Once again, another deadline for the Jakarta Globe to begin publishing has come and gone. The last deadline being bandied about was 20 November but that came and went with any ceremony.
The grapevine says that the delay is because James can’t get a printer for the planned 48-page all color newspaper he intends to let loose in Indonesia.
In the meantime, however, the troops in the JakGlobe are being given the rah rah rah and drilled day in, day out in writing and producing a paper that no one, except themselvs, get to read. How long can this suspension or reality and publishing deadline go on before demoralization sets in will be interesting to watch. This is especially because this time around some of the stalwarts in the Jakarta Globe aren’t even giving a targeted date.
But life goes on nonetheless. Several weird looking bules were apparently reported to be running around a park in menteng over the weekend, wearing weird traditional Indonesian gear and trying to “kidnap” a bride for one of the editors of the paper. Unspun was still in bed at that hour but he believes that the bule posse succeeded and the editor is a hitched man now. Will this affect the revenues of Face Bar as he adapts to the rigors of married and eventually family life? Only time will tell.
Unspun 
Tuan
“Once again, another deadline for the Jakarta Globe to begin publishing has come and gone. The last deadline being bandied about was 20 November but that came and went with any ceremony.”
You did mean 20 October right?
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now is only 22 october mr ong, careful with your date,
or is your date already in the future, if so, did obama win? or mccain stole the election, eh?
with sneers from the globians,
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@kofibinteelif: Yes, that was the date I heard about.
@trebuchet: So what is the real date then? And until that date, when you start producing a real newspaper read by real people, I don’t think you’ve earned the right to sneer at anyone.Back to the drill boy!
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“We will sell no wine before its time.” – Paul Masson
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As the Jakarta Globe gets pushed further down the pipe, I just heard a juicy rumor I thought I would pass along to my favorite Indonesian media blogger…
London based Time Out magazine is not only setting up a Jakarta branch, I heard they’re planning to have their first issue on the stands on Nov 1. Just FYI….
Unspun: Thanks Mr E. That’s very useful information. who will be heading the outfit here?
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rumors have it that JR (james riady, that’s it)’s jumpy attitude and ego have led to some frictions among the top management members of the “about to be launched but god knows when and if” Jakarta Globe…not to mention that he has suffered from a lot of headches because of the recent “siloam hospital” and “astro” debacles…
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@Gita: Can imagine JR being stroppy with the Astro debacle that I know about. Especially when Billy, regarded as by some businessmen as a factotum, got arrested. But I don’t know about the Siloam debacle. What is it? Not another case where the MO is:
1. foreigners being lured to dump their money in a supposed JV — only to find that things aren’t what they seem
2. Local partner doies not come up with cash but promises to “smoothen” things like permits etc
3. Local partner squeezes foreign partner’s balls by using state institutions and other means to intimidate them so that they have to get out or buy local partner over
4. Local partner, having lit the fire under foreigners, asks for lot of money to be bought
???
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number two probably is closest.
here is the clue: but it is a very long and complicated story, dating back to 2004/05 or to when the group started to enter the industry by acquiring the now siloam kebon jeruk (it was then called graha medika).
what used to be a good hospital has now deteriorated into…well the (too) frequent complaints over its services should tell…
the problem has now spread to other siloam hospitals (that’s why there have been many newspaper “surat pembaca” over other siloam services as well)…
another clue: the semanggi specialist clinic used to be called siloam gleaneagles clinic, right? now the word gleneagles has been covered with a cellotape (you can see it when you enter it from the parking lot at the semanggi plaza)…
yes, it was a debacle over share ownership!
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Hi Unspun, sorry I’m not sure who is running the show at Time Out: Jakarta. I just have an acquaintance who interviewed with them recently, said he met with a guy named Jad from the London offices. I do know their offices are in Mega-Kuningan. Otherwise I can’t tell you too much… They have a website up, but all it’s got up now is a job application form. Apparently still looking for people despite their imminent launch…
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