There's no such thing as a free lunch...Or is there?

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It's official. The next president of Indonesia is former army general Prabowo Subianto. Quite how the next five years will pan out is anyone's guess but hopefully the foreign pundits who always bring up his dodgy human rights record will be proven wrong. Nonetheless, on policy making, Prabowo's popularist move to literally offer the poor 'a free lunch' every day of the week does not augur well for the future. Such a policy - if it ever came to fruition - would cost a phenomenal amount of money and likely lead to huge inefficiencies (food waste) and poor incentives (make people lazy). Another concern is Prabowo's strong nationalist bent. Thus, in the possible event that he finds himself with his back against the proverbial wall in the face of stern economic challenges, there is a big chance that he will simply scapegoat foreigners. But he will have to be careful. Construction of the new capital city, Nusantara, for example, is highly dependent on foreign in
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Christmas in Jakarta

Christmas is the Disneyfication of Christianity
> Don Cupitt

It may be swelteringly hot outside but some dude has dressed himself up as a Father Christmas and is having kids sit on his knee for photographs (at Rp50,000 a pop, naturally).

It’s also snowing – actually white confetti - and there’s a huge Christmas tree which doesn’t look much like it’s from an Indonesian rainforest to me.

But most miraculously of all, good old Bing Crosby can be heard over the tannoy system crooning White Christmas.

And to think that it was only as recently as 1948 that polls declared him “the most admired man alive” - well, in the US at least!

And if you hadn’t already guessed, I’m deep within the catacombs of that great mecca for consumerism – the Jakarta shopping mall – and my mall of choice is the city’s first ever really posh mall, the one and only Plaza Indonesia!

We’re here to see Avatar which is being shown at cinema 21 up on the sixth floor (bloody great film, btw)

But first we need some grub. So how about some Italian?

Red Tomato Pizza Jakarta
Hand tossed pizza? WTF!

Presumably telling us how the pizza is cooked but I can’t help but think that this really unfortunate phrase tells us nothing at all – as if they were using another part of the body to toss the pizzas? Weird. 

But pizza doesn’t sound quite right for Christmas. However, there is that nice little Japanese restaurant near Starbucks. Sushi for Christmas? Why ever not!

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