Women cool off using buckets filled with water supplied by local officials amid the drought season in Lhoknga, Aceh, on May 12, 2024.

We need to totally ban solar geoengineering

For today’s youth and future generations, such interventions threaten to be as catastrophic as climate change.

8 months ago

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How Indonesia can deliver three million homes

As noble as the goal may be, history provides a cautious reminder. ...

8 months ago

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Envisioning the banking technology landscape of 2025

It is highly likely that the 2025 national banking landscape will adopt a pro-technology and pro-market stance. ...

8 months ago

The Latest

Sri Lankans stand in a line to withdraw cash from an ATM from the Bank of Ceylon while the bank is closed during a strike against a huge tax increase in Colombo on March 1, 2023.

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The urgency of global debt reform

The outlook for emerging and developing economies appears increasingly bleak.

8 months ago

Major commodity: A truck passes through the middle of an oil palm plantation in Muaro Jambi, Jambi, on Nov. 20, 2024.

Academia

Prabowo reinvigorates the development of oil palm plantations

The President’s statement marks a turning point for Indonesian palm oil after years of moratorium on the issuance of new permits and licenses of oil palm plantation development since 2011.

8 months ago

A woman takes a look at instant foods on offer in a supermarket in Cikutra, Bandung, West Java, on Sept. 3, 2024.

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Turning food waste into Indonesia’s opportunity for change

Millions of Indonesians remain food insecure while food waste accounts for nearly 8 percent of national greenhouse gas emissions.

8 months ago

Game changer: Constitutional Court Chief Justice Suhartoyo (center), accompanied by his deputy, Justice Saldi Isra (second left), Justice Enny Nurbaningsih (left), Justice Arief Hidayat (second right) and Justice Guntur Hamzah, presides over a hearing in Jakarta on Jan. 2, 2025.

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End of threshold regime: Toward substantial democracy?

The court's decision will minimize the dominance of big or ruling parties in determining the course of the presidential race, which has disadvantaged smaller parties.

8 months ago

Democracy in action: An official holds a ballot during vote counting for the 2024 presidential election at a polling station in Banda Aceh, Aceh, on Feb. 14, 2024.

Academia

Southeast Asia’s human rights and democracy: A reflection

Democracy in Southeast Asia endures but remains perilously fragile.

8 months ago

Delicate diplomacy: Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his wife Le Thi Bich Tran arrive at the Modern Art Museum (MAM) to attend the first session of the G20 Leaders' Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Nov. 18, 2024.

Academia

How Vietnam’s ‘bamboo diplomacy’ treads a fine line between the West and Russia

Vietnam's foreign policy is underpinned by four principles: Not engaging in military alliances, not supporting any country against another, not allowing foreign military bases on its territory and not using force or threatening to use force.

8 months ago

Envisioning a just society: Volunteers help a person with disability into a shuttle service in Jakarta in this undated photo.

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Invisible desires: Disability and sexuality in our midst

Absent in the public discourse is a frank and insightful discussion of the intersection between disability and sexuality.

8 months ago

Voices for Earth: A group of climate activists demonstrate in front of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the Netherlands, for climate justice on Dec. 2, 2024. For the first time, a major climate case has begun at the court to determine what legal obligations countries have to protect the climate.

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ICJ submission: A chance to save the Earth

While Indonesia supports the continuation of the ICJ advisory opinion proceedings, its written submission appears cautious.

8 months ago

Boys will be boys: Children play online games on their mobile phones along the roadside in Jakarta on Nov. 27, 2024.

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Between 'Roblox', radicalism and AI: Parenting in the digital minefield

Today’s generation of digital natives live in the "Third World" of the metaverse, where online interactions feel as real as face-to-face conversations, and our job as parents is to help guide our children in this digital playground so it remains a creative, safe place of interaction, and not a gateway to radicalization.

8 months ago

Veteran journalist Atmakusumah Astraatmadja (right) shows off his new book Pers Ideal untuk Masa Demokrasi (The Ideal Press for Democracy) on Monday, while posing with former Press Council chairman Bagir Manan (left) at the National Library of Indonesia in Jakarta.

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Farewell Atmakusumah, press freedom prodigy

In his Magsaysay Award acceptance speech in Manila on Aug. 31, 2000, Atma stated that despite press bans carried out by presidents Sukarno and Soeharto, “the spirit of press freedom and freedom of expression never dies.”

8 months ago

A voter places his ballots into a ballot box on Nov. 27 at a polling station in Sitaro, North Sulawesi, during the 2024 simultaneous regional head elections in 37 provinces and over 500 regencies and municipalities.

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Prabowo's leadership: Balancing centralization and the future of Indonesia’s democracy

Prabowo's big-tent leadership approach hearkens the pre-Reform top-down governance model and signals a regression toward centralized authority, leaving a question as to whether he can rise to the challenge of strengthening Indonesia's pluralistic, inclusive democracy toward sustainable governance.

8 months ago

A teller arranges stacks of United States dollar and rupiah bills on March 1, 2024, at a money changer in Jakarta.

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Trump’s second act and Indonesia's economic outlook in 2025

Trump’s reelection and its impact on US monetary policy add a layer of complexity to Indonesia’s fiscal and monetary landscape.

