A man in Nicosia walks on May 4, 2026, in front of a large screen displaying vessel movements in the Strait of Hormuz on a ship-tracking website.

Opaque oil deals around Hormuz test the petrodollar

There are growing signs that major Asian importers are adapting to the new reality by striking direct arrangements with Gulf producers.

2 hours ago

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Setting the right course on maritime law enforcement discourse

An ongoing judicial review before the Constitutional Court concerning the criminal investigation power of the Indonesian Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla) exposes a structural problem of thinking upon maritime law enforcement. ...

3 hours ago

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Why presidential banter fuels public anxiety

The humor, sarcasm and barbed language utilized on stage represent a deliberate cultural attempt to construct a new form of state-approved common sense. ...

4 hours ago

The Latest

A new planting area for palm oil plantations is seen in Lamno village, Aceh Jaya regency, Aceh on Jan. 18, 2026.

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Risky reawakening of state-controlled commodity exports

it remains to be seen whether President Prabowo’s ambitious "single window" export policy will turn Indonesia into a global price maker, or will tight state centralization trigger a historic crisis of market trust.

1 day ago

United States President Donald Trump (left) takes part in a welcome ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14, 2026.

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The US and China must learn to coexist

The Beijing summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping showed that competition between the United States and China need not become a zero-sum struggle for supremacy.

1 day ago

Vietnam's Prime Minister Le Minh Hung (left) is greeted by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (center) and his wife Liza Araneta Marcos during a welcome ceremony for the 48th ASEAN Summit in Cebu, central Philippines, on May 8, 2026.

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ASEAN’s historic Marcos–Hung rice agreement

The year-long staple food agreement signed at the ASEAN Summit marked a major breakthrough for the region in facing the global energy and food crises.

1 day ago

A man throws water in an attempt to douse a wildfire in Pemulutan district, Ogan Ilir regency, South Sumatra, on Sept. 12, 2023.

Academia

Super El Niño? Prepare, but do not panic yet

Twin cyclones helped trigger massive ocean warming in the Pacific. But whether that leads to a strong El Niño is still uncertain.

1 day ago

Passengers walk past check-in counters on Oct. 18, 2022, in Terminal 3 at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten.

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Balancing passengers' rights and airlines' survival in ASEAN

To save Southeast Asia's aviation sector from collapse due to geopolitical and economic crises, regulators must scrap outdated price controls and shift from penalizing airlines to sharing the responsibility of passenger care.

1 day ago

A test tube labelled “Hantavirus positive“ is held in this illustration taken on May 7, 2026.

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From coronavirus to hantavirus: Ecosystems in crisis

As human activity shatters ecological boundaries, viruses once confined to the wild are finding dangerous new pathways into our world.

1 day ago

Families of victims in extrajudicial killings of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte's drug war watch a live stream on Feb. 26 of Duterte's confirmation hearing from The Hague, in Quezon City, Metro Manila.

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From sovereignty to accountability: Southeast Asia’s ICC moment

The case signals that Southeast Asia’s long-standing reliance on sovereignty and non-interference is increasingly colliding with growing demands for accountability.

2 days ago

Workers lift solar panels onto their frames on Aug. 1, 2024, at a solar farm on old farmland in Oxfordshire, the United Kingdom.

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Sustainable economies will own the future

Though the political and cultural backlash against “sustainability” is real, so is the global economic transition toward cleaner energy technologies and electrification.

2 days ago

Women use smartphones on Sept. 28, 2023, at the entrance of Tanah Abang Market, Southeast Asia's largest wholesale shopping center for garments and textiles, in Jakarta.

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Can Indonesia still make Big Tech pay for news?

A presidential regulation that depends on voluntary negotiation ultimately asks platforms to act against their own commercial interest out of goodwill.

2 days ago

United States President Donald Trump (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping stand together on May 14, 2026, as they tour the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

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Pragmatism is defining the new China-US trade order

This shift is best understood through the emergence of a strategy that prioritizes immediate corporate wins over long-term structural overhaul.

2 days ago

Mustakim, 55, salvages personal belongings on Feb. 17, 2026, at his flooded home in Pilangwetan village of Kebon Agung district, Demak regency, Central Java.

Academia

The Giant Sea Wall project: Climate adaptation or a costly folly?

Addressing the causes of land subsidence will determine whether the Giant Sea Wall works as planned, as a flood defense for Java's northern coast, or if it will lead to unintended consequences such as exacerbating ecological damage.

2 days ago

A social aid beneficiary holds up money she received though the Family Hope Program (PKH) on May 10, 2024, while posing for a photograph at the Bandung Central Post Office in West Java.

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Service delivery holds the key to social protection returns

Indonesia's Rp 508 trillion social protection budget can only achieve its true value when the government stops focusing on how much it spends and starts fixing the fragmented digital architecture that is holding it back.

2 days ago

A worker dumps a batch of deep-fried tofu to drain excess oil on March 7, 2023, at a cottage industry in Cisadap, Ciamis, West Java.

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Dollar blind spot could deepen Indonesia's currency crisis

Rather than attempt to downplay the rupiah's slide through well-meaning but ultimately misleading political statements that inevitably dismiss the plight of rural communities, realpolitik based on honesty backed by data is the best policy approach.

3 days ago

Cargo ships are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off the port city of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran, in this picture from the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) obtained on May 4, 2026.

