A cyclist rides past the building headquarters of OPEC (Organization of The Petroleum Exporting Countries) in Vienna, Austria on May 28, 2025.

Hormuz reopening could be OPEC’s undoing

Saudi Arabia and neighboring Gulf producers will cheer the eventual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but the ensuing flood of oil risks eroding OPEC’s already fragile grip on the market.

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Why Southeast Asia must unite against online scams

Southeast Asia risks becoming the global epicenter of cyber-fraud, but a powerful new partnership between Indonesia and South Korea could finally dismantle the region’s most predatory digital syndicates. ...

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Learning to govern a fragmented world

Today’s world is too multipolar, too digitally interconnected and too politically heterogeneous for broad consensus alone to serve as the primary mechanism for managing global affairs. ...

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The Latest

Students munch on snacks and sip bottled water or cups of tea on June 8, 2026, in the canteen at SMPN 12 Batam junior high school in Batam, the Riau Islands, after local nutrition fulfillment service units (SPPG) halted operations for the free nutritious meal program due to alleged funding stoppage by the National Nutrition Agency (BGN).

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'Sell Indonesia' is the market's verdict on the ‘ompreng’ project

From mass food poisoning to institutionalized plunder, Indonesia’s multibillion-dollar feeding program has triggered a fierce market backlash and an impending student-led "Reform Part 2."

1 week ago

Temporary test: Students of SDN Alue Lhok elementary school in Jambak village, Pante Ceureumen district, West Aceh, take an exam inside a portable structure on June 5, 2026 due to a shortage of classrooms.

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When schools become secondary to political agendas

When schools are bulldozed for glossy programs, education starts looking like collateral damage.

1 week ago

A woman picks up a carton of eggs as a toddler watches on Oct. 14, 2025, during an anti-stunting food distribution activity organized by the municipal administration of Palu, Central Sulawesi.

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Better coordination is key to solving the stunting crisis

Indonesia too often loses its recurring war on stunting despite ambitious policy documents, primarily due to a lack of integrated coordination across sectors and stakeholders.

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Health workers take blood samples from students on March 2, 2023, during a screening for noncommunicable diseases, including diabetes, at SMP 21 junior high school in Bandung, West Java.

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Revisiting Indonesia’s fight against diabetes

To halt Indonesia’s skyrocketing diabetes crisis, we must stop treating communities as passive targets of health interventions and start engaging them as the ultimate cocreators of their own health solutions.

1 week ago

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How (not) to fight the globalization trilemma

Political economy explains why some economies thrive in a hostile world while others are punished by it.

1 week ago

A demonstrator during a protest in front of the East Java Police headquarters in Surabaya, East Java, on Aug. 30, 2025, holds a portrait of Affan Kurniawan, an online motorcycle transportation driver who was run over by a police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) armored vehicle.

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Why visual evidence matters in Indonesian activism

Today in Indonesia, graphic, violent images and videos often function as political evidence.

1 week ago

Police officers evacuate players and officials of Adhyaksa FC Banten during unrest following a playoff match against Persipura Jayapura in the 2025-2026 Pegadaian Championship, Indonesia’s second-tier soccer league, at Lukas Enembe Stadium in Jayapura, Papua, on May 8, 2026.

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Long-sought police reform stalled at the institutional gate

When a state's police force expands its institutional power faster than the civilian mechanisms designed to oversee it, what grows stronger is not the rule of law, it is simply the apparatus itself.

1 week ago

A nickel smelter of PT Vale Indonesia in Sorowako, South Sulawesi, operates on Aug. 2, 2024.

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Nickel's recovery hopes tempered by growing stock overhang

A growing mountain of surplus metal accumulating in warehouses is a reminder that this could be a slow-fuse process.

1 week ago

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin greets Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, April 13, 2026.

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Russia Day: Celebrating unity at home and abroad

On Russia Day, Moscow celebrates its rich heritage and strengthens its strategic bonds with Indonesia and ASEAN to build a fairer, multipolar world.

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A deforested area to be converted into a sugar cane plantation by PT Murni Nusantara Abadi, encroaches upon the adjacent customary forest protected by the Kwipalo Clan on March 17, 2025, in Mandiri Jagebob, Merauke regency, South Papua.

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PSN in Papua needs more indigenous entrepreneurs

True economic acceleration in Papua won’t come from pouring trillions into mega-projects—it requires building an army of local indigenous entrepreneurs to own them.

1 week ago

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Three fault lines in Indonesia’s financial governance

The amendments reveal a broader shift toward a more coordinated and state-directed model of financial governance.

2 weeks ago

Police fire tear gas to disperse demonstrators during a protest against the Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) in front of the East Java gubernatorial residence in Surabaya, East Java on Aug. 29, 2025, following the death of 21-year-old motorcycle transportation driver Affan Kurniawan, who was killed after being struck by a police tactical vehicle amid a protest against lavish allowances for lawmakers in Jakarta on Aug. 28.

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Reforming the police without reforming police power

By prioritizing organizational strength over independent oversight, the new Police Law delivers mere administrative updates instead of genuine democratic reform.

2 weeks ago

Members of the All-Indonesia Alliance of Student Executive Boards (BEM SI) scatter flower petals during a demonstration outside the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta on Sept. 4, 2025, expressing support for the “17+8” reform demands presented by the Tuntutan Rakyat (people’s demands) movement during nationwide protests from August to September.

