Posted on 05/02/2008 1:29:11 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
JAKARTA (AFP) — The future of a major US Navy research laboratory in Indonesia is in doubt amid allegations, dismissed as "crazy" by US diplomats, of espionage and secret experiments.
Negotiations between Washington and Jakarta over the renewal of the operating contract of US Naval Medical Research Unit-2, or Namru-2, have stalled over a range of issues including diplomatic immunity for its US staff.
Established in Indonesia in 1970 and charged with researching infectious diseases of military importance, the facility employs 19 Americans and more than 100 Indonesians and is based in Indonesian health ministry grounds.
Its operations have attracted suspicion from a number of quarters in the world's largest Muslim country, from anti-US religious hardliners to outspoken Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari and Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono.
"We'll conduct some checks on their presence in Indonesia," Vice President Jusuf Kalla said after Friday prayers last week.
Supari, whose ministry has worked with the US laboratory on projects including malaria research and bird flu early warning systems, has thrown fuel on to the diplomatic fire.
"Until today there have been no significantly useful results for the people (from Namru-2's research)," she said last month.
"Problems with contagious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever are still relatively the same... My people ask me why is there a health laboratory working together with a foreign military?"
(Excerpt) Read more at afp.google.com ...
Thank you so much for the explanation. I’m certain this theory makes a lot of sense to its advocates, however, to the rest of us it screams such perverse egotism that it verges on mental illness!
I knew of the romantic reaction to industrialism and its connection to socialism, but I had no idea that it had evolved to such a conclusion. Perhaps “devolved” is a better choice of terms.
Sorry for the double post, but this keyboard is asserting itself again.
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