Members of the All-Indonesia Alliance of Student Executive Boards (BEM SI) scatter flower petals during a demonstration outside the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta on Sept. 4, 2025, expressing support for the “17+8” reform demands presented by the Tuntutan Rakyat (people’s demands) movement during nationwide protests from August to September.

The theater of democracy: Indonesia's unresolved Reformasi

As Indonesia drifts toward oligarchy and political decay, a new generation of students is ditching street protests for the courtroom, using the Constitution to finish the reform movement started in 1998.

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The future of development finance is not primarily about money

For middle-income countries like India, accessing knowledge and technology is now a bigger challenge than raising capital, which suggests that MDBs must rethink their operating model. ...

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Indonesia’s coral reefs are heat‑tolerant, but only up to a point

While Indonesia’s reefs demonstrate a remarkable natural tolerance to heat stress, a long-term national strategy is needed to track the various impacts of warming oceans to safeguard not just coral cover but also to their capacity to heal. ...

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Green energy: An electric vehicle user charges a motorcycle on April 20 at a public electric vehicle charging station operated by PLN UP3 in Surakarta, Central Java.

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No ASEAN energy security without climate leadership

From the EU's stumbles to ASEAN’s gridlock, the current energy crisis proves that green targets are useless without bold political courage.

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Personnel from the Attorney General's Office (AGO) and the Indonesian Military (TNI) escort Dadan Hindayana (center, in pink vest), the former head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) and a suspect in the graft case pertaining to the free nutritious meal program, out of the AGO in South Jakarta on June 3, 2026.

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Reforming the free meals program: A hard choice between purpose and political specter

The crisis surrounding the government's flagship free meals program urges a fundamental rethink: restore the program's original focus as an anti-stunting intervention for vulnerable groups or maintain the current, unsustainable model of a universal feeding program that leaves it open to rent seeking.

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Members of Greenpeace Indonesia and Papuan youths stage a protest featuring theatrical performances against the government's national strategic project for controversial sugarcane plantations Papua, outside the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs office in Jakarta on Dec. 18, 2025.

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What’s next after ‘Pesta Babi’ breaks the silence

By holding up an uncomfortable mirror to state-led exploitation and violence in Papua, Pesta Babi has shattered decades of enforced silence, forcing Jakarta to choose between repressive censorship and genuine, rights-respecting reform.

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A trader looks at a tablet on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on June 4, 2026 in New York City, the United States.

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The AI rally may have finally met its match in the Fed

Signs have been multiplying that the AI mania is getting out of hand.

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Kindergarten students eat lunch on April 23, supplied by the government’s free nutritious meal program in Banda Aceh, Aceh.

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The world is full of food, yet children go hungry

This is a crisis of systems and of choices.

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Students of the Al Khoir Islamic Excellence School sell things on Nov. 30, 2025, during an event called Pasar Bocah in Surakarta, Central Java. Accompanied by teachers and parents, the students learned about entrepreneurship and were introduced to the use of the rupiah at the event.

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What happened to Indonesia’s entrepreneurial class?

Indonesia’s missing entrepreneurs didn’t vanish by choice—they were systematically crowded out by a centuries-old governing instinct that still prefers centralized control over local economic freedom.

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A teller holds rupiah bank notes on April 9, 2025, at a money changer in Jakarta.

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Indonesia's confidence crisis is bigger than the rupiah

Once trust begins to weaken simultaneously across multiple sectors, economic stress can accelerate much faster than many policymakers expect.

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(From left to right) Defendants First Lt. Budhi Harytanto Cahyono, First Lt. Sami Lakka, Second Sgt. Edi Sudarko and Capt. Nandala Dwi Prasetya attend a hearing against them on June 2, 2026, regarding the acid attack on Commission of Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) activist Andrie Yunus, at the Jakarta Military Court in Jakarta.

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A test of legal certainty: Prabowo's impasse over the Andrie case

As President Prabowo finds himself in an international spotlight over a brutal chemical attack on a human rights defender, a landmark pretrial ruling has exposed a deep systemic clash between civilian accountability and entrenched military impunity.

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An online motorcycle taxi rider passes through the Casablanca area in South Jakarta, on May 10, 2026.

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8 percent for drivers, zero transparency for Danantara

A state asset fund that will not account for itself is not managing public assets.

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An automated lithium-ion battery production line operates on Nov. 11, 2025, at a workshop of Zhejiang Shineway Technology Co Ltd in Yongkang, Zhejiang province, China.

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Lithium bust is over but will battery metal boom again?

Underlying demand growth remains strong but disappointing global EV sales in the first quarter have tempered expectations for this year.

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Farmers plant rice in a paddy field on June 28, 2025, in Lambaro, Aceh.

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Rice role in fueling climate change is growing

The same flooded soils that help rice thrive also create ideal conditions for microbes that release climate-warming gases.

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Vessels set anchor on May 17, 2026, in the Strait of Hormuz, seen off the port city of Khasab on Oman’s northern Musandam Peninsula.

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The Iran War is fueling a global debt shock

The energy shock triggered by the Iran war has further increased borrowing costs, particularly for energy-importing countries, and this trend may persist if current geopolitical tensions continue.

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A woman walks pasts a digital screen displaying the movement of Indonesia Stock Exchange composite index on June 25, 2025.

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Indonesia’s market fever needs a credibility cure

Investors need one of two things: better returns to compensate for risk, or lower risk to justify staying. Indonesia is giving them neither.

