2020 is supposed to be a vibrant democratic year for a number of regions in Indonesia. It has been scheduled that on 23 September this year voters in approximately nine provinces, 24 regencies, and 37 cities throughout the archipelago will go to polling stations and decide their next local leaders.

A group of Rohingya say they were beaten by traffickers and drank their own urine to stay alive on a perilous four-month journey at sea until their dramatic rescue near the Indonesian coast.The bedraggled survivors - about 100 in all, mostly women and children - described a high-seas horror story that saw them reduced to throwing the dead overboard as their rickety craft drifted thousands of kilometres towards Malaysia.Two survivors claimed that people smugglers paid to transport them had bea

Nearly 100 Rohingya from Myanmar, including 30 children, have been rescued from a rickety wooden boat off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island, a maritime official said Wednesday.Images shot from Indonesian rescue boats showed dozens of children and adults, many weeping, after they had been plucked from their vessel by local fishermen."The boat with Rohingya onboard was broken and floating in the middle of the sea when the fishermen found them," said Muhammad Nasir, head of

A group of Papuan activists was jailed for treason by an Indonesian court Wednesday over anti-racism protests last year in a case that sparked fears of a clampdown on free speech.Unrest erupted across Indonesia's easternmost territory and in other parts of the country in August after the arrest, racial abuse and tear-gassing of dozens of Papuan students in the central city of Surabaya.The uprisings, which left dozens dead, sparked renewed calls for Papua's independence from Indonesi

For centuries Bali's Trunyanese people have left their dead to decompose in the open, the bodies placed in bamboo cages until only the skeletons remain. It is a ritual they haven't given up - even as the COVID-19 pandemic upends burial practices worldwide with religious leaders in protective gear, cemetery workers in hazmat suits, and mourners banned or unable to comfort each other because of social-distancing rules.Across Indonesia funeral workers are now required to wear

Indonesian hospitals are beefing up security at their morgues after a spate of body-snatchings by relatives seeking traditional burials for family members who died of COVID-19, police said on Friday.Under new rules in the sprawling archipelago, COVID-19 victims must be wrapped in plastic and buried quickly to prevent the virus from spreading; meaning that grieving relatives are unable to follow Muslim funeral practices, which include washing the dead from head to toe.Families in the Muslim-ma

Since the early 2000s, South Korean and Chinese pop culture have been competing with each other to capture the Indonesian market. It began with Korean dramas such as Autumn in My Heart in 2000 which directly competed with Chinese drama Romance in the Rain in 2001.The popularity of Chinese dramas, nonetheless, quickly faded in the archipelago.

On Monday, about 30 activists gathered outside the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, calling on the Cambodian government to help find pro-democracy Thai activist Wanchalearm Satsksit.

Indonesia posted a record number of coronavirus infections Wednesday, sparking calls from health experts for the world's fourth most populous country to slam the brakes on easing restrictions.Last week, the capital Jakarta opened mosques for the first time in nearly three months, as its governor announced the gradual reopening of shuttered offices, restaurants, shopping malls and tourist attractions. Similar easing measures are happening across the vast archipelago, home to near

Food security is still the top priority in President Joko Widodo's second term as part of his economic development agenda for national development 2020-2024.