Opinion Articles & News Commentary

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

LOG IN / REGISTER

LOG IN

Don’t have an account? Register here Give your organization full access to The Jakarta Post. Register here

Boniface Djabia, the chief of Betykro, a camp of cocoa producers living in precarious conditions 20 kilometers from Guiglo, Ivory Coast, poses for a portrait in front of one of his mud houses covered with straw on Jan. 16, 2026.

Academia premium

How developing countries can do more with less

Evaluation frameworks for development projects have long been influenced by donor priorities. But foreign-aid cuts have created an opportunity for African countries to implement equitable evaluation practices, both to channel limited resources more effectively and to shape the future of global development governance.

12 hours ago

Academia premium

The Dec. 15 deadline keeps Indonesia’s political pressure cooking

By putting a Dec.15 deadline in writing, lawmakers didn't just defuse a street protest—they handed the public a ticking timer on their own integrity. ...

13 hours ago

The anxious search of Pakistan’s power elite for regional standing

Pakistan’s power elite still dreams of returning to those days of perceived glory and reclaiming the country’s position among the leading middle powers of the Muslim world. ...

8 hours ago

The Latest

Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words “Artificial Intelligence“ in this illustration created on Feb. 19, 2024.

AI watermarks erase human authorship twice

Models absorb human creativity without consent, then label human-directed work as machine-made, creating a troubling double erasure of authorship.

9 hours ago

Academia premium

Cybersecurity governance: From bureaucracy to real-world threats

We have the blueprints to defend our digital sovereignty, but without real enforcement power, adequate funding and urgency on AI and quantum threats, the next massive breach is already penciled in.

11 hours ago

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

Academia premium

What SBY and Jokowi can teach Prabowo about regaining public trust

History proves political recovery is entirely possible. SBY and Jokowi successfully restored their approval ratings above 50 percent. Not only did they improve their numbers, both went on win re-election.

1 day ago

A thick haze shrouds Metro Manila due to smoke from ongoing fires in Kalimantan, Indonesia, in this drone picture taken in Quezon City, Philippines, on Sept. 1, 2026.

Academia premium

Asia's natural disasters must not become financial crises

Physical hazards can quickly morph into macroeconomic shocks.

1 day ago

Riot police are deployed outside the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta on Aug. 27, 2026, during a protest against government policies that also called for harsher penalties against corrupters.

Academia premium

Sowing division: When the state pits citizens against citizens

When a government outsources repression to street militias, it isn't preserving order; it is waging a reckless, authoritarian war against its own people.

1 day ago

Oil tankers unload imported crude oil at the at the crude oil terminal of in Qingdao port, in China’s eastern Shandong province on July 16, 2026.

Why oil importers are learning to live with longer trade routes

Energy trade routes that optimize distance and costs may no longer be suitable for the fractured and fractious modern world, especially for major importers.

1 day ago

A firefighter from the Banjar Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) douses a peatland fire on Sept. 2, 2026, in Banjar regency, South Kalimantan.

What a record‑shattering El Niño means for the world’s weather

This year's El Nino is forecast to be the strongest ever, compounding the effects of climate change, and it may just catalyze the world into finally abandoning fossil fuels.

1 day ago

Indonesian seafarers line up for immigration clearance following their arrival at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, on June 16, 2021.

Academia premium

From Vladivostok to Gunungkidul: Indonesia must export skills, not just workers

If Indonesia wants its global diplomacy to truly pay off, it must stop sending cheap labor into the shadows and start exporting certified talent the world will actually invest in.

1 day ago

An ice cream vendor looks at banners showing candidates for the 2024 presidential and regional legislative elections on Feb. 3 in Surabaya, East Java.

Academia premium

Making the legislative threshold adaptive and democratic

We must stop treating the parliamentary threshold as an arbitrary political horse trade and replace static cutoffs with an adaptive, evidence-based mechanism that protects voter representation.

3 days ago

Stateless outcasts: A Rohingya man carries Myanmar's national flag on Aug. 25, 2026 during a Genocide Remembrance Day rally at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, to mark the ninth anniversary of their mass exodus following a military crackdown.