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A man walks past a digital display on June 3, 2026, showing the movement of the Indonesia Composite Stock Price Index (IHSG) at the Indonesia Stock Exchange in South Jakarta.

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The key forces now shaping markets and geopolitics

The world is in turmoil, yet financial markets are riding high. Are investors wrong, or is the picture more complex than this seeming contradiction suggests?

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A boy reaches for a toy on March 23, 2026, at Gembrong Market in Jatinegara, East Jakarta.

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Chess, blunders and the art of getting back in the game

In economics as in chess, a bad move changes the game, but the real blunder is refusing to adapt when the board shifts.

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Strong together: Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin (left) and Japan’s Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi inspect the honor guard on May 4 during a welcome ceremony at the Defense Ministry office in Jakarta.

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How Japan is boosting defense cooperation with Southeast Asia

As Tokyo modernizes its Indo-Pacific strategy, a wave of new defense pacts and potential submarine exports marks a bold shift in Japan's military partnerships across Southeast Asia.

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A group of people take a walk on May 20, 2022, in the Katingan Mentaya peatland, Southeast Asia’s largest, situated between two rivers of the same names and spanning over 150,000 hectares across the districts of Katingan and East Kotawaringin in Central Kalimantan.

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Trading our future: The financialization of nature

As governments turn forests into tradable carbon assets, local residents and indigenous communities are paying the price for a corporate climate shortcut that trades genuine emission cuts for green labels.

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Farmers loosen soil using water flow from an irrigation canal in Batang regency, Central Java, in an aerial photo released on May 19, 2026. Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman has said the government is allocating around Rp 5 trillion (US$282.28 million) for irrigation programs and the distribution of superior seeds to address potential drought caused by the upcoming El Niño weather system.

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Why water could help restore trust in global cooperation

Water can become an example of how multilateralism can still deliver tangible results in people’s daily lives.

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Environmental activists march on Sept. 27, 2024, against 10 years of Joko “Jokowi“ Widodo's presidency's administration, criticizing the worsening climate crisis and democratic backsliding, during the Global Climate Strike 2024 action in Jakarta.

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SLAPPs: How ASEAN can shield its environmental defenders

While Southeast Asian nations promote green growth, their legal systems are being weaponized against the very people fighting to protect the region's climate-vulnerable landscapes.

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Litmus test: Students take the Academic Competency Test (TKA) on Nov. 3, 2025, at State Senior High School 1 in Enrekang Regency, South Sulawesi.

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TKA 2026: An early warning for Golden Indonesia vision

TKA 2026 proves Indonesia can measure learning at a massive scale, but if the government cannot fix the stark literacy and numeracy deficits revealed by the data, the promise of "Golden Indonesia 2045" will give way to a staggering demographic burden.

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Good shepherd: Pope Leo XIV arrives on June 3, 2026 for the weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.

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One year of Pope Leo XIV: Human dignity in a fractured and technological world

In a world fractured by polarization and driven by rapid technological acceleration, Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical delivers a timely, powerful reminder: no advancement must ever overshadow the intrinsic value of human dignity.

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A resident of Belangian village stands on Aug. 21, 2024 next to a tall benuang laki (Duabanga moluccana blume), a native evergreen species, in the Kahung tropical rain forest of Banjar regency, South Kalimantan.

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When science is rewriting Global South diplomacy

By leveraging data-driven frameworks like the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, Brazil and Indonesia are proving that the Global South can ditch traditional geopolitical competition and use science diplomacy to protect the world's most vulnerable ecosystems.

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Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reviews a guard of honor on May 2, 2026, during a welcoming ceremony at the Government Office in Hanoi.

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Japan and Asia’s new balance

Tokyo is not wringing its hands; it is acting to defend itself and help others secure themselves against Chinese expansionism and the US volatility.

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Myanmar military soldiers stand next to Starlink devices on Oct. 20, 2025, seized during a raid on the KK Park online scam center in Myawaddy, Karen State, Myanmar.

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Why normalizing Myanmar’s junta is a strategic capitulation

Thailand and other ASEAN members may be tempted to treat the junta’s staged transition as a way out of the impasse. But normalization would reward the main driver of Myanmar’s regional crisis.

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A military officer blocks a projector to shut down a public screening of the documentary Pesta Babi on May 12, 2026, at Khairun University in Ternate, North Maluku. Authorities halted the event under the pretext that it lacked an official permit.

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'Pesta Babi' and the fear of a thinking Papua

By dismantling the state's engineered conflict narrative, the Pesta Babi documentary has terrified elites who realize that a critical, thinking Papua is an existential threat to the extraction of its wealth.

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A customer scans a code of Japan's Unified QR Code (JPQR) to make a payment using the Quick Response Indonesia Standard (QRIS) on Aug. 25, 2025, at the World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan.

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Digital sovereignty is in the fine print

Most countries rely on cloud infrastructure and software platforms owned by a handful of powerful tech firms, leaving governments at the mercy of foreign corporate behemoths.

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A Citilink plane taxis as a Super Air Jet plane lands on Jan. 10, 2025, at Soekarno-Hatta international airport in Tangerang, Banten.

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A new aviation plan key to fixing Indonesia’s skies

To fix high ticket prices and bridge an archipelagic nation, Indonesia must move past reactive policies and treat its aviation industry as a strategic tool for national unity.

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