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.

Indonesia’s dilemma: Giving police too much power

A new police chief may wield power differently, but Indonesia’s true test of reform is deciding how much unchecked authority any one official should ever inherit.

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Rethinking the AI-workforce equation in Indonesia

The real AI challenge isn’t surviving machine replacement, it’s redesigning work to unlock human potential, and Indonesia’s agile market is primed to lead the shift. ...

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Fridge hacks and finance attacks flag AI insecurity

Hacking supermarket refrigerators may sound trivial. It's not. It's a warning of the economic disruption AI could wreak in an increasingly vulnerable world. ...

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India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears on a screen to deliver a speech remotely as other leaders attend the 22nd ASEAN - India Summit during the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 26, 2025.

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Maritime cooperation gives Act East policy a new boost

From joint naval patrols to subsea cables and digital payments, the Manila summits offer India and ASEAN a crucial opportunity to turn regional rhetoric into lasting strategic and economic muscle.

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A woman goes for an afternoon run past several Marine Corps trucks parked within the National Monument (Monas) complex in Central Jakarta on Nov.4, 2026. Jakarta is on high alert, with thousands of military personnel deployed across the capital following the arrest of three police generals over alleged illegal wiretapping of President Prabowo Subianto.

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The wiretap as a deep-state move into Indonesia’s democracy

When the police can wiretap the president without a warrant, the fall of a few generals reveals not just a rogue plot, but a deep-state surveillance apparatus that will outlast any prosecution unless the system itself is dismantled.

1 day ago

Motorist drive past a building in Tehran with a massive billboard about the Strait of Hormuz on Sept. 16, 2026.

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Attacking Iran amid Turkish, Saudi opposition is a strategic mistake

Attacking Iran against the explicit warnings of Turkey and Saudi Arabia risks a catastrophic regional war where military superiority delivers neither stability nor a viable political endgame.

3 days ago

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.

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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.

1 day ago

Artificial interaction: People interact with a humanoid robot at a Fourier booth on July 26, 2025, during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, China.

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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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Trucks loaded with oil palm fruit bunches park outside the Multi Prima Entakai (MPE) palm oil mill in Sanggau, West Kalimantan, on Oct. 2, 2026.

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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.

1 day ago

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.

2 days ago

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.

2 days ago

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.

2 days 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.

2 days ago

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.

3 days ago

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.

3 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.

4 days ago

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.

4 days ago

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.

4 days ago

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.

6 days ago

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.

6 days ago

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.

6 days ago

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