TEMPO Interactive, Surakarta:The Technical Faculty of March Eleventh University (UNS) in Surakarta, collaborating with the Research and Technology's Science, Research and Technology Development Agency, will build a bio-fuel (BBN) processing plant in the region. The collaboration will include engineering, software procurement operational training, laboratory analysis, models for plant design, research on material resources, and bio-fuel utilization for agricultural machines.

Palm oil futures headed for the first weekly gain in a month on speculation production may be slowing even as demand is sustained during the global recession. The price may be “well supported” at about 1,800 ringgit ($498) a ton on signs of lower output, Penny Yaw, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., said on Tuesday. Exports from Malaysia, the second- largest producer, “should pick up by March,” Yaw wrote.

The Finance Ministry’s tax directorate may face a soaring number of tax disputes in 2009 as the number of taxpayers grows rapidly from the last financial year and a new tax law is imposed, the Tax Lawyers Association warned on Thursday. “In 2008 alone, the tax court had to deal with around 2500 cases,” said Juniver Girsang, chief of the Tax Lawyers Association, predicting that the number of cases was likely to double due to a new tax law which came into effect in January.

In a two-day seminar that kicked off on Wednesday, experts voiced concern over the government’s failure in turning the “euphoria” of the potential of biofuel development into concrete and fruitful action. The same government propped up with illegal logging cash and a President who believed in Blue Energy and Supertoy. Go figure.