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Jeffrey Hutton
Jeffrey Hutton
Jeff is based in Jakarta where he specializes in political, economic and human rights issues. He got his start in the late 1990s in Tokyo where he was a subeditor at the English edition of the Mainichi Shimbun. He went on to join Bloomberg News in Tokyo and then the Australian Financial Review in Sydney. Recently he started satupelangi.org, a website devoted to LGBT issues in Indonesia.

Demand from health conscious Chinese may have sent the price of nests soaring, but import restrictions have clipped the wings of Indonesian exporters – sending sales of the soup ingredient underground.

Reformers with proven track records upend the incumbent status quo in three major provinces, all good signs that the country’s president could ride his reformist credentials into another term in office.

Incidents are marring the airline industry’s reputation just as it should be enjoying a renaissance. Yet authorities seem loath to prosecute pranksters despite the chaos they cause.

Volunteers and NGO workers who helped Indonesia’s president win election say the leader has mostly forgotten their causes, doing little to make abusers and war criminals face justice.

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The European Union’s proposal to no longer recognise biofuel as a renewable energy source puts it on collision course with Malaysia and Indonesia, the two biggest players in the US$39 billion palm oil industry.

Twenty years after Indonesia’s Reformasi movement started, the activists who were persecuted under the dictator Suharto warn that the country could be backsliding into authoritarianism.

Indonesia has come far on its road to democracy. Yet the dictator’s generals retain influence, pockets of extremism fester, freedoms are being whittled away and a corrupt judiciary holds court.

The fall of Suharto was marked by anti-Chinese riots that killed 1,000. Twenty years on, violent repression is in the past, yet resentment of a largely Christian community in a largely Muslim country remains.

Experts say having entire families explode themselves to kill others is a new tactic that the Islamic State seems to have initiated in Indonesia, which is no stranger to horrendous acts of terror.

To win votes, the Indonesian leader needs Chinese cash to build railways and ports. To build those railways and ports he needs to accept the Chinese workers who are losing him votes

Jakarta has gained much political capital by rolling out the world’s biggest universal health insurance programme. There’s just one snag: paying for it.

Chinese immigrants once viewed the past as a black box – sealed shut to blend in abroad. But as new generations come of age, many are turning to genealogical services to search for identities that are fading with time.

General Prabowo Subianto will again challenge Joko Widodo in Indonesia’s presidental election – but economic jitters, dirty tricks and an emphasis on religion are no guarantee of a different result this time around.

The gubernatorial race in West Java is indicative of a new normal in the Muslim-majority country – for politicians, even stellar track records of reform are no longer enough, as mayor of Bandung Ridwan Kamil is finding out.

Amid Indonesia’s latest bout of moral panic, that has seen its transgendered citizens rounded up by police and politicians calling for outright bans on sex outside marriage, there are signs that cooler heads may prevail – if only slightly.

Pedestrians in the Indonesian capital run a gauntlet of gaping potholes, wayward noodle stands and lecherous men – if they can find a place to walk in the first place. But change is afoot: welcome to Orderly Pavement Month.