Visitors are seen enjoying the sunset on Lake Toba at Bulbul Beach, in Balige, Toba regency, in June 2022. (JP/Tonggo Simangunsong)

Celebrating literature, culture and nature at the Lake Toba Writers Festival

On the volcanic shores of Lake Toba, an unpretentious festival is keeping deep storytelling alive in an age of shallow feeds.

1 week ago

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From fuel to batteries: Trading one dependence for another

Unless it builds the supply chain to match its electric ambitions, the country risks trading its costly addiction to foreign oil for imported batteries and coal-fired power. ...

1 week ago

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From the Himalayas to Sumatra: Can Indonesia govern an unruly climate?

When freak disasters render historical weather data useless, Indonesia's real climate crisis isn't about predicting the next storm—it’s learning how to govern a future that no longer plays by the rules. ...

1 week ago

The Latest

President Prabowo Subianto looks on as he arrives on Aug. 14 at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta for the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) plenary meeting, in which he delivered the State of the Nation address and the 2027 state budget proposal.

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The Indonesian hex: When political rhetoric rewrites reality

The administration has erected a political hologram over Indonesia’s economic landscape.

1 week ago

Anak Krakatau volcano erupts as documented by a team from the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) on Sept. 5, 2026.

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Relentless natural disasters test Indonesia’s fiscal priorities

Indonesia can always scramble cash after tragedy strikes, but with national buffers tied up and disasters arriving back-to-back, running preparedness on a shoestring is a gamble we can no longer afford.

1 week ago

Boniface Djabia, the chief of Betykro, a camp of cocoa producers living in precarious conditions 20 kilometers from Guiglo, Ivory Coast, poses for a portrait in front of one of his mud houses covered with straw on Jan. 16, 2026.

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How developing countries can do more with less

Evaluation frameworks for development projects have long been influenced by donor priorities. But foreign-aid cuts have created an opportunity for African countries to implement equitable evaluation practices, both to channel limited resources more effectively and to shape the future of global development governance.

1 week ago

House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad (right) of the Gerindra Party shows a copy of the legislature's commitment letter to pass the asset forfeiture bill to representatives of the United Pati People's Alliance (AMPB) on Aug. 27 at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta. The AMPB staged a protest in front of the legislative complex to demand the passage of the long-awaited asset forfeiture bill and harsher punishment for corrupt officials.

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The Dec. 15 deadline keeps Indonesia’s political pressure cooking

By putting a Dec.15 deadline in writing, lawmakers didn't just defuse a street protest—they handed the public a ticking timer on their own integrity.

1 week ago

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left), Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (center) and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meet in Mecca in this handout photograph taken and released by the Turkish Presidency press office on Aug. 7, 2026.

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The anxious search of Pakistan’s power elite for regional standing

Pakistan’s power elite still dreams of returning to those days of perceived glory and reclaiming the country’s position among the leading middle powers of the Muslim world.

1 week ago

Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words “Artificial Intelligence“ in this illustration created on Feb. 19, 2024.

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AI watermarks erase human authorship twice

Models absorb human creativity without consent, then label human-directed work as machine-made, creating a troubling double erasure of authorship.

1 week ago

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Cybersecurity governance: From bureaucracy to real-world threats

We have the blueprints to defend our digital sovereignty, but without real enforcement power, adequate funding and urgency on AI and quantum threats, the next massive breach is already penciled in.

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President Prabowo Subianto inspects the implementation of the free nutritious meal program on June 2 at State Junior High School (SMPN) 111 Jakarta.

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What SBY and Jokowi can teach Prabowo about regaining public trust

History proves political recovery is entirely possible. SBY and Jokowi successfully restored their approval ratings above 50 percent. Not only did they improve their numbers, both went on win re-election.

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A thick haze shrouds Metro Manila due to smoke from ongoing fires in Kalimantan, Indonesia, in this drone picture taken in Quezon City, Philippines, on Sept. 1, 2026.

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Asia's natural disasters must not become financial crises

Physical hazards can quickly morph into macroeconomic shocks.

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Riot police are deployed outside the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta on Aug. 27, 2026, during a protest against government policies that also called for harsher penalties against corrupters.

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Sowing division: When the state pits citizens against citizens

When a government outsources repression to street militias, it isn't preserving order; it is waging a reckless, authoritarian war against its own people.

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Oil tankers unload imported crude oil at the at the crude oil terminal of in Qingdao port, in China’s eastern Shandong province on July 16, 2026.

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Why oil importers are learning to live with longer trade routes

Energy trade routes that optimize distance and costs may no longer be suitable for the fractured and fractious modern world, especially for major importers.

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A firefighter from the Banjar Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) douses a peatland fire on Sept. 2, 2026, in Banjar regency, South Kalimantan.

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What a record‑shattering El Niño means for the world’s weather

This year's El Nino is forecast to be the strongest ever, compounding the effects of climate change, and it may just catalyze the world into finally abandoning fossil fuels.

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Indonesian seafarers line up for immigration clearance following their arrival at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, on June 16, 2021.

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From Vladivostok to Gunungkidul: Indonesia must export skills, not just workers

If Indonesia wants its global diplomacy to truly pay off, it must stop sending cheap labor into the shadows and start exporting certified talent the world will actually invest in.

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An ice cream vendor looks at banners showing candidates for the 2024 presidential and regional legislative elections on Feb. 3 in Surabaya, East Java.

