Indonesia is set to vote on a plan to outlaw gay and pre-marital sex while beefing up its blasphemy laws in a shakeup fuelled by religious conservatism and slammed by rights groups Thursday.The proposed criminal law overhaul could affect millions in the world's biggest Muslim majority country, including heterosexual couples who might face jail for having sex outside wedlock, or having an affair.But there are also fears it could punish the Southeast Asian nation's small LGBT communit

Indonesia has arrested nearly 200 people over vast forest fires ripping across the archipelago, police said Monday, as toxic haze sends air quality levels plummeting and sparks flight cancellations.Jakarta has deployed thousands of personnel to battle blazes that are turning land into charred landscapes and consuming forests in Sumatra and Borneo islands, where thousands of schools have been shut over health fears.The fires – usually started by illegal burning to clear land for farming – have

New technologies are helping Indonesia tap into its huge potential in aquaculture and cement its position as one of the world’s top aquaculture nations.Indonesia’s aquaculture sector has enjoyed strong growth over the past decade and the country’s 6.2 million metric tonnes in 2017 placed it behind only China and India in terms of output.While marine capture fisheries production grew around 34 percent from 2008 to 2017, growth in Indonesia’s aquaculture sector exploded by 264 percent during th

Southeast Asia’s craving for chocolate has outpaced the ability of regional farmers to supply cocoa beans.

Pollution from forest fires in Indonesia pushed Singapore's air quality to unhealthy levels for the first time in three years on Saturday, the government said, a week ahead of the Formula One (F1) night race in the city.The toxic smoke caused by burning to clear land for plantations is an annual problem for Indonesia's neighbours, but has been worsened this year by particularly dry weather."There has been a deterioration in the haze conditions in Singapore this afternoon,"

As we peer through the haze to find anyone other than ourselves to blame, spare a thought for the victims of the forest fires that are raging across the region. These include the natural vegetation and its inhabitants who are being burned and the human beings who are being choked - up to 36,000 premature deaths caused by atmospheric pollution are predicted over the next decades in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia alone. Locating the source of the fires will not stop them from being started.

The number of blazes in Indonesia’s rainforests has jumped sharply, satellite data showed Thursday, spreading smog across Southeast Asia and adding to concerns about the impact of increasing wildfire outbreaks worldwide on global warming.Illegal blazes to clear land for agricultural plantations have been raging on Sumatra and Borneo islands, with Indonesia deploying water-bombing helicopters and thousands of security forces to tackle them.It is just the latest such outbreak globally – huge bl

Blessed with six million square kilometres of ocean territory, Indonesia’s fisheries industry could make a larger contribution to its economy if better managed.Southeast Asia’s largest economy is the world’s second largest fish producer after China.

Malaysia prepared to seed clouds after air quality in parts of the country reached unhealthy levels due to smog from forest fires in neighbouring Indonesia, an official said Monday.Smog regularly blankets parts of Southeast Asia during the dry season when burning is used to clear Indonesian land for palm oil, paper plantations and other crops, sparking ire from regional neighbours.In the latest outbreak, parts of Malaysia's eastern state of Sarawak on Borneo island have been blanketed ov