Resilient pursuit: Activists of the Justice for Victims Solidarity Network partake in the Kamisan (Thursday) rally on Sept. 19, 2024 in front of Merdeka Palace in Central Jakarta, to demand the settlement of past human rights violations, including the mass killings following the abortive coup on Sept. 30, 1965 that was blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

After Gestapu monuments a Gestok memorial must follow

Indonesia’s monuments remember the generals slain in 1965, but true democratic strength lies in finally carving out stone for the hundreds of thousands murdered in the purge that followed.

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Padaidori fishermen show their catches on a beach in the Padaido Islands, Biak Numfor regency, Papua, in this file photo published on Aug. 7, 2026.

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The vanishing of Indonesia from the heart of Papua

Beneath the machinery of state security and industrial extraction, Papua’s deepest resistance lives in what cannot be cleared: Its people’s ancestral bond to the land.

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Police officers stand guard during a rally organized by university students on Aug. 19, 2025, in front of the building of East Java Regional Council (DPRD) in Surabaya, East Java. The Surabaya Police deployed nearly 700 personnel to safeguard the rally, during which protestors called for the government to scrap its controversial national history book project and push for protection of freedom of expression.

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If history belongs to the victors, civilization has no place

A nation cannot build a democratic future on sanitized myths: until Indonesia confronts the violent truths of its past, its history remains an instrument of power rather than a measure of civilization.

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Communist resurgence?: Police officers display a symbol of the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) alongside Molotov cocktails seized from a group of protestors following their rally in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, on Sept. 2, 2025.

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Time to stop scaring the nation with the communist boogeyman

More than six decades after the bloodshed of 1965-1966, President Prabowo has a historic window to finally bury the red phantom and lead the nation into a future free from manufactured fear.

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Talking point: IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva speaks during a press conference during the IMF/World Bank annual meetings at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, on Oct. 16, 2025.

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Navigating systemic global multidimensional crises

As concurrent crises collide ahead of Bangkok’s IMF-World Bank meetings, small and emerging economies are left footing the bill for a fractured global order they did not create.

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President Prabowo Subianto inspects the implementation of the free nutritious meals program on June 2, 2026, at State Junior High School (SMPN) 111 Jakarta.

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In search of excellent and honorable minds in Indonesian politics

As President Prabowo marks two years in office, the true test of his administration is not the tally of his policies but whether it is forging the intellectual and moral backbone required to govern a great republic like Indonesia.

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Heavy equipment is parked at a silica sand mine on Sebangka Island, Riau Islands province, in this file photo published on April 21, 2024.

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Semiconductor diplomacy: How Indonesia can play its hand

By trading raw mineral wealth for technology transfers and seizing the neutral ground in the chip war, Indonesia can turn a high-stakes geopolitical scramble into its greatest industrial leap.

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The Millennium Prize proof shows why AI governance can't wait

When AI outthinks the world’s elite mathematicians in under four days, it shatters the myth that human expertise is untouchable, at the same time warning policymakers that regulating machines can no longer wait until tomorrow.

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Chinese Foreign Minster Wang Yi poses for a group photo with ASEAN foreign ministers on July 22 during the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference with China on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Pasay, Metro Manila.

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Why ASEAN and China should join hands on global governance

China and ASEAN are well-poised to turn the call of the Global Governance Initiative into concrete results that benefit the region and beyond.

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Delegates walk out as Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 81st United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City, on Sept. 24, 2026.

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The un-ordered UN order

With the UN about to choose a new secretary-general and United States President Donald Trump’s administration openly hostile to multilateralism, it is unclear how much longer the system can stagger on.

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SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son (left) and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attend a discussion in Tokyo on Feb. 3, 2025, when Son announced a joint venture with the United States tech company to offer advanced artificial intelligence to businesses.

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Lessons Indonesia can learn from the recent OpenAI agent breaches

When an AI agent mistakes a government firewall for an ordinary puzzle, it is a warning shot Indonesia cannot afford to ignore as it writes its cybersecurity laws.

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A man (top, left) climbs a flagpole as he attempts to raise a Free Aceh Movement flag alongside the Indonesian national flag during a rally outside the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh, Aceh, on Aug 15, 2026.

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Twenty-one years on, Aceh’s peace faces new strains

A decades-long insurgency in the Indonesian province ended after 2004’s devastating tsunami. But pro-independence talk is on the rise again.

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In the age of AI, purpose is becoming a business strategy

AI, social media and universal connectivity are making corporate behavior radically more transparent.

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Protesters hold posters and banners that read '481,000 hectares is not just number, but our lives!' (left) and 'Customary land is not empty land' (right) during a rally in front of the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry in Jakarta on Oct. 7, 2025, to protest deforestation that threatens indigenous land in South Papua.

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The agrarian reform law and investment prospects of palm oil

Rushed through the House, Indonesia’s new agrarian reform law will either secure the future of the nation’s multi-billion-dollar palm oil sector or paralyze it with unprecedented legal uncertainty.

