Trading session: A man walks past an electronic screen displaying the composite index on Oct. 30, 2026 at the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) building in South Jakarta.

Capital market trust is fundamental economic infrastructure

Indonesia needs a trusted capital market not just to reassure foreign investors, but to finance businesses, safeguard long-term savings, and help households build wealth.

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Global AI governance as the new frontier of diplomacy

Foreign policy must come with a strategic vision of states to maximize the benefits of the AI’s use and mitigate its risks. ...

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The twilight of RSPO: A multistakeholder sustainability forum

As the EUDR exposes the structural limits of private voluntary certification, the RSPO’s decades-long monopoly is giving way to a new era of sovereign regulation and legal parity. ...

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Sense of belonging: Flood victims Ajaya Gurung (left) and Sapana Gurung salvage belongings from a sludge-ridden house on Oct. 14, 2026 along the banks of the Budhi Gandaki River at Soti Bazar in Nepal's Gorkha district following a flash flood.

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The Nepal lesson: Warning systems, not solar panels

The real lesson of the Nepal disaster is that economic development and early warning systems protect human lives—not empty summit pledges.

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People travel the Kahayan River on motorized longboats on Oct. 18, 2026, as haze from forest and peatland fires shrouds Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan.

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Is the palm industry the only culprit behind wildfires?

Blaming the palm oil industry for Indonesian fires fueling Southeast Asia’s transboundary haze is an easy narrative, but rigorous evidence and reality tell a far more complex story.

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A partially burned oil palm plantation is blanketed by haze on Aug. 30 in Kuala Satong village, Ketapang regency, West Kalimantan.

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Haze and the quest for a new growth model

Fighting the fires and finding new, sustainable engines of growth are not separate battles.

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Demonstrators hold placards while raising a three-finger salute on Oct. 20, 2026, during a protest in Jakarta that marked the second year of President Prabowo Subianto’s administration and called for an end to wildfires and corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN).

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Three-finger salute raised high, broad and multifaceted in Indonesia

From movie screens to Southeast Asia's streets, the three-finger salute has evolved from a silent cinematic gesture into Indonesia's potent rallying cry against oligarchy, poverty and ecological collapse.

1 day ago

Myanmar President Min Aung Hlaing (second left) and Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul (left) inspect a guard of honor on Aug. 6, 2026, during a ceremony at Government House in Bangkok to welcome the former junta chief.

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Letter to the editor: Senior Myanmar diplomat responds

Myanmar's head of mission in Jakarta responds to an opinion article by James H. Shwe on the FATF and Indonesia's role as a task force member, particularly with regard to transnational scam compounds.

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An employee sweeps a footpath on July 18, 2022, in the Mangrove and Proboscis Monkey Conservation Area (KKBM) in Tarakan, North Kalimantan.

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What COP31’s climate bridge can learn from Indonesia

COP pledges are won or lost far from conference halls. If climate finance cannot bridge the gap to local communities in provinces, global targets will remain out of reach.

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A cargo vessel leaves a port in the Black Sea on March 26, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine.

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Why Ukraine’s food exports matter to Indonesia

From the Black Sea to your bowl of noodles, war in Ukraine directly shakes Indonesia’s food prices—and reveals why Europe and Indonesia must partner to secure what’s on our tables.

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Robots to the rescue: Three Indonesian students from Team Bayu Sakti, Arga Wibawa (left), Owen Tay Jia Hao (center) and Ksatria Wibawa Putra Murti demonstrate how the Rajawali drone works on Dec. 15, 2025, at the ACS Jakarta School in East Jakarta.

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When new technology launches outrun learning

Driven by the allure of novel tech and flashy inaugurations, Indonesian institutions risk chasing performative modernization at the cost of deep operational competence and lasting institutional memory.

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Three disabled members of the flag-hoisting squad salute on Aug. 17, 2025, during the 80th Independence Day celebrations in Gorontalo, capital of its namesake province on the Minahasa Peninsula in northern Sulawesi.

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A century of Indonesia’s national imagination

A century after the First Youth Congress imagined Indonesia into existence, a new generation must break constitutional taboos to ensure that our union is sustained by genuine justice rather than centralized decree.

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President Prabowo Subianto (right) speaks with Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Wednesday during a closed-door meeting at the President's private residence in Hambalang, Bogor regency, West Java.

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Indonesia returns to old habit of blaming and bullying Singapore

The haze has returned, along with an old political habit: Blaming outsiders rather than confronting failures at home.

2 days ago

Dedi Mulyadi (center), governor-elect of West Java, converses with members of the West Java Council on Jan. 10, 2025, after a plenary meeting to announce the provincial results of the regional head elections.

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Explaining the curious rise of Dedi Mulyadi

The West Java governor's political star is rising parallel to the President's falling approval, showing how voter behavior adapts to favor popular regional leaders in an opposition vacuum.

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Officers collect cloacal swabs and blood samples as part of avian influenza detection efforts in Probolinggo regency, East Java, on Sept. 22, 2025.

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Protecting Asia-Pacific farms past borders

From migratory seabirds to family dinner tables, stopping the next pandemic demands that we treat animal, human, and ecological health as one shared frontline.

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An attendant adjusts the flag for Timor-Leste after the country formally joined the ASEAN the ASEAN Summit on Oct. 26, 2025, in Kuala Lumpur.

