This is just getting bizarre. This will achieve nothing positive for the Chinese or the Indonesians and will only serve to create more problems and suspicion. At what point does someone like SBY just say to the ministers and the VP to sit down and shut up?

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The House of Repreentatives (DPR)`s Budget Committee has asked the government to renegotiate the terms in its cooperation contracts with oil and gas exploration contractors following the discovery of cost-recovery markups committed by the contrators, a spokesman said.

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia's gross domestic product (GDP) in the three months to September is predicted to grow 6.2 percent year-on-year driven by stronger exports, Bank Indonesia (BI) said Tuesday. BI's public relations director Budi Mulya said investment and private consumption are also expected to underpin GDP growth in the third quarter on the back of stronger consumer purchasing power and improved perception of doing business in the country.

Jakarta (ANTARA News/Asia Pulse) - The consortium of PT Medco Energi Internasional (JSX:MEDC), Ormat International Inc and Itochu Corp is set to start construction of the US$600 million Sarulla geothermal power project in North Sumatra next month. The geothermal power project in North Tapanuli, with a capacity of 330 megawatts is estimated to cost around US$600 million, head of the regional development planning board RE Nainggolan said.

That leaders are elected to office by the people is a humbling fact that's often forgotten by the elected, as well as those who put them in power. In Asia, certainly in Indonesia, leaders enjoy an unusual degree of almost unquestioned respect until they self-destruct. Or become insufferable. A couple of months ago, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made a rather loud pronouncement. Indonesia was going to become the world's 5th largest economy by the year 2030, he said.

A package of incentives including easier licensing procedures and breaks is being formulated by Indonesia, already host to some 1,100 Korean businesses, to help lure more Koreans to the country, an investment forum here was told Monday. M. Lutfi, the Indonesian Coordinating Investment Board (BKPM) chairman said at the opening day of Indonesia's Integrated Investment Promotion, the planned incentives would include income tax cuts and another forms of tax incentives such as tax allowances.

The government has agreed to fully guarantee the financing of new power plant projects that state power company PT PLN has offered to investors, in an attempt to put the delayed projects back on track. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, however, asserted said the blanket guarantee would only cover projects under PLN's crash program to provide an additional 10,000 megawatts (MW) of power by the end of 2009.