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President Prabowo Subianto (left) raises his hand, next to Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as he shouts 'merdeka’ (freedom), during his annual state of the nation address before members of the legislature, ahead of the country's 81st Independence Day, in Jakarta, on Aug. 14, 2026.

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Land reform is here. Now let Prabowo prove he meant what he said

The will clearly exists. The only question that matters now is whether that will reach into the president's own back pocket.

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Motorcyclists ride on a haze-shrouded road caused by forest and land fires in Palangkaraya city, Central Kalimantan, on Aug. 28, 2026.

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Mandatory budget refocusing amid nationwide disasters

When populist national programs hollow out regional budgets, local governments are left fiscally paralyzed just as nationwide disasters strike—turning centralized ambition into a fatal governance failure.

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Protesters during a “Stop the AI Race“ demonstration call for a slowdown in the development of advanced artificial intelligence systems outside City Hall in San Francisco, California, the United States, on Sept. 17, 2026. The world's biggest AI companies are working on creating a standards body, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI said on Sept. 15, as fears rise about the dangers of AI and pressure is on to create a safer version of the technology.

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Artificial intelligence needs trusted journalism

As people increasingly rely on AI chatbots for news, siphoning traffic and profits from outlets often operating on a shoestring budget, good journalism is at risk of disappearing.

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A man fishes at Pasauran beach, Anyer in Serang, Bantedn, on April 24, 2022 while Mount Anak Krakatau spews thick smoke into the air.

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Anak Krakatau’s eruption begins a new soil story

Satellite imagery reveals a dramatic shift on Sertung Island following Anak Krakatau’s eruption. As lush greenery turns to ash, a new natural laboratory emerges for studying the birth of soil.

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In Indonesia, waqf revival has been very significant in the past decades after the consolidation of regulation and bureaucratic procedures in the waqf sector in the form of Law No. 41 of 2004 on Waqf and the establishment of the Indonesian Waqf Board (BWI) in 2007.

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From oil wealth to waqf: Building intergenerational social capital

By borrowing the institutional discipline of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, Aceh and Indonesia can transform ancient traditions of waqf into an engine of permanent, intergenerational prosperity.

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A handout photo taken on May 6 and released by the Batam Immigration Office shows computers seized during a raid by immigration authorities and police that detained 210 foreign nationals over an alleged online investment scam operation at an apartment complex in Batam, Riau Islands.

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Indonesia can't afford to sit out the first cybercrime treaty

With billions of cyberattacks and millions in losses, Indonesia helped write the world’s first UN Cybercrime Treaty - now it must ratify it before borderless syndicates outrun the law.

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Haze from forest fires shrouds the Ampera Bridge in Palembang, South Sumatra on Sept. 6, 2026.

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When the fires are out, the health bill comes due

The rains may put out Indonesia’s forest fires, but the real disaster begins once the smoke clears, leaving thousands of rural children to bear a hidden, long-term health crisis alone.

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Common stand: Members of various civil society groups react in the public gallery as the House of Representatives passes the agrarian reform bill during a plenary session on Sept. 22, 2026 at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta.

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Beyond hectares: The litmus test of the Agrarian Reform Law

Returning a parcel of depleted soil does not heal generational displacement, and measuring land reform by hectares rather than restored human rights only guarantees that history will repeat itself.

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The real warning behind Guterres’ AI alarm

As AI shifts global power into fewer hands, nations like Indonesia face a stark choice: build sovereign capability and shape the technology's direction, or become mere consumers in the next great development divide.

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right) joins other foreign ministers during the Opening Statement of the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference with China on July 22 at the Philippine International Convention Centre in Manila.

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ASEAN, China need to promote the Global Governance Initiative together

Grounded in shared values and decades of partnership, China and ASEAN are poised to turn the Global Governance Initiative into a real-world architecture for regional stability and shared prosperity.

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Treasured tradition: Customary leaders walk through a throng of revelers as they prepare to perform a ritual on Sept. 23, 2026, during the Cia-Cia community’s annual Maataano Santa festival in Laburunci village, Buton regency, Southeast Sulawesi.

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A truly just transition demands direct indigenous power

A decarbonized future cannot be measured in megawatts alone: without the non-negotiable right to consent, the global rush for clean energy risks replicating the very exploitation it claims to leave behind.

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Students display placards reading “Return the soldiers to the barracks“ during a protest against a revision to the Indonesian Military (TNI) Law in Surabaya, East Java on March 24, 2025.

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Militarization by request: The quiet creep in Jakarta

When civilian ministries outsource governance to the barracks, democracy risks mistaking military creep for routine statecraft.

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Rizal Kasli, Industry expert, chairman of the mining expertise board of Persatuan Insinyur Indonesia (PII), and chairman of PERHAPI (2018–2024)

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Clean nickel paradox vs. fossil fuel dominance

The Indonesian nickel industry is currently navigating a profound paradox: a world that desperately needs our mineral wealth but increasingly demands it to be "clean" and low-emission.

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