Document reads: ‘Iron-Sand Mining Project Permit’

Vicky Anggriawan, Jakarta – Scores of people from a number of difference social organisations that are part of National Papua Solidarity (Napas) held a protest action in front of the PT Freeport Indonesia central office in Jakarta.

Kid: Every dry season the floods get forgotten, before there was talk about overcoming the floods, but it was just ‘will’, only now that Jakarta’s flooded, its all ‘will-will-will’ again. So who’s to blame Dad? The government?

Man: No! The water! Stupid!

The “Lapindo(s) Beauty Spa” as it is jokingly called, referring to the massive Lapindo mud flow disaster in East Java blamed on drilling by a company linked to Golkar Party chairperson and business tycoon Aburizal Bakrie (right), continues to dog his 2014 presidential ambitions with two victims receiving widespread media coverage as they near th

Speaking in Bogor before setting out for the UN Sustainable Development Conference in Rio de Janeiro, President Yudhoyono appealed to global leaders to move toward a green economy saying Indonesia had adopted an environmentally sustainable model of economic growth where its forests were prized and protected.

Man: Optimistic?

Flood waters read: Corruption, mafia, violence...

Rudy Polycarpus, Jakarta – Commemorating the second year of the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and Vice President Boediono, around 500 students from the National Student League for Democracy (LMND), the Indonesian National Student Movement (GMNI) and the Indonesian Islamic Students Movement (PMII) protested in front o

1st Man: Be patient, I’m sure the extreme weather will soon pass...

2nd Man: What about extreme corruption and the judicial mafia, when will they pass?

Jakarta – Agrarian conflicts in palm oil plantation areas – followed by the criminalisation of local residents who object to these palm oil plantations – have in creased two-fold in 2010 compared with 2009.

1st Man: Everything’s covered in dust...

2nd Man: But not the promises made to us, right?

Against a backdrop of humanitarian disasters and anti-US protests, President Obama’s first visit to Indonesia was overshadowed by the ‘handshakegate’ affair after Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring found himself at the centre of a media maelstrom for shaking hands with First Lady Michelle Obama after he swore he would not touch a woman to

Starting from November 5 2010, the national SBY-Boediono government decided that the Merapi volcano eruption disaster would be led by the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB).

Kid: Perhaps the people’s representatives would be smarter and perform better if their new building and comparative studies were here (Sidoarjo), in Wasior, in Mentawai or Merapi, yeah Dad!

1st Man: We live in a disaster prone area so of course we have to be responsive to disasters...

2nd Man: Their response is just a comparative study...

Alie: It’s your own fault for living in Mentawai, why didn’t you just become the speaker of the House!

Once upon a time in Wasior...

1st Man: By 2050 many of our islands will be under water.

2nd Man: What’s important is they’re safe till 2014, right?

While environmental groups have welcomed a promised moratorium on deforestation as part of a deal with Norway to protect Indonesia’s rain forests, they say the details remain vague and question whether it will have much impact unless it is extended to existing concessions.

1st Man: Tomorrow we commemorate the birth of Pancasila, remember?

2nd Man: When will it be put into practice?...

Hello hello Bandung, city of memories, long has it been since I last visited you, now you have become a sea of flood, brothers let us replant.

(Adapted from the 1945 revolutionary song Hello Hello Bandung by Ismail Marzuki)