I have implemented some blog site anti-spam software AND closed off permission to comment on older postings. Most blog comment spam seems to be aimed at older posts so closing those has cut 98% of all my comment spam.
The anti-spam software that sifts through the recent posts seems to be spot on and catches the other 2%.
This move is saving me lots of headaches and frustration.
Two weeks ago may have been a bad one but as quickly as it came, it disappeared. There is no doubt that there was an orchestrated campaign to stir things up and turn people against the OZ military then it just seemed like the OZ military switched on the PR machine.
For the last 2 weeks, the ADF’s Major Stone has been appearing on Timor Television immediately after the evening news. He is an accomplished (and entirely self-taught) Tetun speaker and has a “boy next door” face. I think the people have responded to a bit of common-sense. It also explains why I have seen this military guy schmoozing in coffee shops and restaurants for several months. It makes sense – shoot the breeze and find out what’s happening out in the streets, where the rumour mill gets fed.
A Portuguese military officer follows Major Stone on TV with (presumably) similar “calming” words in Portuguese.
Having just said all that, it doesn’t mean absolutely everything is fine and dandy. For instance, on Thursday evening, there was a stoush at the IDP camp located between the Hotel Timor and the port. The story goes that some camp dwellers attacked workers at the port demanding jobs. The story also has it that the GNR (Portuguese military police) came in and slapped the port workers (perhaps picking on the wrong side) thus inciting the families of port workers to come in and get angry. Time will tell if there is any retribution for this one.
Mr. Alkatiri left for Portugal for medical treatment and the PM, Jose Ramos Horta delivered his “100 day speech” which you can find at :
http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2006/gov-tls-08nov.pdf (The Timor-Leste government web site has not been updated since January.)
I noticed the resumption of soccer games on the dirt pitch on the foreshore near the Palacio. I haven’t seen them for months. Rather than a specific sign of tension relief, I was told there is apparently some structured sporting activities that occur at this time of year arranged by some of the villages. So the soccer was linked to the tug-of-war and beach volleyball stuff setup on the foreshore across from the World Bank building.
You don’t tend to see many military on the streets anymore. I certainly do not miss the unmistakable clatter of the APCs. The choppers still regularly do laps of town. And yes, you do tend to see more UN police than ever around now. Its hard to see how you can get away with much now. And cycling without a helmet – I was told it will still be quite a few months before they consider pinging me. Yippee.
On choppers, you get used to the familiar sound then a new one appears. It took a few days to sink in that a different chopper was in the skies – a Kiowa. Smaller and obviously cheaper to run than a Blackhawk, it would seem more suitable to the predominantly observation role these days.
[For chopper-heads : Kiowa made by Bell, 2 crew, up to 6 passengers, 2000 lb load capacity. Blackhawk made by Sikorsky, 3 crew plus 2 gunners, 11 passengers, 9000 lb load capacity. Courtesy of quick internet search. Configurations may vary.]
For the last 2 weeks, the humidity has increased and we have the return of the fogged up sunglasses/cameras after leaving air-conditioned buildings. There have been heavy clouds in the afternoon on a few days, indicating the imminent arrival of the first of the wet season deluges. Some predict the first rain will be by 15 November while others think it will hang on for another month.
There is a heavier push to move IDPs (refugees) out of the camps before the wet season hits hard. And the mosquitos come back from holidays in force.
I wouldn’t be the only one to have drastically cut night-time eating excursions. I think quite a few expat employers have requested staff not to go out at night and of late, it has been a fairly reasonable thing to do. The reach of corporate insurers goes far and wide.
A few months back, I mentioned that “Temptations” was operating just around the corner from the Portuguese Embassy across the road at the eastern end of the Palacio do Governu. It looked like it was off to a flying start but it has fallen away quite a bit now.
“Cafe Brasil” just around the corner is one of the success stories. A month or so ago, it extended its premises on the eastern side and has become perhaps the numero uno coffee shop/lunch place in town. It has a good feel but avoid the sandwiches. I dropped in there several times during the troubled May/June period when almost nothing else was open and I was the only customer (it seemed).
The Terrace Cafe has pretty much finished its construction and seems to be going OK but I haven’t been there for a while.
A new Indonesian restaurant (Riung Kurung ??) has opened about 200m west of the Backpackers about a block before the main Colmera intersection. The food is definitely above average Indonesian and leans towards the health food side of things. I believe that initially it did not serve alcohol and preferred to concentrate on fresh juices. Mercifully, consumer demand convinced them to sell beer so I don’t know how good the juices are. Maybe next time. But one restaurant to watch.
