Calls by parents, rights groups and students to halt the government's free nutritious meals program have intensified following the series of food-poisoning incidents. Some schools have also suspended or declined to participate in the program over food-safety concerns.

Several tech platforms deemed to pose high risks to minor users, such as Meta apps, YouTube and TikTok, are given until the end of the year to complete their self-assessment on their apps’ potential hazards to children, as mandated by PP Tunas.

Observations by various monitoring agencies showed that haze from forest and land fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan has reached as far as Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, while still affecting air quality in Malaysia and Singapore.

The waters around the Masalembu Islands between Java and Borneo Islands are known for their powerful currents, which may disrupt sailing vessels when combined with strong seasonal winds and high waves.

A new report by environmental group Geopix found that about 382,778 hectares of elephant habitat were affected by fires throughout August. Further fires affected 147,550 ha between Sept. 1 and 8 across 21 population pockets on Sumatra, which accounted for around 7.06 percent of the total elephant habitat.

Journalists and boat crew members who went missing in waters near Mount Anak Krakatau have yet to be found a week later, while police work to identify a body found on the shore of Enggano Island in Bengkulu suspected to be one of the missing.

Indonesia continues to struggle with the uneven distribution of teachers, both in numbers and qualifications, particularly those capable of teaching the higher-order thinking skills assessed by PISA.

As the search continues, lawmakers and transportation experts call for a thorough investigation into the incident, highlighting longstanding concerns over the adequacy of Indonesia’s sea vessel inspections.

Children accounted for around 20 percent of all wildfire-related respiratory illnesses as 12.5 million people in seven provinces were affected by the widespread forest and land fire, according to the Health Ministry.

Fires have been blazing across vast stretches of forest and peatland throughout the country, causing hazardous emissions to surge, particularly in the hardest-hit provinces on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The Communications and Digital Ministry is pushing Meta to fully comply with the country’s Child Protection in Digital Space Regulation, known as PP TUNAS, following a landmark ruling in the United States that found the company’s child safety measures lacking.

The coalition, which includes the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) and Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), urged the government to halt the program’s expansion and immediately undertake comprehensive reforms.

The Health Ministry’s Healing119 consultation service has received as many as 600 contacts a day since February, up from an average of 350 to 400 daily last year.

When institutions do not have strong systems to uphold integrity, the gap can undermine a culture of speaking up against wrongdoing and erode trust in integrity mechanisms, according to a survey.

Studies have found fires burning inside company concessions since 2006, highlighting persistent negligence and raising concerns over potential wrongdoing by local and foreign investors in Indonesian plantations.  

The National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) brought its Lampung office into the operation after search mapping indicated that the vessel could have drifted into waters under its jurisdiction.

Simultaneous volcano eruptions and a string of other disasters have put the government’s mitigation efforts under renewed scrutiny, as questions mount over whether Indonesia has invested enough in prevention despite its long history of natural disasters.

While the easing in activity allowed the eight airports near Anak Krakatau to reopen, Wunopito Airport in Lewoleba, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), remained closed, with its suspension extended until Wednesday morning as ashfall from Mount Ile Lewotolok continued.

Airlines now face the daunting task of getting all the stranded passengers onto planes and to their intended destinations after days of chaos at the airports.

Transportation Ministry data showed that more than 2,300 flights had been disrupted since Sunday, affecting 270,337 passengers. That was a sharp increase from a day earlier, when more than 450 flights affecting 170,000 passengers were disrupted.

Ashfall from Mount Anak Krakatau’s eruption has disrupted hundreds of flights over the weekend, sending volcanic ash across parts of Java and Sumatra and adding pressure on a country already grappling with a series of disasters.

Mount Anak Krakatau erupted on Saturday, producing a fountain of lava and booming sounds that could be heard up to 700 kilometres (435 miles) away, the geology agency said in a statement.

Sempurna, an adult male Bornean orangutan previously found weak in a community oil palm plantation in West Kalimantan’s Ketapang, died after suffering from low blood oxygen level from inhaling too much wildfire smoke, as confirmed by authorities.

Civil society groups have presented their own draft bill on indigenous peoples to the House of Representatives, seeking legislation that would provide legal standing for the underserved and dispossessed.

Lands within business concessions of a size roughly equivalent to the total area of Jakarta have been burned since January, with most fire coming from areas earmarked for oil palm plantations, according to a recent analysis from an environmental group.

Baleg chair Bob Hasan asserted the bill should be aimed at promoting public welfare by ensuring legal protection for communities who possess land but lack legal certainty to back their claims, leaving them vulnerable to land grabbing.

Habitat fragmentation limits orangutan movement between populations, potentially reducing genetic exchange and raising the risk of inbreeding, with implications for the species’ long-term survival.