A worker with the Palangka Raya Disaster Mitigation Agency battles a fire on Jan. 16, 2026, in a peatland area in Bukit Tunggal subdistrict, Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan.

Peatlands hold climate secrets we still miss

Peatlands have been developing over millennia on every continent and although they are globally important ecosystems, there is still much we don't know about them in order to make informed policy decisions today for benefits in the future.

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System, not symptom: Indonesia’s real higher education problem

Indonesia has no shortage of brilliant minds; what it lacks is a system capable of cultivating them ...

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Deconstructing conflict in Papua: A land beyond vacancy

As the government intensifies its food estate ambitions in Papua, a staggering 58-to-1 military-to-insurgent ratio reveals a development strategy that prioritizes industrial expansion over the basic human rights and ancestral lands of the indigenous population. ...

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Workers load and unload containers on Feb. 4, 2026, at the Tanjung Priok International Export-Import Port in North Jakarta.

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Indonesia’s economic growth strong, but pressure mounts

As populist spending programs collide with a volatile global energy market and a free-falling rupiah, Indonesia’s fiscal credibility faces its most dangerous trial since the 1997 financial crisis.

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This photograph taken on Feb. 26, 2026, shows high-rise buildings under construction in Mumbai, India.

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Debtor countries finally have a group of their own

The aim is to create a venue for these countries to discuss technical issues, share information on addressing debt challenges, access technical assistance and capacity building in debt management, coordinate their approaches and influence the global debt architecture.

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Military chief Min Aung Hlaing (back center) watches a voter ink their finger as he visits a polling station on Jan. 25, 2026, during the third and final phase of Myanmar’s general election in Mandalay.

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Letter to editor: Myanmar diplomat responds

Myanmar’s embassy in Jakarta criticizes The Jakarta Post for identifying an NUG representative as a deputy foreign minister, urging balanced reporting and respect for Myanmar’s sovereignty and official position.

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Aung San Suu Kyi (center) talks to Myanmar security forces personnel from the military (left) and the police in an undisclosed location, in this undated handout photo from the Myanmar Military Information Team released on April 30, 2026.

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How ASEAN misreads the prolonged Myanmar crisis

Indonesia must look past the junta’s tactical gestures and recognize that in Myanmar, a history of broken promises is the only reliable guide for future diplomacy.

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Former vice president Jusuf Kalla (center) shakes hands with a Christian delegate from the Malino I peace talks, Rinaldi Damanik (right), during a meeting with figures involved in the Malino I peace process for Poso and Malino II for Maluku in Jakarta on April 21, 2026. The meeting was held in an effort to ease tensions following a viral video clip of Kalla’s lecture at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), which was accused of being blasphemous and led to police reports.

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The new architecture of peace: Mediation in a multipolar world

As the old rules of diplomacy falter, a new "composite" era of mediation, led by middle powers and private experts, is rising to meet the most violent decade of the 21st century.

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Singapore's Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto and Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet (from left to right) hold hands for a group photo during the opening ceremony of the 48th ASEAN Summit and Related Meetings on May 8 in Cebu, the Philippines.

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Can honesty save ASEAN? Lessons from the Cebu Summit

While ASEAN is famous for diplomatic platitudes, the Cebu summit proved that admitting your flaws is the first step toward remaining relevant in a shifting geopolitical landscape.

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(From left to right) Singapore's Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto, and Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet hold hands for a group photo on May 8, 2026, during the opening ceremony of the 48th ASEAN Summit and Related Meetings, in Cebu, Philippines.

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Takeaways from the ASEAN Summit: Tightening the bonds, building up resilience

Prabowo’s speech is direct and simple about the key elements that ASEAN must retain to keep the organization relevant now and in the future.

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A worker arranges photovoltaic cells on May 16, 2024, at the solar panel factory of GCL System Integration Technology in Hefei, Anhui province, China.

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Europe is losing the energy security battle to China

China is currently leading the energy transition in terms of competitive advantage as the Middle East crisis exposes the deep divide between petrostates and electrostates, and although Europe has begun to strategize its shift to clean power, sustained financing remains a crux.

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Protesters hold banners that read “Indonesia Darurat Bencana Korupsi“ (Indonesia in emergency disaster of corruption) (top) and “Korupsi, kolusi, nepotisme dinormalisasi“ (Corruption, collusion and nepotism normalized) (bottom) during a protest on Dec. 9, 2025, to commemorate the International Anti-Corruption Day in Jakarta.

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When democracy tires, movements fade and a generation holds back

When political systems neither collapse nor improve, they enter a state of fatigue that erodes the very possibility of reform. Indonesia has transitioned from the explosive ruptures of 1998 to a modern era of managed stagnation, leaving a generation to navigate a democracy that functions as a procedure but fails as a promise.

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An employee displays Indonesian rupiah and United States dollar banknotes at Bank Syariah Indonesia in South Tangerang, Banten, on Jan. 21, 2026.

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Trapdoor creaks for dollar if Middle East war ends

Whether a trapdoor now opens beneath the dollar if the war ends and the Strait of Hormuz reopens is a central question for global markets.

