International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva (left) speaks as Singapore's President Tharman Shanmugaratnam (center) and World Bank Group President Ajay Banga look on during the IMF-World Bank 2026 Annual Meetings in Bangkok on Oct. 12, 2026.

Resetting the World Bank-IMF’s relationship with the world

In the decades of their work, various challenges have arisen in relation to negative impact on human rights, and social and environmental issues.

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Outlook of the national palm oil sector in 2027

The government should put an end to the various rules that stifle investment and instead focus on building a healthy, competitive business climate that ensures legal certainty. ...

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EU–Indonesia CEPA: Turning commitments into trade and investment opportunities

Sweden and Indonesia’s partnership is increasingly focused on the future: supporting Indonesia’s industrial transformation while accelerating digitalization and the green transition in a rapidly changing global economy. ...

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Residents of Nongsa district in Batam, Riau Islands, block access to Nongsa Digital Park during a protest on Oct. 5, 2026, over months of water shortages in their community, while water supplies to data centres in the park remain uninterrupted.

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The extractivist logic haunts the AI data center rush in Indonesia, Malaysia

Behind the promise of Southeast Asia’s AI revolution lies a destructive reality: an old-school scramble for power, land and minerals that is reviving fossil fuels and pushing fragile ecosystems to the brink.

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China Coast Guard's (CCG) patrol vessel CCG 5401 (left) is shadowed by Indonesian Maritime Security Agency's (Bakamla) patrol boat KN Tanjung Datu and Indonesian Navy's corvette KRI Sutedi Senoputra inside Indonesian exclusive economic zone (EEZ) on North Natuna Sea on Oct. 21, 2024.

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Indonesia-China: Maritime cooperation without compromising national interests

Maritime cooperation with Beijing cannot come at the expense of sovereign rights: for Indonesia, the smart play is engagement backed by unyielding legal firewalls and a fortified presence in the North Natuna Sea.

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A police officer patrols the grounds of the Constitutional Court on Feb. 4, 2025, in Central Jakarta.

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Impeachment and democratic consolidation

Can impeachment strengthen a democracy, or does it only wound it?

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Cars head to a tollgate in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 9, 2026, a residential building in the distance obscured by thick haze from wildfires in Kalimantan and Sumatra.

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Fires and cross-border haze: What can still be done

Southeast Asia’s latest haze crisis was entirely foreseeable. As millions choke beneath toxic skies, halting the blazes today must come before the inevitable, unsparing reckoning tomorrow.

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Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka looks toward the central dais on May 20, 2026, prior to President Prabowo Subianto's speech on the macroeconomic framework to lawmakers at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta.

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Gibran wiped from the 2029 contest without a crisis

The court saga surrounding Gibran's credentials has essentially spelled the end of the Widodo political dynasty, not by killing it outright but by ensuring that it fades away.

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United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks on Sept. 3, 2026, during the launch of the Foundry School, a national training program, at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC.

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Is Washington dropping the diplomatic ball?

Almost half of US ambassadorships remain vacant while political appointees outnumber career diplomats being put forward, creating a perceived void in Washington's global presence.

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

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Squeezed by debts and disasters, the Global South needs reparations, not more loans

As the IMF-World Bank meetings convene in Bangkok, frontline nations are calling for financial liberation from the debt traps and failed prescriptions of international financial institutions.

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A woman holds a poster with caricatures criticizing government officials after 81 years of Indonesian independence on Aug. 18, 2026, during a protest on Jl. Thamrin in Central Jakarta against government policies, including state budget spending, the free nutritious meal program, the military’s expanded role in civilian affairs and corruption eradication efforts.

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Foreign proxy labeling as a pretext for silencing dissent

When foreign debt is celebrated as statesmanship but foreign grants to civic watchdogs are branded as treason, "national sovereignty" becomes a convenient weapon to silence dissent.

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Migrants returning from Malaysia look out from a bus upon their arrival at the Myanmar Navy base in Thanlyin on Oct. 4, 2026. Nearly 1,500 Myanmar migrants from Malaysia arrived in their war-torn home country on Oct. 4, a Myanmar official said, returned under an opaque repatriation scheme that rights monitors say cannot assure their safety.

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Myanmar is a litmus test of what ‘ASEAN way’ amounts to

As ASEAN races to normalize ties with Myanmar's brutal military junta for geopolitical gain, its quiet betrayal of human rights and its own charter lays bare the hollow core of the "ASEAN way."

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Circular endeavor: Students produce key holders from plastic waste on Oct. 8, 2026 at Pondok Pesantren Ali Maksum, an Islamic boarding school in Panggungharjo village, Bantul regency, Yogyakarta.

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Addressing sexual violence in ‘pesantren’: Is it possible?

Behind the sacred walls of Indonesia’s boarding schools, an insidious architecture of spiritual authority weaponizes devotion to silence victims of sexual abuse—and only collective resistance can tear it down.

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Anti-death penalty activists attend a candlelight vigil outside the Singaporean embassy in Kuala Lumpur on Nov. 8, 2021, to protest the impending execution of Malaysian national Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, who was convicted of trafficking heroin in the island nation. Dharmalingam was executed at Singapore’s Changi Prison Complex on April 27, 2022.

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The moral blind spot: From executions to dissent

Hanging elderly convicts and criminalizing peaceful vigils isn’t strong governance; it is a posture of institutional shame and insecurity.

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PT Freeport Indonesia’s copper smelter and precious metal refinery in Gresik, East Java, is seen on March 17, 2025.

