IT is a rare thing for the Indonesian National Mint (Peruri) to invite journalists to its plant in Karawang, West Java. Wednesday, two weeks ago, the state-owned money maker unexpectedly invited a number of journalists from 13 electronic and print media publications to make an observation tour of its factory. In fact, the area, which hosts a line of garage-size money-printing machines, is usually closed to outsiders.

They must have had a hidden