Service resumed: The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station is seen in a picture taken on Aug. 5, 2024, in Kashiwazaki, in Japan’s Niigata prefecture. Japanese local authorities approved the resumption of the world’s largest nuclear plant on Friday, a crucial step in the effort to bring it back online following the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The one condition nuclear power cannot ignore

When corruption is massive, pervasive and prevailing, the safety assumptions behind nuclear technology collapse.

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An equal burden of infertility amid unequal access to treatment

The WHO’s first guideline on infertility takes a broad approach to addressing this global issue, focusing on ways to provide more equitable, sustainable access to fertility services. ...

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ASEAN needs to closely watch, Central Asia is rising

Central Asia rarely dominates the narrative of Southeast Asia’s foreign policy, indeed, no leader from a major ASEAN player has visited the region in the past decade. ...

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The governance gap in Morowali is a bigger threat than the IMIP airstrip

The IMIP has grown into an almost semiautonomous zone, showing how the state must stay on top of such unchecked developments to fulfill its mandates in ensuring the well-being of both the nation and its people, which necessarily involves securing the environment.

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Palestinian children stand outside the partially damaged Al-Mushtal Sports Club on Nov. 26 in Gaza City.

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The missing ingredients for peace in Palestine

Let us not be naive: the ceasefire is just a beginning. The events in Palestine cannot be seen in a vacuum, independent from their past and current context.

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Conservationist and 'Rafflesia' enthusiast Septian "Deki" Andriki takes a picture on Nov. 19 of the inside flower of a 'Rafflesia hasseltii' in Sumpur Kudus village, Sijunjung regency, West Sumatra.

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What the Rafflesia controversy reveals about scientific collaboration

The Rafflesia flower case shows Western researchers always become protagonists by default, while local collaborators become scenery, regardless of their actual contributions.

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Don’t expect Ukraine peace deal to alter Europe’s gas game plan

Whether the US-brokered peace deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war comes through, Europe is unlikely to shift back from LNG, mostly from the US, to its preinvasion overreliance on Russian pipeline gas.

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Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (right) greets Timor-Leste Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao as he arrives to attend the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 26, 2025.

Academia

Strategic priorities for ASEAN’s newest member

Membership of ASEAN brings Timor-Leste political visibility and economic opportunity, but also new exposure to disputes in a grouping where several members are wrestling with democratic backsliding.

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COP30 divides the world between forests and fossil fuels

The net-zero goal still seems to be on a distant horizon after COP30, where a line between forest advocates and fossil fuel lobbyists was visible.

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Justice granted for online plaudits is not proper justice

Law enforcement agencies seem to operate not according to the rhythm of law, but according to the rhythm of politics and online sentiment.

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A new opening for a fossil-fuel phaseout?

Many governments with legitimate social-justice concerns are reluctant to support the phaseout, fearing it would impede efforts to reduce inequality and fund essential services.

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Palestinians transport relief materials on Nov. 18, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City.

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Palestinian statehood remains a distant prospect

The UN resolution references a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.

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A vessel from the Taiwan Coast Guard (front) monitors a China Coast Guard ship on Dec. 12, 2024, while patrolling waters a few nautical miles from Taiwan's northeastern coast.

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Madness or common sense: The two futures of the Asia-Pacific

The ASEAN+3 mechanism, where ASEAN nations sit with Japan, South Korea and China, would become one of the most relevant political forums in the region for discussing the Taiwan issue.

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COP30 and the future of Southeast Asia’s tropical forests

Southeast Asia’s forests are not untouched wilderness, but social-ecological systems shaped over millennia of indigenous and local stewardship.

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Testing ASEAN centrality in a shifting geopolitical currents

As the geopolitical contours of the wider Asia-Pacific shift, ASEAN’s role as the central manager of regional affairs is under intense scrutiny.

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The dangerous drift of our universities: Who will feed and educate Indonesia tomorrow?

Over the past two decades, for unclear reasons, we have pushed specialized universities to become broad, general-purpose institutions.

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A new course for Nusantara’s defense: Peace through strength

Indonesia is endowed with abundant resources yet impoverished in sovereignty; vast in territory yet constrained in resolve; populous yet fragile in strength.

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Israel-Arab relations push could stall over Palestinian statehood

Saudi Arabia has explicitly linked joining the Abraham accords to a plan for a Palestinian state.

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AI in journalism and democracy: Can we rely on it?

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Clean air for Jakarta: From a local crisis to a G20 global priority

The G20's decision to include air quality on its agenda presents an opportunity for Jakarta to ramp up evidence-based efforts to take a lead in ensuring clean air for its residents as part of its aim to become a global city by 2045.

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Academia

From local wisdom to regional partnership: Indonesia’s cultural diplomacy in the Pacific

Indonesia’s remarkable cultural diversity, spanning thousands of islands, hundreds of ethnic groups and countless living traditions, has long made the archipelago one of the world’s great meeting points of civilizations.

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Indonesian paradox: When business strategy becomes a crime

The jail sentence for former ASDP Ferry Indonesia CEO is a warning siren for anyone hoping Indonesia’s state-owned enterprises (BUMN) might someday behave like Singapore’s Temasek or France’s EDF.

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How democracies learn to goose-step

An electoral democracy can gradually drift toward dictatorship, step by step, until it reaches the point of no return.

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The new KUHAP casts a long shadow over Indonesian justice

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The oust Marcos plot: Big bombs, no blast

The oust-Marcos plotters misread the lay of the land if they expected a massive migration of support for VP Sara.

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The world needs an independent inequality panel before the gap widens

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The new KUHAP: A digital code with an analogue mindset

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In the country’s foreign policy, Prabowo is Indonesia

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