At the eastern end of town along the beach, the Coolspot nightclub has disappeared and reinvented itself with a new restaurant across the road by the beach called the “Erli Sun”. It looks flasher than most of the others on the stretch and is on my dance card for a visit soon. The old Coolspot building has been massively renovated but I am not sure what it will become yet. Even before this year’s troubles started, Coolspot always seemed a bit on the seedy side so we’ll just have to see how that one pans out.
There have been a couple of additional structures built down on the eastern beach strip suggest more eateries to come but no progress on fit-out yet.
Went to Vasco da Gamas (the most up-market restaurant in town) for the first time in quite a long time recently. Everything was the same except for a huge make-over of the menu – better, I think. While extensive, the wine list remains for money market investors only. I also noticed the manager of the Hotel Timor was treading the boards, suggesting they are both linked somehow.
Hotel Dili remains a sentimental favourite for that quiet home-style meal amongst the shrubbery.
As for coffee, I think the quality of some of the coffee in some of the bar/restaurants has gone down. My guess is that most are now using Ensul coffee rather than Delta. Correct me if I am wrong.
Good morning, I am Reverend Squatter and my sermon today is internet connectivity and the computers used to connect to the internet here in Dili.
I am really preaching to Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO) and to those techies who have 24 Mbps (mega bits per second) broadband links piped into their homes. When you have a whole country running on a single 2 Mbps link to the world, (Houston) we have a problem.
I have several different email addresses, only one of which do I pay for. For reasons I dare not guess, the worst of them for spam is the paid one. About a month ago, I was being assassinated by spam emails and when you are on the end of a modem link, this is not good. Even though they did have anti-spam software in place, it clearly was not working too well. Then they announced they were stepping up the aggressiveness of their anti-spam strategy. Spam emails dropped to about a tenth. I was mighty pleased. I know there are people out there who insist that every single email addressed to them MUST be delivered. I guess these are the 24Mbps guys who want to train their anti-spam software to be on the cutting edge of accuracy. But I am more than happy to see this stuff culled before it is delivered over the wire.
With my blog, I have discovered the brave new world of spam blogging. This arrives as “comment spam”. Over the last few weeks, comment spam has been slowly increasing to the point where it cracked over 100 per day. Over a slow link, each and every one of those comments is downloaded for me to decide which one is from a human. This was blowing me out of the water. I have sinced mucked around with anti-spam stuff and I do not get any comment spam anymore (neither do I get any comments from anyone !).
I am pretty anal when it comes to keeping my Windows system up-to-date with Microsoft updates and virus signature updates. Didn’t I just love the last Microsoft Tuesday – 41 Mbytes of updates. Took 4.5 hours. Although it depends on your modem access plan through Timor Telecom, at about 5 cents per minute, that’s US$13-50 just to do the Microsoft updates. So in any month, the Microsoft updates and virus updates (and anti-spyware updates for that matter) are costing not only 4 to 6 hours of time, but probably cost as much as a monthly broadband connection charge in other parts of the world.
The best you can possibly do here is pay over US$700 per month for a permanent 128kbps connection.
Most businesses/organisations with a connection will go for either one of these permanent connections or insanely, get a digital service through Timor Telecom at a rate of over US$2000 per month. Basically, no-one gets more than 128kbps or in a few cases, 256kbps. Because of the monopoly position that Timor Telecom holds, only foreign embassies (and probably the UN and the like) are permitted to get around this monopoly. They go for satellite which I understand is significantly cheaper.
The point is that there are a number of organisations with say 50 pcs networked through a 128kbps connection to the internet. Now, if you have every pc doing automatic updates of everything, you have a problem. And if you were trying to save money, you would have them all turned off overnight. You would only leave them on if you had the money for the electricity and a generator to fill in for the many power cuts and UPSes to manage the cut-over time to the generator and to smooth out the erratic voltage. All that generator stuff raises the bar financially.
Far easier to turn off all your pcs and at 8:30am each morning, everyone gets onto the internet to get their mail and everyone’s updates start kicking in and you end up going for early morning tea. So you either put running your business on hold or turn off automatic updating. Microsoft Update Tuesday could become a national holiday here OR you just don’t do it.
Mr. 24Mbps probably says “ha ha, what you need is Microsoft’s update server”. Well, no-one likes paying Microsoft anything here and adding yet another layer of complexity is probably beyond most organisations here.
Need steak knives ? There’s more.