Academia premium

Myanmar crisis testing the promise of universal jurisdiction

Universal jurisdiction can open the courtroom doors to Myanmar’s survivors, but without cross-border political will, investigative muscle and survivor-centered networks, a growing docket of foreign cases will never amount to real accountability.

3 days ago

A Papuan mother carries her sleeping child on her back on Jan. 25, 2018, at a temporary hospital handling measles and malnutrition patients in Agats, the capital of Asmat district in Indonesia's easternmost Papua province. Some 800 children have been sickened by a measles-and-malnutrition outbreak in Indonesia's remote Papua province, officials said Jan. 25, with as many as 100 people, mostly toddlers, feared to have been killed in the outbreak. AFP/ Bay Ismoyo

Academia premium

Rural cooperatives shatter the dream of inclusive development

A single top-down mandate is draining Indonesia’s village coffers for state cooperatives, gutting the local budgets that keep maternal clinics running, malnourished children fed and grassroots democracy alive.

3 days ago

A farmer plows a field with a tractor in Kawhmu township on the outskirts of Yangon on May 25, 2026.

Academia premium

In food crises, emergency agricultural assistance can help turn the tide

Timely agricultural assistance can prevent manageable shocks from becoming entrenched humanitarian emergencies.

3 days ago

Community health workers weigh a toddler during a regular mother-and-child checkup at an integrated health post (Posyandu) in South Celep district, Sidoarjo, East Java, on Oct. 12, 2023.

Academia premium

How village-led parenting offers a new hope to communities

In the face of climate shocks and systemic neglect, rural Indonesian communities are rewriting the rules of parental care from the ground up.

3 days ago

People scout for usable materials from debris on Sept. 1 after flash floods at Trishuli Center in Nepal's Nuwakot district. The huge wave of freezing water and debris, sparked by a glacial collapse on the China-Nepal border, killed at least 939 people and left nearly 4,500 missing, with Kathmandu warning reconstruction costs could run into the “billions of dollars“.

Academia premium

Early warning of disasters key as it can save lives

From 19th-century Himalayan telegraphs to real-time satellite ocean grids, history proves that disasters are inevitable—but mass casualties are not, provided we heed the warning in time.

3 days ago

Indonesian, Australian, Singaporean and United States military personnel attend the opening ceremony of the Super Garuda Shield 2023 joint military exercise in Situbondo, East Java on Aug. 31, 2023.

Academia premium

Rowing between two reefs: Why Indonesia won't pick a side

Drilling with the Pentagon in the west while exercising with Beijing in the east isn’t Indonesia playing a double game, it’s a masterclass in surviving between two superpowers without answering to either.

4 days ago

United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh attend a plenary session on Aug. 31, 2026, as finance ministers and central bank governors from G20 countries meet in North Carolina, the US.

Academia premium

American Götterdämmerung

The Trump administration’s mounting blunders are hastening the transition to a post-American world order.

4 days ago

Haze from forest fires in Kalimantan, Indonesia blankets Papar district, in Sabah, Malaysia.

Academia premium

Malaysia must not breathe Indonesia’s governance failure

Southeast Asia's skies aren't choking simply on bad weather; they’re choking on decades of Jakarta’s governance failure.

4 days ago

Bride Lhiane Galang (center) walks down the aisle at the St. John the Baptist Parish church during her wedding ceremony in a flooded church in Hagonoy town, Bulacan, the Philippines, on Sept. 1, 2026.

The river does not forget

Nature remains unpredictable and largely indifferent to human attempts to intervene in its course.

4 days ago

A customer picks a bottled beverage from a refrigerated display on July 5, 2024, at a supermarket in South Tangerang, Banten.

Academia premium

Breaking into, navigating ASEAN’s consumer market

Winning in ASEAN takes more than deep pockets and borrowed playbooks—it demands the rare operational discipline to dismantle corporate dogma and adapt faster than the market.

