Indonesia is at the boiling point with a whole string of frightening developments. Oil prices are going through the moon and the indonesian government, which subsidizes oil, is being crushed by those higher prices. That’s sent the miserable-anyway currency, the Indonesian rupiah, to its lowest levels in four years as capital flight takes off. Meanwhile, Bird Flu is prompting additional fears of an epidemic in Jakarta, one of the world’s most densely populated cities. There is even a row with China now that the Indonesian navy has fired on a Chinese fishing boat, killing a crewmember. They are in a world of trouble over in Indonesia. And Indonesia’s desperately poor people – poor because of past currency devaluations, I might add – are about to lose their oil subsidy, something they have rioted about in the past, toppling a dictator – and regardless of outcome, face terrible hardship.

Jakob Vawter has a short analysis here.