A villager affected by flash floods walks amongst a pile of log debris on Dec. 2, 2025, in Tukka village, Central Tapanuli regency, North Sumatra. The death toll from floods and landslides that have struck Indonesia's Sumatra island since late November has risen to 712, the National Disaster Management Agency said on Dec. 2.

Sumatra’s floods are not just nature’s fury, Indonesia must act together

To prevent similar disasters in the future, regular audits of plantation, mining, and logging permits, especially in upstream watersheds, are needed to ensure that land-use decisions support ecological protection.

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Beyond the theories: What Indonesian classrooms need

Indonesia possesses the capacity not merely to catch up with the West, but to forge its own distinctive path forward. ...

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Governments need to prepare for more frequent large floods

Governments and experts need to consider both the frequency and size of floods to better prepare for future ones. ...

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When sovereignty turns into a service

How much control can a state truly exercise over its digital space when the core architecture of the internet is owned and operated by foreign private corporations?

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Sumatra disasters reveal our climate policy failures

These disasters underscore that Indonesia’s ecological, political and institutional systems are no longer adequate for the climate realities of today.

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Why a just land transition needs real funding

Up to 40 percent of our planet’s lands are degraded and deteriorating, jeopardizing the health and livelihoods of more than 3 billion people.

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ASEAN floods 2025: Governance at a crossroads

The flooding that peaked last month across the region illustrates a fundamental truth: disaster risk reduction is inextricably tied to governance, including economic policies, and ASEAN must tackle climate issues as a collective agenda.

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New OPEC+ quotas ignite spending surge

The new MSC mechanism for setting output baselines from 2027 looks set to spur investment via a more equitable and transparent capacity measurement system, leading to a more sustainable market.

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A truck loaded with a donation of oxygen concentrators on March 8, 2021, from the Tanoto Foundation leaves a freight depot at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Banten.

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Philanthropies shift focus to scale, transparency, measurable outcomes

Philanthropies can begin by designing learning systems that move beyond counting outputs to understanding outcomes.

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Former executives of state-owned ferry operator PT ASDP Ferry Indonesia, namely president director Ira Puspadewi (second right), planning and development diretor Harry Muhammad Adhi Caksono (third left) and commercial and service director Muhammad Yusuf Hadi, walk into the courtroom of the Jakarta Corruption Court in Jakarta ahead of their verdict hearing on Nov. 20, 2025.

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How presidential clemency fuels impunity

Prabowo’s increasingly reckless use of pardons reflects a troubling pattern of presidential overreach.

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Rescuers carry a body bag of a victim recovered on Friday from an area hit by flash floods following heavy rains in Malalak district, Agam regency, West Sumatra.

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Sumatra floods: A test of national coordination, not just status

Indonesia has real-time disaster maps using crowdsourced reports and a national portal for disaster risk reduction, but they lack integration

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A fisherman parks his fishing boat on Nov. 11, 2025, in Kupal village, on Bacan Island, at coastal area in South Halmahera regency, North Maluku.

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The triple-return ocean economy

Advancing regenerative ocean solutions provides a hedge against systemic instability by protecting one of Earth’s most powerful stabilizing forces.

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A woman walks among tree trunks on the shore on Sunday following deadly flash floods and landslides, in Padang, West Sumatra. The death toll from floods that hit Indonesia this week has reportedly risen to more than 400 people.

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The early warning that Sumatra never received

In the event of disasters, what protects people is not a perfect environment, but a reliable flow of information and a clear structure of action.

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President Prabowo Subianto receives flowers from the Indonesian diaspora on September 20 upon his arrival at a hotel in Manhattan, New York, where he stayed during his visit to the United States. Prabowo delivered his speech at the United Nations General Assembly’s general debate on September 23.

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Citizenship without certainty

The Global Citizenship is commendable initiative but it lacks legal certainty, professional security and a genuine sense of belonging that can convince Indonesian diaspora to return home.

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Protesters take part in an anti-corruption rally on Nov. 30, 2025, along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Quezon City, Metro Manila.

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Outrage alone won’t save the Philippines

Democracies move slowly; but when paired with civic education, vigilance and public participation, their institutions stand a better chance of surviving and renewing themselves.

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This photo taken on July 17 and released on July 18 by Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) shows military police personnel looking at computers, smartphones and other equipment seized during a raid on a scam center in Kandal province, Cambodia.

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ASEAN inaction on cybercrime poses a risk to regional security

If left unaddressed, these criminal networks will not only destabilize individual member states but also threaten the credibility, security and economic future of the ASEAN as a whole.

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Funding gap looms, will progress against AIDS, TB, malaria suffer?

However, with global funding pledges falling short of the target required to sustain health programming, how can countries, including Indonesia, win their goal to end AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as global health threats?

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ASEAN and East Asia’s response to a fragmenting global economy (2 of 2)

Cross-pillar coordination within ASEAN and acceleration of all integration initiatives should become the main agenda, while at the same reviving ASEAN’s role in the greater Asia region, and Indo-Pacific.

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A mosque is surrounded by residual mud and standing water on Nov. 30, 2025, after a flash flood in Meureudu, the administrative seat of Pidie Jaya regency in Aceh.

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The disastrous trap of Indonesia’s extraction strategy

The recent series of disasters that hit Sumatra illustrate the worsening collective outcomes Indonesia risks if it continues to choose the wrong option as posited in the classic game theory problem of the prisoner's dilemma.

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Students take part in an Indonesia Gelap (Dark Indonesia) rally on Feb. 17, 2025, in front of the East Java Legislative Council in Surabaya.

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Rehabilitating and reconstructing the republic

Indonesia can take a page out of its own playbook for rehabilitating Aceh and Nias after the 2004 tsunami and apply it to the institutional tidal wave that is threatening all citizens as well as the future of the republic.

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Why cyclones have hit Southeast Asia so hard

While we cannot say for certain if climate change can be linked to the intense storms that caused devastation in countries across Southern Asia this year, they do indicate the advent of unknown conditions.

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Behind diplomatic crisis, Japan’s economic slide

Takaichi Cabinet to demand more stimulus, which, in turn, would further penalize medium- to long-term economic and financial market stability.

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Major natural gas exporters in ASEAN face an urgent need to align with emerging methane standards to ensure long-term market access.

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Trade and investment are no longer about exchange of goods and services, but also about strategic tools being used for geopolitical and geo-economic purposes.

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How the G20 can lead the fight against global inequality

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Foreign policy tightens up top, but not below

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Has gold been Tethered?

For investors buying gold as a bastion of stability, it should give pause that one of bullion's biggest buyers in recent months is a lynchpin of the hyper-speculative world of crypto.

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Why China is hesitant on global green leadership

Though the world sees it as an emerging superpower, China sees itself as a developing country, and so is reluctant to take on climate responsibilities on a par with major powers like the EU or the US.

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Morowali and the politics of air sovereignty

State presence in airspace governance has come to the forefront with the controversy over Morowali, sounding a warning bell for Indonesia's air sovereignty.

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