4 days ago

Guests visit the Marunda Flow Center during its launch ceremony at KBN Marunda Industrial Estate in North Jakarta, on May 13, 2025. Supply chain specialist APL Logistics operates the 32,000 square meters distribution facility.

Academia premium

Industrial estates need a new measure of success

Indonesia must stop selling cheap land and labor—and start building high-performing, sustainable industrial ecosystems that modern global investors actually want.

4 days ago

United States President Donald Trump (right) speaks to President Prabowo Subianto (left) on Feb. 19, 2026, during the signing ceremony for the US-Indonesia Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) in Washington, DC.

Academia premium

‘The Odyssey’: Tricksters, Trojan horses and homecomings

From Hollywood mythmaking to modern populist politics, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey holds up a sobering mirror to figures like Donald Trump and Prabowo Subianto, exposing how disruptive "tricksters" use Trojan horse tactics to hollow out democracy from within.

5 days ago

Newly appointed Bank Indonesia (BI) Governor Destry Damayanti gestures during the 4th plenary session of the House of Representatives on Sept. 1, 2026, flanked by her new senior deputy governor Aida S. Budiman (left) and deputy governor Solikin M. Juhro at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta.

Academia premium

Thousands of miles apart: Two governors, one North Star problem

From Jackson Hole to Jakarta, the Fed's Kevin Warsh and BI's Destry Damayanti face twin battles over the most fragile asset in central banking: credibility.

5 days ago

Humanoid robots controlled by a remote control by Unitree Robotics take part in a fight on July 18 during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China.

Academia premium

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping should align on AI

When potential outcomes are systemic and irreversible, preparation must precede certainty.

5 days ago

A man climbs a flagpole (left) as he attempts to raise a Free Aceh Movement (GAM) flag alongside the Red and White national flag on Aug. 15, 2026, during a rally to mark the 21st anniversary of the Helsinki Agreement outside the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh, Aceh.

Academia premium

Growth, income disparities and national cohesion

By redirecting local fiscal lifelines to fund national flagship projects, the government risks deepening the income gap and fracturing national unity into a tale of two economies.

5 days ago

Smoke drifts from an oil refinery on May 5, 2026, from a Syncrude joint venture site in Alberta's Wood Buffalo, Canada.

The Americas’ oil bonanza will outlast the Iran conflict

Oil production in the Americas has become a viable alternative since the outbreak of the war. The shift is one of the most striking changes in the global energy landscape in decades.

5 days ago

Graves are seen after the commemoration ceremony of the cessation of World War II in Asia at the Menteng Pulo Dutch war cemetery in Jakarta on Aug. 15, 2024.

Academia premium

Nurturing a culture to protect humanity in wartime

Black-and-white laws cannot stop wartime atrocities; true restraint begins only when the principles of humanity are etched into the soldier’s conscience long before the first shot is fired.

5 days ago

United States Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent takes questions from reporters on Aug. 24, 2026, during a press conference in Washington, DC.

Academia premium

Are the walls closing in on Bessent?

Far from suggesting financial Armageddon, the US treasury secretary’s futile efforts to keep a lid on Treasury yields suggest that once again, the dollar is America’s currency but everyone else’s problem.

6 days ago

Page: 1

Popular

Today's ePost

Tue, September 8, 2026

Deepdive Highlights

Legacy, landscapes and lives: The tales of Nusantara

Legacy, landscapes and lives: The tales of Nusantara

Black and White of RI Fiesta of Democracy

Black and White of RI Fiesta of Democracy

Silent, invisible danger on Cirebon coast

Silent, invisible danger on Cirebon coast

Halls of Time

Community

The app life

By Pallavi Aiyar

Of cats and writers

Of cats and writers

By Pallavi Aiyar

A fair national exam is radical politics

A fair national exam is radical politics

By Pallavi Aiyar

Here, there, everywhere: The geography of belonging

Here, there, everywhere: The geography of belonging

By Pallavi Aiyar

Saya Orang Indonesia?

Saya Orang Indonesia?

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Let us know what you think:

Enter at least 30 characters

0 / 30

Thank you

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.