Society

Despite being a scene of destruction and heartache, there is a strange beauty in the new landscape created in the wake of the Sidoarjo mud disaster.

An unstoppable flow of mud from an explosion in a gas well in Sidoarjo, East Java, has unleashed a plethora of political issues

Displaced East Timorese children go hungry in Indonesian West Timor

Indonesia’s premier historian

Women in the Ministry of Finance face significant obstacles to advancement

Indonesia’s Muslim educators support democracy, but grapple with how to make that commitment consistent with Islamic law.

The rise, fall, and re-branding of a celebrity preacher

A community takes a fresh look at water

Indonesian, Australian and Timor Leste artists collaborate

New programs of compulsory religious education for Muslim children in West Sumatra have received little publicity outside that province. Is this a new phase in the Islamisation of Indonesia?

In the aftermath of religious conflict, ethnic difference is becoming more prominent in Ambon

Ring deaths leave Indonesian boxing on the ropes.

Direct local elections give Jakartans a say in their city’s future

Making idealism work is very hard. NORI ANDRIYANI, with extraordinary honesty, tells why.

Modern gay men in Indonesia learn to live alongside traditional concepts of homosexuality. DEDE OETOMO explains.

Many foreigners have learned Indonesian on the green campus of Satya Wacana University in Salatiga, Central Java. Since 1993 it has been in the news for a different reason. BUDI KURNIAWAN reports that serious conflicts between the campus community and the university board have reduced the prestigious campus to a shadow of its former self.

With mainstream print media subject to many restrictions, unlicensed publications satisfy a demand for news.STANLEY surveys the alternatives now flourishing in many Javanese cities.

Quite unknown to the tourists, Balinese youth are creating a dynamic musical identity that refuses to be colonised. EMMA BAULCH joins the death thrashers for an evening of metal.

Satellite TV and the Internet are opening Indonesia to the globe. MARK CRAWFORD asks: Will this mean less mind control by the state?