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.

The graduating class came from UIII’s four schools of Islamic studies, social sciences, economics and education sciences, including 99 international graduates from 22 countries.

The plan to revise the 1999 Forestry Law may fail to address decades-long poor governance in the sector that has resulted in wildfires in large parts of Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua throughout this year’s dry season, civil groups say.

Former foreign minister Retno LP Marsudi, who currently is the UN secretary-general’s special envoy on water, has received an award from SUAR, a business news site established a year ago, in the first edition of SUAR Prize.

In a statement issued late on Tuesday, the Transportation Ministry’s civil aviation director general, Lukman Laisa, said his office had not received a flight clearance request for Malaysian aircraft to carry out a waterbombing mission in areas hit by wildfires.

Top government officials in Jakarta have called the plan to transfer nonpermanent teachers' contracts under regional administrations to the central government a solution to regional fiscal pressure and underpaid contract teachers.

Yudhoyono told the conference that no nation should be too powerful to respect the rules and no nation should be too small to shape the future.

Six deaths in six months have put the country’s medical internship program under scrutiny, exposing concerns over workloads, supervision and protection for those who speak up.

Nearly 60,000 people are still taking shelter across the quake-hit regions, with the province facing potential threats from aftershocks that can crumble buildings and other structures already damaged in the initial earthquake on Aug. 15, according to seismologists.

Indonesia is seeing a sharp increase in respiratory illnesses as a prolonged dry season fuels widespread land and forest fires, with health facilities in parts of Kalimantan and Sumatra reporting thousands of additional cases in recent weeks amid worsening air quality.

Indonesia believes cloud seeding can help it tackle a wildfire season that experts say is on track to be among the worst in years, driven by a strong El Nino.

Indonesia’s 81st Independence Day celebrations took on a subdued tone in parts of the country this year, with some communities scaling back festivities or opting out altogether amid economic pressures, political discontent and a series of devastating natural disasters.