Indonesian Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Bima Arya Sugiarto emphasized the importance of strengthening the capacity of local government officials in governance and public policymaking to accelerate regional progress.
Politics
The 17+8 People’s Demands movement is a summary of various demands from the people that has become a popular discourse on social media. Influencers such as Andovi Da Lopez, Salsa Erwin, and Jerome Polin are the names who have gathered these various demands.
Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto, clad in a tailored gray suit, sat shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, grinning, chatting, clapping in unison as missiles and drones rolled past.
Following deadly riots in Indonesia and the death of gig workers, South-east Asians are showing solidarity by sending food and necessities via delivery apps.
Embassies in Jakarta, including those of the US, Japan, Australia and Singapore, issued warnings for their citizens in Indonesia to avoid crowds and protest areas.
(Paywalled) – Indonesia and Australia’s joint efforts at sea would target “a full range of maritime threats”, including “those against sovereignty”, human and drug trafficking and environmental crimes, both countries’ ministers said after the 2+2 meeting in Canberra.
The IBP investigative team traveled to Chaoshan, an industrial hub in Guangdong Province, China. The area, home to 30–40 factories producing food trays for global markets, also supplies trays for a number of importers involved in Indonesia’s “Makan Bergizi Gratis” (MBG) or Free Nutritious Meal program for school children.
The 100 new battalions have been established to assist in agriculture, animal husbandry and food security, and will not receive combat training. A spokesperson for the Indonesian defence ministry said he could not release information about the size of the new battalions.
Initially, the issue that triggered public anger was a 250% increase in the Rural and Urban Land and Building Tax (PBB-P2). This was seen as just too much amid rising rice prices and uncertain harvests. The local government argued that the tax had not been raised in 14 years, and the regional treasury needed revenue for infrastructure. But to the public, that sounded like ‘squeezing a dry orange.’
On August 17, 2025 Indonesia will be celebrating its eightieth year of independence. This must be a huge celebration, full of thankfulness of Indonesians who suffered 350 years of Dutch colonization full of hardship, and three and a half years of Japanese occupation during WW II.
For many, they were a response to Indonesian leader Prabowo Subianto’s call for Indonesians to fly their national red and white flag ahead of the country’s Independence Day on 17 August. Instead, some Indonesians chose to raise these pirate flags, known as Jolly Rogers, as a symbol of their discontent.
Following Prabowo’s inauguration on October 20, 2024, law enforcers — mainly the Attorney General’s Office and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) — have launched investigations into a number of high-profile, multi-billion dollar corruption cases.
Indonesia has begun releasing hundreds of inmates from prison, including people convicted of political offences, after parliament approved the first stage of President Prabowo Subianto’s wide-ranging clemency plan, reportedly aimed at building national solidarity.
Malaysia has never adopted an aggressive stance in addressing maritime border issues with Indonesia, including the long-standing dispute in the Sulawesi Sea, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said.
The split has manifested in public debates between generally older, elite members of the group and their younger, more environmentally conscious fellow nahdliyyin (NU members).
Prabowo acknowledged that he, too, is frequently the subject of such commentary. He shared that he often spends evenings watching podcasts that discuss him and finds it amusing that these shows seem to understand his thoughts better than he does.
