TWO hours into a pleasant voyage on the waters of the Padaido group of islands to the south of Biak in Papua, the situation became tense. That Saturday morning two weeks ago, photographer Tony Hartawan and I had just passed Pakreki island. The waters around this large unoccupied, rocky island covered in lush tropical forest, seemed to be a final test for us before arriving at our destination: Meosmangguandi island.
On his trip to Lampung two weeks ago, President Joko Widodo met with Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said. At the meeting, Sudirman delivered a message from Kuntoro Mangkusubroto. The former chief of the Presidential Working Unit for Development Monitoring and Control (UKP4) was concerned about the governance of the state electricity company (PLN) to which he had just been appointed chief commissioner.
A, B, C. Folders containing papers with lists of dozens of names lying on a table in a detention center in Jakarta, with classifications that will determine the fate of the detainees. A: to be killed. B: to be exiled to Nusakambangan. C: to be detained at the nearest city. Or for action unspecified.
The speech by Bogor Mayor Bima Arya, 42, at an international conference discussing 'Unity in Diversity' in Florence, Italy, last November 6, triggered quite a bit of criticism back home. It seems the mayor's speech extolled the religious tolerance in the city he governs, better known as the 'Rainy City'. But the fact is that Bogor is anything but an example of religious tolerance, while Mayor Bima himself is guilty of violating the right to freedom of religion.
It was a Friday night and the Bataclan concert hall was crowded with more than 1,000 fans gathered to watch the Californian band Eagles of Death Metal last weekend. Loud rock music reverberated in the popular venue. Julien Pearce, a journalist from Europe 1 Radio, was inside the concert hall when the shooting began an hour after the band started playing.
Demand that the government accept responsibility for the 1965 atrocities is being revived. "They burned my body with cigarettes," Tintin Rahayu told the courtroom at Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague, the Netherlands, before pausing to compose herself. "In the interrogation room, I was beaten, and at camp in the military headquarters in Cebongan, (Sleman, Yogyakarta), I was trampled on." As Tintin began to sob, the courtroom fell silent.
HOUSE of Representatives (DPR) members continue to try and slip an allocation into the State Budget for renovating the DPR building. A similar plan was scrapped in 2011, but when discussions for the 2016 State Budget plan began in August, it was put back on the table. Though it was rejected by the government, at the end of October, an allocation of Rp740 billion for renovations suddenly surfaced in the 2016 State Budget plan approved by the DPR.
This year, Indonesia and India mark 75 years of diplomatic relations. However, the ties between the two nations have existed much longer, predating the establishment of the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of India. These connections span social, cultural, religious, economic, and trade aspects. But do those close ties of the past have any bearing on the present relationship? Why is there no direct flight between the capitals of the two countries?
Indian Ambassador to Indonesia and Timor-Leste, Sandeep Chakravorty, shares his views on this matter at TEMPO TALKS.
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