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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The Jakarta Cathedral, tempo dulu and now

It’s certainly not easy to find neo-gothic style architecture in Jakarta, but one building constructed in this style is the Jakarta Cathedral, originally built as the Catholic Church in 1828 but later upgraded to a cathedral in 1901. Here's a pic of the original church:

 And here’s a bird’s eye view of the church surrounded - rather incongruously it seems given the state of the capital today - by a hell of a lot of trees! What we would give for a few of those today!

The Jakarta Cathedral For better or worse (probably the latter), Catholicism is Indonesia’s most notable import from Portugal, a fierce trading and ideological rival of the Dutch in times long gone, and the Dutch, in their infinite wisdom, chose to ban the religion in the country from 1602 until 1799. 

But when Louis Bonaparte was appointed as the King of Holland on June 5, 1806 by his brother, the Emperor of France aka the very evil Napoleon Bonaparte, the ban was quickly lifted after agreement was reached with the Vatican in 1807. 

The Jakarta Cathedral is located close to Monas and just a short distance from the huge Istiqual Mosque whose construction was completed in 1978. 

And here's a picture of the cathedral as it looks today:

The Jakarta Cathedral

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