So the well run organisation probably has someone running around all day with a USB memory key applying updates. The not so well run one has probably given up. The next problem is the user. If organisations had “acceptable use policies” for use of the pcs and the internet AND they were adhered to, then another big problem would go away.
Your typical Timorese can not afford a pc and to be on the internet at home, would need a fixed line phone just to get started on the internet. Only the elite have this. So for many, a pc is either at an internet cafe (ie gaming parlour) or at a workplace. So you do all your private stuff at work if you can. (Note that there are many expats in this category as well.) You download email, porn, music, video and inevitably piles of viruses. Timor is virus heaven (but thanks to my analness, I remain clean as a whistle at home).
In a country where thanks to the telecomms monopoly, internet charges are actually going up, what is it going to be like when typical monthly updates are running at 200 Mbytes per month. And who knows just how much the spam load is ?
I welcome any comments on anything I have raised here over tea and biscuits on the front porch where I will be conducting “how to be anal” lessons.
Here endeth the lesson
With the demise of the “Timor Sun” back in May, there has been a long absence of English language local news.
Just recently, 2 new options have surfaced. The first was the online-only “Timor Times” and the second, a replacement for “Timor Sun” called “Guide Post”.
Guide Post looks quite similar to the old Timor Sun and I suspect the old production team have reformed under the new editor. The new editor is Leith Carroll who has taken over from the Bradridges. Leith did photography work and was a regular contributor to the Timor Sun. Then he became a driver and local can-do man for some overseas media during May and June.
Edition 2 has a nice up-to-date map of Dili with some key business (ie advertiser) locations such as restaurants.
The Timor Times is a more home-grown effort but has its own share of useful information. But surely (you ask) there must be more going on than Pilates, Quiz Night, Hash House Harriers and Floorball ? 🙂 If you want to subscribe to the Timor Times, just email [email protected]
I discovered Jinha’s internet cafe via the Timor Times and it is the best in town on price and speed (except if everyone knows this, then the speed will not be so good). No air-con but views of the sea out the window. At US$3 per hour, a few peaks out the window won’t go astray.
[2 Nov amendment]
It appears I omitted to say that Timor Times is a monthly and Guide Post is a weekly. They are both very much local news (ie community newspapers) and information and do not run national or international news.
I have now read the Survey of Gangs report. It is certainly helpful and at least, it lets me know I was not too far off the mark. The report took about 3 weeks of research and is obviously limited by that.
The key points that I noticed/inferred are :
In the western world, we really have many groups that would come under a similar umbrella. For example, sporting clubs, hobbiest clubs, singing, dancing, chess, even Rotary, but none of these tend to involve themselves in running amok. We may only guess what might happen in our own cultures if unemployment blew out to 50%. (The figure could even be a lot higher here than 50% as the percent of Timorese in classical wage and salary earner jobs is probably less than 20%.)
One thing you do notice here is the almost complete absence of sporting facilities, and I am nowhere near the first to say “send 10,000 soccer balls and give the kids something less destructive to do”. Didn’t you know that western governments pump money into sport to allow the masses to expend energy on something other than kicking over rubbish bins (and governments) ?
I was waiting for an acquaintance to email this report to me but tumbleweed found it for me first. You’ll have to go there, read about it and download it. It is a 2.9Mbyte PDF and comes in at 44 pages but has lots of pictures so probably has around 25 pages of actual reading.
It is called :
A SURVEY OF GANGS AND YOUTH GROUPS IN DILI, TIMOR-LESTE
A REPORT COMMISSIONED BY AUSTRALIA’S AGENCY FOR
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AusAID
Research: James Scambary
Research Assistants:
Hippolito Da Gama
Joao Barreto
Sept. 15, 2006
I will post the link after I have read it. Two days holiday for “All Saints Day” coming up Wednesday and Thursday (1 and 2 November).
I wake this morning to a spray of articles from the OZ press. Apart from obviously concentrating on the anti-OZ sentiments expressed this week, the most noticeable thing for me was that the reporters were all obviously in Dili.
A week ago, the ABC, Australian and Age/SMH were reporting remotely. Now they are all here. I think this is good. (Let me just say that with the slow decline of serious journalism, it would be a bit of a worry if bloggers took over this area of reporting. Its one thing to be reporting a small microcosm that is my world but another to be spending all day digging up the dirt.)
For a while, I have thought that someone needed to explain to me (and everyone else) just how the “gangs” work. This now appears to be a higher priority issue in the reporting. I heard several months back that someone was working on a history of the gangs in Dili (presumably since independence).
