Energy and foreign exchange are intrinsically linked, and Indonesia risks falling into a dangerous energy-dollar trap where currency volatility and import dependence directly threaten its long-term economic sovereignty.

Whether Rp 18,000 per dollar is the crisis line is not the question. The real danger is the deficit, Danantara, oil and the Fed sitting off the visible balance sheet.

Across Southeast Asia, human rights defenders face a tightening noose of physical violence and high-tech digital repression, threatening the very future of the rule of law and civic space in the region.

The House of Representatives has approved the Bill on Amendments to Law No. 4/2023 on Financial Sector Development and Strengthening (UU P2SK). According to Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, the amendments cover 17 key areas, including a provision that would authorize state asset fund Danantara to issue special bonds. The proposed changes have also reignited concerns about a potential erosion of central bank independence.

The acid attack against Andrie Yunus is now at risk of becoming another case of justice eluded, proving yet again that the public has nothing to expect from the justice system.

A single lightning strike on a 275 kV transmission line in Jambi on May 22, 2026, triggered a cascading blackout that left millions across Sumatra without power and reportedly cost lives. The incident exposed a critical weakness in Indonesia’s transmission network, highlighting that grid resilience may be just as important as generation capacity as the country pursues industrialization, digitalization and renewable energy deployment.

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.

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.

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.

Stabilizing the rupiah at Rp 18,000 requires Indonesia to look past trailing GDP growth and actively rebuild market confidence by enforcing strict resource export repatriation, maintaining clean fiscal governance and speaking to global capital with a single, clear technocratic voice.

The administration of President Prabowo Subianto has issued Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 26/2026, which expands the role of public service agencies (BLU) in energy imports, blurring the traditional boundaries between government agencies, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private sector players. While the new regulation appears intended to strengthen Indonesia’s energy security amid growing global uncertainties, it could create overlapping responsibilities, increase operational risks and expose the country to greater geopolitical pressures.

When a peaceful student protest over fuel prices is met with 500 soldiers and hidden legal maneuvers, it signals a quiet, dangerous shift from democratic policing to increasing militarization.

Replacing officials to save a falling rupiah is empty political theater; Indonesia’s true economic safety depends on fixing deep-seated structural issues like oil deficits, agricultural productivity and policy execution.

The agency needs to keep in mind that the most effective way to build lasting trust is through transparency. 

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."

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

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.

Business groups in Indonesia are warning that regulatory uncertainty surrounding labor policies is accelerating premature deindustrialization, a phenomenon in which developing economies experience a decline in manufacturing's share of gross domestic product at a much lower income level than historically observed in advanced economies.

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.

Success shouldn't be measured by headline-grabbing numbers, but by whether free meals actually reach the vulnerable children who need them most.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Indonesia’s financial markets have experienced significant turbulence in recent weeks, with the rupiah depreciating beyond Rp 18,000 per US dollar, the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) Composite index falling by nearly half to below 6,000 points, 10-year government bond yields have climbed to 7.3 percent and the yield curve has flattened considerably amid substantial capital outflows.  Together, these indicators suggest that investors are losing confidence in the government’s economic management. Yet the government has shown little indication of adjusting its policy direction.