Mahakam On The Block The race is on to win a piece of the lucrative Mahakam pie. Indonesia’s largest gas fi eld, currently operated by French oil and gas company Total E&P Indonesie and Japan’s Inpex Corporation, will end its contract in 2017. The Energy & Mineral Resources Ministry’s option is to give 100 percent of the Mahakam Block shares to Pertamina. But the Presidential Staff Offi ce has prepared its post-2017 management and operations plan.   Red Skies Over Tambora On April 10 in the year 1815, Mt. Tambora on Sumbawa Island erupted into what was to become the largest volcanic explosion in modern history. To commemorate the event, the government of the West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) is organizing a series of events expected to attract visitors to Sumbawa. In Bern, Switzerland,about 12,000 kilometers from Tambora, an international conference on ‘Volcanoes, Climate, and Society: the Bicentennial of the Great Tambora Eruption’ will be held. It will feature experts on climatology, vulcanology and geology from five continents. They will discuss the global impact of the Tambora eruption, such as the cold spell  and dark skies it created for as long as three years, in far-off Europe and North America. The fear it created inspired great works of fiction, including Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Closer to the source of the natural disaster, the Mt. Tambora eruption wiped out three nearby kingdoms. The following is Tempo’s report on the trek to the top of Mt. Tambora today and a review of what has been studied and analyzed by archeologists and geologists.   Outreach i The Last Of The Rampasasa Pygym In January, the Medical Faculty of the Jakarta-based University of Indonesia held a public discussion on the doctoral dissertation of Aman B. Pulungan. Thetopic—genetic factors of the Rampasasa pygmy— drew academics to the event. Rampasasa, located in Manggarai, a district in the eastern island of Flores,is populated  by people under 150 cm tall. The influx of researchers, media and curious bystanders to Rampasasa has opened up the hamlet, bringing it to the modern world.  However, this unique tribe may be on the wane, after local traditional leaders banned pygmies from marrying each other. Tempo Englishreports from remote Rampasasa hamlet.

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