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The theater of democracy: Indonesia's unresolved Reformasi

As Indonesia drifts toward oligarchy and political decay, a new generation of students is ditching street protests for the courtroom, using the Constitution to finish the reform movement started in 1998.

2 weeks ago

A surveyor inspects a construction site in Central Jakarta on Nov. 27, 2025, part of contract package (CP) 202 in Phase 2A of the MRT Jakarta project.

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The future of development finance is not primarily about money

For middle-income countries like India, accessing knowledge and technology is now a bigger challenge than raising capital, which suggests that MDBs must rethink their operating model.

2 weeks ago

Free divers explore a coral reef on Dec. 28, 2025, at the Oluhuta Paradise marine tourism site in Bone Bolango regency, Gorontalo.

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Indonesia’s coral reefs are heat‑tolerant, but only up to a point

While Indonesia’s reefs demonstrate a remarkable natural tolerance to heat stress, a long-term national strategy is needed to track the various impacts of warming oceans to safeguard not just coral cover but also to their capacity to heal.

2 weeks ago

Green energy: An electric vehicle user charges a motorcycle on April 20 at a public electric vehicle charging station operated by PLN UP3 in Surakarta, Central Java.

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No ASEAN energy security without climate leadership

From the EU's stumbles to ASEAN’s gridlock, the current energy crisis proves that green targets are useless without bold political courage.

2 weeks ago

Personnel from the Attorney General's Office (AGO) and the Indonesian Military (TNI) escort Dadan Hindayana (center, in pink vest), the former head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) and a suspect in the graft case pertaining to the free nutritious meal program, out of the AGO in South Jakarta on June 3, 2026.

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Reforming the free meals program: A hard choice between purpose and political specter

The crisis surrounding the government's flagship free meals program urges a fundamental rethink: restore the program's original focus as an anti-stunting intervention for vulnerable groups or maintain the current, unsustainable model of a universal feeding program that leaves it open to rent seeking.

2 weeks ago

Members of Greenpeace Indonesia and Papuan youths stage a protest featuring theatrical performances against the government's national strategic project for controversial sugarcane plantations Papua, outside the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs office in Jakarta on Dec. 18, 2025.

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What’s next after ‘Pesta Babi’ breaks the silence

By holding up an uncomfortable mirror to state-led exploitation and violence in Papua, Pesta Babi has shattered decades of enforced silence, forcing Jakarta to choose between repressive censorship and genuine, rights-respecting reform.

2 weeks ago

A trader looks at a tablet on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on June 4, 2026 in New York City, the United States.

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The AI rally may have finally met its match in the Fed

Signs have been multiplying that the AI mania is getting out of hand.

2 weeks ago

Kindergarten students eat lunch on April 23, supplied by the government’s free nutritious meal program in Banda Aceh, Aceh.

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The world is full of food, yet children go hungry

This is a crisis of systems and of choices.

2 weeks ago

Students of the Al Khoir Islamic Excellence School sell things on Nov. 30, 2025, during an event called Pasar Bocah in Surakarta, Central Java. Accompanied by teachers and parents, the students learned about entrepreneurship and were introduced to the use of the rupiah at the event.

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What happened to Indonesia’s entrepreneurial class?

Indonesia’s missing entrepreneurs didn’t vanish by choice—they were systematically crowded out by a centuries-old governing instinct that still prefers centralized control over local economic freedom.

2 weeks ago

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

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Indonesia's confidence crisis is bigger than the rupiah

Once trust begins to weaken simultaneously across multiple sectors, economic stress can accelerate much faster than many policymakers expect.

2 weeks ago

(From left to right) Defendants First Lt. Budhi Harytanto Cahyono, First Lt. Sami Lakka, Second Sgt. Edi Sudarko and Capt. Nandala Dwi Prasetya attend a hearing against them on June 2, 2026, regarding the acid attack on Commission of Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) activist Andrie Yunus, at the Jakarta Military Court in Jakarta.

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A test of legal certainty: Prabowo's impasse over the Andrie case

As President Prabowo finds himself in an international spotlight over a brutal chemical attack on a human rights defender, a landmark pretrial ruling has exposed a deep systemic clash between civilian accountability and entrenched military impunity.

2 weeks ago

An online motorcycle taxi rider passes through the Casablanca area in South Jakarta, on May 10, 2026.

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8 percent for drivers, zero transparency for Danantara

A state asset fund that will not account for itself is not managing public assets.

2 weeks ago

An automated lithium-ion battery production line operates on Nov. 11, 2025, at a workshop of Zhejiang Shineway Technology Co Ltd in Yongkang, Zhejiang province, China.

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Lithium bust is over but will battery metal boom again?

Underlying demand growth remains strong but disappointing global EV sales in the first quarter have tempered expectations for this year.

2 weeks ago

Farmers plant rice in a paddy field on June 28, 2025, in Lambaro, Aceh.

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Rice role in fueling climate change is growing

The same flooded soils that help rice thrive also create ideal conditions for microbes that release climate-warming gases.

2 weeks ago

Vessels set anchor on May 17, 2026, in the Strait of Hormuz, seen off the port city of Khasab on Oman’s northern Musandam Peninsula.

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The Iran War is fueling a global debt shock

The energy shock triggered by the Iran war has further increased borrowing costs, particularly for energy-importing countries, and this trend may persist if current geopolitical tensions continue.

2 weeks ago

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