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Smile squad: A health worker educates pupils on proper toothbrushing during the launch of the Healthy Children’s Teeth Program on Jan. 19 at SPS Bale Bermain Rubah in Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta.

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Families can't wait for better childcare system

As Indonesia chases its "Golden 2045" dreams, the tragic raid of a Yogyakarta childcare center reveals a haunting truth: our economic future is stalled by a systemic refusal to treat childcare as a public priority.

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A hut stands amid a handful of trees on Jan. 18 after people driving heavy equipment cleared a swath of land for an oil palm expansion project in Lamno, Aceh Jaya regency, Aceh.

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Indonesia’s businesses face a new human rights era

We offer a paradigm shift: from managing conflict to preventing conflict through shared prosperity models.

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Shipping containers are stacked on April 12, 2024, at a port in Lianyungang, in eastern China's Jiangsu province.

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The consensus on China’s economy is strong, and wrong

When one looks at Chinese household consumption per capita alongside comparable countries in terms of their postwar growth “take-off time,” the picture changes.

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Office workers and other pedestrians stroll along a sidewalk on April 16, 2020, along Jl. Sudirman in downtown Jakarta.

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The K-pattern and governance asymmetry, an uneven distribution of state capacity

While Indonesia’s macroeconomic indicators signal stability, a deepening governance asymmetry risks turning a temporary K-shaped recovery into a permanent structural divide.

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A women uses an umbrella to shield from the sun on August 16, 2024, at a market in Seoul during a prolonged heatwave which has gripped much of the country.

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Cities are getting hotter – and bigger

Today’s emissions choices will determine how many more may face dangerous heatwaves this century.

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Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel Antonio Gonzales Sanz signs the guest book as his counterpart Retno Marsudi looks on at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry in Jakarta on Sept. 3, 2017.

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Indonesia’s Latin American pivot strengthens South-South cooperation

Cooperation between Southeast Asia and Latin America matters, as both regions face similar pressures related to sustainable development, biodiversity protection and green industrialization.

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Traders crowd around an electronic information display showing watch carbon trading activity on Jan. 20, 2025, at the Indonesia Stock Exchange in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta.

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Why Indonesia’s emissions trading system needs revision

Indonesia has built a sophisticated carbon market on paper, but without a tighter cap and a real price floor, it remains a system for recording emissions rather than reducing them.

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Loaded wheels: A family of four rides a motorcycle on June 4 on a road in Hanoi.

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Beyond ‘when will you marry?’: Indonesia’s new demographic challenge

As Indonesia approaches a demographic crossroads, the decision to delay marriage and parenthood is less a private preference and more a rational response to a society that has yet to build a support system for the modern family.

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Ready to launch: A student of a private university poses in a graduation cap and gown a cap on Oct. 6, 2025, during a professional photo shoot at Banteng Square Park in Central Jakarta.

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Higher education dilemma: Between degrees and labor market

Entering university is not an act of choice, but a negotiation with the system since the very beginning

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Solar panels float on Sept. 26, 2023, at the Cirata Dam in Purwakarta regency, West Java.

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Why Indonesia must write ASEAN’s green rules

Indonesia has spent a decade teaching the world that it controls the supply of nickel, palm oil, and now renewable electricity. The harder question is whether Jakarta can also set the rules by which those products are sold.

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A woman checks her vaping pod after buying e-liquid pods at Vape Kajay store in Jodoh, Batam city, Riau Islands, on Aug. 26, 2025.

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Is nicotine the magic bullet to help end the smoking epidemic?

Policy debates around tobacco control objectives are framed increasingly in terms of nicotine elimination rather than eliminating harmful exposure to smoke.

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Protesters stage demonstration in front of the Riau Prosectuor's Office in Pekanbaru, Riau, on Nov. 20, 2025, rejecting the relocation of local communities residing within the Tesso Nilo National Park in the province to other areas as well as urging the government to allow the co-management of cultivation land within the national park between local communities and state-owned firm PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara.

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Restoring people's rights to natural resources

It's time to stop the false solutions and return the power of natural resource management to the hands of the people.

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Health workers in protective suits prepare a patient on May 13, 2020, for transferring from the COVID-19 intensive care unit to the surgical unit at Persahabatan Central General Hospital in Pulo Gadung, East Jakarta.

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When young doctors serve as 'shock absorbers' of a fragile health system

When we glorify the exhaustion of young doctors as heroism, we ignore the systemic cracks that turn healers into "shock absorbers" for a failing healthcare system.

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

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Weakening rupiah: No panic required, professional heads-up urged

As the rupiah grapples with a "perfect storm" of global dollar strength and domestic regulatory uncertainty, Indonesia faces a critical test of market confidence that may require a fresh infusion of professional leadership to resolve.

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High rankings, low reach in Indonesian journals

This is the hallmark of what the academic community recognizes as citation rings: coordinated, often tacit agreements among affiliated journals to cite one another's work, artificially inflating impact metrics.

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