WHEN he remembers what happened four years ago, Iskandar Zulkarnain will always feel indisposed. At that time about a hundred geologists from various countries gathered in Jakarta to discuss one thing: the mud gushing ceaselessly in the Brantas Block field, Sidoarjo regency, East Java, owned by PT Lapindo Brantas.

Iskandar, who headed a workshop session, was not annoyed by the mudflow topic. It was the long drawn-out debate over the cause of the