A disproportionate number of housewives and pregnant women contract sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV and syphilis each year, according to recent data from the Health Ministry, which attributed the problems to poor awareness of sexual health and their partners' unsafe sexual behavior.

With temperatures in the country expected to rise up to five times the average as El Niño returns, the Health Ministry is ramping up measures including larvae monitoring and mapping as well as public awareness campaigns to prevent an increase in dengue cases.

Local airlines have dropped the mask mandate for healthy passengers in adopting the latest easing of COVID-19 restrictions, though they still advise all passengers to be fully vaccinated and have had at least two booster doses.

In the statement, posted on his Instagram account @jokowi on Monday morning, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo urged Putri Ariani to aspire high in the competition and to further bring pride to her fellow Indonesians.

The government introduces the latest and more relaxed health protocols for both domestic and international travels, large-scale activities and on public facilities, while residents are still urged to also be responsible in preventing the spread of COVID-19.

The hotter El Niño climate pattern is back after three years and while it threatens to bring with it extreme weather events, several meteorological agencies have suggested this week that Indonesia is likely to be at relatively moderate risk from such events, due to variables ranging from sunspots to sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Indian Ocean.

The Soccer Association of Indonesia (PSSI) announced on Tuesday that the day’s allotment of tickets for a friendly soccer match between the Indonesian and Argentinian national soccer teams had sold out within 5 minutes.

The Health Ministry has released modified mosquitoes in Semarang, Central Java, as part of a pilot project to combat dengue fever, which infects thousands of people and kills hundreds in the country each year.

The government has issued a warning against the danger of rabies infection in humans, which has killed nearly a dozen people this year amid an uptick in the number of rabid dog bite cases that have been blamed on coronavirus pandemic-induced disruption to animal vaccination campaigns.

The House of Representatives in February proposed a host of revisions to current healthcare laws, including making it easier for patients to bring criminal charges against healthcare workers for malpractice and allowing foreign talent to make up for staff shortages in Indonesia. 

Siti Nurbaya said that the plastic products targeted by the ban includes Styrofoam for food packaging, plastic straw, plastic cutlery and shopping bags.

Doctors and health groups have urged the government to put a stricter regulation against electronic cigarettes in the proposed omnibus bill on health amid growing numbers of users, particularly among young people.

The government is planning to roll out the red carpet for global talents through a soon-to-be launched "golden visa" program, which aims at making Indonesia a more enticing place to work in through a longer stay permit.

The Health Ministry is working with the Indonesian Society of Respirology (PDPI) and multinational biopharma company GSK Plc to scale up early diagnosis of chronic lung disease usually caused by smoking and expand treatment for millions of Indonesians suffering from such illnesses.

The Health Ministry has scrapped a complex set of rules prescribing which vaccine brands were to be used at which stages of the COVID-19 vaccination regimen, opting instead to allow people to get any generally approved vaccine for their primary and booster doses, as policymakers shift toward treating the coronavirus as an endemic disease.

The government continues to ramp up its efforts to increase the childhood immunization rates, particularly in remote regions, amid outbreaks of various vaccine-preventable diseases across the archipelago.

According to the head of the ProJo supporter group, Jokowi is still eyeing a potential Prabowo-Ganjar ticket as the best pairing to succeed his presidency, but isn't showing his cards just yet.

The Bandung Corruption Court in West Java on Wednesday sentenced two lawyers, who had represented a Semarang-based Intidana savings and loans cooperative member, to imprisonment for bribing Supreme Court justices in order to secure a favorable ruling for their client.

Mochtar Kusumaatmadja was instrumental in promoting the concept of the archipelagic state, which allowed Indonesia to exercise its right over internal waters, and was later adopted in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Warning against the danger of identity politics, chairmen of the two most influential Muslim organizations in Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, on Thursday joined hands in resisting the rise of primordialism ahead of the 2024 general election.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) grilled on Wednesday Supreme Court secretary Hasbi Hasan, who has been named a bribery suspect as the antigraft body digs into alleged corruption pertaining to case handling in the country's highest court.

Former two-star police general Ferdy Sambo, his wife Putri Chandrawati and their former driver Kuat Makruf have filed cassation appeals to the Supreme Court, in hopes of lessening their sentences for the roles they played in the murder of Ferdy’s former aide-de-camp Brig. Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD said the government would soon be putting in place a regulation geared toward protecting the publishing rights of news companies, as he called on journalists to combat the misinformation expected to come along with next year’s hotly contested elections.

Education experts bemoan the goverment's inability to come up with a solution to mitigate the risk of a teacher shortage.

Health activists are unhappy with the proposed tobacco rules in the omnibus bill on health, saying it failed to provide stricter tobacco controls for the country.

The President has targeted the provinces of Jambi and North Sumatra for accelerated road repairs in a bid to keep inflation stable while pointing to local administrations to take responsibility for the condition of their roads.

With hopes that some of the crew members are still alive, the Chinese ambassador to Australia made calls to the authorities in Canberra to intensify the search operation.

The Indonesian Medical Association (IDI), staunchly opposed to the omnibus bill on health, once again demanded lawmakers stop the bill deliberation, arguing that if passed, it may risk undermining the role of medical associations.

But she returned home last year penniless and in shock, saying she had been swindled out of her life savings by a trickster who now faces trial for his complex scams, and charges of murdering nine of his victims.

The SEA Games victory could be a good omen for the nation’s soccer fans, who have had to wallow in disappointment after FIFA stripped Indonesia of its right to host the U-20 World Cup last month.