Saya baru saja melakukan perjalanan ke ujung Timur wilayah Indonesia. Saya ke sana pada 30-31 Oktober, bersama Ketua Umum Kamar Dagang dan Industri (Kadin), Pak Suryo B. Sulisto, dan rombongan Kadin Safari Trip lainnya. Empat provinsi yang kami datangi dalam perjalanan selama dua hari tersebut, yaitu; Papua, Papua Barat, Maluku Utara, dan Maluku.

Bagi kami, perjalanan panjang ke kawasan Indonesia Timur ini sangat penting. Kita bersama mengetahui, selama ini kawasan Indonesia Timur relatif belum maju dibandingkan dengan kawasan lainnya, padahal kawasan ini sebenarnya memiliki potensi yang besar untuk maju. Karena itu, Kadin ingin melihat sesungguhnya apa permasalahan yang dihadapi kawasan ini dan coba mencari jalan keluarnya.

Saat di Jayapura kami mendengar pemaparan yang menarik dari Gubernur Papua Barnabas Suebu. Pak Barnabas yang pernah menjabat ketua Kadin di provinsi ini mengatakan, potensi alam Papua memang besar dan selama ini belum termanfaatkan dengan baik. Continue Reading »

Early in school, children learn that wonderful line: “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” Later in life, they learn that the line is from Shakespeare. Later still they learn that perhaps the only thing that can unite humankind is an attack from outer space. Shakespeare and aliens give children reason to believe that humans will realize they have a common stake in life on earth.

But children grow up to learn that humanity has failed itself. Nature has not been able to turn selfish men into the family of man. The inexorable advance of climate change has not united humanity against the threat.

The world is not awash in human reason. It has been three decades since scientists began to warn about the dangers of climate change. That is an entire generation. Hence, for a generation, humans largely have ignored what science has had to say about their future — or the lack of it. Like the proverbial ostrich burying its head in the sand, we have tried to wish away the reality of climate change. Now, that denial is costing us deeply, and it will cost us more in the future. Continue Reading »

Predictably, plans by Domino’s Pizza to open an outlet on the moon have been greeted with disbelief and derision. The company’s Japanese arm, which is spearheading the effort, began thinking about the project last year. Although it would not be drawn on when the new restaurant might actually open, Domino’s logic for taking this bold step appears to be sound.

The fast-food chain anticipates there will be astronauts and other people living on the moon in future, and it is preparing to meet their needs. Domino’s has even offered a detailed cost breakdown to back up the proposal: development expenditure will total $21.7 billion, with part of this amount to be spent on transporting building materials into space by rocket, naturally.

The plan has given cynical commentators plenty of fodder. Continue Reading »

The unfolding developments on the streets of the Arab world are widely perceived as a struggle for democracy.

However, once we place the uprisings in the context of other developments in the Middle East, it becomes clear that the Arab Spring is much more complex than that. More importantly, it shows that the risks posed to the global system and Southeast Asia are higher than many think.

First, the Arab Spring is still a work in progress, and the outlook is for yet more turbulence. Tunisia and Egypt have seen off their former authoritarian rulers, but are still in the process of working out new constitutional arrangements and elections. In Libya, while it is clear that the Qaddafi era is over, the civil war is not quite over. In Syria, the violent oppression of street protests continues. Any major upheaval in Syria would have potentially destabilizing implications for Lebanon and Israel. Continue Reading »

Masih ingat dengan Dora, gadis yang menderita “keringat darah”? Jumat,19 Agustus 2011 lalu, saya kembali bertemu dengannya di kantor Dompet Dhuafa, Wisma Nugra Santana, Jakarta.

Pertemuan saya dengan Dora untuk kali pertama adalah saat ikut menjenguk dia bersama ayah saya, Pak Ical, dan adik saya, Ardi Bakrie, serta istrinya, Nia Ramadhani, di Rumah Sakit Cipto Mangunkusumo, bulan Juni lalu.

Saya pertama kali mengetahui kisah Dora Indriyanti Tri Murni dari pemberitaan media massa. Mahasiswi Universitas Bung Hatta, Padang ini, menderita penyakit langka dan misterius. Penyakit misterius ini membuat darah segar kerap keluar dari pori-pori kulit kepala, bahkan mengucur dari telinga, mulut, dan hidungnya. Ini terjadi jika Dora banyak berfikir atau stres. Bahkan dokter Shupri Effendy dari RSCM mengatakan kasus ini penuh kejanggalan, dan penyakit Dora ini menjadi headline di dunia kesehatan. Continue Reading »