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Timor-Leste, Indonesia and the meaning of ASEAN membership

The ASEAN membership now will reinforce Indonesia-Timor-Leste partnership, but will also make it easier for the governments to leave the past unaddressed.

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Rows of containers are stacked on July 24, 2025, in an industrial area at the Batang Industropolis, a special economic zone in Batang regency, Central Java.

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Why investors should not walk away from Indonesia now

Market routs and wildfire smoke may have clouded October, but Indonesia's rock-solid fundamentals and massive infrastructure boom prove that betting against Southeast Asia’s economic heavyweight is a mistake.

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A teller places a bundle of rupiah banknotes into a currency counter machine on June 4, 2026, at a money changer in Jakarta.

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Can BI support growth without sacrificing the rupiah?

Bank Indonesia is taking a high-stakes gamble with a multi-tool strategy to spur domestic growth while defending the rupiah. But can its competing policy instruments avoid canceling each other out?

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Motorists drive with their headlights on amid thick, soupy haze on Oct. 24, 2026, along Jl. Tjilik Riwut in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan.

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Indonesia’s fires are releasing centuries of stored carbon

An El-Niño-induced intense drought is the match that lit this year's peat fires in Indonesia, which are releasing ancient carbon that won’t be reabsorbed by future forest growth as a dire consequence of land conversion.

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RV Kronprins Haakon, a polar research icebreaker owned by the Norwegian Polar Institute, sails on Feb. 18, 2026, off Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen Island in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

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Warmer Arctic, colder relations up north

Melting sea and land ice in the Arctic is not only changing the climate but also geopolitical alignments and economic rivalry, all the way south to the tropics.

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Police officers and health workers respond on Jan. 29, 2026, to suspected mass food poisoning cases linked to the free nutritious meal program at SMA 2 Kudus senior high school in the capital of Kudus regency, Central Java.

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Empty jargon cannot fill families' wallets

Glossy ribbons and technocratic jargon may sound good in press releases, but only affordable food and verified results can win the public’s trust.

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Back in school: Students participate in a classroom activity on Oct. 29, 2026 at SDN 4 Menteng public elementary school in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan, after two months of online learning due to haze.

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Engineering the future: Closing the gender gap in STEM

Modern nationalism should require Indonesian women and girls to also spearhead science and technology in all spheres of life.

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People flock to the Car Free Day event on Jl. Rasuna Said in South Jakarta on June 21, 2026.

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Jakarta’s creative pulse: Building toward five centuries

Jakarta is positioning itself not merely as Indonesia’s largest city, but as a place where global talent and local energy meet on terms that benefit residents.

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Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, who learned to play several musical instruments from an early age, plays the flute in this undated photo.

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Let Bocelli’s music become a call for peace, not division

Instead of letting Andrea Bocelli’s upcoming shows in Indonesia divide the country, we should transform his stage into an uncompromising global platform for Palestinian justice and humanitarian solidarity.

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President Prabowo Subianto (center) presides over a limited cabinet meeting with several cabinet ministers on his administration's housing program at his private residence in Hambalang, Bogor regency, West Java on Sept. 1, 2026.

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Bakom RI responds

The Government respects the findings of the Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) survey as one reflection of public perceptions of the implementation of democracy in Indonesia.

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People take part in a rally in Yogyakarta on Sept. 8, 2026, demanding an end to the government's free nutritious meal program after multiple cases of food poisoning.

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How knowledge is mobilized, actioned or rejected

Knowledge is not neutral; it can be deployed to legitimize those residing in the ivory tower just as easily as those seated at the policy table. Crucially, knowledge must travel if it is to inform state responses to recurring crises.

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Line of defense: Visitors examine armored fighting vehicles produced by Indonesian defense solutions companies Sentra Surya Ekajaya and IPCD Group during the Indo Defense Expo and Forum military equipment exhibition at Jakarta International Expo in Jakarta on June 12, 2025.

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Indonesia signed Badr to escape a veto. Pakistan knows where vetoes go

In its rush to escape Western arms embargoes, Indonesia risks trading an American veto for Russian and Turkish ones - discovering, as Pakistan did, that true air power cannot simply be bought on foreign credit.

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President Prabowo Subianto delivers a speech on Oct. 21, 2026, during a plenary cabinet meeting at the Presidential Palace Complex in Central Jakarta, where over 100 officials from his Red and White Cabinet gathered to mark the second anniversary of his presidency.

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Two years in, Prabowo exhausts Indonesia's state capacity

Indonesia does not need more institutions to become a better economy: It needs stronger state capacity backed by accountable institutions, predictable rules and credible law enforcement.

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A man uses his mobile phone in front of a reflection of an electronic board displaying stock prices at the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) building in South Jakarta on Oct. 14, 2026.

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When diplomacy loses its place in policymaking

Indonesia does not lack spokespersons. What it is missing is diplomacy as the center of gravity of its foreign policy.

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Job seekers wait in line during the opening of the 2026 Bogor Job Fair on June 8 at Plaza Jambu Dua in Bogor, West Java. The job fair, organized by the Bogor Manpower Office and attended by 30 local and national companies offering 3,212 job vacancies, aims to connect job seekers directly with employers and help reduce unemployment in West Java.

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The promise of ‘Sumpah Pemuda’, the promise of a first job

Nearly a century after the Youth Pledge, Indonesia’s demographic promise will not be fulfilled in speeches, but in whether its economy can offer millions of waiting young people their critical first job.

6 days ago

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