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Jakarta Post
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Smelters and garrisons: Militarization of extractive economy

Beneath the rhetoric of national resilience, Indonesia is deploying troops not to protect populations, but to turn its resource-rich frontier into an armed, state-capitalist enclave.

7 hours ago
Academia

Glimpses of hope from the UN General Assembly

While users should make informed decisions on when and how to use generative AI, its environmental cost vis-à-vis climate change should be an integral part of the ongoing debate on the rapidly advancing technology's regulation and sovereignty. ...

9 hours ago
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Protecting workers, livelihoods from El Niño’s fallout

Across Asia and the Pacific, El Niño’s effects can quickly reach workplaces, household budgets and local economies, hitting vulnerable workers, particularly those in the informal economy. Protecting their livelihoods will require an integrated approach linking climate preparedness with social protection and sound macroeconomic policies.  ...

10 hours ago

The Latest

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Indonesia’s new terrorism challenge: The terrorist criminal continuum

As violent extremism shifts from structured networks to decentralized online subcultures, Indonesia’s counterterrorism strategy must evolve from dismantling terrorist organizations to intercepting individual pathways to violence before tragedy strikes.

11 hours ago
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Indonesia’s AI data center ambition needs a resource rule book

Indonesia is racing to become Asia’s next AI data center powerhouse, but without strict resource safeguards, the boom risks draining the nation’s power grid, water supply and local communities.

12 hours ago
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BI can hold rates, but Indonesia cannot escape expensive money

As high-cost borrowing collides with ambitious state spending, Indonesia must master smarter debt management and innovative finance before fiscal pressure catches up with its national ambitions.

13 hours ago
Opinion premium

Analysis: RI’s illegal cigarette trade A problem of enforcement and incentives

Indonesia's illegal cigarette trade has long deprived the state of revenue and undermined formal producers. Recent allegations that people linked to a House of Representatives legislator sold counterfeit excise stamps, however, suggest that illicit trade may also involve those with access to formal institutions. The case raises questions about how illegal cigarettes keep circulating through counterfeit branding, informal distribution and alleged collusion, even as authorities tighten enforcement and regulation.

14 hours ago
Editorial premium

Don’t let things slip now

As a battered rupiah, soaring oil prices, and global turmoil test the country's new economic chiefs, their trial by fire will determine whether technocratic discipline can hold against mounting political pressure.

15 hours ago
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How to stop the AI-pocalypse

Anxiety has recently taken an existential turn, as the industry’s leaders have begun warning that AI could very well end humanity.

1 day ago
Academia

Where will Fed tightening hit hardest in Asia?

Asian economies are likely to see deepening diversion between countries with low inflation and those with spiraling inflation alongside heavy deficits amid headwinds from US monetary tightening.

1 day ago
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The vanishing of Indonesia from the heart of Papua

Beneath the machinery of state security and industrial extraction, Papua’s deepest resistance lives in what cannot be cleared: Its people’s ancestral bond to the land.

1 day ago
Academia

Greater China-US exchanges crucial for deepening trust between peoples

People's diplomacy is valuable because it acknowledges competition while setting boundaries, fostering cooperation and providing buffers for tensions.

1 day ago
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A dangerous loophole awaits agrarian reform law

Behind the reformist rhetoric of Indonesia’s new Agrarian Law lies a dangerous corporate loophole: a legal apparatus designed not to return land to the people, but to legitimize its capture by the powerful.

1 day ago
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After Gestapu monuments a Gestok memorial must follow

Indonesia’s monuments remember the generals slain in 1965, but true democratic strength lies in finally carving out stone for the hundreds of thousands murdered in the purge that followed.

1 day ago
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Analysis: Land agency graft probe puts high-profile figures in spotlight

Indonesia has barely had time to digest one high-profile corruption scandal before another has breached the surface, this time striking at the heart of the country's land administration. The latest case centers on the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry/National Land Agency (BPN). A sweeping bribery probe by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has ensnared senior bureaucrats, a prominent property developer and multiple operatives identified as close associates of minister Nusron Wahid, a Golkar politician.

1 day ago
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China's art of trade

Jakarta can take a critical page out of Beijing's playbook, the outcome of which was proven at last week's Washington summit: Hold vital assets hostage to extract a pragmatic deal.

1 day ago
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If history belongs to the victors, civilization has no place

A nation cannot build a democratic future on sanitized myths: until Indonesia confronts the violent truths of its past, its history remains an instrument of power rather than a measure of civilization.

2 days ago
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Time to stop scaring the nation with the communist boogeyman

More than six decades after the bloodshed of 1965-1966, President Prabowo has a historic window to finally bury the red phantom and lead the nation into a future free from manufactured fear.

2 days ago
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Navigating systemic global multidimensional crises

As concurrent crises collide ahead of Bangkok’s IMF-World Bank meetings, small and emerging economies are left footing the bill for a fractured global order they did not create.

2 days ago
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In search of excellent and honorable minds in Indonesian politics

As President Prabowo marks two years in office, the true test of his administration is not the tally of his policies but whether it is forging the intellectual and moral backbone required to govern a great republic like Indonesia.

2 days ago
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Analysis: Indonesia’s tax revenue: Mirage or miracle

Indonesia’s economy has recently received a welcome piece of good news, with the latest state budget figures showing a sharp increase in tax revenue. Net tax revenue rose by a remarkable 24.1 percent year-on-year as of August 2026, reaching Rp 1.409 quadrillion (US$79 billion), or 59.8 percent of the full-year target. Finance Minister Suahasil Nazara attributed the increase to higher global oil and gas prices, strong domestic consumption and improvements in the Coretax system.

2 days ago
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Semiconductor diplomacy: How Indonesia can play its hand

By trading raw mineral wealth for technology transfers and seizing the neutral ground in the chip war, Indonesia can turn a high-stakes geopolitical scramble into its greatest industrial leap.

2 days ago
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Let's win the WHO race

To win the WHO's top post, Jakarta must stop treating multilateral diplomacy as an afterthought and let the President lead the charge for Indonesia’s nominee, Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

2 days ago
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Why ASEAN and China should join hands on global governance

China and ASEAN are well-poised to turn the call of the Global Governance Initiative into concrete results that benefit the region and beyond.

3 days ago
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In the age of AI, purpose is becoming a business strategy

AI, social media and universal connectivity are making corporate behavior radically more transparent.

3 days ago
Academia

Twenty-one years on, Aceh’s peace faces new strains

A decades-long insurgency in the Indonesian province ended after 2004’s devastating tsunami. But pro-independence talk is on the rise again.

3 days ago
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The agrarian reform law and investment prospects of palm oil

Rushed through the House, Indonesia’s new agrarian reform law will either secure the future of the nation’s multi-billion-dollar palm oil sector or paralyze it with unprecedented legal uncertainty.

3 days ago
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The un-ordered UN order

With the UN about to choose a new secretary-general and United States President Donald Trump’s administration openly hostile to multilateralism, it is unclear how much longer the system can stagger on.

3 days ago
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Lessons Indonesia can learn from the recent OpenAI agent breaches

When an AI agent mistakes a government firewall for an ordinary puzzle, it is a warning shot Indonesia cannot afford to ignore as it writes its cybersecurity laws.

3 days ago
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The Millennium Prize proof shows why AI governance can't wait

When AI outthinks the world’s elite mathematicians in under four days, it shatters the myth that human expertise is untouchable, at the same time warning policymakers that regulating machines can no longer wait until tomorrow.

3 days ago

Today's ePost

Fri, October 2, 2026

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