More than 500 people were arrested after clashes in Indonesia's capital amid nationwide protests against a raft of divisive reforms - including banning pre-marital sex and weakening the anti-graft agency - authorities said Tuesday.The arrests came after a night of pitched street battles between riot police and stone-throwing protesters - many high school and university students - in Jakarta's sprawling downtown core.Security forces geared up for more unrest Tuesday as some 575 lawma

Early last month, following years of pressure from advocacy groups, Indonesia's Parliament revised its national laws to increase the legal age a girl can marry. The amendment to the Marriage Act raised the age of marriage for girls to 19 years old which is in line with the legal age for boys, with parental permission, while the legal age for men and women to marry without parental consent is 21.

In September last year, Cisco and Oxford Economics analysed 433 occupations across 21 industries.

A brutal Indonesian forest fire season that left Southeast Asia choking in smog has renewed scrutiny of major palm oil and paper companies, with activists accusing them of breaking promises to halt logging.The monster blazes sent a pall of acrid smoke over the region for weeks, closing schools and airports and causing a spike in respiratory ailments.Mostly lit to clear land for agriculture, they were the worst seen in the country since 2015.Leading companies have in recent years pledged not t

An Indonesian student died yesterday as thousands hit the streets nationwide in a wave of opposition to a major overhaul of the country's criminal code and a bid to weaken its anti-corruption agency, police said.The death appeared to mark the first fatality in days of street battles across the Southeast Asian country, which have left hundreds injured and sparked a call from Amnesty International to probe what it described as "massive police violence" against protesters.The 21-y

A strong 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit off the remote Maluku islands in eastern Indonesia Thursday, US seismologists said, but no tsunami warning was issued.The quake struck about 37 kilometres (23 miles) northeast of Ambon in Maluku province at 8:46 am local time, at a depth of 29 kilometres, according to the US Geological Survey.There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage in the area, which has been rocked by strong quakes in the past."I was asleep with my family when

Air pollution from Indonesian forest fires is putting nearly 10 million children at risk, the United Nations warned Tuesday, as scientists said the blazes were releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases.The fires have been spewing toxic haze over Southeast Asia in recent weeks, closing schools and airports, with people rushing to buy face masks and seek medical treatment for respiratory ailments.Jakarta has deployed tens of thousands of personnel and water-bombing aircraft to tackle the slash

At least 20 people were killed and dozens more injured as fresh unrest erupted in Indonesia's restive Papua region Monday, with some victims burned to death in buildings set ablaze by protesters, authorities said.Papua, on the western half of New Guinea island, has been gripped by weeks of violent protests fuelled by anger over racism, as well as fresh calls for self-rule in the impoverished territory.Sixteen people were killed in Wamena city where hundreds demonstrated and burned down a

Indonesian authorities have cited failures in the Boeing 737 MAX design and oversight as contributing to the 2018 Lion Air plane crash, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.The report into the crash, which will be formally released in early November, also blames pilot error and maintenance issues for the crash that killed 189 people shortly after the flight departed from Jakarta last October, the newspaper said.The Boeing plane model was later grounded worldwide after an Ethiopian Airli

Singapore's skies cleared Friday and air quality improved as smog from raging Indonesian forest fires drifted away, easing fears that this weekend's Formula One race may be affected.The blazes have been spewing toxic haze across Southeast Asia, forcing the closure of schools and airports, and prompting Jakarta to deploy thousands of personnel to tackle them.The Indonesian fires are an annual problem during the dry season when farmers use illegal slash-and-burn techniques to clear la