Quote" One who's lived long enough in Indonesia will notice that while the pictures of food products in adverts are gigantic, the actual products have shrunk in size to only a fraction of what they used to be several years ago. This goes as well for a number of brands selling candy bars and potato chips. Despite rising prices, the products are actually becoming smaller in size over time. " Marianne Faithfull was having a similar problem with Mars bars!

A number of statistical indicators appear to suggest that purchasing power is improving, but in Indonesia purchasing power can be a tricky thing to gauge. What does the anecdotal evidence say? Is household purchasing power really recovering? As interest rates decline and bank lending grows stronger, many economists have been referring to the statistical data to show that purchasing power is indeed improving. A number of leading indicators have been cited as evidence of this.

The government, pressing ahead with its program to electrify underdeveloped regions across the nation, will next month hold a tender for the procurement of 30,000 home solar-power units. One home solar unit can generate between 50 and 80 watts of electricity. J. Purwono, director general for electricity and energy use at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, said Tuesday that the government had allocated Rp 247 billion (US$27.4 million) for the project.

WASHINGTON - Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday (Wednesday in Jakarta) in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002. Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted as long as 12 hours. Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the Internet's most vital pipelines.