasions since then, for a stint in 2013 and this year, he said. He said that she had a five-year-old son who now lives with his grandparents in Cilacap. Consulate officials said Ningsih had come to Hong Kong on September 1 and overstayed her one-month tourist visa. The Indonesian consulate confirmed to AFP Tuesday that the other victim found in the apartment was Seneng Mujiasih, 29 -- who went by the name Jesse Lorena -and was also Indonesian. She had been working as a domestic worker, the consulate said, but her employment visa had run out in 2012. Jutting appeared in court for the first time on Monday, showing no emotion as he listened to the charges. He was taken to jail to await his next hearing on November 10. He was a pupil at the exclusive English boarding school Winchester College before studying history and law at Cambridge University, with former classmates saying he excelled academically.