An employee (left, front) of the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) distributes information about the National Health Insurance (JKN) as part of the agency’s Mobile Customer Service initiative in Ternate, North Maluku, during Car Free Day on Aug. 10, 2025.

A year of historic global health milestones and challenges

Reflecting on last year's achievements and challenges in public health, ensuring a healthier world through universal coverage remains the overarching goal for 2026.

2 months ago

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Preventing further derailment of the international order

Given the overall deterioration of the international order and climate commitments we all witnessed last year, diplomatic actors across the globe, including Indonesia, must prevent further backsliding in both areas in 2026. ...

2 months ago

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The ocean has finally entered the global climate debate

The ocean increasingly suffers the effects of absorbing over 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse-gases and about one-quarter of annual carbon dioxide emissions. ...

2 months ago

The Latest

Bold operation: Captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arrives on Jan. 05, at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport as he heads toward the Daniel Patrick Manhattan United States Courthouse for an initial appearance to face US federal charges including narco-terrorism, conspiracy, drug trafficking, money laundering and others in New York City, the US.

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Venezuela and the dangerous return of might makes right

Learning from the Venezuela invasion, Indonesia should continue to position itself as pro-law, pro-stability, pro-development and firmly opposed to military interventions, or worse, a new form of colonialism.

2 months ago

Workers leave a PT Sri Rejeki Isman (Sritex) factory, on Oct. 24, 2024, in Sukoharjo, Central Java.

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Caught upstream: Saving Indonesia’s dying textile industry

For Indonesia, protectionism does not generate the jobs the country needs, while damaging the competitiveness of its exports.

2 months ago

University students carry flags that read Indonesia Gelap (Dark Indonesia) on Sept. 1, 2025, during a demonstration in Yogyakarta.

Editorial premium

New criticism, old terror

We are again reminded that the space for government critics to express their opinions is shrinking, with a series of terror and intimidation.

2 months ago

An Indonesian Air Force plane from the Jupiter aerobatic team flies past the National Monument (Monas) during a parade on Oct. 5, 2025, held as part of celebrations marking the Indonesian Military's (TNI) 80th anniversary at Merdeka Square in Central Jakarta.

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Amid disasters, worsening geopolitics, Indonesia’s ‘theater state’ could reach its limit

There are democratic there are practices that are deployed to bind a nation together, whereas in an authoritarian society, rituals and theater are imposed upon the masses, to instill fear and submission.

2 months ago

A worker monitors production on Aug. 2, 2024, at the nickel smelter of PT Vale Indonesia in Sorowako, South Sulawesi. Nickel is a key component in the batteries of electric vehicles, and Indonesia is both the world’s largest producer and home to the biggest known reserves globally.

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Leveraging rare earths: A pathway to national resilience

Despite its abundance of strategic minerals, the country still relies on imports to meet domestic demand for processed rare earth products.

2 months ago

Academia

A generation under surveillance is rising up

The recent protests show that youths around the world are taking action today to secure pathways to their aspirations toward a better tomorrow, for themselves and their countries, and that the powers that be are simply dismissing them instead of regarding their demands as "the future".

2 months ago

Tree carnage: Logs swept in by flash floods weeks earlier lie piled on Dec. 14, 2025, where homes once stood along a river in Aceh Tamiang, North Sumatra.

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The desacralization of nature and disaster

The transition from traditional belief systems toward formal religiosity has brought an unintended side effect: a reckless desacralization of nature

2 months ago

Thailand's Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul (left) and Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet shake hands and hold up a document during the Oct. 26, 2025, signing of a ceasefire deal between Cambodia and Thailand on the sidelines of the 47th ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur.

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How should ASEAN address the 2025 mess?

What 2025 ultimately revealed is how far the Indo-Pacific has drifted from the visions ASEAN and its partners once championed.

2 months ago

Sign of “GOJEK” and “GRAB” are seen on the helmets of an online motorcycle taxi driver and their passenger on Nov. 12 at Jl. Basuki Rachmat in Jakarta.

