Update: The Virginia-based missionary group WorldHelp has dropped its plans to place 300 Muslim "tsunami orphans" in a Christian children's home, the group's president, the Rev. Vernon Brewer, told news agencies Thursday. The children were still in the Muslim province of Aceh and had not been airlifted to Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, according to an e-mail under Brewer's name circulating Thursday among his supporters.
Indonesia told foreign troops helping tsunami victims to get out of the country soon and defended tough new restrictions on aid workers, while nations prepared to freeze Jakarta's debt repayments. Indonesia's foreign debt comes to about 132 billion dollars, and the country is looking at three billion dollars in payments this year to service that debt. Vice President Yusuf Kalla said foreign troops should leave tsunami-hit Aceh province on Sumatra island as soon as they finish their relief mission, staying no longer than three months. The armed forces of Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States have all rushed task forces to Aceh in the wake of the December 26 disaster which killed at least 106,500 Indonesians. But their presence in Indonesian territory has been a sensitive issue for the world's largest Muslim-populated nation which has traditionally kept foreign military, particularly the United States and Australia, at arm's length. The emergency phase of the tsunami relief effort in Aceh is not moving fast enough and is likely to last three more months, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special humanitarian envoy said Wednesday.
Maybe that's just their way of saying thank you.
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