Indonesians

An Indonesian volcano that had been dormant for more than four centuries erupted for the second day in a row Monday, spewing white clouds of smoke and ash more than 2,000 yards into the air, officials and witnesses said. Thousands of people living along the slopes of Mt. Sinabung in North Sumatra province have been evacuated to emergency shelters, mosques and churches, said Priyadi Kardono, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency. Their abandoned villages and crops are blanketed in heavy, gray soot.

Chicago-based Boeing Co. finalized what it calls a historic order for 230 aircraft worth $22.4 billion. Lion Air of Indonesia ordered 201 of the Boeing 737 Max planes and 29 next-generation 737-900ERs. The deal also includes purchase rights for an additional 150 airplanes. The order is the largest commercial airplane deal ever for Boeing, measured by both dollar value and total number of airplanes. Lion Air will be the first airline in Asia to fly the 737 Max and the first in the world to take delivery of the 737 Max-900.

South Korea, known for high-tech exports such as cars and cellphones, is sending a new product abroad: its alphabet. A tribe on a remote Indonesian island, in danger of losing its culture because it has no written language, recently designated Korean Hangul as its official alphabet. "Of Indonesia's 700 local languages, most lack a writing system," said Chun Tai-hyun, vice president of the Hunminjeongeum Society, an academic research group that studies how to promulgate Hangul.

Environmentalists have launched a global campaign against Mattel Inc., the world's largest toy company, as part of a decade-long effort to force multinational corporations to purge their operations of any links to rain forest destruction. On Tuesday, Greenpeace activists in turquoise vests rappelled down the face of the company's 15-story headquarters in El Segundo and hung a giant banner depicting a frowning Ken doll with the message: "Barbie: it's over. I don't date girls that are into deforestation.

Cancel the speeches, the honor guard and welcoming parties. Indonesia's adopted son isn't coming home just yet. Across the sprawling archipelago Friday, people took the news stoically that President Obama had postponed his trip here next week to attend to a pressing political agenda back home, getting his healthcare initiative passed into law. The press continued its coverage that treated Obama more as rock star than political leader. White House officials said Obama would delay until June the trip to Indonesia and Australia designed to cement ties in a region that has seen rising Chinese influence.

Uly Marisa picked up her broom and swept away broken glass and shattered pottery Sunday as the haunting wail of noon prayers rang out over her battered neighborhood in Padang. The radio station employee has lived through several earthquakes since she moved to this port city of 900,000 people several years ago. But last Wednesday's magnitude 7.6 quake, which killed hundreds of people, was the worst by far. It left her deeply shaken and reflective. "Everything happens as a lesson from God to us," she said.

The boys laid out the food on a rough-planked platform 20 feet above ground amid the trees and vines, reached by ladder from the jungle floor. Then, higher still, branches rattled and leaves shook. The orangutans were coming. This day there would be three for the afternoon feeding at the Bohorok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. They represented a small victory for the animals in the clash between man and wildlife on the big Indonesian island of Sumatra.

A small Indonesian military plane crashed on Borneo with nine passengers and crew aboard, killing four, the national search and rescue agency said. The Nomad P837 light aircraft was on a routine patrol when it lost contact with air traffic control about 1 p.m., said navy spokesman Rear Adm. Iskandar Sitompul. The survivors were taken to a small island off the eastern coast of Borneo for treatment, said Anggit, a rescue agency spokesman who, like many Indonesians, uses a single name.

Penniless, unmarried and far from home, Rubina thought that she had found a safe place to have her baby after being fired as a housemaid in Malaysia. Instead, the 20-year-old Indonesian migrant worker had stumbled into the arms of baby traders--an illegal practice that authorities say is increasing in Malaysia and targets poor Indonesians. "I had nowhere to turn. My boss told me to leave when my stomach started showing," Rubina said recently.

An Indonesian businessman accused of slaying three people and stashing their bodies in a Northridge storage facility may no longer have any lawyers to defend him, a newspaper reported this weekend. Harnoko Dewantono fired his lawyers minutes before his trial began Thursday in Indonesia, according to the Associated Press. He named another attorney, Amir Syamsuddin, during his court appearance.

