The bodies of the 10 victims of Friday's plane crash near Mimika were evacuated Monday from the crash site on the slope of Mt. Gergaji in Ilaga district, Puncak Jaya regency, by a joint search and rescue (SAR) team.

The SAR team, comprised of members of the Mimika branch of the National SAR agency and PT Freeport Indonesia's Emergency Response Rescue, evacuated the 10 bodies to the district capital of Ilaga for identification.

"A medical team and a team from the Papua provincial police are identifying the bodies before handing them over to their respective families," SAR team chairman and Mimika Air Base commander Lt. Col. Easter Hariyanto said.

A Mimika Air aircraft crashed Friday into the slope of Mt. Gergaji Friday, some 13,000 feet above sea level, reportedly due to bad weather. The plane did not explode but was found upside down and with major damage to its front and one wing.

All 10 passengers, including two crew members, were killed in the accident. Secretary of the Puncak Jaya poll body Marthen Jitmau, chairman of the Puncak Jaya election supervisory committee Herman Senanfi and church minister Martina Kiwak are among the deceased.

Bad weather and geographical difficulties in reaching the crash site hampered search and rescue efforts, delaying evacuation until Monday. The five-member joint SAR team was deployed to the crash site on Sunday to recover the bodies and prepare them for Monday's evacuation.

"I have just returned from Ilaga to directly monitor the evacuation process from the hard to reach site on the slope of Mt. Gergaji," Hariyanto told reporters at Moses Kilangin Airport in Timika on Monday.

He said three of the bodies would be sent to their families in Mulia on Tuesday. Marthen Jitmau will be flown to Sorong, West Papua, Herman Senanfi to Sentani, Jayapura, while Myanmarese pilot Ni Lin Aung and copilot Makmur Susanto will go to Timika before being sent to Jakarta.

"The evacuation today has run relatively smoothly, only that we have to make sure *the identity* of the victims before sending them to their families," Hariyanto said.

Head of the Mimika Air Transportation Sub-agency John Rettob, who is also operator of Mimika Air, added that the bodies of the plane's pilot and copilot had yet to be evacuated to Mimika as identification of the bodies had not yet been completed.

John said five members of PT Freeport's Emergency Response and Rescue team continue to stay at the rescue site to further check on the condition of the plane.

John also denied reports published and broadcast in local print and electronic media claiming that the plane was 21 years old. He said it was made in Switzerland on February 2008 and was bought by the Mimika Air in September of the same year.

"It was in a good condition and was airworthy as mentioned in the trial letter and license issued by the Indonesian Transportation Ministry," John said.

He added that the plane was officially launched on December 2008 following a long process and was operated by PT Trans Mimika under the ownership of the Mimika regency administration.

The plane, he went on, was insured by British insurance company Parahorizon and Indonesian insurance company Tugu Prima.

He said an official from the insurance company had gone to the crash site to verify the fate of the aircraft. He added that according to the insurance policy, the Mimika regency administration would receive a replacement plane.

"I'm optimistic that the regency administration will have another new plane provided by the insurance companies according to the agreed insurance policy," John said, adding the insurance value of the plane was Rp 2 trillion (US$260 million).

Source : www.thejakartapost.com

 

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Jakarta, Financeroll.com – The bonuses paid to employees of American International Group, Inc. (AIG:  News ) were "highly inappropriate," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, Bernanke outlined the reasoning behind the government's repeated interventions to prop up AIG despite severe mismanagement within the embattled insurance giant.

The Fed Chairman added that AIG must "scrupulously avoid any excessive and unwarranted compensation." "We have pressed AIG to ensure that all compensation decisions are covered by robust corporate governance, including internal review, review by the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors, and consultations with outside experts," Bernanke said in prepared remarks.

He noted that AIG has limited bonuses and other compensation for 2008 and 2009 voluntarily, adding that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has imposed restrictions on that compensation. Bernanke called the bonuses "highly inappropriate," adding that he asked that suit be filed to prevent the payments.
However, the suit was deemed untenable by the Fed's legal staff, Bernanke said, and could have had the "perverse effect of doubling or tripling the financial benefits to the AIG-FP employees" due to punitive damages. Despite the uproar over the bonuses, Bernanke defended the Fed's decision to bail out the insurance giant. The government's decision to step in and bail out AIG came in the face of "unacceptable risks" that its collapse would have cause to the global financial system, Bernanke told lawmakers.

