It's good to note that, apparently, maybe,
if you can believe it , that
under intense international pressure the Indonesian government has virtually abandoned plans to convert large areas of ancient rainforests, prime habitat for the endangered Orangutan, into a massive oil palm plantation. The original plan called for 1.8 million hectares (nearly 7,000 square miles or 18,000 square kilometers) of mainly native forests to be converted into a mega oil palm plantation along over 850 kilometers of the Indonesia-Malaysia border.
In an abrupt about-face, the Agriculture Minister (formerly the project's chief advocate) last week announced only 180,000 hectares are now deemed suitable for oil palm development. Given long-standing objections by the Forestry and Environment ministries, the larger project is effectively dead for now. International protest in support of local rainforest peoples and conservationists is responsible for reducing the project's expanse by 90%.
What isn't so good to my mind is the recent agreement reached by the D-8 group of countries, including Iran and Indonesia, to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes. You may well have read my arguments, such as
here, against
any further development of nuclear power until there is a 100% sure way of disposing of the waste and avoiding accidents
.
Read
Ahmad Qisa'i, a political science student currently in Delhi, for his thoughts on nuclear power as a green energy source.
Finally, read
Yosef Ardi for details of how Minister of Social Welfare Bakrie did not get the contract to build a coal-fired power station in Cirebon. Instead his good friend Iman Taufik did. There are business connections with Bambang Suharto.
Naturally.
|