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Misaligned mineral policies a threat to natural resource-based view

Downstreaming raw minerals into high-purity metal is meaningless without the advanced industry to absorb it—and without aligned policy, resource nationalism risks freezing the very wealth it set out to unlock.

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Massive splash: A large banner promoting the 20th Asian Games hangs on Sept. 16, 2026 above a concourse at Nagoya Station, a major railway hub in the capital of Aichi prefecture, Japan.

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Nagoya’s sustainable ecosystem offers urban lessons

While megacities across Asia buckle under gridlock, pollution and unmanaged waste, Nagoya shows how disciplined urban planning and cultural wisdom can build an enduring model of sustainable living.

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President Prabowo Subianto (right) attaches rank insignia on Oct. 1, 2026, to the uniform of newly appointed National Police Chief Suyudi Ario Seto (left) during his inauguration at the State Palace in Central Jakarta.

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Translating the tagline ‘Police alongside community’ into actions

As sweeping new powers meet persistent allegations of abuse, Indonesia’s new police chief faces a defining test: turn a modest community slogan into real accountability, or let the "no viral, no justice" reality endure.

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United States President Donald Trump (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping talk on Oct. 30, 2025, at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, following a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit.

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Sino-American stability, without trust

While the recent Trump-Xi summit in Washington was largely successful in terms of curbing escalation, Sino-American relations are in a general holding pattern for now.

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Chief Justice Suhartoyo (center) reads out the nine-member bench’s ruling on a petition challenging Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka’s eligibility for contesting the 2024 presidential election on Oct. 6, 2026, at the Constitutional Court in Central Jakarta.

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Constitutional Court’s decision: Rule of law or rule of court?

By airing doubts about Gibran’s credentials while throwing out the case on standing, the Constitutional Court has committed the ultimate judicial sin: letting its rhetoric intervene where its decree dared not tread.

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Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during an official event at Sydney University in Australia, on July 15, 2026.

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International students face Australia’s migration churn

Abolishing the temporary graduate visa would deliver a large additional blow to international education in Australia.

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AI regulation is becoming a question of national security

Amid calls from AI executives to pace advancement to accommodate regulatory development, the debate could eventually arrive at an intersection between the technology’s capability and governance capacity.

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A bus carrying Myanmar nationals being repatriated from Malaysia to their homeland, is seen heading toward to navel base in Lumut, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur on Sept. 29, 2026. Malaysia began sending back around 1,500 Myanmar nationals on Sept. 29, AFP journalists saw, launching a scheme rights groups say may endanger migrants by returning them to the war-torn country.

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Can Myanmar’s war be contained without ending it?

Myanmar risks entering a phase in which the conflict is contained without being resolved.

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United States President Donald Trump (center) speaks during a meeting with technology executives about artificial intelligence, at the White House in Washington, on Sept. 29, 2026.

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Super Intelligence, anarchy, and the next Cold War

As Washington and Beijing race for AI supremacy across rival blocs and autonomous digital frontiers, the world isn't heading toward peace, it’s drifting into a perilous, uncontainable new Cold War.

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A customer scans a QRIS code to pay for a bowl of bakso (meatball soup) on Oct. 17, 2024, in Tangerang, Banten.

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Does inclusive finance really need stablecoins?

Some 1.3 billion adults — more than half of them women — remain excluded from the formal financial system, and lower-income consumers still struggle to find and access the financial products and services they need.

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President Prabowo Subianto (right) inaugurates members of the Presidential Advisory Board (Wantimpres) on Oct. 2, 2026, at the State Palace in Central Jakarta.

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Wantimpres and its million-dollar question

Prabowo’s supersize, 26-strong advisory council offers plenty of room for political accommodation.

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United States President Donald Trump (center left) and US First Lady Melania Trump (left) greet on Sept. 23, 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping (center right) and China’s First Lady Peng Liyuan (right) upon their arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, the US.

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The Trump-Xi thaw offers breathing room for the world

The high-stakes summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping served as a vital de-escalation momentum desperately needed for the stability of our world.

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Buildings in the Central Business District loom beyond the Singapore Flyer amid a shroud of haze Sept. 15, 2026, along the island-state’s Marina Bay prime waterfront area.

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The haze makes us angry, but our anger needs to be directed

The negative energy from anger over haze must be turned into positive action for supporting the people on the front lines battling forest fires and for bringing to account the companies found responsible for starting them.

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Motorcyclists commute on Oct. 2, 2026, as haze from forest and land fires shroud the road, in Palembang, South Sumatra. Wildfires in Indonesia have been blamed in large part on slash-and-burn land-clearing practices that result in the destruction of fire-resistant forest cover and the draining of peatlands.

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Smoke in the air, noise online: Public response to forest fires

While thick haze chokes the skies, an online disconnect between citizens and the state reveals that Indonesia’s greatest firefighting challenge may be digital, not just environmental.

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Foreign Minister Sugiono delivers his speech on Sept. 26 at the United Nations General Assembly high-level debate in New York City, the United States.

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Why Indonesia's fifth Security Council bid needs public buy-in

Indonesia is ready to claim a fifth seat on the UN Security Council, but unless President Prabowo can convince ordinary citizens why it matters, the bid risks looking like little more than expensive diplomatic tourism.

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Visitors watch green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) hatchlings crawl to the sea on May 2, 2026, during a release event at Pasir Jambak Beach in Padang, West Sumatra.

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Conserving a connected ocean

Marine conservation is a fundamental component of national development among many WIO countries, but international cooperation and common financing instruments are essential because the ocean, as well as the species in it, knows no man-made bounds.

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