In 1930, Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias and his wife, Rose, traveled to the island of Bali in Indonesia and promptly fell in love with what they saw. They stayed nine months, soaking up the natural beauty and distinct culture. Covarrubias later wrote a classic book called "Island of Bali," which somewhat overshadowed the art he made on the trip. One of those paintings is a stylized map of Bali, showing the diamond-shaped island dominated by smoking volcanoes towering over lush valleys and hillsides terraced into rice fields.

An Indonesian volcano that had been dormant for more than four centuries erupted for the second day in a row Monday, spewing white clouds of smoke and ash more than 2,000 yards into the air, officials and witnesses said. Thousands of people living along the slopes of Mt. Sinabung in North Sumatra province have been evacuated to emergency shelters, mosques and churches, said Priyadi Kardono, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency. Their abandoned villages and crops are blanketed in heavy, gray soot.

There's a glistening chicken somewhere under the blanket of crispy rice-flour crumbles. The crystalline snowflake-like particles are scattered over the entire bird, its skin sluiced with a squeeze of lime and spiced with a dab of sambal , shrimp paste and chiles ground into a pungent, penetrating blast of heat. Time seems to stand still for that chicken: Phones quit chirping and fidgety kids suddenly snap to attention, transfixed by the fried delights of the ayam goreng kremesan at Merry's House of Chicken, a months-old Indonesian restaurant in West Covina.

The Obama administration said Thursday that it would resume limited assistance to Indonesia's special forces, which have been barred from receiving U.S. military aid for more than a decade because of human rights abuses. The decision probably will face criticism from human rights groups and some members of Congress who contend that human rights violations by the special forces, including their role in a violent crackdown on separatists in East Timor in the late 1990s, have not been thoroughly investigated.

Inside a dimly lighted living room in the heart of the Javanese forest, Dede Koswara blankly examines his bulky hands, which have morphed to the size of catcher's mitts. He shuffles along on blackened, bloated feet, a prisoner of his own mutinous body. For years, the slender construction worker watched helplessly as his limbs broke out in a swath of grotesque bark-like warts that sapped his energy and limited his mobility. At one point, he seemed to sprout contorted yellow-brown branches 3 feet long.

Amit Virmani was vacationing at Bali's famous Kuta Beach when he met a 12-year-old boy who told him of his unlikely goal: to grow up fast, so he could be a gigolo. The boy said his heroes were the young bronzed Indonesian surfers who provided erotic services to Japanese women and other female tourists who flock to the island for discreet sex vacations. The young men's apparent sexual prowess and serial romances have earned them the nickname "Kuta cowboys." "It begged the question: 'Who are these young cowboys?

Inside a dimly lighted living room in the heart of the Javanese forest, Dede Koswara blankly examines his bulky hands, which have morphed to the size of catcher's mitts. He shuffles along on blackened, bloated feet, a prisoner of his own mutinous body. For years, the slender construction worker watched helplessly as his limbs broke out in a swath of grotesque bark-like warts that sapped his energy and limited his mobility. At one point, he seemed to sprout contorted yellow-brown branches 3 feet long.

Like any die-hard sports fan, Jim Keady eagerly anticipated soccer's World Cup. But he isn't at home watching the matches. Instead, the 38-year-old New Jersey native has been in Indonesia, talking to the workers who make the Nike jerseys worn by nine of the teams in the tournament. For years, the former professional goalie has waged a one-man campaign to highlight Nike's labor practices, complaining that the company pays Indonesian workers low wages to stitch together the uniforms that have made the company the world's most successful sports garment manufacturer.

Young Barry Obama is struggling with his pingpong shot. Or rather, 12-year-old Hasan Faruq Ali is struggling to play left-handed in imitation of the character he is portraying in a new Indonesian film, "Little Obama." "Hasan has the walk, he has the posture of Barry," said Slamet Djanuadi, a consultant on the film and a childhood friend of President Obama when he lived in Indonesia from 1967 to 1971. "But Barry was a better pingpong player," he laughed, watching Hasan hit the ball off the table.