Sebastian Strangio – On July 15, Indonesia's parliament voted to revise and extend for 20 years the Special Autonomy Law for the provinces of Papua and West Papua.

Jakarta – The unanimous House of Representatives decision last week to endorse the revised Papuan Special Autonomy Law shows, yet again, the propensity of the Jakarta elite to dictate t

Chris Barrett, Singapore – Australia risks Indonesia sliding further into the orbit of China amid an absence of face-to-face diplomacy with its nearest and biggest neighbours in south-e

Max Lane – The rapprochement of Jokowi and Prabowo has resulted in the unusual absence of a polarising rivalry among the main political parties.

Max Lane – Recent events in Papua underscore the fact that there is no solution that is entirely free of risk for Jakarta. Instead, the choice is between separate sets of risks.

Jakarta – Amid the deepening trust deficit between the Papuan people and the government, many in the country's easternmost territory suspect that the disruption to the local internet se

Something odd happened at the United Nations General Assembly this week.

Usman Hamid and Ari Pramuditya – If insanity, as the saying goes, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then the Indonesian government's approach

Jakarta – The government seems to be repeating the history of colonialism in this nation. The outcome could be like that in Indonesia in 1945.

Richard Heydarian – When India's then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was asked in the 1950s why Southeast Asian nations were designated as Category C in his country's foreign policy, h

Siktus HarsonSiktus Harson, Jakarta – The arrest of a pastor in Papua by security forces for allegedly supplying weapons to a separatist group could intensify scrutiny on churches in th

Li-Li Chen – On 8th of April, in the aftermath of devastating floods, Timor-Leste's government declared that Timor-Leste entered the state of emergency for thirty days, when the governm

Michael Leach – The recent floods in Timor-Leste have now caused 45 deaths and some 10,000 people to be displaced, including 7000 in the capital, with widespread damage to roads and bri

Jakarta – President Jokowi validated hedonistic sensibility on social media when he attended the wedding of social media celebrity Atta Halilintar.

Michael Rose – Xanana Gusmao, famed icon of East Timor, is letting his people down.

Jakarta – The government and the House of Representatives are preparing to amend the 2001 Papuan Special Autonomy Law to allow Jakarta to throw more money at the territory and form new

Eduard Lazarus – Little noticed in the West, the past two years have witnessed the largest protest wave in decades against Indonesia's increasingly authoritarian crony-capitalist govern

Jakarta – When a conflict happens, an outsider's view of the dispute and how to solve it tends to be free from any bias.

David Engel – If the premises about Australian soft power in Indonesia treated in the first two parts of this series don't jar, nor should the premise of this final one.

James CurranColumnist – In 1986, the head of the newly merged Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Stuart Harris, argued that Australia is "an isolated country in the sense that the

Ryan DagurRyan Dagur, Jakarta – Papua recently saw a resurgence of bloody incidents, part of a series of small-scale but continuing conflicts between rebels and the Indonesian military.

Stuart Rees – West Papuans are Indigenous people, easily ignored, their natural resources exploited, their homes and cultures destroyed, hundreds tortured, hundreds of thousands killed.

Leon Langdon – In December 2020, Benny Wenda told TIME Magazine, "I'm on a mission.

Max Lane – The opposition's weakness means that the Indonesian president's recent problems carry few political costs – for the moment.

Ben Bland – Like many world leaders, Indonesian President Joko Widodo is hoping that 2021 will be a bounce-back year after a terrible 2020.