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Making the legislative threshold adaptive and democratic

We must stop treating the parliamentary threshold as an arbitrary political horse trade and replace static cutoffs with an adaptive, evidence-based mechanism that protects voter representation.

1 week ago

Stateless outcasts: A Rohingya man carries Myanmar's national flag on Aug. 25, 2026 during a Genocide Remembrance Day rally at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, to mark the ninth anniversary of their mass exodus following a military crackdown.

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Myanmar crisis testing the promise of universal jurisdiction

Universal jurisdiction can open the courtroom doors to Myanmar’s survivors, but without cross-border political will, investigative muscle and survivor-centered networks, a growing docket of foreign cases will never amount to real accountability.

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A Papuan mother carries her sleeping child on her back on Jan. 25, 2018, at a temporary hospital handling measles and malnutrition patients in Agats, the capital of Asmat district in Indonesia's easternmost Papua province. Some 800 children have been sickened by a measles-and-malnutrition outbreak in Indonesia's remote Papua province, officials said Jan. 25, with as many as 100 people, mostly toddlers, feared to have been killed in the outbreak. AFP/ Bay Ismoyo

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Rural cooperatives shatter the dream of inclusive development

A single top-down mandate is draining Indonesia’s village coffers for state cooperatives, gutting the local budgets that keep maternal clinics running, malnourished children fed and grassroots democracy alive.

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A farmer plows a field with a tractor in Kawhmu township on the outskirts of Yangon on May 25, 2026.

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In food crises, emergency agricultural assistance can help turn the tide

Timely agricultural assistance can prevent manageable shocks from becoming entrenched humanitarian emergencies.

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Community health workers weigh a toddler during a regular mother-and-child checkup at an integrated health post (Posyandu) in South Celep district, Sidoarjo, East Java, on Oct. 12, 2023.

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How village-led parenting offers a new hope to communities

In the face of climate shocks and systemic neglect, rural Indonesian communities are rewriting the rules of parental care from the ground up.

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People scout for usable materials from debris on Sept. 1 after flash floods at Trishuli Center in Nepal's Nuwakot district. The huge wave of freezing water and debris, sparked by a glacial collapse on the China-Nepal border, killed at least 939 people and left nearly 4,500 missing, with Kathmandu warning reconstruction costs could run into the “billions of dollars“.

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Early warning of disasters key as it can save lives

From 19th-century Himalayan telegraphs to real-time satellite ocean grids, history proves that disasters are inevitable—but mass casualties are not, provided we heed the warning in time.

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Indonesian, Australian, Singaporean and United States military personnel attend the opening ceremony of the Super Garuda Shield 2023 joint military exercise in Situbondo, East Java on Aug. 31, 2023.

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Rowing between two reefs: Why Indonesia won't pick a side

Drilling with the Pentagon in the west while exercising with Beijing in the east isn’t Indonesia playing a double game, it’s a masterclass in surviving between two superpowers without answering to either.

2 weeks ago

United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh attend a plenary session on Aug. 31, 2026, as finance ministers and central bank governors from G20 countries meet in North Carolina, the US.

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American Götterdämmerung

The Trump administration’s mounting blunders are hastening the transition to a post-American world order.

2 weeks ago

Haze from forest fires in Kalimantan, Indonesia blankets Papar district, in Sabah, Malaysia.

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Malaysia must not breathe Indonesia’s governance failure

Southeast Asia's skies aren't choking simply on bad weather; they’re choking on decades of Jakarta’s governance failure.

2 weeks ago

Bride Lhiane Galang (center) walks down the aisle at the St. John the Baptist Parish church during her wedding ceremony in a flooded church in Hagonoy town, Bulacan, the Philippines, on Sept. 1, 2026.

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The river does not forget

Nature remains unpredictable and largely indifferent to human attempts to intervene in its course.

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A customer picks a bottled beverage from a refrigerated display on July 5, 2024, at a supermarket in South Tangerang, Banten.

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Breaking into, navigating ASEAN’s consumer market

Winning in ASEAN takes more than deep pockets and borrowed playbooks—it demands the rare operational discipline to dismantle corporate dogma and adapt faster than the market.

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Guests visit the Marunda Flow Center during its launch ceremony at KBN Marunda Industrial Estate in North Jakarta, on May 13, 2025. Supply chain specialist APL Logistics operates the 32,000 square meters distribution facility.

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Industrial estates need a new measure of success

Indonesia must stop selling cheap land and labor—and start building high-performing, sustainable industrial ecosystems that modern global investors actually want.

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Newly appointed Bank Indonesia (BI) Governor Destry Damayanti gestures during the 4th plenary session of the House of Representatives on Sept. 1, 2026, flanked by her new senior deputy governor Aida S. Budiman (left) and deputy governor Solikin M. Juhro at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta.

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Thousands of miles apart: Two governors, one North Star problem

From Jackson Hole to Jakarta, the Fed's Kevin Warsh and BI's Destry Damayanti face twin battles over the most fragile asset in central banking: credibility.

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United States President Donald Trump (right) speaks to President Prabowo Subianto (left) on Feb. 19, 2026, during the signing ceremony for the US-Indonesia Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) in Washington, DC.

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‘The Odyssey’: Tricksters, Trojan horses and homecomings

From Hollywood mythmaking to modern populist politics, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey holds up a sobering mirror to figures like Donald Trump and Prabowo Subianto, exposing how disruptive "tricksters" use Trojan horse tactics to hollow out democracy from within.

2 weeks ago

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