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When volatility is good politics

The Iran war has revealed how deeply material interests are embedded in strategic calculations, concentrating rewards among powerful insiders while leaving society to absorb the costs. As long as chaos remains politically and economically rewarding, such conflicts will remain difficult to contain.

3 days ago

Police Reform Acceleration Committee chair Jimly Asshiddiqie (center) as well as members Yusril Ihza Mahendra (left) and Mahfud MD (right) speak to journalists during a press briefing at the Presidential Palace complex in Jakarta on May 5, 2026. The committee members met with President Prabowo Subianto to submit their six-point proposal to reform the National Police.

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Reforming the National Police or preserving the status quo?

The Police Reform Acceleration Committee’s 3,000-page report exposes deep systemic ailments within the National Police, yet by keeping the force directly under presidential control, it risks preserving the political status quo under the guise of reform.

3 days ago

An electronic signboard shows the closing prices of stocks at the end of the day's trade outside the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) building in Hong Kong on March 23, 2026.

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Want to jump into the 'China is back' rally? Tread carefully

"China is back" is a common refrain among investors. However, stock-picking in China remains as hard as ever.

3 days ago

Game time: Students play the online game Roblox on Wednesday during the Edublox extracurricular activity at the Solo Technopark in Surakarta, Central Java. The Roblox online extracurricular game program for junior high school students, initiated by the Surakarta city government and Solo Technopark (STP), aims to enhance children’s creativity and provide positive digital education, transforming it into a modern, technology-based learning medium.

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Science parks won’t solve Indonesia’s innovation problem

Indonesia keeps building shiny technoparks to celebrate innovation, but until its institutions actually reward risk and accept failure, it is merely building the container while ignoring the broken system inside.

3 days ago

A worker takes part in an International Workers' Memorial Day vigil on April 28, 2025, to honor colleagues who have died from workplace accidents and occupational diseases, after finishing their shifts in an industrial area in Jakarta.

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Why Indonesian workers remain in the safety paradox

Indonesia’s workplace safety system is highly certified on paper, but a skyrocketing accident rate reveals a tragic reality: we are regulating compliance while completely failing to control real-time risks.

3 days ago

A farmer climbs a coconut tree on Nov.10, 2025, in Tawa village, Bacan Island, South Halmahera regency, North Maluku. Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman has said that the downstreaming of coconut production is a key strategy to increase national export value by up to Rp 2.4 trillion (US$143.7 million) and to strengthen the welfare of coconut farmers across regions.

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Indonesia is in the shadow of a perfect economic storm

The rupiah’s march toward 18,000 per dollar is not merely a currency story; it is a warning signal of something deeper, the erosion of confidence in Indonesia’s economic direction.

4 days ago

A health worker prepares a measles-rubella vaccine on April 6, 2026, at an integrated health services post (Posyandu) amid a measles outbreak due to low vaccination coverage in Cikukuk, West Java.

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The world must not turn its back on vaccination

The world is losing sight of the overwhelming evidence that vaccines save lives.

4 days ago

The United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary David Lammy, United States President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (from left to right) attend the start of a NATO leaders summit on June 25, 2025, in The Hague, the Netherlands.

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Values-based realism: Countering US hegemonic foreign policy

As US foreign policy shifts into a cutthroat, transactional game under Trump, Europe is fighting back by forging its own strategic autonomy rooted in value-based realism.

4 days ago

A person carries supplies on Feb. 12, 2026, as he walks past the damaged Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site on the border between Thailand and Cambodia, following clashes between the two countries, in Preah Vihear province, Cambodia.

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Dispute resolution is key to defusing Thailand-Cambodia tensions

Tensions are escalating again between the neighbors, this time over their maritime border.

4 days ago

Students of the SMKN 55 state vocational school in Jakarta exhibit on Sept. 27, 2023, motorcycles converted from internal combustion engines to electric power during the Jakarta Innovation Days event

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Securing stable work in an uncertain world

Every country in our region is struggling with the question of how education systems can keep up with the pace of change.

4 days ago

Employees process phytopharmaceuticals (fitofarmaka) Oct. 16, 2025, at the Center for Innovation and Research of Natural Medicines, Dexa Laboratories of Biomolecular Sciences (DLBS), in Cikarang, Bekasi, West Java.

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Advanced therapy: How Indonesia can escape the middle-income trap

To escape the middle-income trap, Indonesia must transition from a passive market into a global producer of breakthrough medical innovations.

4 days ago

An electronic display board shows an overall downward movement across most stocks during the lunch break on Jan. 29, inside the main hall of the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in South Jakarta.

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Jakarta meets the deep state

The institutional reflexes that govern Jakarta were not built for a New York index provider that can erode a fifth of Indonesia's sovereign investor mandate overnight.

5 days ago

United States President Donald Trump speaks on April 1 during a televised address on the conflict in the Middle East from the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington, DC.

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United States’ superpower suicide

Empires rise and fall, but to my knowledge no state has ever deliberately, and systematically, killed its own power — much less with such speed.

5 days ago

A teller holds rupiah bank notes on April 9, 2025, at a money changer in Jakarta.

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The rupiah’s long decline and Indonesia’s structural imbalances

The rupiah's persistent depreciation is a structural consequence of over-reliance on volatile capital inflows to finance a chronic current account deficit, persistent saving–investment imbalances, lasting fiscal deficit and a narrow, commodity-dependent export base.

5 days ago

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