Iklan Farel Prayoga's Mother to Develop a Joint Venture with PNM Mekaar has succeeded in developing her business with PNM Mekaar Siti started her business by selling kinang. Kinang is a traditional herb that is chewed and not swallowed then rub the tobacco and kanthil flowers on their teeth her business has grown into a traditional market stall (locally known as toko kelontong) “Building a business from the ground up is not easy My family and I express my deepest gratitude to PNM for assisting us,” said Siti Siti is a PNM Mekaar customer who is currently a toko kelontong owner from Kepundungan Village and her husband have been singing and playing music around Banyuwangi since Farel was in the 2nd grade of elementary school Siti was then introduced to PNM Mekaar by her neighbour and She then started selling kinang. Kinang chewing or more familiarly known as betel leaf chewing is one of the traditions that were often carried out by Indonesians as the start of the globalization era and the development of a more modern era The increase in capital provided by PNM Mekaar and all the facilities provided allowed her to develop her business to be bigger than just selling kinang, starting from being able to spend more on business to add facilities that support her business Now her business has developed into a toko kelontong that provides daily necessities PNM has disbursed financing amounting to Rp138.98 trillion to PNM Mekaar customers totaling 12.6 million customers as of September 5 PNM has 3,500 PNM Mekaar service offices and 624 PNM ULaMM service offices throughout Indonesia Get daily summary of exclusive and in-depth news in your email Inbox by joining the Newsletter The Trunojoyo Elite Team No Special Privilege for Sambo’s Children Fast Tracking a Legal Basis The Sea Toll Container Scarcity Indonesia’s Suharto government agreed to severe austerity measures after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) threatened to withhold credits from a $33 billion package sending the Indonesian rupiah and share prices plunging General Suharto was forced to sign the IMF agreement on national television with IMF Chief Michel Camdessus looking over his shoulder given the catastrophic state of the Indonesian economy annual per-capita income fell from $1,200 to $300 and stock market values from $118 billion to $17 billion Only 22 of Indonesia’s 286 publicly listed companies were considered solvent Approximately 2 million people had already lost their jobs including about 500,000 workers in the textile industry Indonesia’s military and police were placed on alert Shops and supermarkets were cleaned out and hoarding was widespread due to uncertainty over the availability and price of goods part of the Asian financial crisis that began in 1997 produced deep cracks in the 31-year-old military-backed regime Suharto appeared certain to be rubber-stamped for a seventh term of office by the People’s Consultative Council his formal confirmation as presidential candidate that week once again sent the rupiah plunging to less than one-quarter of its previous value against the US dollar Earlier in January opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri told a crowd of thousands of her supporters that a “peaceful succession” should be organized and gave notice that she would be prepared to take the post of president as his replacement with the backing of the military high command Concerns over Suharto’s continued rule stemmed from doubts in ruling circles in Indonesia and internationally over his ability to implement the IMF demands and control growing social unrest Suharto had seized power in 1965-66 in one of the bloodiest military coups of the 20th century With the direct assistance of US imperialism Suharto and the Indonesian generals rounded up and butchered 1 million workers peasants and members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) United States President Richard Nixon ended “Phase II” of his economic stabilization plan which had imposed wage and price controls on many industries allowing businesses to dramatically increase their prices the Consumer Price Index rose at an annualized rate of 102 percent The index for primary industrial materials jumped 156 percent Inflation had in fact been rising steadily since the late 1960s touching off a crisis that threatened the viability of the dollar the chief medium of international trade since the end of the Second World War This process had come to a head in August 1971 with Nixon’s unilateral scrapping of the Bretton Woods system of dollar-gold convertibility The move triggered substantial inflation in virtually every country and forced Nixon into a series of ad hoc measures in a desperate bid to maintain the value of the dollar and head off a growing strike movement in the working class Nixon’s economic stabilization plan was overseen by two bodies But in spite of rhetoric about price controls the administration’s primary purpose was to act in the interests of big business and suppress the wage demands of workers who were seeing their living standards eroded as prices continued to rise Phase III temporarily extended price controls on just three industries particularly prone to inflation—food no price controls were put on agricultural products creating a disparity between the cost of food production and prices at the store The Pay Board claimed to be removing the wage controls that had been placed on the same industries saying that if they demanded more than a 5.5 percent pay increase the federal government would intervene with