Hunger is falling across Southeast Asia. The region’s next challenge is more demanding: ensuring that everyone can afford a healthy diet, not merely enough calories to survive.

The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) fell 3.1 points from 120.9 in May to 117.8 in June, the lowest reading since the index stood at 115 in September 2025, driven by weaker assessments of both current economic conditions and future expectations.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup delivered a thrilling 48-team spectacle culminating in Spain’s tactical triumph, yet behind the five-billion-viewer celebration lies a troubling balance sheet. From player burnout and commercial exclusion to political intrusion, this comprehensive autopsy reveals why soccer's stewards must urgently address systemic flaws before 2030.

From shrinking birth rates to stagnant teaching quality, the country’s public elementary schools are facing a quiet crisis of empty classrooms - leaving educators and policymakers wondering where all the students went.

To ensure the prosperity and stability of this region, it is crucial to realize the ASEAN Community Vision 2045, guided by the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) as a key pillar of this endeavor.

To withstand rising superpower aggression, Southeast Asia and the Pacific island nations must abandon timid neutrality and unite around a shared, principled strategy to safeguard their regions.

To transform their ambitious clean energy pact into a regional blueprint, Indonesia and Singapore must move beyond boardroom handshakes and secure the vital public trust needed to turn cross-border electricity into shared economic prosperity.

As Western energy majors retreat from Southeast Asia, the $21 billion Masela Block project signals a major geopolitical shift toward Asian self-reliance, binding Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan into a resilient new energy alliance.

Framed against the violent communist purges of 1965, Tari Lang’s debut memoir My Neighbour the Dictator weaves a gripping, Anne Frank–like coming-of-age story of a teenager thrust into Indonesia’s dangerous underground resistance.

To unlock its economic potential on the road to 2045, Indonesia must move beyond simply chasing finance to closing its core development capital formation gap. Building an accountable, state-led architecture, not just a larger bureaucracy, is the true master key to turning strategic priorities into productive national wealth.

State asset fund Danantara recently signed two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with Singapore's Keppel Electric, Sembcorp Industries and Singapore Energy Interconnections for a cross-border renewable electricity project, marking another milestone in the long-running effort to export Indonesia’s renewable power to the island state. Despite the progress, Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said the two countries had yet to reach an agreement on the electricity pricing framework.

Rushing the newly planned financial center through an opaque, three-week legislative blitz risks creating an unstable tax haven and sidelines the deep, system-wide economic reforms the country actually needs.

Instead of discouraging students from using generative AI, universities should teach them how to use the technology responsibly, transparently and ethically to prepare them for real-world applications in a fast-evolving workforce.

The World Cup offers far more than sporting entertainment; it offers a mirror through which humanity may examine itself.

As global superpowers clash and fracture the international order, Indonesia has a rare opportunity to unite rising middle powers and forge a new center of gravity in world diplomacy.

American hegemony has given way to a new formulation based on rivalry and competition among several major powers, where there is no longer a fixed, codified set of rules.

Human rights abuses are no longer confined by national borders, yet the institutions tasked with addressing them remain largely bound by them.

While political rhetoric and insider deals create a comfortable narrative in Jakarta, global markets are marking that reality to market—and forcing a weakening rupiah to pay the bill.

Indonesia's banking sector appears to be recovering, with credit growth returning to double digits in May. Yet beneath the encouraging headline, households face mounting financial pressure as consumer lending slows, layoffs rise, savings decline and purchasing power weakens. The contrast highlights a broader challenge: A banking recovery does not necessarily signal an improvement in the real economy.

As the protracted Mideast conflict continues to send economic shock waves across the globe, ASEAN must leverage its diplomatic weight to restore international law vis-à-vis the Hormuz strait before power politics dictates the world's most vital waterway.

The renewed disruption to traffic through Hormuz has once again choked off regional exports, threatening hopes for a recovery in Asian or Middle Eastern refinery activity.

As open economies, Chile and Indonesia understand that globalization must become more inclusive, resilient and sustainable, ensuring that its benefits reach a broader range of people and communities.

Spain’s World Cup triumph reveals a crucial lesson for a divided Malaysia: true national unity isn't built by erasing our differences, but by playing for the same goal.

Like every major economy, China does use industrial policy, and its subsidies have mattered. But subsidies are no longer the most convincing explanation for Chinese firms’ growing competitiveness.

For Indonesia’s new financial hub to become a global powerhouse rather than an ambitious policy fantasy, the nation must offer investors what matters most: unyielding legal certainty.

The PLN scandal was not an isolated event, but rather the tip of an iceberg of systematic kickbacks and case-brokering spanning the country's largest financial scandals.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) issues have once again surged to the forefront of Indonesia's political and social discourse. Two recent, overlapping developments warrant close examination: the formal classification of the "spread of LGBTQ culture" as a nonmilitary threat under the national defense policy, and a concerted legislative push to introduce criminal sanctions targeting LGBTQ people and advocacy.