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The hidden costs of a GoTo–Grab merger

In the context of a GoTo-Grab merger, the participation of Danantara introduces a fundamental conflict of interest that cannot be resolved through rhetoric alone.

2 months ago

Coordinating Economy Minister Airlangga Hartarto (right) shakes hand with United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer following a meeting on Dec. 23, 2025, at the USTR office in Washington, DC. Indonesia is preparing to seal a reciprocal trade agreement (ART) with the US in at the end of January next year after resolving all substantial issues in negotiations that had earlier risked stalling.

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Why Indonesia’s US deal could cost more than it delivers

For Indonesia, which is deeply embedded in East Asian production networks and heavily exposed to Chinese trade and investment, a reciprocal trade agreement with the US could trigger chaotic and costly supply chain realignments.

2 months ago

People check election candidate profiles on a signboard before casting their ballots on Nov. 27, 2024, during the 2024 regional head elections in Banda Aceh, Aceh. Indonesians voted on Nov. 27 to pick local leaders in the country's biggest simultaneous regional elections.

Editorial premium

Undoing democratic reform

Indirect elections through local councils offer no guarantee of cleaner or cheaper politics, if they go ahead they may be composed of political party representatives who are often no less corrupt than elected officials.

2 months ago

A farmer plants rice on Oct. 26, 2025 in Nagari Padang Laweh Malalo, Tanah Datar regency, West Sumatra.

Academia

Gene editing in Indonesia: Can new biotechnology solve old agricultural problems?

Can gene editing truly support smallholder farmers and help Indonesia achieve food sovereignty, or will it simply revive the old controversies surrounding genetically modified crops?

2 months ago

Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung (right) and his deputy Rano Karno (center) talk on May 8, 2025 with a prospective resident of low-cost rental apartments (rusunawa) Jagakarsa in South Jakarta.

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Building Jakarta from the ground up: A year under Pramono Anung and Rano Karno

Pramono Anung and Rano Karno’s first year in office focused on rebuilding Jakarta by prioritizing people and basic services.

2 months ago

Personnel from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) escort Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to an armored van at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in New York City on Jan. 5, 2026, for transporting to the Daniel Patrick Moynihan US Courthouse to face federal charges including narco-terrorism and money laundering.

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Venezuela, Taiwan and the return of power politics

The US invasion of Venezuela is a worrying sign of the world to come, one that will be defined by multilayered, regional systemic conflict against which internal national strength is the only defense.

2 months ago

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arrives at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport om Jan. 5, as he heads towards the Daniel Patrick Manhattan United States Courthouse for an initial appearance to face US federal charges including narco-terrorism, conspiracy, drug trafficking, money laundering and others in New York, the United States.

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The precedents to Trump's Venezuela operation

While shocking, nothing about this calamity is new: it recalls four precedents that can help us see elements of the present that otherwise may be shrouded by propaganda or emotion.

2 months ago

Lokataru executive director Delpedro Marhaen gestures after attending the reading of charges on Dec. 16 at the Central Jakarta District Court. Delpedro and three other co-defendants, Muzaffar Salim, Syahdan Husein and Khariq Anhar, have been charged with incitement for allegedly posting social media content related to demonstrations in August that turned violent after a delivery driver was ran over and killed by police.

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The paradox of police reform: High approval ratings, low rule of law

Despite the sweeping reform in 1998, the National Police is still fraught with a culture of violence, uneven professionalism and a lack of accountability.

2 months ago

A demonstrator carries Indonesia’s national flag alongside a pirate flag from the Japanese anime One Piece, an internet symbol of protest against government policies, during a rally on Aug. 29, 2025, outside the residence of the Governor of East Java, in Surabaya.

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From print to platforms: What holds nations together now?

The increasingly virtual world has made digital platforms the central stage of democracy.

2 months ago

Activists from Gerakan Buruh Bersama Rakyat (Gebrak), an alliance between labor unions and civil groups, join a peaceful march along Jl. Thamrin in Central Jakarta on Sept. 4, 2025, to during protests against police brutality and repression in several major cities across the country.

