Looking beyond 2015, RI wants a common platform for ASEAN Jakarta will host the 18th ASEAN summit from May 7-8, where the leaders of the association’s 10 nations will discuss regional and global issues. The Jakarta Post’s Abdul Khalik and Sita Winiawati Dewi talked to Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa on […]
After weeks of tweaking and trials and errors, an activist at a prominent human rights group was finally able to connect his laptop computer to an old 32-inch cathode-ray tube television at home. Although he had seen it about 20 times already, Hendi (not his real name) was eager to […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia is looking to attract more direct investment from China over the coming years. The country, a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations trading bloc (ASEAN), hopes the move will help to narrow a gap in bilateral trade that has been widening in recent years. […]
How Will Bin Laden’s Death Affect Terror Movements? The death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden could temporarily dampen but not put an end to radicalism and terrorism activities, including in Indonesia, experts said on Monday. Osama was killed on Sunday in a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan […]
The Chinese government invited The Jakarta Post’s Ridwan Max Sijabat to China from April 18 to April 27. The following is his report of the trip: Islam in China: Islamic boarding school students walk to a mosque after helping with renovation work at their school building in a Muslim housing […]
When the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front attacked demonstrators rallying in support of the embattled Ahmadiyah sect on June 1, 2008, many believed that fundamentalists would go to any length until they succeeded in ridding Indonesia of the minority Islamic group. Many more had predicted that the issuance of a joint […]
A group of prominent Muslim academics vowed on Thursday to fight the creeping radicalization of university students taking place on campuses across the country. Ismail Hasani, a researcher at the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy and a lecturer at Jakarta’s Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN), said the academics […]
Bank Indonesia (BI) has officially ordered 23 banks to suspend the acceptance of new clients to premium service programs for one month, starting Monday. The move follows revelations of alleged embezzlement by a former premium services provider at Citibank, senior relationship manager Melinda Dee, who allegedly siphoned billions of rupiah […]
Indonesia attracted offers almost three times the value of the $2.5 billion dollar-denominated bonds it sold on Thursday, Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said. “We got offers totaling $6.9 billion but we granted only $2.5 billion,” the finance minister said, pointing out that this reflected the confidence of foreign investors in […]
Twelve men have gone on trial in Indonesia charged with the killing of members of the small Ahmadiyah Islamic sect. The men have been charged with involvement in an attack in February when 1,000 Muslims surrounded the home of an Ahmadi. Three people were bludgeoned to death and scores were […]
Deputy National Education Minister Fasli Jalal says he has witnessed strong indications of radicalization of junior and high school students across Indonesia, adding that it was carried out by Islam religion teachers. “We have seen these radical teachers teaching students the wrong way. We must do something to neutralize [the […]
The rare blooming of a giant flower, taller than a man, that stinks of carrion, has been drawing thousands of visitors to Basel University’s botanical garden. The only previous time a titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) produced a flower in Switzerland was 75 years ago. World-wide, there have only been 134 […]
Researchers in a remote Indonesian village are trying to save a record of the vocabulary and grammar of a language they say is spoken by only three people. The three are the last speakers of Dusner, an ancient language spoken in a fishing village in the jungles of the Indonesian […]
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao will sign a series of agreements next week covering everything from banking and energy to palm oil and infrastructure during visits to Malaysia and Indonesia, a senior diplomat said on Thursday Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue said deals in Malaysia would include telecommunications and infrastructure […]
BBC’s Kate McGeown reports on how the Ahmadiyah are facing a struggling to survive In the Indonesian city of Bogor, members of a small Islamic sect called the Ahmadiyah tried to ignore the police patrol car parked opposite their mosque as they walked to Friday prayers. Peering in through the […]
Amid a bumper day of positive economic news for the country, the Investment Coordinating Board announced that foreign direct investment in Indonesia rose 11.6 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier. News of the increase from the board, also known as the BKPM, complemented a standout day on […]
Some of the nation’s brightest graduates are bringing their devotion to learning to rural areas on a one-year placement “The wise man once said, ‘Every day has a miracle’, and I believe it too,” said forestry studies graduate Erwin Puspaningtyas Irjayanti of the work she did with the Indonesia Teaching […]
Were a hundred Indonesians to die in a suicide bombing, one would expect Indonesian politicians, political parties and religious groups to condemn it no matter who the victims were. But when such an attack occurred last year in Pakistan, silence ruled the day. The one political leader who spoke out […]
The Jakarta Post When a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque inside the Cirebon Police complex in West Java on Friday, terrorists sent yet another message that they would never stop their attack on humanity in Indonesia. No one expected the explosion just before a Friday prayer, therefore […]