"Conceivably, its failure could have resulted in a 1930s-style global financial and economic meltdown, with catastrophic implications for production, income, and jobs," Bernanke said. The collapse would have triggered severe shockwaves around the world, Bernanke said, from state and local governments to policyholders, from global and investment banks whose exposure exceeded $50 billion to money market mutual funds which held around $20 billion in commercial paper.

Using the collapse of Lehman and the credit crunch it triggered as an example, Bernanke noted in prepared testimony that "once begun, a financial crisis can spread unpredictably." "It is unlikely that the failure of additional major firms could have been prevented in the wake of the failure of AIG," Bernanke noted.
As a result of its loans to AIG in order to keep the insurance giant afloat, Bernanke said that the Fed is now in an "uncomfortable situation of overseeing both the preservation of its value and its dismantling." This role is a new one for the Fed, which is usually charged with maintaining price stability. However, despite its additional responsibilities, Bernanke noted that his organization's goals have remained the same, "to protect our economy and preserve financial stability, and to position AIG to repay the Federal Reserve and return the Treasury's investment as quickly as possible."

From : www.financeroll.com

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Help Make Your Policy Match Your Stuff

Some Property is Categorized

Having a good claims experience can start with getting the right coverage. Your total property limit may give you the impression you have plenty of coverage, but you may find that your category limit on computers isn't nearly enough to replace all of the computers in your home.

For example, your policy might have limits in categories like these:

• Money, bullion, bank notes and coins.
• Property for use in a business while the property is away from your home. This doesn't include computers, drives or other storage media.
• Property for use in a business, including property held as samples, while the property is at your home. This doesn't include computers, drives or other storage media.
• Trading cards, subject to a maximum amount of $250 per card.
• Accounts, bills, deeds, evidences of debt, letters of credit, notes other than bank notes, passports, securities, tickets and stamps.
• Manuscripts, including documents stored on electronic media.
• Watercraft, including their attached or unattached trailers, furnishings, equipment, parts and motors.
• Theft of jewelry, watches, precious and semi-precious stones, gold other than goldware, silver other than silverware, platinum (other than platinumware), pewter (other than pewterware) and furs, including any item containing fur that represents its principal value; subject to a maximum amount of $1,000 per item.
• Any motorized land vehicle parts, equipment or accessories not attached.
• Theft of firearms.
• Theft of silverware, pewterware and goldware.
• Computers, drives or other storage media, whether or not the equipment is used in a business. Storage media will be covered up to the retail value of the media.
• Theft of rugs, including, but not limited to, any handwoven silk or wool rug, carpet, tapestry, wallhanging or other similar article whose value is determined by its color, design, quality of wool or silk, quality of weaving, condition or age; subject to a maximum amount of $2,500 per item.

Keep in mind these are just examples and may vary by policy. Talk to an Allstate agent about your specific policy.

You can adjust the personal property coverage of your policy at any time. Since you are spending time now to learn about property insurance, it's also a good time to take a good assessment of your personal property coverage needs (use our free Home Inventory Tool software).

Really Nice Stuff

When you walk around your home, look for things that you spent a lot of money on, or that have appreciated in value since you got them (family heirlooms, your diamond jewelry). You will need to make a decision about how to insure them so, if they ever need to be replaced, the standard limits will not pose a problem.

• If it is only one or two items in a category, such as a diamond necklace
• Ask your agent about a Scheduled Personal Property endorsement
• If it is a category with many items of higher than normal value, such as an extensive computer network
• Ask your agent about an Optional Coverage

Insuring High Value Items

A common item in a category covered by your policy, such as a watch, may be worth $25 or $5,000. Because this category of common items can vary so greatly in value, your policy may set a per item limit for these items. If one item exceeds those limits, ask your agent for a Scheduled Personal Property endorsement to properly protect it.

For example: There may be a $1,000 limit per piece of jewelry and a $2,500 limit for all jewelry as a group. If you own a couple of inexpensive watches, you're in great shape. If you own a watch that is appraised for $10,000, you have an option to cover that specific watch at a higher amount. A Scheduled Personal Property endorsement can be used for jewelry, individual furs, oriental rugs, fine artwork and a variety of other items.

Insuring Groups of Valuable Items

You can use an Optional Coverage to raise the group limit on a category covered by your policy, such as computers — or you can use them to insure an entire category of items that are not covered by your policy because they are less commonly owned.

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