Chinese President Xi Jinping (center) attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin on Sept. 1, 2025, in this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik.

A fractured world tests the limits of multilateralism

From Central Asia to the Pacific, sovereign states are proving that global rules cannot remain the exclusive playground of great powers.

9 hours ago

Academia

The Red Sea crisis exposes BRICS’ deep divisions

Rapid expansion of the bloc means that its 21 members have deeply divergent interests, particularly in the Middle East. ...

10 hours ago

Academia premium

Twenty years on, BRICS faces a defining choice

Amid shifting global power dynamics and emerging economies seeking a stronger voice, a central issue for BRICS today is whether it should continue as an informal group or take steps toward becoming a formal organization. ...

11 hours ago

The Latest

Coal is loaded onto barges at a jetty operated by the group along the Kedang Kepala River in Senyiur village, East Kutai regency, East Kalimantan, in this file photo.

Academia premium

The Bayan valuation mystery: When markets need answers, not speculation

When a $26 billion giant is targeted for $4.8 billion, the real casualty isn’t price—it’s trust.

1 day ago

Two schoolchildren look over a densely populated informal settlement in the Kebon Melati neighborhood of Jakarta, on Aug. 7, 2026. Statistics Indonesia reported that the country's poverty rate stood at 8.07 percent in March 2026, with 22.93 million people living below the poverty line, down by 430,000 from September 2025.

Academia premium

Global development's missing ingredient

Faith-based institutions committed to human dignity and pluralism can play an instrumental role in building the infrastructure required for grassroots organizing at scale.

1 day ago

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, leaders of participating countries gather for a family photograph during the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on Sept. 13, 2026.

Academia premium

Delhi's BRICS moment: A bite without teeth

New Delhi Declaration holds an 11-nation bloc together, but ducks the Middle East, and Washington breathes easy.

1 day ago

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (right) and his wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail arrive during the 69th National Day celebrations in Malaysia's administrative capital Putrajaya on Aug. 31, 2026.

Academia

Malaysia’s election drums, political sums

Can Malaysia's UMNO pressure Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim into calling for an early election?

1 day ago

A satellite image shows black smoke rising from an area of Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline south of Medina, Hejaz Region, Saudi Arabia on Sept. 10, 2026.

Academia

Oil markets survived the Iran war sprint. Now comes the marathon

The Iran war is no longer a short-lived energy supply shock, but a prolonged, unpredictable test of global economic endurance.

1 day ago

A signpost is seen in Pantai Melayu village on Rempang Island, Batam city, Riau Islands, announcing that the Batam Free Trade Zone Authority (BP Batam) has the rights to manage the land, reportedly to be used as a Sekolah Rakyat location, as seen on July 15, 2026. BP Batam's unilateral claim is strenuously challenged by villagers, who say they own the land.

Academia premium

The Land Bank paradox: For profit or justice?

Masked as agrarian reform, the national Land Bank is quietly dispossessing the rural poor to serve corporate profit, and a rushed new bill is about to make it permanent.

1 day ago

People walk near DayOne data center at Nongsa Digital Park (NDP) on July 20 in Batam city, Riau Islands. Batam has attracted at least 16 new data centers in various stages, despite limited utility infrastrucutre of clean water and electricity.

Academia premium

Cyber resilience requires fixing Indonesia’s old tech

But a law that responds to cyber-attacks without addressing the governance conditions that made it so damaging will leave the country just as exposed.

2 days ago

Banners decorate the International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters in Washington on April 13, the first day of the 2026 Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group (WBG).

Academia premium

The program redesign the IMF needs

As the IMF undertakes the first major evaluation of its guidelines for program design since 2019, it should focus on three features of its lending toward reform, given widespread debt distress in developing countries.

2 days ago

A boy is treated for food poisoning at a Jakarta hospital on April 4, 2026, after consuming food provided via the government’s free nutritious meal program.

Academia premium

The benefit of the doubt has expired

The government must urgently start turning its authority into results to fulfill the promises made to the people in 1945.

2 days ago

People protest against South Korea’s potential military involvement in the US operations in the Strait of Hormuz on Sept. 9 in Seoul.

Academia

Korean troops for the US-Israeli war against Iran?

The question now is whether Seoul will send military forces to support the US-Israeli war with Iran. But even limited participation could carry serious risks.

2 days ago

An online motorcycle transportation driver drops off a passenger on Jan. 14, 2026, in front of a shopping mall in East Jakarta.

Academia

Skepticism around green ride‑hailing: How to gain riders’ trust

Without clear standards, it will be difficult for users to distinguish between serious environmental commitments and superficial green promotion.

2 days ago

Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin delivers a presentation on April 20 during a meeting with House of Representatives Commission IX at the Senayan parliamentary complex, Jakarta. The meeting discussed the handling of extraordinary outbreaks of measles and other infectious diseases, as well as an evaluation of the national immunization program.

Academia premium

Electing a new WHO boss: An opportunity for Indonesia and the world

Faced with an existential budget crisis and a fractured world order, the WHO needs an executive turnaround more than another doctor - and Indonesia’s Budi Gunadi Sadikin may be the outsider built for the job.

2 days ago

Free speech on trial: Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS) coordinator Fatia Maulidiyanti (center) leaves the courtroom after a hearing on Nov. 13, 2023 at the East Jakarta District Court. State prosecutors are demanding a three-year prison sentence for Fatia for her alleged defamation of Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.

Academia premium

A small victory for big freedom: Court shows the way

A government institution has no feelings to hurt, and the Constitutional Court just reminded power that its reputation is protected by performance, not prison.

