Annual haze

A month after Indonesia ratified the Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution – supposedly a turning point in ending the annual haze problems that create havoc in Indonesia and neighboring Singapore and Malaysia – massive forest fires are again generating thick haze in Riau and other parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan. The police and courts meanwhile, continue to prosecute small-scale farmers while ignoring or handing down lenient sentences against big plantation companies that start most of the fires.

Kompas - October 15, 2014

Demo crazy

Document: Revenge and Political Intrigue Law

Kid: Dad, I'm really confused... what's important is we can still eat stir fried enceng gondok and tempe bongkrek (cheap sources of food for the poor)

With public attention focused on the political intrigue and power struggles going on in the parliament, little attention was given to startling new figures on rising inequality, with the gini coefficient widening from 0.35 in 2005 to 0.41 in 2012, above the level the UN says is a predictor of social unrest.

Kompas - October 11, 2014

Package, package, package...

Package, package, package... Bag reads paket sembako (basic goods package)

Having scrapped the direct election of regional heads and limited the ability of the anti-graft body to pursue legislators, Prabowo Subianto's Red and White Coalition has used its parliamentary majority to successfully nominate a 'package' of candidates to secure the leadership of the newly inaugurated House and its influential commissions, and is now bragging that it will use its control of the new parliament to undermine the incoming government of president elect Joko Widodo.

Kompas - October 8, 2014

Republic of the people

Kid: This is a republic of the people, by the people, for...

President Yudhoyono, whose Democrat Party plotted with Prabowo Subianto's parliamentary coalition to pass a law that will see a return to the New Order (Orde Baru) dictatorship system of regional councils electing local leaders, has issued a regulation in-lieu-of law to annul the bill. Critics say this just a face saving device after a wave of public outrage against Yudhoyono as Prabowo's coalition still controls the newly inaugurated House and will simply reject the law.

Kompas - October 4, 2014

Democrat plot

Regional elections 2005-2014, indirect regional elections

Speculation is rife that an 11th-hour walkout by lawmakers from President Yudhoyono's Democrat Party, which paved the way for former New Order general Prabowo Subianto's Red and White parliamentary coalition to abolish people's right to vote for mayors, district heads and governors, who will now be 'elected' by regional legislative councils (DPRD), was part of an plot engineered by the Democrats in exchange for leadership of the upper-house.

Kompas - October 1, 2014