Editorial premium

Beyond wage hikes

Instead of simply calculating minimum wages that will support a decent standard of living per worker per region, the government must do more in implementing an integrated policy approach that focuses on cost of living relief for households.

2 months ago

Slow recovery: Homes are seen as they are rebuilt amid cleared lots on Dec. 28, 2025, in Altadena, California, the United States, where homes were destroyed by the Eaton Fire one year ago. The Eaton Fire ignited on Jan. 7, 2025, killing 19 people and destroying more than 9,000 structures, most of them homes in Altadena. The fire is the fifth deadliest and the second most destructive wildfire in California history.

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Beware of central economic forecasts for 2026

With China’s efforts to upgrade its growth model progressing slowly, the US will serve by far as the global economy’s primary engine, a concentration that creates its own set of risks.

2 months ago

Employees work in a workshop which recycles copper on July 11, 2025, in Anqing, in China's eastern Anhui province.

Academia

Every mineral is critical in the new metals age

The USGS updated critical minerals list now encompasses 60 different materials, representing around 80 percent of all the mined commodities on the periodic table.

2 months ago

Cargo staff and police officers at Soekarno-Hatta Airport unload the coffin of Indonesian migrant worker Yasmiati from Grobogan, Central Java, upon arrival from Hong Kong on Dec. 23, 2025, at the airport’s cargo terminal in Tangerang, Banten. The Foreign Ministry, the Indonesian Consulate in Hong Kong and the Migrant Workers’ Protection Ministry repatriated nine victims of the Wang Fuk Court apartment fire, on Nov. 26, 2025, in Tai Po District, Hong Kong

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Time to turn commitments into real protection for migrant workers

Many Indonesian migrant workers continue to live and work without effective protection.

2 months ago

Workers unload sacks of rice imported from Thailand on June 22, 2023, from a cargo ship at Malahayati Port in Krueng Raya, Aceh.

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ASEAN needs an ASEAN+5 food security framework

Demand for food across Asia will continue to rise, driven by population growth, expanding middle classes and changing diets, but this is unlikely to be met by Asian producers and exporters alone.

2 months ago

United States President Donald Trump (center), alongside (from left to right) Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks to the press following US military actions in Venezuela on Jan. 3 at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, the US.

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Trump and the raid on Caracas

International law is not simply a moral preference. It is a guardrail built from hard lessons.

2 months ago

A motorcade carrying Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro leaves the Westside Heliport on Jan. 3, 2026, in New York, the United States. Maduro, who was captured by US forces in Caracas, arrived in New York on Saturday evening. Maduro was seen surrounded by FBI agents as he descended the boarding stairs of a US government plane at a state National Guard facility, and was slowly escorted along the tarmac.

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Venezuela and the persistence of hierarchy in global politics

Calling the US invasion of Venezuela a “realist moment” may sound appealing, but it risks becoming a vocabulary that affirms power rather than a tool for understanding it.

2 months ago

Regime change: United States President Donald Trump (second right), alongside Deputy Chief of Staff (left) Stephen Miller, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (second left) and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, speaks to the press on Jan. 03, following US military actions in Venezuela, at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, the US.

Editorial premium

Stop Trump and all aggressions

Any decent nation should condemn any act of aggression by one country against another as a matter of principle, if anything else, but Indonesia opted not to do that both when the US attacked Venezuela and when Russia invaded Ukraine.

2 months ago

A participant takes the 2025 Computer-Based Written Exam for the National Selection Based on Test (UTBK-SNBT) on April 30, 2025, at Diponegoro University (UNDIP), Tembalang, Semarang, Central Java.

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Reenergizing higher education in ASEAN

A longstanding debate on higher education is to what extent it should be academic rather than vocational.

2 months ago

Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects troops during the annual Victory Day parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3, 2025, which marked the 80th anniversary of China’s war of resistance against Japan and the end of World War II.

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China’s rise: Power, technology and the strategic logic of display

China's power displays in September and November last year were essentially a signal of its arrival on the global stage, a show intended to make the world sit up and recognize it as a major power.

2 months ago

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