4 days ago

Anti-contagion bastion: The bright facade of the Sulianti Saroso Infectious Disease Hospital stands out on May 12, 2026 in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta.

Academia premium

When an invisible hazard crosses national borders

Unlike seasonal smoke, the next cross-border hazard won't announce itself in the sky—it will quietly arrive on the workplace floor.

4 days ago

Health advocates: People hold a rally on Sept. 8, 2026 in Yogyakarta to demand the government end the free nutritious meal (MBG) program following repeated cases of mass food poisoning.

Academia premium

Civil society needs protection, not stigmatization

Prabowo’s londo ireng remark directed at civil society groups does not reflect the actual policy work civil society is providing, including the promotion of democratic values, good governance and human rights perspectives.

4 days ago

Silvery glow: President Prabowo Subianto (left) and Democratic Party chairman Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono symbolically light an electric flame on Sept. 9, 2026 to open the party’s 25th anniversary celebration at the Indonesia Arena at the Gelora Bung Karno Sports Complex in Central Jakarta.

Academia premium

SBY’s foreign policy legacy and the Democratic Party

SBY tenure marked a phase of both consolidation and a renaissance for Indonesia’s foreign policy.

4 days ago

An Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) is displayed on Aug. 27, 2025, during the inauguration of a new artillery plant of ammunition maker Rheinmetall, in Unterluess, Germany.

Academia premium

Europe’s greatest mistake: Military interests trump security

The collision of an aging population, escalating climate damages and massive remilitarization is set to present an unprecedented, compounding threat to the future well-being of Europeans.

4 days ago

A diver swims on March 7, 2022, amongst the coral on the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of the Australian state of Queensland.

Academia premium

The Great Barrier Reef refuses to die on schedule

Despite decades of media obituaries and rescheduled catastrophes, the Great Barrier Reef just delivered the best five years of coral cover in its 40-year recorded history.

4 days ago

A group of women crosses a street in front of Perdana Putra, the office of the prime minister in Malaysia’s administrative capital Putrajaya, shrouded in haze from regional wildfires on Aug. 13, 2026.

Academia premium

The remedy gap in transboundary haze

Building on the 2002 agreement, ASEAN has since declared the right to a clean and healthy environment and is now working on an action plan that may finally provide access to legal recourse for the region’s citizens harmed by transboundary haze pollution.

5 days ago

President Prabowo Subianto looks on as he arrives on Aug. 14 at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta for the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) plenary meeting, in which he delivered the State of the Nation address and the 2027 state budget proposal. (Reuters/Stringer)

Academia premium

Assessing the merit of the strategic commodities bill

In order to ensure the viability and merit of the bill, it is imperative for all of us to get clarity on ultimate purpose, intended impacts and legal soundness during the legislative process.

5 days ago

Local members of Operation Madago Raya, a joint public security initiative on deradicalization and counterterrorism run by the National Police and the Indonesian Military, provide a box of basic staples to a former terrorist (second right) on Nov. 3, 2025, during a social assistance handover event in Poso, Central Sulawesi.

Academia premium

The war on terror and its unintended consequences

We cannot claim our war on terror as a success if it breeds new generations of anger, alienation and hatred.

5 days ago

A worker sorts copper production at El Teniente mine, the world's largest underground copper mine in Machali, near Rancagua, Chile, on April 2, 2025.

Academia

In a global economic heatwave, beware financial wildfires

Global growth is running hot into the second half of the year, forcing asset managers to find firebreaks while staying invested.

5 days ago

(left to right) Foreign Minister Sugiono, Japan's Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Laos' Foreign Minister Thongsavanh Phomvihane and ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn talk before a group photo during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting in Pasay, Metro Manila on July 23, 2026.

Academia premium

From trust to Kizuna: 20 years of Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund

The next chapter of Japan-ASEAN relations will test whether the bond can endure amidst increasingly self-seeking and divisive geopolitical tendencies.

5 days ago

The Kapuas River delta, formed by the Landak (left) and Kapuas Kecil rivers, looms out of thick haze on Aug. 27, 2026, in Pontianak, the provincial capital of West Kalimantan.

Academia premium

When forests burn, climate commitments falter

As peatlands burn and flagship carbon projects go up in smoke, our market-driven climate pledges are failing. Only recognizing the legal rights of nature, as constitutionally mandated, can pull us back from the brink.

5 days ago

Students rest while receiving treatment for food poisoning at the regional general hospital after eating government-sponsored free school meals in Sidoarjo, East Java, on Sept. 2, 2026.

Academia premium

Children are no longer the priority, were they ever?

When a national school lunch program turns kids into hospital patients, it’s time to ask whether our children are the priority, or just collateral damage for an economic machine.

6 days ago

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (right) and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung pose on Jan. 12, 2026, for photographs before performing on drums after their meeting in Nara, Japan.

Academia premium

The Donald Trump shock in East Asia

The consequences of Trump’s behavior are even more serious for East Asia than they are for Europe.

6 days ago

People gather in front of the Parliament Complex in Jakarta on Aug. 26, 2026, in preparation for a peaceful protest by the United Pati Community Alliance, or AMPB. The group held a peaceful protest that Thursday over corruption eradication and the passage of the Asset Forfeiture Bill.

Academia premium

Asset forfeiture bill: The paradox of Prabowo’s anticorruption rhetoric

Prabowo promised to chase corrupt actors to Antarctica, but passing the asset forfeiture bill without democratic safeguards risks handing the state a weapon against its own people.

6 days ago

Page: 1