injunctions and other strikebreaking measures setting in motion a wave of wildcat strikes driven by the rank-and-file that continued throughout the 1970s the Nixon administration was continuing a major assault on workers who took strike action to defend their living standards In the weeks leading up to the scrapping of price controls Nixon had called for the use of riot police to break up picket lines of striking Newspaper Guild workers in Cleveland were determined to fight back against these attacks In a major struggle that broke out the same week as the price control announcement 13,000 teachers in Philadelphia went on strike demanding pay increases to keep up with inflation The School Board had not offered any raises to the teachers in the new year They had also planned to increase classroom sizes and extend the school day to allow for the firing of 385 teachers Speaking to the attitude of militancy in the working class in that period one worker told a reporter from The Bulletin the US predecessor of the World Socialist Web Site “I’m prepared to walk this picket like for four months if that’s what it takes to get a decent contract and that’s how most of the teachers on this picket line feel.”  the US Supreme Court ruled against the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma in a case brought by Ada Lois Sipuel an African American woman who had been denied the right to an education there undermined an aspect of Southern segregation and would be cited in future civil rights lawsuits Sipuel had applied to study law at the all-white University of Oklahoma in 1946 but was denied admission because of her race Lawyers acting on her behalf filed a case in the Oklahoma courts that state’s Supreme Court declared: “We conclude that petitioner is fully entitled to education in law with facilities equal to those for white students but that the separate education policy of Oklahoma is lawful and is not intended to be discriminatory…” The highest Oklahoma court claimed that Sipuel could enroll in a law school for African Americans It also touted the proposal of state authorities for her to undertake legal studies outside of Oklahoma with a state grant The US Supreme Court case was brought by Thurgood Marshall and Amos Hall prominent attorneys of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) after which the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in favor of Sipuel concededly qualified to receive professional legal education offered by a State cannot be denied such education because of her color The State must provide such education for her in conformity with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and provide it as soon as it does for applicants of any other group.” That amendment forbids states from denying “to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Oklahoma responded by establishing a bogus law school for African Americans It consisted of just three rooms in the state capitol and was staffed by only three attorneys The NAACP would launch further legal action eventually compelling the state to integrate the University of Oklahoma where Sipuel would be granted admission in 1949 including being forced to sit on a seat marked “negro” in her classes and separated from other students in the cafeteria a key center in Germany’s industrial Ruhr Valley and began moving soldiers into other parts of the region Belgian troops also participated in the invasion France would have over 50,000 troops in the region A nationalist demonstration of thousands gathered in Essen but was dispersed by local politicians The German government of Wilhelm Cuno had repeatedly defaulted in its war reparations payments under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles decided to extract reparations directly by military force from the resources of the region as the French had threatened to do several times in the last year The Cuno government recalled its ambassadors from Paris and Brussels and instructed the population of the Ruhr Valley not to fight the French Cuno announced that Germany would refuse to make all reparations payments Britain opposed the French move and favored lowering the amount of the reparations paid out by Germany although British troops in Cologne assisted the deployment of the French military sent diplomatic notes to the French and Germans calling for further negotiations on the terms of reparations announced he would withdraw the force of 1,000 American troops from the area The New York Times reported that Poland and Czechoslovakia were preparing to press territorial claims against Germany by military means The Communist International issued calls for combined action by European workers against the occupation and against a renewed threat of war the French government arrested Communist activists who were opposed to the invasion and who were calling for the unity of the French and German working class The French government also sought to repeal the parliamentary immunity of Marcel Cachin a Communist deputy in the French parliament The occupation sparked not only a major international crisis called into question the foundations of capitalist rule in Germany The country had already passed through revolutionary situations in 1918 and 1919 Germany had been suffering from hyperinflation which was to accelerate in the coming year The far right would engage in terrorist actions in the occupation areas the confidence of the German working class would shift behind the Communist Party by the summer and a revolutionary situation would emerge again