Indonesia’s largest Sunni Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), has embraced moderation and tolerance of religious minorities, under the leadership of religious pluralists. Academic works on Indonesia’s Islam have often attributed hostile and exclusive attitudes toward religious minorities, especially toward Shi’a, to groups under influence of Wahhabism. Observers of Indonesia’s Islam in the past decade, however, have witnessed increasing violence against religious minorities by NU members using similar rhetoric to that deployed by Wahhabi-inspired groups.

What accounts for the emerging trend of intolerance? Specifically, what motivates certain NU members to engage in persecution of minorities? This paper shows that the power struggle within the organization primarily motivates rank-and-file individuals to mobilize the masses by using anti-minority rhetoric with the aim of jeopardizing the moderate leadership and advancing their own standing. Among the emerging opponents of the pluralist leadership are disciples of Sayyid Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki (1944–2004) in Mecca. Despite the moderate teaching of al-Maliki, some disciples who seek influence beyond the organization are increasingly using anti-Shi’a rhetoric to mobilize the masses in this electoral democracy. The paper explores their historical trajectory, and then analyzes development after the democratization as well as the limitations that prevent them from expanding their influence at the national level.

JAPEX and Mitsubishi Corporation jointly acquired an indirect 50% working interest in the Kangean PSC Block in 2007, and are actively conducting the exploration, development and production of the block through the operating company Kangean Energy Indonesia Ltd. (KEI). The block has a diverse inventor y comprising producing fields, an undeveloped discovered field, numerous prospects and leads. The structural geology of the Kangean area is essentially the same as the East Java and Madura Island area to the west, and is divided into three provinces, Northern Platform, Central High and Southern Basin. The petroleum system is common to the East Java area; two petroleum systems have been identified. One is a thermogenic oil and gas system with Pre-Ngimbang and Ngimbang formation source rocks, and another is a biogenic dry gas system with methane accumulations in the shallow horizons.

After JAPEX and Mitsubishi entered the project, KEI has commenced the development of TSB (Terang, Sirasun and Batur) gas field. The Terang gas field has been developed as the Phase I development of TSB gas field, commenced production in May 2012 and produces around 300 MMscfd of gas.

Among the tasks for promising inventories that will be critical to sustain the development of the Kangean Block, the two projects will be technically interesting; one is the West Kangean appraisal drilling, and another is an exploration drilling of South Saubi prospect. The reservoir of the West Kangean gas field are fractured limestone of the Ngimbang formation, DFN (Discrete Fracture Network) geological model has been established, and reservoir simulation has been conducted to optimize the number and location of wells. The South Saubi Prospect is the largest structure in the Kangean Block inventory, and its play type (Reef buildup of Kujung limestone) is the same as the Banyu Urip oil field in East Java.

The objective of this article is to examine the initial conditions of economic development of Southeast Asia, or the ten ASEAN nations. For this purpose, this article focuses on agricultural production, more specifically, the rice yield per hectare and self-sufficiency of rice in the region, in the late 1930s. The late pre-war era was chosen in consideration of the availability of comparable data. There are two major findings. First, the level of variance of rice yield in Southeast Asia (0.042) was much lower than that of Northeast Asia (0.147). In other words, Southeast Asia had more homogeneous initial conditions in terms of rice production, in comparison with the neighboring Northeast Asia. Second, the rice exporters in the region, i.e. Burma, French Indochina, and Thailand met the demand of the rice importers in the region, i.e. Dutch East Indies, British Malaya and Borneo, and the Philippines. Meanwhile, the rice importers could finance their rice import by their agricultural export. To put it another way, Southeast Asia in total was in the condition of self-sufficiency of rice. This is considered as a stable foundation of development for the regional members at the time of their beginning ‘modern economic growth.’