8 months ago

Timepieces by luxury watchmaker Rolex are displayed in this stock image.

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Policy reversals erode Indonesia's economic stability

While the government's decision to backtrack on the planned VAT rate hike offers short-term relief, it also erodes public trust and investor confidence amid a shrinking middle class, which points to a need for comprehensive reforms that include labor formalization, downstreaming expansion, human capital development and supply chain integration.

8 months ago

Facing strategic challenges: Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stands before a picture of the founder and first president of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, at Ankara Esenboga Airport on Dec. 12, 2024.

Academia

Is Erdogan set to remake the Middle East?

By leveraging Turkey’s military power, economic influence and ideological appeal, Erdogan seeks to position Ankara as the lynchpin of a new regional order.

8 months ago

French digital and virtual artist Miguel Chevalier (front) poses with his work “Maillages Cosmique“ during his “Pixels“ exhibition, an interactive experience at the crossroads of art and artificial intelligence, at the Grand Palais Immersif in Paris on Nov. 4, 2024.

Academia

Navigating the risks of digital public infrastructure

Understanding the risks of DPI is crucial to ensuring that its potential benefits materialize.

8 months ago

The floating panels of a solar power plant at Cirata Dam in Purwakarta regency, West Java, are seen from above on Sept. 26, 2023. Jointly built by state electricity company PT PLN and United Arab Emirates’ Masdar, the power plant generates 192 megawatts peak (MWp).

Academia

Could Indonesia make progress in its energy transition in 2025?

Indonesia's energy transition faces many challenges but has great potential.

8 months ago

Moo Deng, a 2-month-old female pygmy hippo who became a viral internet sensation, rests at Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province, Thailand, on Sept. 15, 2024.

Academia

One last look at Asia’s 2024 winners and losers

Diverse, mixed democratic trajectories for a diversity of democracies in Asia characterized 2024.

8 months ago

Residents place candles in front of the 'Motherland' monument during a commemoration of the 1,000th day of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, in Kyiv on Nov. 19, 2024.

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How 2025 is geopolitically different from 1945

As the world enters 2025, the chasm between the rulers and the ruled remains great, if not getting greater, regardless of the mechanism of governance or regime type.

8 months ago

Health tech startup apps appear on a screen on Aug 2, 2021.

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Services are the new road to development

Services now account for more than two-thirds of global GDP and half of global trade.

8 months ago

Driving economic growth: A visitor browses information on investment potential in West Java on Sept. 19, 2024, at the West Java Investment Summit 2024 in Bandung.

Academia

Safeguarding Indonesian interests through investment treaties

Indonesia has faced challenges arising from provisions that limit its ability to regulate investor activities and protect its own sovereignty.

8 months ago

A man who was injured during an Israeli operation in the Jabalia refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip lies on a bed at Al-Ahli Arab hospital, also known as the Baptist hospital in Gaza City on October 21, 2024, amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas.

Academia

Charting a new path to achieve a healthier world for all

From Gaza to Sudan, Yemen to Ukraine, and Haiti and beyond, peace is, and will always be, the best medicine for the health and well-being of all people, everywhere.

8 months ago

Sunlight shines on Dec. 9, 2024, over a grassy area marked by a stone monument in Lampuuk, Aceh Besar regency, Aceh, the site of a mass grave for people who perished in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

Academia

Monuments help to remember, and forget, disasters

Encouraging the active participation of residents is essential to preserving disaster memory, maintaining memorials and passing on the lessons learned to successive generations.

8 months ago

Officials clean the surface of solar panels installed on top of Gedhe Market on Dec. 6, 2023, in Klaten regency, Central Java.

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Indonesian green energy exports: Lessons from LNG

The green energy transition will be the single biggest transition in the following decades.

8 months ago

Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape (right) greets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Port Moresby on April 21, 2024.

Academia

Foreign bride price: A PNG guide to ‘marrying’ multiple partners

PNG's Western partners might not want to share the bed with China but this is the current reality, and they should also be prepared to welcome others under the country's “friends to all, enemy to none” foreign policy stance.

8 months ago

A senior high school student browses social media apps on her smartphone on Nov. 28, 2024, in Melbourne, Australia.

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Should Indonesia ban social media for children?

It is unclear what measures Indonesia plans to take in ensuring online safety for minors, which face multiple challenges including balancing freedoms and protection, considering mental and physical health risks and addressing the power asymmetry between the government and global tech giants.

8 months ago

A Muslim attendant sells Christmas decorations on Dec. 11, 2024, at a vendor booth in a Jakarta shopping mall.

Academia

The myth of the middle-income trap

It is about time that Indonesia moves beyond the narrative of the so-called middle-income trap, by embracing bold visions paired with pragmatic strategies to write its unique, development success story.

8 months ago

Mount Ruang, a volcanic island in Sangihe Islands, North Sulawesi, erupts on April 18, 2024.

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The Canary in the gold mine: Greed and hypocrisy threaten Sangihe

If the illegal gold mining activities in Sangihe remain unchallenged, it will encourage and embolden the collusion and corruption of unscrupulous state and non-state actors to continue the practice in other parts of the country.

8 months ago

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