Denny Indrayana – Newly installed Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan sparked a fracas last week when he said in his inaugural speech that it was time for pribumi ('native or indigenous Indonesians') t

Michael Leach – In 2015, not long after the formation of the unprecedented national unity government between Timor-Leste's two largest parties, CNRT and Fretilin, senior CNRT Minister Agio Pereira

David Hutt – What a relief.

John McBeth, Jakarta – As calculated as it may have been, newly-inaugurated Jakarta Governor Anies Baswaden has started off on just the wrong foot by re-igniting the religious and ethnic controvers

Richard Chauvel – It is easy to over-interpret the body language of government officials in photographs, but Papua Governor Lukas Enembe (third from left) seems the least at ease in this meeting fr

Luke Hunt – The problems of Indonesian President Joko Widodo are many.

Hendri Yulius, Jakarta – Since 2016, minorities of gender and sexuality – "LGBT" (lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people) – have become among main targets by a conservative backlash.

Tom Clarke – Many Australians wouldn't think twice about putting their name to a petition to support a cause close to their hearts, but in Indonesia's Papuan provinces, where free speech is routine

Khoo Ying Hooi – After 15 years of its restoration of independence, Timor Leste is a country that remains unknown to many of us in the Southeast Asia region.

Leong Yee Ting, Jakarta – Many Indonesian children grow up listening to this Islamic proverb, "Heaven is at the bottom of your mother's feet."

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) established in 1993, near the end of Soeharto's regime, has become a model for the region.

Damien Kingsbury – In a move that is expected to whip Indonesia's military into a frenzy and will again start an Indonesian witch-hunt for Australian supporters, a West Papuan petition calling for

Tim Lindsey – On 16 September, police broke up an academic discussion at the offices of renowned activist NGO the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH).

In an effort to unseat the president, Indonesian religious leaders are tapping into the bitter memories of an aborted coup in the hope it will drive voters to the polls, building on momentum from J

Vincent Bevins, Jakarta, Indonesia – Early on the morning of Oct. 1, 1965, members of Indonesia's armed forces kidnapped and killed six high-ranking generals in Jakarta.

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – On Friday thousands of members of hardline Muslims groups – including the Islamic Defenders Front, the United Islamic People Forum and the Betawi Rembuk Forum – staged a ra

Khoo Ying Hooi – Led by Mari Alkatiri, secretary-general of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) for the second time as the prime minister, the Seventh Constitutional Go

[The following opinion piece by Indonesian journalist and filmmaker Dandhy Laksono made headlines after he was reported to police under Indonesia's controversial online defamation laws for compa

Guteriano Neves – After almost two months of intense political theater among the Timorese political elites, the new government was finally sworn in on September 15, 2017 with the new minority gover

Phelim Kine – The fear of communists is alive and well in Indonesia.

Nurkholis Hidayat – The past two days have seen paranoia about communism result in unprecedented attacks on one of the oldest and most influential civil society organisations in Indonesia, the Lega

Michael Leach – Almost two months since the 22 July election, a new government will be sworn in today in Dili.

John McBeth, Jakarta – With his popularity steadily rising, an unusual phenomenon in the middle of a presidential term and with a worryingly stagnant economy, little now appears to stand in the way

Kerry B.

Paul Malone – The announcement by the Permanent Court of Arbitration last week that Australia and Timor Leste have reached an agreement on maritime boundaries will hopefully bring to an end a shame

John McBeth, Jakarta – The enigmatic expression on Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati's face as she sat between Mines and Energy Minister Ignasius Jonan and US-based Freeport McMoRan Copper &am

Damien Kingsbury – Australia's agreement with East Timor to settle a permanent maritime boundary in the Timor Sea appears to bring to an end a long-running and often bitter dispute, which has marre

Curtis S. Chin – A decade ago, I traveled to East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, to look at the condition of roads and other infrastructure in Asia's newest country.

Today, the 30th of August, is a bittersweet day for the Timorese.

Resty Woro Yuniar – It's been nearly two decades since Indonesian dictator Suharto was toppled in a people-led revolution that was supposed to put the country on the road to full-fledged democracy.

John Cheong-Holdaway – In 2016 Indonesia's Ministry of Public Works dramatically underestimated the funds it needed to acquire land for toll road development.

Eve Warburton and Edward Aspinall – For much of the past decade, observers have praised Indonesian democracy.

Jakarta (The Jakarta Post/ANN) – For the umpteenth time fires have burned our forests and peatland, posing threats not only to people in the vicinity but also to our relationships with our neighbou

Damien Kingsbury – Although unlikely to be formalized before 22 August, the shape of Timor-Leste's next government is starting to become clear.

Andreas Harsono – The Indonesian government has been doing something remarkable over the past year with its political prisoners in Papua and West Papua provinces: Releasing them.

Dave McRae – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's hard-line rhetoric in recent weeks on the fatal shooting of drugs suspects has prompted many to question whether Indonesia is contemplating a Rodrigo D

Jakarta – The filing of criminal charges with the South Jakarta Prosecutor's Office against a suspected tax evader by the tax office on Wednesday is only the first step in a massive crackdown on ta

Damien Kingsbury – Timor-Leste came through the 2017 parliamentary elections with a general expectation that the two major parties, CNRT and Fretilin, would continue to dominate the small country's

Andreas Harsono – Twenty-eight-year-old Yulius Pigai of West Papua's remote Deiyai regency is the latest native Papuan shot dead by Indonesian police.

Jakarta – The campaign for an independent Papua has been relentless and has made significant gains in past years.

Andreas Harsono – The official Ombudsman of Indonesia has accused both the Attorney General's Office (AGO) and the Supreme Court of "maladministration" in denying a Nigerian citizen, executed for d

And the witch-hunt begins.

Gustav Brown – Many have cast the recent Jakarta gubernatorial election as a defeat for religious pluralism at the hands of political Islam, a movement which appears more potent and visible than at

Rifqi Assegaf – In late April 2017, the House of Representatives (DPR) stared down protests from the public – and some of its own members – and launched a special inquiry into the Corruption Eradic

Georgina Downer – For a nation that only won its hard-fought battle for independence 15 years ago, Timor Leste has travelled a long way fast.

Julia Suryakusuma, Jakarta (The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network) – We Indonesians pride ourselves on being a nation of plenty.

Khoo Ying Hooi –- On July 22, 77 percent of Timorese cast their votes in the Timor-Leste's parliamentary election, which was contested by almost two dozen political parties in a country of just abo

Anthony Fensom – Elections in Timor-Leste have highlighted the challenges facing one of Southeast Asia's poorest nations, amid predictions that its key oil and gas resources could be depleted by th

David Webster – On May 20, 2017, the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (the country's official name, using the Portuguese words for East Timor) celebrated the 15th anniversary of the restoration o

Nava Nuraniyah – The Indonesian government's partial blocking of the messaging application Telegram – which has several million users in the country – may be an effective tool to pressure the tech