Sixty years ago, the historic first Asia-Africa Conference took place in Bandung, Indonesia. On this sixtieth anniversary, Indonesia invited 109 world leaders to the conference. As of April 16, 77 countries have representatives coming to the Asia-Africa Conference. There are also 34 heads of states attending the anniversary. The conference… Read more

On April 10, 1815, Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island erupted. It shot volcanic material 27 miles into the sky, caused tsunamis, buried villages, and killed tens of thousands of people. On April 10 and 11 of this year, there will be several events to commemorate the disaster, calling it “Tambora… Read more

On Saturday, March 28, a hill in Tegal Panjang, in the Sukabumi area of West Java, collapsed. The landslide buried 11 houses, causing 300 people to flee for their lives. The landslide also buried the road that goes through the village. Soldiers, volunteers, and policemen searched for missing people under… Read more

World leaders from Australia, Brazil, and France have contacted Indonesian President Jokowi to ask him to not execute the 11 convicts on death row scheduled to go before a firing squad sometime this week. All of these countries have citizens scheduled to be executed, and yet Jokowi has denied clemency.… Read more

Over the past few years, persecution against religious minorities has risen. Ahmadi Muslims have been refused places to bury their dead, church congregations have had their church buildings torn down, and Shia Muslims have been chased out of their own villages. But they are finding hope in the new president,… Read more

In September, Indonesia’s old parliament passed a law ending local elections to choose mayors, provincial governors, and district heads. Instead, local parliaments were given the power to choose them. Many people condemned Indonesia for this, saying that this was a backwards step for democracy. On Tuesday, Indonesia’s new parliament formally… Read more

On Sunday, January 4th, a special service was held at Surabaya’s Mewar Sharon Christian Church to remember the passengers, and crew of AirAsia Flight 8501, and pray for their families. Fourteen families from this church lost relatives in the crash, totaling of fifty-two members. More than 2,500 people attended the… Read more

Mount Gamalama, the volcano that forms the entire island of Ternate in the Malukus erupted late on Thursday. The airport has closed because the ash can problems in the planes, as well as making it hard to see as the planes land. As long as there are no more eruptions,… Read more

In just a couple of months, Indonesia’s new president Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has already started working on a new law that will give religious freedom to religious minorities. Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim has stated that over the next six months, they plan to propose a law that will protect… Read more

On Thursday, August 21, Indonesia’s highest court announced that they were unanimously upholding Indonesia’s presidential election result declaring Joko Widodo (Jokowi) as the winner. Prabowo Subianto challenged the result, claiming that there had been cheating at several polling stations, and those stations should hold new elections. But as expected, the… Read more

In Indonesia, everyone is required to declare a religion. For a long time, there were five choices: Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Catholicism, and Buddhism. A few years ago, Chinese religions/ Confucianism was added. And now, the Baha’i religion has been added. Like many other minority groups, the Baha’i have faced much… Read more

Late on Tuesday, July 22, Joko Widodo, known as “Jokowi” was declared the winner in Indonesia’s presidential election. The Elections Commission declared that Jokowi received 53.16% of the votes, winning by almost 8.5 million votes. However last Friday, the losing candidate, Prabowo Subianto filed an official challenge to the results… Read more

On July 9th, Indonesians went to the polls to vote for their next president. Unfortunately, a clear winner has yet to be declared. The deadlock has raised some fears of political instability. Jokowi came out ahead with 52 percent of the vote according to the three most credible quick counts.… Read more

In the final push before Wednesday’s election, Prabowo Subianto and Joko Widodo (Jokowi) spent the weekend touting their Islam credentials to the world’s largest Muslim country. About nine out of ten voters have already decided who they will vote for on July 9th, but that still leaves more than 15… Read more

With Indonesia’s presidential elections less than a week away, both Prabowo Subianto and Joko Widodo are furiously campaigning. On Tuesday, Prabowo was in Yogyakarta. About 1,000 people gathered, most being from Islamic organizations who are declaring their candidate as the “war commander of Muslims.” Muhammad Fuad, a Muslim leader, states,… Read more