I hope it is made public as I believe it will explain a lot of things (to me as well). I noticed one of the press articles mention that up to 70% of all males in Dili are members of a “gang”. My understanding is that the “gangs” are more like “social clubs”, but a couple of “social clubs” have taken to more rough-house behaviour thus morphing into a “gang”.
And “gangs” are into stand-over tactics and some do drugs and probably protection rackets. I am dying to get my hands on this report.
So much has happened this week, but I think it has been the most active week for international security forces since week one. Lots of chopper fuel has been burnt and a resumption of embassy security warnings via mobile phone text messages.
I’ll start with a little chip. The week had been going fairly poorly, the worst for some time. Then yesterday (Friday) morning both a UN spokesman and an ADF spokesman suggested only 2 confirmed dead and the airport fighting as just an elevation of normal gang fighting that has gone on in Dili for a long time. And they said the situation was under control. Now if I was sitting there in OZ hearing this, I might think that everything was AOK. (Note I hear it on Radio Australia via “AM”, “The World Today”, “PM” and “Connect Asia” which is locally re-broadcast on FM radio .)
I am pretty sure that by lunchtime yesterday, the death toll was more than 10 for the week. But I have often asked just who keeps the figures anyway.
Anyway there have been a number of deaths in the area (on Avenida de Portugal) at the Pertamina corner where segments of the Comorro market traders have been operating a mainly fruit and veg market. That corner and stretching down the beach road past the Malaysian embassy and a few ambassadors residences has been very hot for the last 3 days and highly recommended to avoid. This is effectively the northern end of the well-entrenched trouble spot of Fatuhada.
The airport riot was based around the airport “refugee camp”. The approach to the airport is a 500 metre divided road from a large roundabout. The approach is wire fenced on the east side and has the camp running almost full length on the western side. A group up to 400 were involved in the attack. The word is that it was co-ordinated and that some rioters had been paid (by someone) and were fueled up on alcohol (via the cheap local tua) and methamphetamines.
I am actually glad that the ABC’s Anne Barker is back in town to give a more first-hand account of things. All I can do is piece together things from Google News and tie it in with what I see and other people observe. I do know some people who got caught up in the airport thing just because they were due to fly out to Bali. And someone who was badly shaken by accidentally coming across a rock fight on the beach road near the Malaysian embassy.
We occasionally get mail and stuff via a DHL bag and this had been held up in Customs since last Friday (ie 8 days ago now). In order to get the stuff, both DHL and Customs have to be there to do the paper work. Tuesday was a holiday and Customs had decided to take Monday off and make a long weekend. Then the trouble hit and the Customs guys would not go to work at the airport. The DHL guy did not want to go out there in a DHL vehicle but would go if a white face could accompany him in a another vehicle.
So I thought it a good opportunity to both check out the aftermath of the airport riot and check out DHL/Customs procedures. The road from the roundabout (and all around it) to the airport terminal was strewn with many rocks and stones. There was a reasonably large military presence at the terminal and I spoke to a couple of them while waiting for the Customs guy to arrive. Yep, it had been full-on. (I think I will have to write separately on the DHL/Customs experience as I am sure it doesn’t happen like this in many other places.)
But perhaps the most disturbing thing for me is the output from the rumour mill. Not only did OZ embassy SMS advisories warn of possible targeting of OZ interests, but there have been a number of instances supporting the warning. One rumour has it that the OZ military are responsible for some of the killing this week. This is 100% rubbish but when pumped into the rumour machine, it is hard to stop. Life was not meant to be easy.
Some of the international press reports suggest “Timor in chaos” and similar sentiments. Apart from a couple of towns in the hills to the south, there is virtually zero trouble outside of Dili itself. And even then, the trouble is always in pockets.
I had to pick up a few things today from a couple of places in the west of town and it sure was quiet. There had been a bit more house burning and there were fires burning in a few places. The Comorro market traders who had moved right next to Comorro Road had vacated today but the Landmark and Leader supermarkets were running as per normal. The Makikit hardware only had his door open a little but he was open but not much else. Elsewhere in town in the centre and eastern ends, it appeared to be business as usual by Dili standards.
I even cycled down to the Christo Rei statue at 5pm for a fresh mango juice at “Sol e Mar” then headed back before dusk. I was wary but not scared in any way.
Of course, ask the helicopter guy who got hit in the face by a rock and was choppered to Darwin for treatment to his eye. He might not be so mellow about it all. But the airport area to the west was apparently a real schemozzle yesterday.
I suppose you have 2 choices – you stay at home and heed all security advice or you take your chances and hope you don’t just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And yes, I have the UN police number in my mobile phone.