Indonesia was swept by a wave of terror attacks in May. Within one week, the country witnessed three attacks – most of which occurred in Indonesia’s second largest city, Surabaya. On 13 May, a family of suicide bombers attacked three churches in Central Surabaya. The incident was followed by another bombing in Sidoardjo.
The United States (US) Justice Department reiterated it wasn’t involved in turning over Low Taek Jho’s US$250 million super yacht to Malaysia from Indonesia as the fugitive financier vowed not to submit to any jurisdiction where his guilt had been predetermined.Federal prosecutors said their only part in the yacht’s handover was to advise the crew members of the “Equanimity” to obey the instructions of the Indonesian government, which had both physical and legal custody of the 300-foot boat,
Former United Nations (UN) chief and Nobel peace laureate Kofi Annan died Saturday at the age of 80, triggering a flood of tributes from around the world for the "diplomatic rock star".The Ghanaian national was a career diplomat who projected quiet charisma and was widely credited for raising the world body's profile in global politics during his two terms as head of the UN from 1997 to 2006.The first secretary general from sub-Saharan Africa, Annan led the UN through the divis
The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on four commanders and two military units in Myanmar over their involvement in alleged ethnic cleansing of the country’s Rohingya Muslim population.The sanctions against Myanmar, also known as Burma, will freeze the United States (US) assets of the military officials and prohibit American citizens and businesses from engaging in business with them.
The biggest state-sponsored mass statelessness in Southeast Asia was triggered in 1982, when Myanmar rolled out its Citizenship Law that outright deprived the Rohingya of citizenship. Under this law, full citizenship is awarded based on membership of eight national indigenous races representing 153 groups. These groups were considered to have settled in the country before the first occupation by the British in 1824.
Indonesia celebrates 73 years of independence today as a vibrant and powerful country, thanks in no small part to ASEAN.“As the largest country in ASEAN, Indonesia has benefitted greatly from the peace, stability, and expectation for economic growth that ASEAN promoted in the region,” said Professor Hidetoshi Nishimura, President of Jakarta-based think tank, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).ASEAN serves as a platform for discussion between leaders of member nations a
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has urged China to "temper" its behaviour in the South China Sea in a rare criticism of the Asian superpower over its programme of island-building in disputed waters.China has alarmed and angered its neighbours by claiming dominion over most of the South China Sea and building a string of artificial islands and military airbases.
China is the largest trading nation in the world and was the fastest growing economy for 30 years until 2015. Like Rome, China wasn’t built in a day. It took the sweat, toil and blood of its citizens – from the failures of a Maoist Cultural Revolution to the widescale economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping – to raise the country to where it stands today.
After several weeks of speculation, on 9 August, Indonesian President Joko Widodo finally announced 75-year-old Ma’ruf Amin as his running mate in the upcoming presidential elections. Jokowi officially announced Ma’ruf as his candidate for vice-president a day before political parties were required to shortlist names for the presidential race. Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, is slated to hold its presidential elections in April next year.
Cross-legged in a windowless, almost pitch-black bamboo shack, the investigator pressed record on a video camera and asked the young Rohingya woman to describe the night the Myanmar soldiers came."They broke down our door. They took my husband outside and shot him," recalled the 20-year-old, one of around 700,000 Rohingyas driven from Myanmar into Bangladesh a year ago."Then they killed my son.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s lone challenger in next year’s election, Prabowo Subianto, has a long way to go to catch up with the incumbent’s social media popularity as the candidates seek to seize early campaign momentum.Widodo, known as Jokowi, has 10.2 million followers on his personal Twitter account compared with 3.17 million for Subianto.
Even with sketchy financial information, research academics agree that China’s island building in the Spratly archipelago is a multi-billion-dollar undertaking. Some estimates note that building up Fiery Cross island alone, with its three-kilometre runway and military facilities including missile and radar installations, have cost around US$11 billion. But this is the pointed-end of the spear, and it is only one part of China’s global expansion plans. What about their soft-power initiatives?
